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Trump-Putin summit: The most 'vomit-inducing' in history? | LBC
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Aug 17, 2025
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to be joined by key European figures including Sir Keir Starmer, Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen, for crunch talks with Donald Trump in Washington. Recent hours have seen a growing list of European figures throw their support behind the Ukrainian President, announcing their attendance at Monday's White House summit. As the dust settles on the two presidents' first set of talks, Simon Marks, LBC's Washington Correspondent and Stuart Crawford, a defence analyst and Former Army Officer give Vanessa Feltz their rundowns of what took place. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #vanessafeltz #simonmarks #donaldtrump #putin #borisjohnson #zelensky #russiaukrainewar #alaskasummit #politics #lbc LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
View Video Transcript
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Let's discuss this with Simon Marks, LBC's Washington correspondent and certainly my
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favourite Washington correspondent. Simon, hello, it's all kicking off all over the flipping place
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It certainly is, Vanessa. Europe was completely stung yesterday when Donald Trump essentially
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after the collapse of that summit in Alaska on Friday, decided that he was going to abandon
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his quest for a ceasefire in Ukraine and instead adhere himself firmly to Vladimir Putin's calls
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for Ukraine to cede control over the entire Donbass region in the east in order to advance
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the cause of peace. So European leaders now racing to join Volodymyr Zelensky here on Monday
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partly, I think, to protect him from another made-for-TV mugging by Donald Trump. And if
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in the room, Vice President J.D. Vance. But also, this is essentially a race now to save
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the transatlantic alliance that has kept the peace in Europe for the last 80 years. Now
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White House officials here are suggesting that this is going to be a day-long series of meetings
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tomorrow. They say there will be breakout sessions, and they are almost couching this as though it is
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the negotiation. It is the discussion at which land swaps will be agreed. Remember, land swaps
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that Volodymyr Zelensky has completely ruled out. But this sense of uncertainty going into the meeting
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is absolutely overwhelming, given that we only knew within the last two or three hours
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that the Prime Minister would be joining French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
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Ursula von der Leyen and other top European officials in this rush to Washington to try and shore things up for Zelensky
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I mean, one of the things we know is that Putin is trumpeting Friday's meeting as a great success for Russia and a PR coup and an
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absolute triumph and all that footage of him on the red carpet in the presidential limo and
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generally being fawned all over and you know lick spittled has been has been incredibly
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beneficial to him he thoroughly enjoyed using it making much of it hasn he so donald trump must be smarting because we know that he has this very thin skin a very delicate ego and that he
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also responds favorably to being fawned over and a bit of sycophancy so he's going to be feeling you
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know obviously licking his wounds and also i think he we we felt on the international stage that he
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was going to kind of saunter in and come out with something there was going to be something on the
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table. Instead of nothing, the lunch was abandoned. You know, the meeting ended hours early. The whole
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thing was egg all over Trump's face, really. So what do you think he must be feeling now? And what
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on earth is he going to bring to the meeting tomorrow? He's desperately trying to turn it
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around. I mean, the wound licking with Donald Trump never lasts very long. Yesterday morning
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European leaders may have been hoping that he would spend the weekend in quiet reflection over
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why it was a huge mistake to invite Vladimir Putin to set foot on American soil for the first
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time in a decade, much less applaud him as he stepped off his aeroplane, roll that red carpet
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out, give him a trip in the beast, and even, Vanessa, allow him to speak first at a joint
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press appearance that was being held on American soil, utterly unprecedented in the annals of the
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modern American presidency. But any wound licking didn't last longer than the round of golf that he
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had yesterday with US Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff. By the time that was over, the White House was
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indicating that they were backing Putin's territorial claims on Ukraine. They've, interestingly, this morning, backed away a little bit from that. Steve Whitcoff was asked on
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television here within the last hour if he could confirm that Donald Trump was absolutely now
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backing Putin's demand for the whole of eastern Ukraine and Wyckoff just wouldn't go there today
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That's what tomorrow's meetings are all about, he said. So there is a sense that they understand
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that they have deeply irritated, not just Zelensky, of course, but enraged European leaders
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with whom only last Wednesday Donald Trump struck an agreement a five plan for the diplomatic for the summit with Vladimir Putin that he then completely binned the second he was in Putin embrace
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Simon Marks, thank you very much indeed. Let me go straight to Stuart Crawford, former Army officer and defence yst
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Stuart, good to have you on the programme. Boris says nauseating but essential
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I wonder what you think is going to happen next, though. Well, I mean, you had me chuckling when you read Boris Johnson's diatribe
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heavy on the alliteration and hyperbole in typical Boris Johnson style. Yeah, but many different words for vomit, puke and chunder and nauseating, all sorts of things
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I suppose being an Oxford chap, he's got to show off his education
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Whereas we Cambridge people, of course, tend to be more modest. We're much more understated, certainly, much more subtle, you're quite right
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Tell me, though, whether you think he's right. Was it utterly stomach churning and yet necessary
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Because Simon Marks just described it as a great big mistake. Well, I don't think it was a mistake, actually
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I think it was necessary, if only to start the process of some sort of negotiations towards peace in Ukraine
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Far better jaw-jaw than war-war, as I always say. It very much depends on what happens tomorrow when the European leaders and Zelensky go to Washington, mob handed, if you like, or I would say they go as a posse
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What can happen? When you say it really very much depends what happens
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What are the potential things that could happen? Because it sounds as if doesn't it
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Putin is demanding territory. Obviously, Zelensky doesn't want to concede a single foot or square inch of territory
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So it looks as if they're at a kind of stalemate before it's even started, aren't they
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Well, they're at loggerheads. But who knows what compromises both parties or all parties may be prepared to concede
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I don't know what that would be. I have long thought that the war would end with Ukraine having to give up claims at least temporarily to its territory illegally occupied by the Russians But whether that would be the endgame I not really sure And I think Zelensky is absolutely
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right in insisting that he's not going to give up any territory, because why should aggression and
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illegal occupation be rewarded? I just can't see how that's going to be the case
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So they'll have to find some sort of way through this morass to try and get to the next stage
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And could I just mention, and I don't think many other people have mentioned this
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the difference between a ceasefire and a peace deal. Yes, please do
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A ceasefire tends to be almost immediate, whereas peace negotiations can go on for a very long time
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The classic example is the end of the First World War, when, as everybody knows
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A ceasefire was instituted on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918
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And yet the Treaty of Versailles was not completed until June the next year
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And even more so at the end of the Second World War, because of the many disparate groups that were involved
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where the first treaty in Europe was the Treaty of Paris in 1947
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And the one that brought the Japan War, the Far East War today
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wasn't until 1952. I just wonder, Stuart, whether you're reminiscing and your historical allusions might be disappointing to people
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because it doesn't really seem to many that we're anywhere near a ceasefire or any kind of peace treaty
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You're remembering these things, you're setting the dates out so that people don't get them confused
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but are we anywhere near anything like that now? No, not at the moment
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I don't think he's interested in peace at all, to be perfectly honest
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But he's certainly not interested in a ceasefire. Whereas peace negotiations could take place while the fighting continues
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And that allows Putin to grab as much collateral, as much of Ukrainian territory as he can do in the intervening months and years, if you like
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Stuart Crawford, thank you very much indeed. That's Stuart Crawford, former army officer and defence yst
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