You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs.

My name's Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War in the Rocks.

You may have noticed that there's been some pretty strange and, well, let's just say it feels

unpredictable diplomacy surrounding Ukraine and its future.

I got together three friends to help us understand exactly what's been happening and what

might be happening next.

I'll let them introduce themselves.

I'm Justin Logan. I'm the Director of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.

I'm Lena Fix. I'm a fellow for Europe with the Council and Foreign Relations.

Mike Avum, senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment.

So we're going to try to make sense of all this diplomacy, for lack of a better term, that's been going on surrounding Ukraine ever since

Trump took office here in Washington. So thanks for joining to help me sort all this out.

I'd like to talk through some sequencing, just to impose a little bit of a narrative on us.

Personally, I found where we've ended up confusing.

There was a period where I thought I understood what was happening, and I don't really understand, although, Justin, you made a good case earlier than I think you'll, before we

start recording that I'd like you to make again.

So Trump takes office immediately starts talking with Putin.

As we discover later, he's had multiple conversations with Putin. I think Zelensky feels left out of this and after the Munich Security

conference at which J.D. Vance gives this bracing speech, criticizing Europe's not just

military capabilities and strategy, but also internal politics. Zelensky makes this call for Europe to band together and go it alone, which Europe is not

super enthusiastic about Zelensky then criticizes President Trump for living in a bubble of

misinformation.

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