SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Yesterday's high-level summit between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin ended in uncertainty - no announcement of a ceasefire in the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine. And despite both leaders saying they want to see the war end, neither laid out a way to get there. Evelyn Farkas is executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense under President Obama. She joins us now in our studios. Thanks so much for being with us.
EVELYN FARKAS: Thank you for having me, Scott.
SIMON: How do you read the outcome of yesterday's summit?
FARKAS: Well, unfortunately, I don't think we made any progress at all. Vladimir Putin was the one who suggested the meeting, and his intention was to essentially buy time to allow his war to continue. So he achieved his objective, and it doesn't look like we've made any progress in the negotiations. And so that is really unfortunate because, of course, on top of that, President Trump literally rolled out a red carpet for a war criminal. And that is also - that kind of signaling is also - weakens the U.S., the European, the Ukrainian position and also, of course, you know, norms and the rule of law.
SIMON: I - a lot of people noted that, when Vladimir Putin says there's no end to the war unless what he calls root causes are dealt with - what does he consider the root causes to be?
FARKAS: Well, Scott, I would say the root causes are his neo-imperialism. So he considers the root cause to be the fact that Ukraine wants to be an independent sovereign state, not governed by Moscow under the Russian Federation. Putin would like to essentially reestablish the Soviet Union or, even more ambitiously, the Russian Empire, and he wants a sphere of influence. And the Ukrainian people have been very clear that they want their own sovereignty. They are a separate ethnic people. And under international law, they have the right to that. So Putin is really challenging not just Ukraine and the Ukrainian people but, of course, the international order. And that is a root cause, yes.
And that - and because the root cause for us is, I think, existential - because once you start challenging borders and you start, you know, essentially erasing the norms and the rules that we set up after World War II to prevent great wars again, you will see China and others taking advantage. And it creates a much more dangerous, destabilized world.
SIMON: At the same time, Ukraine is suffering great losses. Is it just in the interest of Ukraine to reach some sort of an agreement that is short of what were its goals?
FARKAS: Well, of course, any kind of ceasefire that would save lives - you can't, you know, reject that out of hand. But the reality is that Vladimir Putin does not want to end this war. He thinks that time is on his side. Although his troops are making very small advances on the ground in the east and in the south on the border with Ukraine, they are still making some progress. And so again, he thinks that he can use time and eventually get what he wants, perhaps at the negotiating table or perhaps on the battlefield.
So for the Ukrainians to take too long a pause might mean that the Russians rearm. And again, if there's no comprehensive deal, then the ceasefire is buying time, maybe, for the Ukrainians. But ultimately, they don't have the military manpower that the Russians have. They really need us to step in with military equipment and, frankly, with the weight of our diplomacy, which unfortunately didn't happen yesterday, it appears.
SIMON: How - and how do you read the relationship between the two leaders?
FARKAS: Well, President Trump really, you know, bends over backwards, it appears, to try to be in the good graces of Vladimir Putin. I think he views the war that Vladimir Putin launched against Ukraine - and, as I said, the international order -as kind of an irritant, like something in the way of a relationship that he would like between the United States and the Russian Federation and between him and President Putin. He does have a little bit of a retrospective view of the world, and he's very transactional. He doesn't seem to understand the dynamics - the ethnic and other dynamics going on here.
So ultimately, for President Trump, it seems that the most important thing is for him to get along with the president of Russia so that they can make deals in the future. And somehow, he has a sense that Russia's a greater power than it actually is in real terms today in the 21st century.
SIMON: Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, thank you very much for coming in this morning to speak with us. We're grateful.
FARKAS: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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