Hi everyone and welcome. I am joined today by John Meersheimer and Alexander Mercuris to discuss the recent developments taking place in Ukraine.

So we have quite a few developments lately. That is, Zelensky decided to sign the minerals deal, and shortly thereafter, probably quite related,

the United States announced that it would engage in weapon sales to Ukraine.

So this has, I guess, been a difficult balancing position for the United States to both be a

leading participant in this war with Russia and also at the same

time being a mediator. Is this collapsing now or is this Trump's war, I guess?

Well, I think it has collapsed. I mean, there was an announcement today by the State Department

that they ended their mediation mission.

And having been a mediator myself in many negotiations, I mean, that was one of the things I used to do.

I mean, the idea that you could be both a mediator and a party is absurd. I mean, it's impossible. I mean, it completely contradicts the whole concept of what

mediation is. You cannot be a mediator and at the same time a party to a conflict or someone who is

deeply involved with one of the parties to the conflict in the way that the United States has been.

And I think that is one of the reasons why this attempt of negotiations ultimately failed,

because the United States is much too close to this conflict to be able to actually

fulfill a successful mediation role. I think presenting this,

you know, in an effort to achieve a peace agreement, presenting it as the United States

conducting some kind of mediation exercise was misconceived. And as I said, was one of the things that caused the whole

process of negotiation to come to the impasse, which it seems to me it is now in.

I would agree with Alexander. I don't think that the United States was a mediator. I mean,

what we have here is a war where Russia is on one side,

Ukraine, Europe, and the United States are on the other side. The United States has been an

active participant in this war. It's done everything but pull the triggers. You know,

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