The Fallout from Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir zelinsky's blow up at the White House is still reverberating around the world after being unceremoniously run out of Washington by Trump on Friday zalinsky is now being welcomed with open arms by the Europeans you're looking at pictures of zalinski being greeted in London today by UK prime minister kir starmer this was part of an emergency Summit with European leaders all of them standing strongly behind Ukraine and pledging to show our up support after zalinsky scolding in the OV office and following the meeting starmer made a pledge
to Ukraine and a plea to Washington the UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air together with others Europe must do the heavy listing but to support peace in our continent and to succeed this effort must have strong us backing so how did we get here what does this mean for America's position in the world and will an empowered Russia become more aggressive as some might fear will Europe be forced to step out of America's Shadow and take a more forceful role in world affairs and defending the
European continent Trump's personal hostility towards zinsky and his affection for Putin have received much attention but the groundwork for Ukraine's unfolding catastrophe may have been seated long ago critics of American foreign policy have been warning for years decades in fact that NATO expansion would serve as an unnecessary provocation to Russia and that the most provocative potential addition to Nato one that Russia would never allow on its border was Ukraine and one of those critics has been Professor Jeffrey saaks he has been warning Americans and ukrainians that this day could come in fact here's what he
told the European Parliament just last month I begged the ukrainians and I had a track record with the ukrainians I advised the ukrainians I'm not anti Ukrainian Pro Ukrainian completely I said save your lives save your sovereignty save your territory be neutral don't listen to the Americans I repeated to them the famous adage of Henry Kissinger that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous but to be a friend is fatal well here we are and with us now is the man you just heard from Professor Jeffrey saaks he's an economist and the
director of the center for sustainable development in the earth Institute at Columbia University Professor saaks it's great to have you uh on the show thank you for making time for us um I thought I'd start you know after all of your warnings over the years and and I follow your work closely and certainly your public comments closely I was curious to hear what your take on what we witnessed in the Oval Office on Friday and how you interpret what happened on Friday we're in the end game Amon of a 30-year uh 30-year attempt by the
United States to move uh the US Military and the NATO alliance into the Black Sea region specifically to Ukraine and to Georgia this idea goes back to 1994 when it was basically decided within the Clinton Administration it was laid out in detail by big binski in 1997 in his book The Grand chessboard I've been watching this uh Year bye uh for these 30 years and I believe that it would come to grief and it's coming to grief Ukraine has lost perhaps a million people to death and uh and a serious injury in a war that
never should have taken place this is like uh China or Russia trying to establish a naval base or n a military base in Canada or in Mexico you could imagine uh such a scenario but the United States would not take kindly to it Russia told the United States for 30 years don't come to our borders with your military Alliance the US thought it had all the cards uh the US and I I've gone through this with Americans again for 30 years saying you're you've exaggerated and so forth so what do I make of what happened
last week basically that Trump does not want to hold the losing hand that Biden was playing Biden thought in 2021 we have all the courage we can push NATO to Ukraine Russia can't really resist that's been the American attitude for decades literally they thought economic sanctions or our weapon systems the himars and the attacks or uh unrest inside Russia would mean that the us would get its way I it was absolutely obvious that this was wrong going back to 2021 I tried to tell Jake Sullivan I told the White House I tried to say to
everybody you're making a terrible mistake well in the end Trump doesn't want to play a losing hand so he's he's cutting his losses he's saying we're not we're not going to back a war that's going south that is losing and that's basically the end of it are as somebody who tracks this very closely and who's been studying it for decades are you concerned that instead of um being an honest broker between Russia and Ukraine a trump L United States is simply siding with Russia at Ukraine's expense as you said to avoid this kind of losing
hand and that this could be more devastating for Ukraine down the road and perhaps other countries um in Europe because the the what some in this country argue is that if Ukraine Falls uh or somehow its territory is lost to Russia it will only embolden Vladimir Putin and the Russians to say they can do this again during a trump presidency when I was 14 years old General West Morland said it's the Domino uh effect if Vietnam Falls all of Southeast Asia will go communist this is a meme of American foreign policy for decades uh no
I'm I'm not concerned about that what I would say absolutely that that Americans should understand in March 2022 a peace agreement was on the table that would have ended this conflict you can look up because the New York Times kindly provided us with the text of the April 15th document which was nearly ready for signing the United States and the UK told the ukrainians don't sign don't accept neutrality fight on this was the terrible mistake it I knew it then I told them then but they did it I actually flew to Turkey to hear the
details of how Ukraine walked away from the negotiating table from that moment when a decent agreement was on the table till today Ukraine is as I said has had about a million casualties we we need to stop these wars because this is absolutely leading us nowhere good only bad you know I I I spoke at University of Pennsylvania and couple of days ago and Penn was founded by Benjamin Franklin and he wrote an a letter in uh 1783 to a friend and I'm paraphrasing there's no such thing as a good war and there's no such
thing as a bad peace and this is basically right this war has been a bad War uh and we need peace to save Ukraine this is the point to save Ukraine not to use Ukraine for our purposes not to use Ukraine to weaken Russia or to use Ukraine for for strategic mineral For Heaven's Sake but to let Ukraine be Sovereign and stable with neutrality which is if you look on the map what is the the the natural thing for Ukraine to be
