Is Putin playing Trump on Ukraine?
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has once again criticised Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and is putting pressure on both sides to accept a proposed peace deal.
Nick speaks to Fiona Hill, who advised Donald Trump on Russia during his first term in the White House, about that deal (7:26) and the US president's approach to negotiations (8:35).
She also explains what it was like advising President Trump (10:08) and how Putin manipulates him (28:38).
Plus Nick and Amol are reunited for Moment of the Week (40:40).
To get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories and insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme make sure you hit subscribe on BBC Sounds. That way you’ll get an alert every time we release a new episode, and you won’t miss our extra bonus episodes either.
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The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson who are both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
This episode was made by Lewis Vickers and Tom Smithard with Izzy Rowley and Grace Reeve. Digital production was by Izzy Rowley. The technical producer was Abbey Wiltshire. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | It is, to borrow a line used each week by our friends on Ukrainecast, 1157 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. |
| 0:16.6 | Call me a peddnit, but I call it the re-invasion, because I think that this war has been going on since 2014. |
| 0:37.5 | But that's a little minor detail, which we might come back to. It's definitely been 95 days since Donald Trump returned to the White House, and there is still no deal to end the war, despite him once saying that it would take him just 24 hours to do that deal. In fact, he's now threatening to take a pass on the peace talks, take a pass being a very to New York 1980s phrase for basically leave, |
| 0:42.0 | and that perhaps shows how frustrated he is with the lack of progress. |
| 0:45.5 | And if you wanted to censor that frustration, you need only look at his social media channel, |
| 0:50.3 | truth social, which is home to a blistering attack on President Zelensky, in which he |
| 0:57.4 | basically says that if he had a problem with giving up Crimea, he should have put up a fight in |
| 1:01.8 | 2014, which I think it's fair to say, Nick, it's not how Ukrainian see it. |
| 1:06.3 | I don't think it is quite how they see it, but it is interesting that the courtiers to President |
| 1:11.2 | Trump, and it feels relevant. And it feels right to call them the courtiers, as we'll hear from our |
| 1:16.6 | guest, who is a Trump watcher coming up. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the Vice President |
| 1:23.6 | J.D. Vance, have all talks about walking away from the talks. If Zelensky doesn't take up |
| 1:30.1 | the great deal that they claim is on offer, and which Trump's golf buddy, fellow New York billionaire, |
| 1:37.1 | Steve Wittkoff, seems all too keen to rush to the Kremlin, fourth visit it'll be, to put on the table in front of President Putin. |
| 1:47.6 | So that's what we're asking today is, should we take those threats to walk away seriously? |
| 1:53.2 | Is there a path to peace without the Americans? |
| 1:57.4 | Has Vladimir Putin perhaps worked out how to play Donald Trump? |
| 2:02.4 | I've been speaking to Fiona Hill who advised Trump on Russia during his first term, |
| 2:07.4 | although is no friend of his now, about all of that and that relationship with Putin. |
| 2:13.1 | Let's do it. |
| 2:13.6 | Let's do it. Hello, it's a mole in Solford, again, where I'm, I feel guilty about this because I'm dragging people all over the country. |
... |
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