This show proudly sponsored by Real American Freestyle Wrestling. Real American Freestyle is the first ever unscripted pro wrestling league created by Hoke Hogan, Chad Bronstein, Israel Martinez, and Eric Bischoff. RAF gives the world's top wrestlers the stage they earned but never had until now. President's got a lot to focus on leading up till Friday. European Union wants to play a role and give the president a protocol to ask for a ceasefire, then ask for security guarantees before you talk about any land swaps.
You got to get the buy-in from the Ukrainians, and that needs parliament.
So Andrew Weiss joins us now. Andrew, what are your thoughts, and what do you think the stakes are on Friday?
Well, the President has once again done something that surprised everybody, right? He announced this meeting just last Friday, leaves himself very little time to prepare. He's created big waves, a lot of attention, media attention and political attention. But these are not necessarily the right ways to prepare for a meeting with someone like Vadimer Putin, right? Who's been in his job for a quarter century.
He knows these issues backwards and forwards. And what we've seen is much more on the U.S. side kind of doing stuff on the fly. And I think that is the problem for Friday: Vadimir Putin knows what he's doing. He's got a very methodical approach to things, which is to grind down the Ukrainians on the battlefield and then to try to create division between the United States and Ukraine and Europe on the other hand.
And so far, he's being rather successful on both of those strategies. The U.S. approach, I'd say, is still a work in progress.
Well, a couple of things. You know, he could, if they're going to meet face to face, I would love for Trump to say: if you're not sincere about doing something that's a substantial peace, the Senate sanctions are coming right down the pike and in come more arms immediately. And Europe's already committed more. I've never seen Europe. More committed.
He could honestly say that. Europe is more in today than I think they were two years ago.
So, how important would it be for him to say the sanctions are coming if you're not sincere? No, I think you've got the elements there of a broad plan, Brian. I think those are the elements. The one that I would say is also there's about $300 billion in frozen Russian money sitting in bank accounts in Europe. It would be a good move for the United States and Europe to say we're going to seize those funds And we're going to use that to bankroll these purchases of U.S.
weapons going forward to keep Ukraine in the fight. The problem for the strategy you're outlining just now is that economic sanctions don't scare Vladimir Putin, right? He's seen the biggest economic sanctions over the last nearly four years, and they have not slowed down Russia's war.
So just saying we're going to do more of that doesn't change his calculus. It's really got to be about a longer-term commitment to Ukraine and to showing that the United States and Europe are not going to walk away. That's what will change him to think maybe he's not going to get what he wants. The other thing I would say is different about these sanctions are the secondary sanctions. And there is some reports that India picked up the phone and said, hey, you know, they're going to tariff me 100%.
So I don't even know about buying your oil.
So they're going to have a sustained relationship and they'll probably make the purchases. But that really would affect them. The next would be Turkey and Brazil. And the last one would probably be China.
So that would be a little bit start hurting your friends. Yeah, no, you're right. But the question is, can we do things that hurt Russia without hurting ourselves and hurting our economic well-being? And because Russia is such a big crude oil producer, it's either the second or the third largest crude oil producer in the world, if you do something that makes it really costly for people, including China and India, who are the two biggest purchasers of Russian oil, if you make it really, really expensive for them, ultimately that price is going to get passed on to American and European consumers, and that's going to hurt our economic vitality. And so far, I don't think President Trump's been willing to go there.
So right now, it looks like just by two years of an offensive from Moscow, they've only taken 1% of the land.
So, and they've lost over a million casualties by all accounts. They're using prisoners, North Korean soldiers, and they're still not punching through. But there are reports, Andrew, I don't know if you've seen them, that there's a major Russian offensive right now. Uh on the eve of this meeting. Have you heard that?
Yeah, so there's some gains. Russia is pushing across a pretty long front, but there's only a handful of areas where there's really heavy fighting going on. And now Russia is punching through in one of those pockets. It's not good. It's not a breakthrough in the sense that Ukraine is a house of cards that's going to come apart, but it definitely puts pressure on Ukraine ahead of Friday's meeting.
And it gives Putin a stronger hand to say to the president, look, Ukraine's on the back foot here. I'm going to get what I want eventually, so why not give it to me? And that's where I think the real danger is for Friday with President Trump and his strategy. This is not a war about territory. And if the president approaches it simply as a question of, here, let's chop off pieces of Ukraine and hand them to Russia, thinking that that might cause Vladimir Putin to stop, that's not what's going to make Putin stop, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Well, do you think from your reports, Andrew, that Steve Woodkoff got Something different last week from Vladimir Putin that had him contact the president and say there's some movement here because we did hear about some discrepancy between some type of land swaps. Yeah, so the details are fuzzy, but there have been some reports in the Wall Street Journal and other places describing what the president's envoy and Vladimir Putin talked about last week. It seems like what Putin put on the table was: hey, if Ukraine withdraws from the entire region, which is called the Donbass, plus the other areas of Ukraine that Russia has laid claim to, then Putin would agree to a ceasefire.
So he's flipping the sequencing. The original plan that Trump and Witkoff had put on the table with the Russians was: let's get the ceasefire in place now, and then let's talk about a peace settlement.
So, what Putin has sort of put on the table here is a reverse sequence, and that has caused a lot of panic in Ukraine. It's caused a lot of panic in Europe because they're worried that we're going to be giving away stuff to the Russians and in exchange for a pretty flimsy offer for a possible ceasefire.
So, not enough. Yeah, I said Russia would be ready to withdraw from the southern. Region of Zaporizha and Kherson in exchange for a full control of Duncan, that according to the Europeans. And then Witkoff walked it back. He claimed the next day in a call with his chief aides and European leaders, suggesting Russia would both withdraw and freeze the front line.
So it's important to get some clarification on something like that, but that would be something new.
So if I'm Witkoff walking into the same meeting, I'd say, okay, there is something going on here. Yeah, it's just the question is: is there an actual Russian concession?
So far, there's no indication there's a concession. And the Russians have this very funny expression, which is the only free cheese is in a mousetrap. And so I think that is a bit of what's going on here. And then the part which I think Secretary Rubio has put his finger on is that you want to bring in the president as a closer. You don't want to bring the president in as the person who just kind of tests the waters, takes Putin's temperature.
And unfortunately, that's kind of where we're going on Friday. And the president himself said this in his press conference yesterday. He wants to feel Putin out, I think was the phrase he used, and then make a judgment on whether the Russians are serious. I think the record over the past six months is that Putin is not serious and that he's been diddling the president. The president has complained about this on multiple occasions, but now he seems eager to kind of do something that's dramatic.
It's similar, if you remember, Brian. To the meetings he had with the North Korean leader during his first term in office, where there were two sort of high-level meetings and not a ton of sort of ground was laid in advance. And ultimately, those two meetings with Kim Jong-un did not lead to a breakthrough in U.S.-North Korean relations. I suspect we're going to follow that script on Friday. Here's what Jack Keene said: cut 26.
The part that Putin wants is the cold so-called fortified belt. Five Ukrainian cities all fortified along a 50-mile route. Putin could get this conciliatory, not having to fight for it, go to a ceasefire. You know he's going to violate a ceasefire. He has always violated them in the past.
And he would be in a much better position to really grab off some territory inside of Ukraine.
So, if you have a ceasefire without security guarantees, they could keep moving, right? Yes and no. I think there's another good possibility for Friday, which would be a partial ceasefire. What President Trump had demanded up to this point was comprehensive. But let's imagine that Putin and Trump agree that there should be a break, a moratorium on Russian and Ukrainian attacks from the air.
And that that would lead to a break in attacks on Ukrainian cities, which have been rather devastating throughout Trump's time in office since January.
Something like that would not be all bad. The question is, how long would it persist? Would it go past, say, 30 days? And at that point, would it break down? And who would be blamed for any breakdown?
I think something like that would give the Ukrainians a sort of a breather, which they seriously need. It would allow Putin to look like a reasonable guy who's willing to wheel and deal, and it would give the president a big accomplishment. That would not be the worst of all worlds by any stretch, if that's what. What comes out of Friday?
So do you think a no-fly zone, if they just said nothing flying, no drones, no jets, does that hurt Ukraine more than Russia? A no-fly zone is different than what I'm talking about. I think jets and drones are going to continue to be flying around. Particularly, drones are absolutely central to how this war is being fought. I think it's a question of whether they're used to launch attacks or not.
And so, a no-fly zone would suggest everything is grounded, nothing's flying around, which I think would be bad for Ukraine because they rely on these systems to monitor what Russia's up to and have also mastered the ability to hit Russian forces using these kinds of systems. The problem for the Ukrainians is they are a very big country, and defending it against Russian missile attacks and drone attacks relies on a lot of advanced technology that the United States, for example, the Patriot missiles that President Trump has offered Ukraine in recent weeks. There's a finite number of those systems in U.S. and Western inventories. And so, there just isn't a lot of that stuff to give away, whereas Russia is ramping up its production of missiles.
So over time, there's a gap that's inevitably opening up where Russia is able to get more stuff in and hit Ukraine harder, and Ukraine is less capable of defending itself. Two last points. Number one, I worry about 45%, they say, of the Russian economy is military. And if they stop fighting, what do they do with all those people? That's their job.
They could start stockpiling, which does not good for the world, but what do they do? Right now they're in a war footing, and that's how they're employing people. Number two is, do you think Vladimir Putin cares about embarrassing Trump knowing that three and a half years he's got to deal with this guy? And if they go to Alaska and Trump walks out with nothing, He's poisoned that relationship. I think you're right, Brian.
I think the Russians here don't have a totally free hand, and we shouldn't pretend that they're 10 feet tall and that they're going to march all the way to Kyiv. Those kinds of perceptions are not accurate. And I think you're right that Trump is unpredictable and the Russians don't want to get on his bad side. The problem is that Vladimir Putin has some very broad goals, and he cares about them, I think, more than he cares about his relationship with Donald Trump. And those goals essentially mean subjugating Ukraine.
And if that's what he's, you know, the other second set of goals is put a wedge between the United States and Ukraine and Europe and kind of create enough ill will and mistrust that the relationship starts to fall apart. We saw some of that, a preview of that, after the disastrous Zelensky meeting in the Oval Office back in February.
So those are the kinds of sort of tricks that Putin has up his sleeve. And the challenge for the president is like making sure you don't get pulled into any of those Russian machinations. And it really just Made clear to Putin that A, you can't wait us out, B, we're going to keep Allowing Ukraine and the Europeans to buy our weapons and see, you need to stop this. And we're not going to sort of fold our tent and stop supporting the Ukrainians. Like they're the victims here, they're defending themselves against a Russian invasion.
Yeah, Andrew, one thing is NATO's never been stronger. I think they're over the fact that they understand Trump much better this time. And I think the more united, even the Germans are going to start putting money into their military. Two more countries are now involved in NATO. They're formidable, big assets.
So a lot of the Russian strategy has already blown up in their face. Andrew, thanks. Absolutely. Yeah.
Andrew, thanks so much. Dynamic times. I look forward to talking to you again. It's the Will Kane Show. Watch it live at noon Eastern, Monday through Thursday on FoxNews.com or on the Fox News YouTube channel.
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