My penultimate question for you is

regarding the shadow fleet because we've

seen some remarkable uh changes to this

and the growing propensity for the

Europeans to really clamp down much more

targetedly and actively on specific

assets. What impact do you think that

does one for Putin's calculus, but two

also for demonstrating more that the

Europeans do have that capability and

willingness to to go that far?

>> Well, you're absolutely right. It has a

symbolic and a practical effect. And

really, anything we do that shows that

we're willing to accept risk and make

sacrifices is a powerful signal to the

Kremlin. It doesn't really matter

whether we are cracking down on Russian

oligarchs abilities to sue people in

London courts, whether we're cracking

down on the shadow fleet, whether we're

cracking down on the activities of the

Russian Orthodox Church Moscow

patriarchy, which is a means for

influence, repression, and intelligence

gathering in other countries.

>> This is the Global Gambit. Today my

guest is Edward Lucas, contributor to

the London Times from Policy magazine

and a genuine expert on many things to

do with NATO, Eastern Europe, and of

course the war in Ukraine. Edward, I'm

delighted to have you on. Uh the first

question I really wanted to get your

take on was the latest round of the

trilateral talks. um I appeared on

French television making an emphasis

yesterday that it was mainly about

leverage uh and bargaining power, but

I'm curious how you see it. I think that

these are not really negotiations

of the kind that would be needed to

bring the war to the end um that it it

so desperately needs because I don't

think that Russia has abandoned its

ambition of subjugating Ukraine and

Ukraine hasn't abandoned it its ambition

of being an independent country. Uh, I

think both sides are playing along with

the idea that the talks are serious

because they're trying to impress the

United States and they hope that if

Donald Trump decides that the talks are

failing um that he will blame either one

side or the other, they will then get

some kind of geopolitical dividend out

of that. But I I my strong um assumption

is that the war is going to carry on for

many more months and that these talks

are fundamentally a sideshow. Okay. But

if we unpack them a little bit further,

relative to a couple of weeks ago,

Putin's position seems to have improved.

Trump seems very persistent on having

him on the board of peace or being

involved in diplomatic engagement of any

form. And of course, the

blanketing strikes across Ukraine

continued. So, uh, how do you see the

position of leverage between, say, Kiev

and Moscow on Trump?

>> I think that Trump leans towards Russia.

Um, but I think if he was really going

to pull the rug out from underneath the

Ukrainians, he would have done it

already. Um, you mentioned leverage at

the beginning and I think that Trump

sees international relations as a way of

exercising um, leverage. Um, that's why

he stays in NATO. You know, he doesn't

like NATO. He doesn't see the point. He

could walk out, but once you've walked

out, then you've rather lost your

leverage. He he could have said to the

Ukrainians, "You're on your own. It's up

to the Europeans now." And then he'd

have lost his leverage there. So Trump

stays in the the game. Um that's how he

understands negotiations. Um he's trying

to put pressure on the Ukrainians. And

the Ukrainians are responding to that

partly by going along with the talks and

his you critical mineral steel and so

on, but also by stepping up their own

efforts. And um the Europeans are

responding as well by filling the

increasingly filling the gap left by the

United States. So um Ukraine is paying a

horrible price for Trump's sort of

narcissistic approach to diplomacy. Um

but I don't think it's a fundamental

game changer.

>> No, it isn't. But uh I'm going to come

to Europe in a second, but I want to

follow up on one last angle of this,

which is how much do you think that this

is Trump specifically? unilaterally

thinking this on his personal

relationship with Zillinsky or Putin

versus what his team is trying to do. We

saw in the national security strategy

this very remarkable outlook of the

United States now, but a lot of people

debate whether or not that's Trump's

specific views or his broader MAGA team.

>> I would question how remarkable it is

really. And I I think that just as our

problems with Russia predate Putin and

will outlast them, I think our problems

with the United States predate Trump and

predate Trump's first administration. Um

that it's been clear for decades that

Europe needs to do more and that we take

the Americans for granted. Um it's been

clear for decades that the Americans get

a sort of geopolitical bonus by being

the European security anchor. um but

that the cost is um increasingly um

burdensome given that they have other

things to do in other parts of the world

and Trump expresses himself in a

particularly revoling and abrasive way.

Um but the basic message is has been is

goes back many many years. I think that

the

Europeans are now, and we'll get on to

that in a moment, are responding to this

in in basically the right way. And the

big question is whether the American

withdrawal from Europe is a disorderly

um chaotic and damaging and perhaps even

dangerous one or whether it's uh a

planned um orderly shifting of of of the

burden um which will in the end I think

benefit both sides.

>> Yeah. Now towards Europe of course they

are sharing more of the financial and

political burden. Um but how much do you

think the center of gravity if we called

it that has shifted towards Europe or

it's still

>> I think that there's one center of

gravity um the defenses of complicated

business and you have some things where

the United States are still extremely

important um on particularly the big

expensive capabilities like um heavy

lift um midair refueling

high-end high-tech stuff with satellites

and the so-called IER intelligent

surveillance, reconnaissance and so on

um on the size of the stock piles um and

reinforcement capability.

Those are all big American um pluses

where Europe is struggling to make up.

But it's also worth noting that those

are mostly things that you need if you

want to be do global expeditionary

warfare. Um and Europe doesn't need to

be a global military power. Europe just

needs to be able to defend Europe. And

that means little bit of um Arctic, a

little bit about China here and there on

the um that's but that's mainly an

internal problem. Chinese influence in

Europe on the military side. It's

basically defending against Russia and

that's completely doable. Um Europe is

30 trillion um GDP. It has um 550

million people. they can afford quite

easily to defend themselves against

Russia um given enough time. The problem

is trying to do that transition

hurriedly

>> and well hurriedly doesn't still seem to

be the case. Um we saw the significant

activity shall we call it flurry of

activity around potentially freezing the

assets uh of the Kremlin. But then what

resulted was this 90 billion euro loan

and that and some people's opinions felt

that that was sort of a bit of a

halfhearted attempt because yes it

funded Ukraine but it didn't adequately

uh imp impinge on Russia's interests or

Putin's you

>> and you're you're right that what Europe

does is um it's far too little and it's

far too late. It's also amazingly large

and amazingly speedy um given the

standards of the past. And if you and I

had sat down 10 years ago and I'd said

that Europe was going to have joint EU

borrowing signed off on by the AAA

countries like the Germans and the Dutch

>> in order to fund uh budgetary support

for Ukraine. Um you'd have said there's

no way that's going to happen and it

just did. Um, if I told you about safe,

you'd have said that's never going to

happen and it just did. Now we're

getting to safe, too. So, there is um uh

it all depends on what time scale you

look at. Now, my feeling is the clock is

ticking on two sides. One is that we

assume Ukraine's resilience is

inexhaustible and is certainly amazing,

but there is there is a conceivable

point at which um Ukraine breaks. Um

maybe the uh life just becomes

intolerable in Ukrainian cities. Maybe

the um military resistance becomes um

extremely difficult and you could get a

sharp setback. I I don't think that's at

all likely, but I think Europe is

assuming that it's never going to happen

and that's a dangerous assumption. And

the other assumption is that the

Americans will stick around for long

enough for us to get our act together.

And again, that's a reasonable

assumption. Um but it's not it's not a

certainty. And what particularly worries

me is that we might see um as Trump

becomes more irrassable and um his

options shrink at home that Trump might

start putting more pressure on the

Europeans. And he might, for example,

say um Europeans, I want you to make the

Ukrainians sign the ceasefire deal. And

we say we don't want to. And he says, if

you don't make the Ukrainians do it, I'm

going to make you. And we start seeing

some um severe pressure put on Europe.

So that's a problem. um we might see a

full-on assault on the European Union's

rulemaking power because that's a big um

source of resistance to um some of the

people around Trump in the um you the

tech world and and elsewhere we might

see an ideological offensive against

Europe based on sort of MAGA anti-wery

and for any of those reasons or others

we could also discuss Trump is able to

hurt the Europeans very much um by

saying I'm going to call Sacka the

supreme ally commander Europe back to

Washington. Suddenly NATO's just lost

its sort of top brain. He could say,

"I'm withdrawing the the American

nuclear umbrella." That would be a huge

blow. He could just bring home the 21st

um as it call sustainment uh core who do

all the sort of logistics in Europe. So,

there's plenty he could do and Europe's

not prepared for that. So I I I think we

should be a lot more worried than we are

um about the danger of America pulling

the rug, although I still think the

likelihood is they won't.

>> Interesting. Yeah. I think for me it's

largely been planning for the worst

scenario. I think Europe should be

treating this as the default scenario

anyway, unfortunately. But regardless of

whether Trump is going to pull the rug

out or not, Europe should be uh fully

autonomous militarily, defensively,

strategically. Anyway, um so how

realistic is that? Because for me, the

time scale here is that Europe is making

changes, but we still need some

breathing space before, you know, the

moment where Trump says, "I've had

enough. Actually, I'm going to pull back

the assets that you've referenced." Um,

how much of a time scale do you think we

need to be adequately independent of the

US?

>> I think that the full replacement of all

American capabilities is several

trillion dollars in 15 or 20 years. Um,

but as I said, we don't need to

um replicate all NATO's capabilities on

the European CA tab. We just need to be

able to defend ourselves against Russia

and we need to be able to deter Russia.

And we've talked so far about defense. I

would say that we've left it too late

to build the kind of lay defense we need

of everything from a you know

proper air and missile defense um the

sort of resilience to deal with hybrid

attacks, the reinforcement capabilities,

the military mobility, all these

different elements. It's we're not going

to get to what you might call Finland to

take Finland as a sort of exemplar of

how to do defense. We're not going to

get to Finland um Finnish levels in time

because Russia could be ready to attack

again in you know two or three years or

even um even earlier um after a

ceasefire or it might just stage

provocation while the war is still going

on in Ukraine. So we don't have time to

do all the stuff we need to do with with

regard to defense. And that means that

we need to have more deterrence. And so

my big priority at the moment is to try

and rebuild our deterrence ladder. We

need to find things that we can do that

really hurt Russia and show resolve. So

the Russians think, gosh, if we do that,

they'll do this thing that really hurts

us. So we better not do that thing to

them. And at the moment that's rather

lacking. We have sanctions which are

still basically bouncing off Put they

crippled they haven't they they've

impaired Putin's war machine but they

haven't crippled it. Um we have some

sort of attempts to go after Russian

proxies um in the west. We don't really

deal with that. We aren't really dealing

with the shadow fleet and we're not

really waging political warfare inside

Russia. So um on the whole Russia thinks

if it does bad things to the west in the

sub threshold spaces it basically gets

away with them and they're right to

think that and we need to change that

perception on their part.

>> I remain unfortunately skeptical of uh

what political opposition there remains

in Russia. It's many sort of Gary

Kasparov or entities like that the sort

of diaspora who are the most

>> I completely agree with you. I don't

think the there is only one Russian

opposition. It's called the armed forces

of Ukraine.

Well, they're the most uh the Russians

aren't even the third strongest army, I

think, in uh in Ukraine at this point,

but after the tractors, which were

stealing Russian assets, if I remember

correctly. But um uh my other question

on this is I recently spoke to David

Petraeus and one of the things I put

towards him was about the operability of

the EU and NATO and he sort of

emphasized that it's not really that

crucial because even if the US dilutes

its influence in NATO uh the European

Union is the sort of economic and

political hub can help sustain NATO. Do

you agree with such a a view or it's

more complicated than that? Well,

everything's always more complicated

than um than one can say in in in a

sentence. I think that the EU is not

designed to be a defense organization

and it shouldn't become one. Um the EU's

got plenty to do um in its own

wheelhouse and it should do it better.

Everything from the drug implementing

the draggy report to sorting out

military mobility and um building up

resilience and political cohesion and so

on. And of course the EU is not is not

the only Europe. Um we've got Turkey um

which is extremely important. Britain

which is very important. Norway is very

important. They're all outside the EU.

Um so there's I wouldn't over focus on

um uh decision decision- making in um in

in in the commission um as the as the as

the thing to to look at. It's it's very

important. Um I think we need a a range

of different um decision-m frameworks

and I'm you the joint expeditionary

force is one the Nordic Baltic is

another um the E3 is a third Britain,

France and and Germany.

>> Okay. No, very interesting.

>> Um no I I so I so I I I don't know quite

in detail what um General Petraeus is

thinking but I I tend to agree with him

even if I don't know the details.

No, it's more I I'll expand on it which

is something we also touched on which is

simply uh about this idea of a

two-tiered system because obviously

again it doesn't revolve all around the

European Union but this concept that you

could have the core entity the core six

uh of the EU and then you've got the

secondary two which involves maybe

Norway or Britain because obviously

Stalmer is making I think the right

moves in trying to explore repromon uh

with the European Union in Britain's own

way. We have our own comparative

advantages I think in intelligence and

defense. So do you think there could be

some movement there?

>> There is movement. We've I already

mentioned the E3 and I I understand that

there's very high level secret talks

going on constantly between Britain,

France and Germany about what to do if

Trump really pulls the rug and you know

both in terms of reassuring the public

signaling to Russia and making the sort

of practical changes that are are going

to be needed. Um we've got the European

political community which is the

French-led sort of big Europe framework.

We've got variable geometry inside the

EU with um Hungary and to an extent

Slovakia taking sort of opt out when it

comes to things to do with uh Russia and

Ukraine. So I think there's there

there's plenty going on. I would like to

up the tempo, but um as as I said a few

minutes earlier, compared to where we

were in most in the last 20 years, um

this is astonishing progress and

astonishing speed of change. Um I just

wish it hadn't been bought at the price

of hundreds of thousands of um

Ukrainians um m killed, maimed,

emiserated, bererieved and so on. So we

it we should not be complacent about

this. our geopolitical education is

coming at an extremely high price,

mostly paid for by somebody else.

>> No, indeed. I think my penultimate

question for you is regarding the shadow

fleet because we've seen some remarkable

uh changes to this um and the growing

propensity for the Europeans to really

clamp down much more targetedly and

actively on specific assets. What impact

do you think that does one for Putin's

calculus, but two also for demonstrating

more that the Europeans do have that

capability and willingness to to go that

far?

>> Well, you're absolutely right. It has a

symbolic and a practical um effect and

really anything we do that show that

shows that we're willing to accept risk

and make sacrifices

is a powerful signal to the Kremlin. And

it doesn't really matter whether we are

cracking down on Russian oligarchs

abilities to sue people in London

courts, whether we're cracking down on

the shadow fleet, whether we're cracking

down on the activities of the Russian

Orthodox Church Moscow patriarch, which

is a means for influence, repression,

and intelligence gathering in um in

other countries. Whatever you choose any

one of 20 things, but just do it and

show you're serious. And that

immediately signals the um sort of the

Kremlin

Watch out. They're getting their act

together. Now, with the shadow fleet,

the sort of practical thing is it hits

the money. The the the flow of money

into Russia is very tightly linked to

the flow of um hydrocarbons out of

Russia. And there's plenty we can do on

that. I wish we'd gone after the shadow

fleet earlier. But I'd also say it's not

a panacea. And we have tended to make

the mistake in our dealings with Russia.

We think you here's the big red button.

We hit that and Putin's toast. And it

doesn't work like that. We um people

thought that chucking Russia out of

Swift would be the big red button and

that the Russian economy would simply

collapse if it was knocked out of Swift.

Turns out that didn't happen. Um we uh

thought if we stop buying pipeline

natural gas that'll be the end. So So

there's always a danger to overestimate

the importance of any one thing. But I

still think that if you if you do

something and do it consequently

um you send a powerful signal to your

own people that we're serious about

this. You send a powerful signal to

allies and you send a powerful signal to

the Kremlin. And the weakness of the

approach so far has been a sort of

slammy slicing. We've actually done a

you as I said

amazing number of things over the last

um you four or five years. Um, but by

doing them bit by bit, you don't have

the same impact as if you did them and

with with a with a with a bigger bang.

>> No. And I I think people have grossly

misunderstood the idea of what it means

to be Russian or the idea of Russian

resilience. The Russian people are very

used to suffering, right? One guest I

had said they're professional sufferers.

Um, so

>> I'm very cautious about this. I think

there's this sort of orientalist

approach which can be both comforting

and patronizing and deceptive all at the

same time. So I'm I've never believed

this idea that you Russia is a mystery

wrapped in an enigma in a riddle and

this is all sort of this mystification

of Russia gets me extremely nervous and

upset and um you lots of countries have

amazing abilities to suffer. Um let's

you hope to god it doesn't happen to us.

Um but I I'm I I'm I'm very cautious

about this sort of idea that Russia is

some kind of you know special special

place with special people who think in a

special way and um will react with you

special reactions to our way we behave.

We should be ruthlessly um logical try

and be very well informed in our

dealings with Russia. But I don't think

this sort of orientalist um uh sort of

hoopla um necessarily is a very good

guide.

>> I wouldn't. Yeah, I wouldn't. Uh or an

orientalist is an interesting way to

frame it. I've never thought of it like

that. But if you think about it, no,

sorry, it's a very important point. We

are we we are patronizing towards the

countries of central eastern Europe in a

way that would be a career killer if you

did it towards the countries of Africa.

Can you imagine an African Borat?

you know, some west privileged Western

Africa making fun of an African country

the way that Borat makes fun of of

Kazakhstan. So, we have an absolute

blind spot when it come this patronizing

attitude both to our allies and to our

foes um I think is at the heart of the

um many many mistakes we've made since

1991.

>> I think that's a very refreshing take

that a lot of people would appreciate.

Uh Edward, but um the last point I have

for you is then simply just what would

you mainly emphasize viewers and

listeners to keep a lookout for?

Obviously, we'll have you back hopefully

soon uh to cover some more developments,

but uh what would you emphasize to

people to to keep a lookout for

especially given the harshness of the

winter? I suppose I mean one important

thing which I'm working on is that we

should don't treat Russia as if it's

invincible and there's a lot of very

stupid commentary around at the moment

about how you know Nava the Estonian

border city is next or the Svalki gap

so-called which is actually the Svalki

Alitus corridor armies you know sitting

dark don't patronize the Baltic states

they think about this all the time they

will not be caught by surprise actually

I I don't think we have a problem in the

Baltic I think we have a solution in the

Baltic and I think if we could adopt the

sort of vigilance and readiness and

resilience that we have in the countries

from Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

down to Poland um we'd be in much better

shape. So I think a bit less um

scaremongering and um patronizing

behavior in the west and a bit more

willingness to learn from the countries

that are in the geographical front line

um would be very is is highly overdue.

very very pertinent words and I think

very reflective of what's been said by

Alexander Stub, Mark Carney to an

extent. Um, very very important final

words. But Edward Lucas, thank you very

much for your time. It's been an

absolute pleasure. We look forward to

having you back. Take care.

>> Thank you.