Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Glad to welcome back,

staff writer at The New Yorker, her most recent book, The Divider, co-authored with her husband,

Peter Baker. It's Susan Glasser, of course. Hey, Susan, how you doing? Hey, Tim. Great to be

with you. Good to be with you, too. We've got so, I mean, there's just so much happening.

One thing I've not covered this week because of the various scheduling demands is the

secret deal that is being drafted between Steve Wiccoff and his counterparties in

Russia. This is an Axis story. The Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation

with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine. A top Russian official told Axis he's

optimistic about the plan. It's not clear how Ukraine and

his European backers will feel about it. Wikov replied to that tweet publicly on his personal

Twitter and said he must have got this from K. This, I assume, was meant to be a DM saying

that this story came from Dimitriov, Kiryrald Dmitriov, the Russian envoy.

Seems like a shit show, but I'm wondering what you make of it.

Well, I think we can say we actually do know what Ukraine and Europe will think of it.

And the answer is they don't think much of it.

It's not funny.

In fact, Russia's attacks this week have been particularly pernicious aimed at the civilian population, including in Western Ukraine, civilians sleeping in their beds,

going about their business. This proposal seems to be not that dissimilar, literally from Russia's

2022, quote-unquote, peace proposal, which was essentially a series of unilateral

demands. I mean, by itemizing the peace plan and making a 28 points, it doesn't make it any more

of a viable peace plan. What it does appear is essentially that the United States, at least one

faction of the United States government, Stephen Whitkoff,

...