♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ narrator: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... nicole: at bdo i feel like a true individual, people value me for me, they care about what i want, my needs, my career path,

i matter here. ♪ ♪ narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation, the judy and peter blum kovler foundation, upholding freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad. announcer: and now, bbc news. ♪ anchor:, -- hello, i'm annita mcveigh, and this is the context. >> i am not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. we are going to have europe doing that. we are talking about europe, their next-door neighbor. anchor: donald trump talking about over $300 billion worth of spending. he says america has given that to ukraine, which is an

exaggeration, and he says he will get that much back from this deal. >> he says mr. putin would have to make concessions as part of this deal with ukraine, but what those are, he would not go into any details. ♪ >> president trump hold his first cabinet meeting and says he will meet with ukraine's president zelenskyy on friday to sign a very big agreement on mineral resources, but residence on linsky says he needs assurances first. we are going to have the latest on that situation. also, israel says hamas will hand over the remains of four israeli hostages later tonight in exchange for hundreds of palestinian prisoners. we will be following developments there. also, we will be delving deeper into the global situation surrounding volodymyr zelenskyy and ukraine on tonight's edition

of the security brief. a very warm welcome to the program. donald trump has confirmed that ukraine's president zelenskyy will travel to washington on friday to sign an agreement on critical and rare earth mineral resources. president trump made the comments while speaking to reporters during the first meeting of his cabinet, saying he would not offer any security guarantees for ukraine in the face of russian aggression, as has been demanded by mr. zelenskyy. pres. trump: we are doing very well with russia and ukraine. president zelenskyy is going to be coming on friday, that is now confirmed, and we are going to be signing an agreement which will be a very big agreement. annita: president zelenskyy has described the deal as more of a framework and wants further research is come up particularly on -- further assurances, particularly on security guarantees. it has been reported that mr.

zelenskyy has asked for certain guarantees for the meeting in washington to go ahead. president trump says it is up to europe, not the united states, to promise security guarantees, and that ukraine could forget about joining nato. pres. trump: i am not going to make security guarantees very much. we will have europe doing that, because europe is their next-door neighbor, but we are going to make sure everything goes well, and we will be making -- we will be partnering with ukraine. we very much need rare earth. they have great rare earth. we will be working with sec. burgum and with chris. we will be working on that together. we will have tremendous -- because we don't have much of it there. we need a lot more. annita: let's speak to peter, a

retired american brigadier general who served in the obama administration to the u.s. embassy in russia. good to have you with us today, peter. thank you for your time. given what we have seen in this war over the past three years, what do you think the minimum is that president zelenskyy should be looking for in terms of security guarantees? >> first of all, we have to -- we have to look at this unfortunately remarkable data point. we just past the three year mark of a savage warned that was created by naked russian aggression. they were the aggressor. here we are three years later. ukrainians have fought their hearts out. it is a societal conflict. and right now they are being stretched over a compress over the -- trying to, if you will, pay for something they have

already been paying in lives and effort, and for europe and the united states, i think that, yes, if there can be an arrangement that gets at security guarantees, because of what we have seen, over and over again, is you get a cease-fire, truce, there is a period of time and then another round of aggression. of course valletta mayor zelenskyy is looking -- of course volodymyr zelenskyy is looking for every way he can do it so he can go back to his own people and show their pockets were not picked and that american allies are still with us. and this last point, this is an unbelievably important week. your prime minister is going to be in washington thursday,

tomorrow, macron was just in washington, and now we have full of mirrors linsky in washington, likely on friday. annita: if he says now, according to reports, if he gets more of those security guarantees before he actually sets off to travel there. i just want to get your view from a military perspective, from your experience of russia. what -- how do you think russia will proceed as a security guarantee that is led by europe versus one that has u.s. input? peter: u.s. input, and i do not know what my government is going to be doing over the next year, but a huge piece of it is the u.s. skin in the game.

a security guarantee that we would, as a minimum, backstop the europeans who are supporting , if you will, no desire to be in combat or anything like that. the ukrainians, if there is some so-called deal that gets at these issues of resources and everything else like that. the united states is critical to this. the russians will look at it that way. they see the united states also, god forbid, as an article 5 nuclear guarantor. what they want to do is fracture nato and break our relationship with europe on the military side. >> it was interesting to see donald trump say in the cabinet meeting earlier that if there were u.s. companies, u.s.

personnel in ukraine as the result of a mineral steel, that would be a sort of guarantee. one question i want to ask you, and i do not think it has been explored much yet, is what are your contacts in the u.s. military thinking of these overtures that president trump is making towards president putin? do they have concerns? peter: i will say most of my peers and allied peers have been living in this post-world war ii , post-cold war world. there has been relative stability and peace in europe, though obviously great stress points. what is happening now is complete we, i believe, absolutely irresponsibly upsetting this very careful,

built through relationships. it is not just the military, it is relationships and trust. if we lose trust and the ukrainians lose trust, and more importantly hope, then what are we all about as, if you will, the free minded nations of the world? this negotiation, let's see what happens. they are talking, but there is a lot of devil in the details and the ukrainians cannot be sold out down the road. annita: peter, thank you very much for your time. let's speak now to the president of the dixie group, a ukrainian think tank in the energy sector. great to have you with us as well.

appreciate your time also. let's just take a step back and ask the question -- put the question to you -- what did we actually know about the fine detail of this framework as president zelenskyy calls it so far? peter: the version that will be discussed and signed on friday is probably much better than what was initially presented to ukraine. at least in this version, there is no statements involved with the debt ukraine was to pay. and the other good news is there is no mentioning that ukraine has to contribute to this new front which would be created. i want to remind originally that there was a discussion that ukraine has to contribute $500 billion. it is just incredible for ukraine. i think the third good news is that this agreement, which will be signed, i agree is more

framework agreement than the eu agreement, which will describe how the current investment fund will work, will be governed by ukraine and the u.s. annita: how exactly would that be managed in terms of the division of responsibility or the degree of management, ukraine versus the u.s.? do we know anything about that yet? peter: it is written in a very clearly which. it says the level of ownership depends on the levels of contribution. it is still a risk that if the u.s. contribution a lot and ukraine will have a minor contribution, there is still a possibility that the u.s. actually will manage the fund or ukraine might have a small one. but let's see how it will go. annita: what could this deal look like on the ground in terms

of u.s. companies, u.s. citizens raised in ukraine? as i was discussing with my last guest, president trump in his cabinet meeting earlier was suggesting if there were u.s. citizens in ukraine related to this deal, then that in itself represented a sort of security guarantee. peter: this agreement does not have any answer how to ensure security guarantees for ukraine. it is about the good governance of natural resources. the details -- the devil is in the details. we will see. annita: sorry to interrupt you, but if the u.s. is involved in this deal and is looking to get its hands on resources, presumably that would be americans on the ground and american companies in ukraine as this progress, or perhaps not. you are the expert. you can tell us more about that. >> i can give you an example.

in 2014, chow on the who was in ukraine and was called to the front line, because of the security issues, they just left the country. if we talk about countries with high standards, high security and safety standards, they might not agree to work under conditions where you have shelling and a war. again, this agreement does not explain how it will work. annita: ok, thank you very much. and i am joined now on the program by tobias ellwood, a former u.k. defense minister and senior security and defense advisor at fordham global foresight. really good to have you with us as well on the eve of prime minister starmer's visit to the white house, following president macron being there earlier this week, we know that mr. macron and kyiv are do to have

conversations on the weekend as well, and clearly they have already had an exchange of thoughts following president macron's visit with donald trump. what do you think the u.k. position needs to be as he goes into talk to donald trump? >> good evening. we have done well to increase our defense posture, to put more money into defense. that will go down well with president trump, who has been calling for this for many years, and it has been overdue, but there are still an awful lot of clarity and where we are going and the bigger picture here. this minerals deal is being promoted in different ways. president trump sees this as a domestic issue to prove to the u.s. audience that kyiv is repaying some of the u.s. funds that were sent to ukraine, and president zelenskyy is using this as a way to secure funding, but also to secure some international long term credit

-- long-term guarantees. but zelinski is also using this as an opportunity to go to the white house and have that one to one with trump, to look him in the eye and gauge where the president is taking office, to ask the president directly why the u.s. was facing russia alone without ukraine, why trump called zelinski, not putin, a dictator. why is there an active d.c. narrative to say ukraine started the war? why did america vote with russia and the u.n. a couple days ago? is this part of a big, clever plan that leads to a long-term peace deal, or more worryingly, is this the start of a fundament of change in the u.s.-european relationship that is now seen as transactional, as offending any sense of duty to defend the international rules based order, which is not looking good. and simply recognizing from a trump spect if the world is in chaos now, best to allow each and every superpower their own

regional influence, hence u.s. interest in canada or panama. if this is the case, and we do not know yet, the choice for ukraine is very serious indeed. do we wait for trump to attend a peace deal that gives moscow time to rearm, regroup with the very real prospect of a wider conflict further down the road, or does europe wake up to the long-term danger or finally lean in to support ukraine and pushing russia out? annita: we have had many conversations with many guests -- sorry to cut in, tobias, many conversations with many guests on bbc news over the last week or so on that very point, but just to that idea that you brought in about president zelenskyy going with hope, perhaps it is a bit of a gamble as well that if he and his team get in the same rooms as president trump and his team, that he can get that sentence.

that is what he talked about earlier. at the moment, it is a framework, but he wants a sentence, which encapsulates those security guarantees. what you think is the minimum he could hope for from president trump? tobias: i do not think he is expecting anything more than to simply return with some money in his pocket, because as i say, there is an absolute desire -- i just came back from ukraine -- not to have a grubby deal that somehow allows putin to return to the international stage metoo move from a pariah status to one of celebrated he wrote in russia -- celebrated hero in russia where he can claim a victory. if that happens, putin will sinfully do this again in a couple years. he sees ukraine as a nonstate. he sees this as part of a wider pressure motherland -- russia motherland. that is the conversation keir starmer needs to persuade trump

to say it must end here. annita: how important is this meeting between keir starmer and donald trump going to be in terms of setting the tone of the u.s.-u.k. relationship over the next four years? tobias: it is critical. we need to persuade america that it is in america's interest for europe and america to stay together. yes, we need to spend more on security, but we need america there as well. america needs to focus on china. that is the challenge over the next couple of decades. we can help america do that but not if we are distracted with war with russia. annita: thank you very much. around the world and across the u.k., this is bbc news. ♪

annita: israel says hamas will hand over the remains of four israeli hostages later in exchange for hundreds of

palestinian prisoners. this time it says there will be no public ceremony for the handover of the bodies. they include victims whose families have been notified. sebastian is in jerusalem with more details. correspondent: at 11:00 local time, the handover exchange should begin. i think it might still be sowed down by various factors, but we have heard from both the hamas spokesperson and from the israeli prime minister's office that this is a time where the four dead hostages that hamas has and as part of phase one of a cease-fire deal are due to hand over, that that will then happen, and in return, the more than 600 palestinian prisoners who were scheduled to be released on saturday in exchange for a previous number, six

living israeli hostages on saturday, they were not. that was suspended. that was essentially the israeli government, prime minister benjamin netanyahu saying it was unacceptable in the way it was stage managing as a show of force, as propaganda. these hostage handovers. and we have had just before that, two days before that, we had had the first handover of dead bodies, and i think that was the pound -- was the final straw for israel to have this almost parading of coffin, and one of them did not even contain the person it was supposed to be, so that was a stumbling block for more than 24 hours until the body of the correct hostage was handed over to israel. essentially, mr. netanyahu said this is enough, we are not doing this anymore unless hamas agrees to do any subsequent hostage handovers in private. annita: that was sebastian usher. with me as a senior fellow at

the foundation for defense of democracies to talk about the wider progress of the cease-fire. right to have you with us. its focus on the region, first of all, and both sides, the palestinians, the israelis, clearly wondering about the sense of phase two, in the sense of what they actually get to phase two. >> the question is whether phase two, there was a delay in the israeli return of some of the palestinian prisoners. there was also a delay in the presidential special envoy trip to the region which was supposed to help press negotiations over starting phase two. those negotiations were supposed to be taking place already throughout the month of february in delhi and cairo. unfortunately, they were not. loss, the images of the hostages, both dead and alive throughout phase one, have created real pressure on the ground and real questions over if it's even worth going to phase two.

annita: into this comes to steve wycoff, the president's special envoy for the region. we heard donald trump appeal to the middle east situation -- allude to the middle east situation in his cabinet meeting earlier. he said it is up to israel. the u.s. focus is on the israeli point of view rather than the palestinian point of view in terms of what happens next. tobias: also -- >> also, israel is going to have to feel safe, feel secure with whatever happens in gaza, whether that is a new political order, a multi-national coalition to make sure hamas cannot arm again, or the israeli opposition, to have a guardianship role in hamas in gaza to prevent the why's of hamas for a certain time, but the x factor is at what with the israelis feel safe or secure enough to have essentially hands

off the wheel. the president is signaling it may not be his short-term political priority because he may not see a win for u.s. diplomacy. annita: how concerned is israel at the moment about iran? let me refer back to president mike rounds visit to the white house earlier this week. he went to talk about ukraine. he said to president trump, if you deal with president putin in this way, than other countries, china and iran may see you as weak. the u.s. has just issued new drama sanctions on iran. tell us about that and what israel's thinking is on its security vis-a-vis iran. >> i am glad you much and that, because what happens in the middle east never remains confined to it. hamas is a proxy of the islamic republic of iran. it has been an arsonist behind many of the middle east fires. the israelis also see a significant hand here in terms

of potential resurrection of hamas or even taking advantage of another chaos zone at the end of the syrian civil war on israel's other border. we also have to note that hezbollah, to israel's north, also continues to kind of find new ways to get funding from the islamic republic despite the cease-fire still being active. i am glad you mention president mike rounds comments as well, because it is likely that if the trump administration is keen to remove a blow medic, military, and even economic pressure -- diplomatic, military, and economic pressure, they are likely to say let's connect the dots between russia and iran. but i think president macron is right in that if you disconnect the dots by turning off western support for ukraine, what happens is actually you free up russia's defense industrial base to make good on all of the deals with the islamic republic. remember, tehran has given russia drones, even given pressure close range listed missiles all for use in ukraine

right now. if you take the pressure off the russians, that creates space for deeper military and political ties between moscow and tehran. anchor: we are out of time, but thank you for coming to the studio to join us on "the context." to stay with us here on bbc news. much more to come. narrator: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... bdo, accountants and advisors, funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation, the judy and peter blum kovler foundation, upholding freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad. ♪ ♪ usa today calls it "arguably the best bargain in streaming" that's because the free pbs app let's you watch the best of pbs anytime, anywhere.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ narrator: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... nicole: at bdo i feel like a true individual, people value me for me, they care about what i want, my needs, my career path,