Hello, this is Matthew Parish of the Lviv Herald, and I am here with my colleague, Artem Goldberg today to discuss the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which now has been in going on for approximately three years, welcome here again, Artem. You've spoken to us before with your opinions, and thank you for being with us.
Thank you for inviting me, Matthew. It's nice to see you.
There's been quite a lot going on since the inauguration of President Trump on the 20th of January 2025 in Washington, DC, and we started to see a lot of different policy changes of the United States towards Ukraine. And they've culminated one of the most recent events has been a telephone call apparently made by er President Trump to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. A lot of people in Western media are saying that this phone call was a catastrophic disaster. It was a tactical mistake to make it. Would you agree with them or what's your view?
Well, first of all we don't know what they talked about. and what would be the outcome of this call. However, I agree in general, becausethe diplomatic isolation of Putin ended with President Trump's goal, which is not a good sign because Russia hasn't shown any willingness to towards making peace or to stop their aggression against Ukraine. So,Trump did good for Putin,but I don't know how would allies and United States in particular benefit from that. I mean, Trump's desire to to make peace to make a peace deal is driven more by his ego and by his sureness that that he can do that, that he is the best deal maker, right in the worldbut I I'm I don't think he understands who he's dealing with.
Isn't that a good thing that there's a peace agreement at this stage?
Well, first of all, there is no peace agreement. There are talks about peace, there is not even a peace plan from a trump steam which they promise to deliver. And then they changed their minds. They said that we have to talk more to our allies, we have to go to Russia. We have to go to Ukraine, we have to talk with everyone and then we might come come to some conclusions and then we would draw a peace plan. But what worries me is that first of all, I don't see that Russia is willing to negotiate, really. I mean, they they pretend like they do, they rhetorically, they say they want to, but I mean, it doesn't look like that. They're still attacking Ukraine, they kill Ukrainians every day andthey don't show any signs of peace apart from from the from what they say.
Well, of course not. I mean, we know the Russian tactics have been barbaric, and they continued to be barbaric, and in President Putin's mind, you just carry on going until you are forced to stop.
When will Putin stop? You're exactly right. Putin will stop only if he can no longer finance this war. This is the only way for him to stop. I mean, even if Ukraine, militarily, by force, took back all the land all all the sovereign territory of Ukraine, including Crimea, Russia wouldn't stop. The war wouldn't stop, it would just be on tne constitutional borders of Ukraine and Russia, right? So I think thatPutin is playing this game of talking about peace in order to just reduce the support of Ukraine because, under the guise of "we are making a peace deal", there could be things the United States could just stop supporting us. With the military equipment, I mean. For now it's not the case, however, we will see how it will go in the future.
So far it's all just words, isn't it? And the Trump administration has been saying all sorts of things, but they haven't actually changed what they do, which is very typical of Donald Trump, actually, to say all sorts of things, but not actually to implement them.
I noticed one thing which is a really clear from Ukraine, is that first thing, the Trump administration did ,as they went into the office, as they started, they didn't attack China. They didn't attack Russia. They, even rhetorically, I mean, Trump is always saying that Putin is a great guy. "We had a great talk." He is very complimentary of him. He hasn't mentioned war of aggression, and that Putin is breaking international law on contrary, he is complimenting him at the same time they started attacking their closest allies. They attacked Canada, they attacked Denmark, their threats of of getting Greenland, their threats on Canada, they might be laughable, right? Some some people say, oh, he's not serious, it's ridiculous. However to me it's it's pretty serious. I mean they they are destroying the unity of NATO members which for now resulted in some tariff increase - it's right that they canceled it; at the same time it's a really bad sign. It shows that Trump is actually aimed at disrupting the the structure of NATO, right? That's what worries me.
Yes, but even with issues like Canada and Greenland and some of the more unusual suggestions of the Trump administration, and the tariffs haven't been imposed yet. Greenland - there has been lots of talking about it, but nothing's actually happened yet. Ukraine's kind of in the same situation, isn't it? I mean, the only country where the USA has actually changed its policy is on tariffs towards China at they have actually increased tariffs by 10% percent across the board. So right now, we don't know what the Trump administration is going to do if anything that's different from the last last administration.
You are right but at the at the same time, the rhetoric of Trump, the ideas he operates with, are not democratic. They they are against the values of the free world, in my opinion. I mean he you know he, I would say, he defies. He was an anti- establishment candidate in those elections, right? He wages war against the establishment in the US and we should look closely at what's going on inside the United States, firstly, because it's very disruptive.
Should we separate what is what's happening inside the United States, which is for Americans and neither you nor I are American; and what American foreign policy is in the rest of the world - can't those be separated as this use or do you think they are intertwined?
Well, they can be partly separated, but not fully, because American society is seriously divided. And we see this division getting worse and worse every day, and that could lead to instability and instability inside the country could lead to an increase of isolationism although I don't think Trump is isolationist. I think Trump is imperialistic. His rhetoric is imperialistic. I mean, how he approaches his partners, how he approaches in general foreign policy, looks to me very similar to Vladimir Putin's approach towards the former Soviet republics.
Let's try to return to the Russia Ukraine conflict. What do you think the Trump administration can or should do to try to bring this conflict to an end?
I don't think that Trump has much many more instruments than Biden had, to be honest, right? Nothing has changed. I mean, he is President, he has he has his power, maybe he can approach differently in a diplomatic way, but at the same time, there is no leverage against Putin, which Trump can use, which Biden hasn't used, right? So maybe maybe they talk about economic measures so they Trump said we will reduce the oil prices, right and and so on. First of all, the oil market doesn't depend on the solely on on the United States. Secondly, there is the Middle eastern crisis, which is not stopping. It's heating up, right? Gaza, they they signed a cease fire, which is very seems to me very unstable. And that could drive the oil prices up again. But in general, there is not much Trump can do to influence Russia into going to peace. compared to what Biden was already doing. And even economic measures which he can undertake, they will not be immediate. They take years to to take effect. I mean, we see inflation in Russia and it comes from sanctions which were introduced in 202 right? So it's it's not that easy. In my opinion, Putin can only be stopped, either by military defeat or by economic defeat, right? So if if Russia cannot can no longer finance this war, this is the only way for putting it to a stop. Other things, I mean flattery which Trump gives to Putin, wouldn't work on him. He is a KGB agent, he doesn't care.
Yes, of course. Vadimir Putin isn't somebody with whom you form convivial relationships. Yes, he's he's an old-fashioned KGB agent. Surely Trump knows that. Trump is also known to be a pretty hard person to deal with. But what he says on the television may be very different from what's said in private.
We don't we don't know, do we? We can only speculate on on his private conversations, because I haven't heard them.
But you see the problem with military defeat is that it doesn't seem possible at the current time. The Russians have been very slowly, but surely, taking small amounts of ground in the Donbas over the course of the 2024-25 winter offensive - not at any great speed, but they've been in most of the occupied territories for 10 years.
Military defeat is impossible also because, as I said earlier, even if Ukraine retakes all its territory, which for now it seems not possible - however, if if it was the case, the war wouldn't stop. The war would stop if Russia capitulated and Russia cannot capitulate because it's the second largest nuclear power in the world. So we cannot give Putin a military defeat, which which Hitler had back in 1945, simply because he has nuclear arsenal, there is no way for us to defeat him, militarily. So, we're looking at that an an economic defeat.
A substantial drop in the price of oil might achieve that might exist, because there isn't really much in Russia to export apart from oil. And I think Trump's idea is to do a deal with the Saudis to drop the price of oil in exchange for him letting Israel attack Iran, because Iran is Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy. So these issues are all a little bit linked together, aren't they?
It's possible, we we should see how effective it is because again, oil market doesn't depend only on Americans and Saudis. Although they they might influence the price and we will see how effective this measure would be. Again, because with introduction of direct measures against China, we might see an increase of support from China coming to Russia, because it is in the interest, the indirect interest of China for Russia to win this war, because they like Putin, they see war war against Ukraine, not just as an imperialistic ambition of Putin. They see it as a war against the West and the western world. the western security infrastructure, which has already been destroyed, if we are honest, the world is talking about NATO. I'm talking about the world order. I'm talking about the rules under which security rules, under which the world worked since Yalta conference, if I should say. So, yes, the United Nations and NATO and everything that came before us.
So in your view, that's all being destroyed. It's being challenged.
Yes, I think that by saying, we we just heard from many people in Trump's team that Ukraine should give up their territories. Ukraine for the Ukrainians should do this. Ukraine should do that, which is simply appeasing the aggressor. We are back hundred years, we are 100 years back, we are in 1938 right now, and and it's not looking very good. And you know, in our last podcast, about a year ago, we called it World War III and Donus, right? And I said it's it's interesting for me that World War III started from Donbas and I still think that it is the case. I I think that because nations, different countries saw that you can take others' land by force, and if you have enough money, if you have nuclear weapons and no one can do anything to you, you will get away with it, which will be a good signal for many dictators around the world that you can do that, okay? And the more the more it happens, the less capabilities will the West have to conquter that, okay? So, we might see conflict in China and Taiwan erupting. We could see more development [of conflict] in the Middle East. We could see [conflict] in in Latin America, right? So we already hear those dictators. There's talk about this. Okay, so there will be not rule of law. There will be a rule of force, right? The who is the one who is the stronger, the strongest, right? [Putin] said he sets up the rules.
We go back to the balance of power 19th century idea, where the Great Powers are in constant conflicts, which are changing allegiances of power.
It ended in the [First] World War. [The worst] war the world had ever seen back then, right? World War I. And then it continued with World War II. Actually, you know the the more the more time passes by from the first [and second] world wars, the historians don't look at them separately, they see it as a single process.
So what do you think the United States government should do? Because it's the US government that's changed. isn't it? The Europeans are all still roughly where they used to be. There's France, the French government is weaker than it was recently. The British government is stronger, but their positions on Ukraine are both the same. It's the Americans who've really changed status and they're the most powerful member of NATO, so what what should they do? What would be your advice if you could give it if President Trump listening to this podcast?
Like our President [Zelensky] says and like everyone in our country say [we need] more weapons. We need more military support. If we are stronger, we can talk from the position of strength, and that's the only language Putin understands. If he understands that his economy is about to collapse and that he cannot take Ukraine by force if we are strong, then we shall prevail. Otherwise, uh we will see a horrible development, which is unimaginable. Look, I I don't want to scare. I know many, many Ukrainians talk about this and I know how Europeans see it. They they they think that it's an our interest to say this to to scare Europeans that, if you don't support us, you will have problems. But let's take a look at the situation where you Ukraine capitulates. where Russian forces are in Uzhhorod [a city in western Ukraine], okay? If this happens, the governments in Eastern Europe will be so scared of war, that populists will come [into power] and say we will talk to Russia, we will ensure peace, by talking to Russia: they will come to power. We will see a strong position [in Europe] because for now, mostly, European governments are ran by centrists, left right, but centrist. We will see more radical left or radical right, and we see that already we see Fico in Slovakia, we see Orban [in Hungary], we see the German elections, right? The AfD [a far-right German political party], the Reform Party [in the United Kingdom], they they are not that strong, but Marine LePen, in France, is strong, right? They're getting stronger and stronger and that's a worrying direction.
[Therefore] I would say not to Trump, but to European politicians. I would say that look the problem is, if Ukraine loses, you will not do anything because you will be kicked out of office and other people will come and rule your countries, right? And we will see more division between NATO allies and we will see collapse of European Union as a [possibility]. We might see it. That's what scares me.
As you know, the US Vice President J. D. Vance, has been attending the Munich security conference, and annual meeting of leaders on security issues. And yesterday he gave a speech in which he didn't mention Ukraine at all, but instead he decided to attack his allies on a variety of other issues. How do you interpret that sort of speech?
We can look at it from two sides, Firstly, Europe really needs to wake up. Europe really needs to understand. President Zelensky, just a couple of hours ago, he he gave a speech to Munich conference as well, and he said that Europe should have European Union army, a united army of the European Union. Europe should aim to defend itself; it should be able to defend it itself. And Europe needs to wake up because dependence on the United States is not the best solution as we as we see now, because the United States might go isolationist. And Europe cannot stand against China and Russia alone as they as they seem now, right? as the as they are now. So I think that the idea that Europe should be able to defend itself as good. However, the rhetoric [from America] against Europe, right, without mentioning Russia or China, is pretty horrible because they are allies and we see this division and it worries me to be honest.
Well, are [the Chinese] allies with the Russians or is it simply that the Chinese want to make money?
No, I meant I meant Americans and Europeans.
I understand, but mentioning Russian and China, but they're different, aren't they, Russia and China? Because China is not very interested in the war in Ukraine, except that it can sell the parties drones and other equipment.
It's in direct interest of China that look, Putin talks about multipolar world, whatever it means he says here here are we we should divide the world with the spheres of influence here and there, right? And because they don't want American hegemony, right? That's what Putin says. [China] says we should have a bipolar world because, look, we, China are a strong nation, we we we are we are a huge power, and we should have our sphere of influence and we should divide it with Americans and there should be no American hegemony, and that's where they connect, right? So both of them wants to want to end American domination over the world, okay? And and that's their common goal because it is the fight against the free world by authoritarian regimes, and that that this fight in this fight Russia and China are united yes, they take different approaches. I mean, China is not aggressive, I would say to with their territorial aspirations, although they were, right? Tibet and before that. At the same time, Russia is aggressive, but they both want to destroy the security infrastructure which was built after Yalta and then after Cold War, I would say.
President Trump very much sees China as his principal adversary, a rather than Russia, and it seems that his focus is to finish off the war in Ukraine somehow so as he can focus all of his economic and military resources on China. wouldn't that suggest that he's going to make quite a lot of an effort now to end the war [in Ukraine]?
As I said again, he has very limited instruments. The only thing he can actually do is to force Ukraine into capitulation. I hope he won't do that because he it will be a a huge loss for the United States and he doesn't want to look like a loser in my opinion. At the same time, he cannot do anything apart from what we talked about with oil prices and maybe some new sanctions, maybe he he could pressure India and China into not cooperating with Russia that much economically, because India is the main buyer of Russian oil and they already stopped as far as I know, at least partly. So I think that Trump can make all the efforts in the world. He can talk, but I'm still not sure he will be successful in that. I don't see the war ending unfortunately.
What do you think about the idea of putting NATO peacekeepers along the front line?
These are ideas, but Russia [would need to] agree to them and Russia doesn't agree to them. Russia has no point of agreeing to having any reason to, because the real goal of Russia is destroying Ukrainian state, either by incorporating the whole territory of Ukraine into Russia, right? Or by incorporating part of Ukrainian territory, majority of Ukraine into Russia and then annexing majority of Ukraine, and then creating some small puppet government, which which will give them another vote in the UN Security Council or in the UN General [Assembly] excuse me, so as I said, uh I don't see any reason for Russia to stop now because they haven't achieved their goals and they will not stop until they do or until they are stopped.
What about if NATO, led by the Americans, were to put troops on the front line?
And so the Russians attack them.
Would they do it?
The Americans, even in Biden's administration, were pretty hard on Putin, right? They were afraid of nuclear war. Trump is also afraid of nuclear war. And again, they they will not do it because they will not risk escalating the conflict into direct war with Russia. That's what they want to avoid that's the goal - that's why the war is going on like it's going on. Exactly because [the Americans] are afraid of nuclear war. And I think that what you are saying, although it would be a good idea, it's unrealistic simply because Russians will not accept it, and it's impossible to to say to them we are doing it, and we don't care what you say, right?
But we just we just said a few minutes ago that Russian agreements aren't worth anything. That's not the way the Russian mentality thinks. It thinks about constantly evolving power relationships and what they can get away with. So they're happy to sign any agreement you put in front of them, but just keep fighting if they see that it's in their advantage to break the agreements. So so how else are we going to end this war? Apart from crippling the [Russian] economy that may take a bit more time.
That's what I'm trying to tell you: we will not [stop the war]. There is no way to end this war. Unfortunately, the world is going into more and more conflict. It's heating: the world is heating up and it's an unstoppable process. I'm sorry to say that's my personal opinion. And I see all those efforts to all those talks about peace is just a disguise in order to disrupt the world, the free world from from from inside, I think that's what America [is doing]. I don't know why they are doing that. I I don't want to speculate because we we have to see, but for me, it seems pretty horrible that Trump's administration is trying to disrupt the free world, they try to disrupt their alliances, right? And then, we are driving really fast into World War III. That's what is going on. And for me, I see this process as unstoppable. I see that it has already started and that it will get only worse, unfortunately, I'm sorry to say that I don't want that, but I don't see how we will go back to 2013, let's say, right? I see that the world is heating up. There are more and more conflicts, more and more wars every year happening and at some point, it will just explode into same as it did in 1914. It may be in a different way, in different configuration, well we we don't know I don't know exactly how it will look, but I'm sure that in order for the world to establish some rules, right, like they did after World War II, there has to be World War III unfortunately, because the the autocrats are much more powerful now than they were.
[They're also more powerful at any time] after the Soviet Union's collapse, for example, and they they are getting ready. They are not ready yet, but they are ready to confront the free world and and we we we won't see the balance of power like in the Cold War. They won't there won't be a [second] Cold War. There will be hot war, with new technologies and since humanity is developing, the ways of killing each other is developing. So it will be much more bloody, much more horrific with many more genocides when World War III will start. That's that's how I see it. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong, but that that's what it looks like because it's there is no way, you know, when the forest fire starts, at some point there is no way you can you can put it out.
What's going to happen to you, Ukraine and Ukrainians, if this war carries on? Well, we shall see many things. Firstly, maybe there is a chance there is still a chance that locally, I mean, in the short term, Russia will have a serious economic problems and they will have to stop. And then maybe we will have some security guarantees. And then we will have peace, we will have peace right until Russia is ready, Russia and China are ready to confront NATO directly, because if they do, then it doesn't matter whether we are in NATO or not, we will still be the front line. so I believe that Ukraine will will see at least a decade, or maybe two, of very, very hard times. And for us, still, like it was three years ago, the question is about survival, whether we will remain, whether Ukrainian people will have their land and it's still a war a war in which Russia wants to destroy us. They want to come here, they want to replace the population, to kill, threaten or exile everyone who who is who are against them, who don't want to call themselves Russians, right, like they do, like they do when they occupy territories.
So, yes, I I hope Ukraine stands strong, I hope we will remain, but it will be very, very difficult years for us.
Do you think it's possible for NATO to be restructured in the way the Americans want it, so that the Europeans spend more money on NATO and more money on Ukraine's defence?
I hope so. I hope that militarisation of Europe will speed up because they need to prepare they're not prepared. at the same time, I don't know. I don't know. The European European population is still sleeping. They they haven't woken up. They don't understand - many people don't understand - the threat that autocrats are posing to them. They still think - I hear a lot - well I hear a lot of them saying - that look, Russia wants Ukraine, because they they have their this ideas about restarting the Soviet Union or something, right? But I don't think that they understand that Russia wants to have influence over the whole Europe. They want to threaten the whole Europe, they want to go back to Warsaw or even worse, and if the United States are not there, it will be a serious serious threat. And I mean it will be not not a threat just because of military power, it will be a political threat as well, because Europe will start to elect extreme politicians, populists, and Europe will be more divided.
So all in all, your prognosis for the future is pretty dire.
Yes. However, I still think that the outcome of the war which will come is not clear. I'm not saying that the autocrats will win ultimately, and you're saying yes, hard times are waiting us and I am not a pessimist. I'm just a realist. I've been I've been talking about Russia's [intended] full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2017 because it was obvious. And for me now it is obvious that China, Russia, Iran North Korea and other autocrats are joining forces to fight against the free world, and if the free world doesn't wake up, we might see pretty dire consequences for the whole world.
Artem Goldberg, I want to thank you for your time. It was a pleasure and thank you once again.
You too.