Background Briefing: February 12, 2025
Hegseth Gives Up Ukraine’s Leverage Before Russia/Ukraine Peace Talks Begin
We begin with the call by Secretary of Defense Hegseth in a meeting with his NATO counterparts for Ukraine to give up its territory to Russia and forget about joining NATO in what appears to be giving up Ukraine’s leverage before any negotiations begin. Joining us to discuss how much Ukraine is being thrown under the bus is Steven Pifer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council. He is the author of a number of books including The Eagle and the Trident: U.S.—Ukraine Relations in Turbulent Times and Averting Crisis in Ukraine.
Is the Trump Administration Already Capitulating to Putin?
Then we examine whether the Trump administration is already capitulating to Putin and speak with Michael Kimmage, Director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute who was previously a professor of history and department chair at the Catholic University of America, chair of the Kennan Institute Advisory Council and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. From 2014 to 2017, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio and is the author of The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy and Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability.