Lawfare Daily: Anastasiia Lapatina and Eric Ciaramella Talk Russia, Ukraine, and Trump
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 57 minutes
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Summary
Lawfare Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina and Eric Ciaramella of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace join Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the last week's machinations surrounding a potential Russia-Ukraine peace deal. What is the actual American position? Is the United States abandoning Ukraine? Or is it now backing off the 28-point document it reportedly put together with Russian negotiators?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Nearly every news alert in 2025 has raised questions, some old, some new, about the law and national security. |
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| 0:38.1 | So it was kind of the sweeteners for Russia got more detailed. |
| 0:41.5 | The concessions for the Ukrainians got more detailed. |
| 0:44.4 | And then all the stuff Russia was supposed to do to whether repay Ukraine or withdraw troops |
| 0:52.2 | or stop fighting and have that in enforced, those were super vague. |
| 0:57.5 | It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief of Lawfare, with Anastasia |
| 1:03.0 | La Patina Lawfare Ukraine Fellow and Eric Charimella of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. |
| 1:11.3 | The American goal is to get this whole thing over with as soon as possible, |
| 1:16.8 | to get some Ukrainian official to sign whatever documents that they can sign. |
| 1:21.6 | And, I mean, the crux of the Trump administration, to the best of my understanding, really does not seem to care all that much about what's actually in the document as long as both sides sign it and they can sell it as a win. |
| 1:38.2 | Today, we're talking peace negotiations between Russia, the United States, and Ukraine. We had a document. Everybody |
| 1:48.0 | flipped out. Now nobody will claim responsibility for actually writing that document, or maybe |
| 1:54.9 | they will. What is the United States' actual position on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire? What is Ukraine's position? |
| 2:04.6 | And is Russia really so unwilling to back off its more maximalist demands? |
| 2:12.4 | All right, Eric, get us started here. It seems like every day the story shifts and becomes a little bit about something else and maybe becomes less acute than we thought it was the previous day. |
| 2:29.3 | Less than a week ago, this was Trump forcing Ukraine into submission. Now the United States is working |
| 2:37.6 | closely with the Ukrainians to come up with a joint position. What on earth is going on here |
| 2:44.5 | and zoom out to 40,000 feet, break through to higher ground and explain this to me like I was a kindergartener. |
... |
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