Former U.S. envoy on why Trump is engaging with Russia over Ukraine talks

Ali Rogin:

Good evening. I'm Ali Rogin. John Yang is away. As the Munich security conference wrapped up today, American officials prepared to begin talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine. Those discussions are expected to begin in the coming days in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Europe's leaders are preparing to convene an emergency meeting in Paris on Monday in response to being shut out of early negotiations. There's also no clear indication yet that Kyiv will be involved at those talks either. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC's Meet the Press today that his country would never accept a deal struck just between Moscow and Washington. He also said surrendering any Ukrainian land is off the table.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President:

We will never do it. It's not about any negotiations. We will never speak about it.

Woman:

Even Crimea, you seem to have acknowledged —

Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

Even Crimea, we will never recognize it because in years, all things, all things which are Ukrainian will be Ukrainian.

Ali Rogin:

Kurt Volker served as the U.S. Special representative for Ukraine Negotiations under the first Trump administration and was the U.S. Ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush. Kurt, thank you so much for being with us.

What are your expectations for these talks in Saudi Arabia, especially given that neither Ukraine nor European representatives at this moment, we understand, are invited to attend?

Kurt Volker, Former U.S. Special representative for Ukraine Negotiations: Well, first off, you know, we've had bilateral meetings with Russia, with Ukrainians, with Europeans all the time. So I don't see this as particularly outside the box. And we just had Secretary of Defense Pete Pegseth at NATO. We had Secretary of State Rubio and Vice President Vance in Munich meeting with allies. We had President Trump calling President Zelenskyy. J.D. Vance met with President Zelenskyy.

And I think all of this is about trying to get the Russians to the table so that we can engage them in a process to try to stop the war. There is no process at the moment. There's no table that anyone's excluded from. It is simply about trying to get the Russians to do something different than what they've been doing for the last three years.

Ali Rogin:

I hear you saying that we've had bilateral negotiations. This is nothing new. But the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration seems to be trying to push that envelope forward and saying now is the time to initiate a formal peace process. And they seem to be framing these talks as the beginning of that process. Do you not see it that way?

Kurt Volker:

I don't, no. If you look at this, you had a phone call between Putin and Trump and then followed up by Rubio with Lavrov, who then they teed up a meeting among some senior officials in Saudi Arabia. So far, there is no commitment by Russia to even consider stopping the war. And so this is an effort to try to get them into a process.

As this evolves, I'm not sure that there will be a single table. I don't necessarily see that there's going to be some conference hall in Vienna where everybody sits down and everybody negotiates. I think it's going to be a combination of pressure, maybe some incentives, phone calls between leaders, engagement among leaders, and the various sorts of meetings that we always engage in. I think that's a more realistic set of expectations than one formal single negotiating process.

Ali Rogin:

Questions about the makeup of the table aside, do you think President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has the same leverage now that he may have had if, for example, were to have entered into this phase under the Biden administration?

Kurt Volker:

Well, leverage is the wrong word in the case of President Zelenskyy, because he is fighting the right fight. He is defending his country. He's defending Europe. He is the victim of external aggression. And everyone knows that the U.S. and Europe have helped him for a long time. But the reality is that this war did not end over the last three years. Russia continues its attacks.

And what President Trump is trying to do, as I see it, at least, is trying to engage with Russia because Russia is the problem. Russia's the one that has to agree to stop the war. Now, in terms of how we play this, I do think that what you just played in that clip from President Zelenskyy ceding territory to Russia, that would be a mistake. And he said we will never recognize it. And that's the key point.

We may have to realize that there's no military way to recover all the Ukrainian territory right now. So we may end up with a situation where it's not recognized. It's Russian occupation. No one accepts it. But we pursue the return of that territory by other means. But meanwhile, we get a pause in the fighting so people stop dying. I think that's where President Trump is trying to drive this.

Ali Rogin:

We're going to have to leave it there. Kurt Volker, former U.S. Special representative for Ukraine Negotiations under the Trump administration. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kurt Volker:

Thank you, Ali.