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00:00And the Kremlin has since confirmed that the U.S. envoy Steve Whitkoff did indeed meet
00:04Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
00:07Let's get some analysis and speak to Jean-Paul Palomero, the former Air Force Chief of Staff
00:12and former Supreme Commander of NATO Allied Forces.
00:15Hello to you, Jean-Paul.
00:16Thank you for speaking to Paris Direct.
00:20Vladimir Putin says there's cautious optimism over the ceasefire deal.
00:24When you listened to his comments, did it sound like optimism or did it sound like skepticism?
00:30Well, I'm more on the skepticism part because we knew that Vladimir Putin is not keen to
00:39accept a ceasefire.
00:41He wants to pay himself some time to make sure first that he regains the Kursk enclave,
00:49if I may say so.
00:52Obviously, the Russian forces are doing that now.
00:56So restoring the integral sovereignty and territory sovereignty of Russia is first and
01:05foremost.
01:06Secondly, he didn't change his mind about his strategic goals, neutralizing Ukraine
01:16at the end, making sure that there is no real guarantee insurance on the long term,
01:27and so on and so forth.
01:30But now this is true that the pressure has turned on to Mr. Putin, and it appears that
01:38Mr. Trump is pushing harder than we thought, perhaps, initially.
01:45And then he is more balanced now towards keeping the support of Ukraine, which is good news.
01:53So what will happen now is that the Russians are very clever, indeed, in information and
02:00influence.
02:01They will try to find a bridge in the way of presenting the ceasefire, just to try to
02:09reverse the pressure back on the Ukraine, saying, you see, the Ukrainians are not accepting
02:18our vision of the ceasefire, so this is their fault, et cetera, et cetera.
02:23So now, and the final one is that how much, what can Mr. Trump do in addition to sanctions,
02:34et cetera, which will not have effect on the short term against Mr. Putin?
02:40And if he wants really to push Putin for a real ceasefire, he will have to put something
02:49very heavy on the table, this kind of discussion about the future architecture of security
02:56for Europe and this sort of things.
02:58I'm also wondering about transparency here.
03:01Steve Whitkoff in Moscow on Thursday meeting with Vladimir Putin.
03:05We have little to no details.
03:07We only had a confirmation from the Kremlin that the talks did happen.
03:11Why aren't there more details over that meeting?
03:13Whitkoff allegedly bringing back some information to hand to Trump personally.
03:18Why don't we know more about what came out of that?
03:21Because from my perspective is that it's not conclusive and it's not for the benefit of
03:28Mr. Trump, who cannot reclaim the peace for himself so far, because he has perhaps underestimated
03:39the Russian posture and overestimated his ability to push Putin for a true ceasefire.
03:54It's easier to put the pressure on the Ukrainian than on Russia for very obvious reasons.
04:00And now, as I said before, I mean, I think Putin and his team will have to realize that
04:07if they really want to push Putin, they will have to put pressure at the higher level,
04:13the strategic level, if I may say so.
04:15I'm wondering how they do that.
04:17The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, chiming in this Friday, he said it would be
04:22wrong for Putin to place any conditions on a ceasefire since Russia is the aggressor.
04:29Is it indeed wrong to listen to any concerns or conditions that Putin is laying out?
04:35Well, if we want peace, nothing is wrong.
04:40I mean, we take a situation as it is now.
04:45We cannot forget that Putin is the aggressor.
04:49And a few weeks ago, it seems that Mr. Zelensky in the Oval Office was the aggressor.
04:57No, Mr. Putin is the aggressor.
05:00It's for him now to accept certain conditions for a ceasefire.
05:05And if he does not, he must assume that.
05:07He must assume that before his own population, before the world, if I may say so.
05:14And even more important, before Mr. Trump, who is really looking for success.
05:21Jean-Paul, thank you very much for your time.
05:22Jean-Paul Palomero, former NATO official.