transcript

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Speaker 3:
[00:58] K-Pop Demon Hunters, Saja Boyz Breakfast Meal and Huntrix Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja Boyz could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.

Speaker 4:
[01:13] It is an honor to share.

Speaker 3:
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Speaker 4:
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Speaker 5:
[01:41] Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me, Saul David and Patrick Bishop. Well, nothing is simple when it comes to diplomacy, is it? I was reminded of that this week when Peter Magyar, Hungary's new Prime Minister, said he would drop his country's controversial veto of the EU's 90 billion euro financial loan to Ukraine, but only if Kyiv reopened the Druzhba Pipeline, the ship's oil from Russia. If the Druzhba Pipeline is in a condition to carry oil, he said, then it should be reopened as promised. We also call on Russia to supply oil into the pipeline. Without it, it cannot function.

Speaker 6:
[02:21] Well, as you say Saul, nothing is simple not only when it comes to diplomacy, but also when it comes to this pipeline, because although it appeared that the oil would start to flow again, Zelensky's agreed to restore passage of oil through that pipeline, which I remember comes from Eastern Russia, and then funnels through Ukraine to various points in Europe. Well, that all seemed to be hunky-dory. Everything was going fine. The EU finalized the loan to Kiev, which has been sitting there blocked by Mr. Orban, the outgoing Prime Minister. But shortly after that, Russia said it's going to suspend oil coming through the pipeline from Kazakhstan to Germany via this route, citing technical reasons. There, the Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Novak, said that from the 1st of May, volumes of Kazakh oil previously transported via the Druzhba Pipeline to Germany will indeed be redirected to other available logistics routes. Now, it's all a bit murky what this actually means. Is this a punishment for Germany? We don't know. But anyway, like I say, it's a complicated story. The interesting thing really is that, you know, the money is now flowing, isn't it? This is good news for Kiev, obviously. What's it going to be spent on? Well, the obvious thing, I think, is Patriot missiles. We've got a question coming up later on about how self-sufficient is Ukraine in defending itself. One thing it cannot provide is Patriot missiles. We get regular statements from President Zelensky saying we're about to run out. And only the other day, he was saying a lot of the running around, he's always on the move going around various capitals, world capitals, appealing for air defenses. So that's where they're most vulnerable. So it seems obvious that that will be number one on their wish list when the money starts flowing.

Speaker 5:
[04:23] Yeah, and Zelensky is trying to capitalize on this new accord with the EU and with Hungary, I suppose separately, by demanding that Breslau formally opens negotiations about Ukraine's accession to the EU. And what's interesting about all of this, Patrick, is if we consider some of the comments made by the EU recently that an attack on one is an attack on all, I mean, it's almost an inverted commas like joining NATO, isn't it, in the sense that it will give Ukraine an extra layer of protection. Mr. Zelensky said on Tuesday, it's entirely fair to open negotiation clusters on our EU membership. Technically, Ukraine is already fully prepared. He said that after speaking to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. And when the reference to technical process is the fact that it was that process is being blocked by Hungary under the leadership of Mr. Orban. So obviously he's hoping that this change in atmosphere will also unlock those negotiations.

Speaker 6:
[05:24] Yeah, I mean, one would like to think that's what would inevitably happen. All this America's attitude, the open hostility of Russia, etc. is all driving Europe closer together, isn't it? So I think that is the direction of travel, henceforth in diplomatic terms. And some more good news, we always like flagging up the good news, don't we Saul? Is a report that I think is very significant, and you obviously do too, appear to the Financial Times saying that the boss of Sweden's military intelligence and security service, one General Thomas Nielsen, is saying that they got evidence that the Kremlin systematically manipulates data to convince the West that Russia's economy is effectively withstanding the pressure of sanctions and all this massive military spending that it's engaged in. Now, we have to say they do some success, don't they, because whenever we cite, you know, appalling sort of statistics from a Russian point of view about the state of the economy, there's always some commentator who pipes up saying, oh, it's not nearly as bad as it looks, et cetera, et cetera. But according to Swedish intelligence, it is indeed in a very parlous state, and a lot of the figures that come out of Russia are just simply massaged to put the best possible interpretation on events. So for example, Russian inflation is probably closer to 15.15% rather than the 5 nudging 6% that the Kremlin claims it is. And Nielsen also said that Russia's deficit has been understated by about $30 billion. And in order to kind of just keep things ticking over, they need the price for euros crude to stay at over north of $100 a barrel for at least a year in order to close the budget deficit. Well, prices would need to remain that either significantly longer to try and repair the damage done to Russia's economy on other fronts. So everything in the defense industrial sector, except the drone industries, is making a loss according to this report. And this is very telling, isn't it Saul? Because it does confirm the general picture that the Russian economy is in a very bad way. Even the defense industry, which was apparently booming as a result of all the massive expenditure, is really a very flimsy construct. And that, too, is pretty shaky, essentially.

Speaker 5:
[08:03] Yeah, and it's interesting why they would do this, Patrick. I mean, the answer is obvious by exaggerating Russia's economic strength. The Kremlin hopes to bolster its bargaining position at any future peace talks. I mean, you know, nothing to see here. We can survive for as long as you want. I mean, this is the argument they peddled very effectively with the Americans, of course. The Americans have totally bought into the idea that the Russian economy is still on two feet. And therefore, this is a nation that they'd like to do business with in the future if only they could deal with this pesky issue of the Ukraine War, which clearly, and obviously, I'm talking about the Maga interpretation, is Ukraine's fault in the first place. And it's astonishing that it's come to that. But this willingness to lie about pretty much everything, of course, is also happening on the battlefield. The reality, as we know, Patrick, as our reports have shown in recent weeks, is carnage for the Russians. But that didn't stop our old friend Valerie Gerasimova, the chief of the Russian Army's general staff, from claiming this week that since early 2026, Russian forces have seen 1700 square kilometres of land and 80 settlements, including the entirety of Luhansk Oblast. Gerasimova also claimed that Russian forces seized about 700 square kilometres and 34 settlements in the last two months alone. That's March and April. So when the ISW, the American think tank, had a look at this, assessed this claim, it said, actually, there's only evidence to indicate that Russian forces captured 381.5 square miles. That's about less than a quarter of what they're claiming, more like a fifth, and seized 13 settlements since the start of 2026. And more importantly, that they have only seized two settlements and have actually lost 60 square kilometres of ground across the theatre since the 1st of March. So that's confirming, Patrick, what we've been saying, that there has very much been a turn on the battlefield. The Russians are no longer accruing extra ground. The truth is, Gorassimov is desperate to obscure Russia's disappointing lack of progress thus far in its so-called spring-summer 2026 offensive. Now, that was launched in mid-March, apparently, according to Russian sources, but has so far failed to make any tactical gains. In fact, it's lost ground. I mean, take a recent mechanised assault by two platoon-sized forces east of Chassiv Yar that didn't even make it to the line of contact. Forget about actually making any ground. They didn't even get to the front line. Why? Because as we've been saying for the last few weeks, Patrick, the Ukrainians are currently in the ascendancy on the battlefield thanks to their drone innovations. FPV drones to destroy Russian attacking forces, mid-range drones equipped with AI to attack targets behind the lines, including command posts, ammunition depots and air defences, and of course, this very successful longer-range drone campaign that they've been running, and also with rockets. They've now developed their own Flamingo rockets to destroy oil installations, weapons manufacturers and even warships.

Speaker 6:
[11:14] Yeah, that's very significant, but also we've got to remember this imbalance they're now experiencing in manpower with recruitment lagging way behind battlefield losses. But to get back to those long-range strikes, what we've seen again this week, another wave of deep strikes causing multiple fires at oil facilities all over the place. The Tuapse oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai, more attacks all successful against the Novo Kvibi-Shevsk and CSN oil refineries in Samara Oblast, an oil terminal at the Vysotsk-Lukhoe-2 distribution transshipment complex in Leningrad, and so on and so forth, all over the place. They're also hitting energy targets in occupied Crimea, but going against shipping as well. Various large landing ships, unidentified warship has been hit, communications, nodes, all the time. We're seeing this extraordinary innovation and great inventiveness, which is completely transforming the face of the warfare, I think, going forward. We heard the other day that in another first, the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces, USF, they used an unmanned surface vessel to launch an interceptor drone to shoot down a Russian Shahid long range drone. For the first time in military history. And they're now in the process of creating a naval drone battalions. So we got a comment from the Ukrainian USF Commander Major Robert Brovdi, who reported a few days back that Ukrainian forces have formed this naval drone battalion for such missions and their plans to create another battalion to expand their activities. This has produced some bleeding from Russian mill bloggers who are complaining that the Russian counterpart is lagging way behind in terms of drone adaptation. And they're blaming this shortfall in structural corruption and cronyism that you find in the military, as you do elsewhere, in all parts of the Russian state.

Speaker 5:
[13:36] Yeah, that's right, Patrick. So that's the good news. And there is a fair bit of good news and has been over the last few weeks for Ukraine. Well, one sort of tiny fly in the ointment, actually, interestingly, particularly in the wake of the success of Peter Magyar in Hungary and this accord with the EU, the releasing of funds for Ukraine, is the news that Rumen Radev's progressive Bulgaria party won a landslide victory in last weekend's Bulgarian election. Now, why does this matter? Well, Radev was seen as a pragmatic, according to the BBC, somewhat pro-Russian leader who has criticised EU sanctions and called for constructive dialogue with the Kremlin. Some news outlets have been saying, well, this will be the Kremlin's new mole, the new opportunity to disrupt the EU from the inside. But the BBC is not going quite that far. He definitely opposes Bulgarian military support for Ukraine, Radev does, but according to the BBC, he's more likely to seek compromise than confrontation with fellow European leaders. Radev is unlikely to obstruct EU support for Ukraine, said Philip Gunev, a security analyst and former deputy Bulgarian interior minister. His approach will be pragmatic, more like Slovak Premier Robert Fico than outgoing Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban. So it's not particularly great news, Patrick, but I don't think we should overdo the possible effects that this election might have on, in particular, of course, Ukraine's attempt to join the EU. What's your feeling about it?

Speaker 6:
[15:08] Yeah, I think he's not going to be another Orban. He hasn't got the clout. Bulgaria is very dependent on EU financial support. So I think you will tread it very carefully. It's one thing to be kind of sympathetic to Moscow, it's another to be the new Trojan horse inside the EU. So I think it's not particularly welcome development, but I don't think it's a major setback for Ukraine. OK, that's it for this half. You join us after the break when we'll be hearing from our old friend David Alexander about all the latest developments on the cyber warfare front, and we'll be answering as many of your questions as we can.

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Speaker 5:
[17:16] Welcome back. Well, as promised, a quick cyber update from David Alexander. Lots of interesting stories. A couple caught my eye, Patrick. I mean, the first one is that Russia has actually hacked Ukrainian prosecutors. Now, this is a story that David spotted in Reuters. Russian hackers have broken into the emails of more than 170 Ukrainian prosecutors. Now, the campaign sought to gain access to investigative information. The attacks were linked, writes David, to our old friend's APT 28, a cyber unit inside Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU. And the attack is thought to be an attempt to keep tabs on the Ukrainian officials tasked with rooting out corruption and Russian collaborators. Now, the same campaign apparently also breached militaries in Greece, Romania and Serbia. The data was inadvertently exposed to the internet by the hackers and discovered by Control Alt Intel, a collective of British and American cyber threat researchers. Control Alt Intel said data left on the server, including logs of successful hacking operations of thousands of stolen emails, showed that the hackers compromised at least 284 inboxes between September 2024 and March 2026. And of course, it's important that the Ukrainians know this, you know, forewarned is forearmed. Other interesting stories. Russia definitely did try to influence the Hungarian elections, but it failed. Researchers linked false claims about Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar supporting military conscription to Storm 1516, a Russian disinformation network using fake news websites, impersonation and targeted Facebook adverts. And we were mentioning, of course, in the last few weeks, Patrick, that this was one of the main kind of Orban talking points, which is that Magyar would actually result in Hungarians being forced to fight in the Ukraine war. I mean, quite how and why people were supposed to believe that and obviously didn't, as we can see from the success of the elections. But that's what they were trying to do. I mean, the landslide victory for Magyar shows that, as David writes, in spite of their best efforts, a disinformation campaign will not alter strongly held views of an electorate. They can at best only make a difference in a very closely contested elections. And that's an interesting point, Patrick, isn't it? You know, disinformation can have an effect, and it needs the votes to be fairly close before, you know, it tips the balance.

Speaker 6:
[19:47] Yeah, it's also going to be credible, hasn't it? I mean, some of the posters we saw in the reporting we got from Julius and Boldy in the run up to the election, you know, these huge billboards showing a Hungarian soldier about to be executed on a battlefield, or the battlefield more accurately by the Russians. I mean, I think it kind of stretches gullibility to breaking point, doesn't it? And I think very sensibly, most Ukrainians decided they were going to disregard a lot of this very florid campaigning.

Speaker 5:
[20:22] Yeah, one extra bit of interesting information provided by David Patrick is the news that the GPS jamming story that he told us about the launch of a new third generation GPS satellite using M-code technology, which is apparently unjammable has actually now taken place earlier this week. David tells us SpaceX successfully launched the 10th and final satellite required to provide continuous global coverage of the new jam resistant signal. Ukraine, of course, if it's going to use it, will need new M-code compatible GPS receivers. And as far as David can tell, this does require new hardware. It's not a simple software upgrade for existing systems. But if Ukraine can get hold of these systems, it will give them a window of opportunity to conduct attacks using GPS guidance before Russia develops new jamming hardware. So it could be very significant and we'll have to see how that plays out in the weeks and months to come.

Speaker 6:
[21:17] OK, on to questions. We've got one here from Ingrid Smits, who is praising the recent episode. We broadcast the Invisible Front Line. She says, what an absolutely brilliant episode. So interesting and informative. What an inspiration Olga is. And I do wish her and her project well. This, of course, is a reference to Olga, who runs a rehabilitation clinic in Odessa. And she featured in one of our recent episodes being interviewed by the team when they were in Ukraine. She goes on, thank you so much for your efforts and for this more than essential podcast. Now, various people have made reference to the fact that we are actually filling a pretty important gap at the moment. And Ingrid says, this fills the void left by the now absent Ukraine cast. That was the BBC podcast on Ukraine, which has now been dropped. Ingrid says she's not happy about that at all. Thankfully, we have your podcast Battleground to turn to. Yes, indeed. Ingrid says, my late parents were Latvian, so I'm more than sympathetic to Ukraine and want to be well-informed and bear witness to their struggles. And you are helping with this. Thank you. Well, that's why we're here. And thank you, Ingrid.

Speaker 5:
[22:37] OK, moving on to a question from John. Hello, Battleground, as he says. Here's my question. Do you have a quantitative assessment of the amount of revenue Russia is currently making from its oil industry and what impact this has on their ability to fund their aggression in Ukraine? On the one hand, the increase in the oil price is clearly helping them. On the other, Ukraine strikes on their oil infrastructure is being reported to be tempering that benefit. You've discussed this recently, but didn't conclude whether the net effect was good or bad for Russia or to what extent. I mean, it's interesting all of this, Patrick. We can't give a definitive answer, of course, can we? We can make the general point, of course, the discussion we had earlier, Patrick, over the constant exaggeration of the economic indicators in Russia. And one of those, of course, will be how much money they're actually making from oil. A lot of indications, even with the higher oil price, suggests that so bad has been the degradation of their oil production facilities that they are producing far less oil and making less money than they've ever done at any point during the conflict, even with the price increase. And it was also interesting to see that Nielsen pointed out that price increase is not making up for other deficiencies more generally in the defense industry and of course the massive spending on defense. So no, we can't give you an absolutely definite answer on that. My suspicion, so successful of the Ukrainians been that actually there's a net loss to the Russians at the moment. But if the price keeps going up, which it may well do, given there's no end of the Iran conflict in sight, that might change, of course.

Speaker 6:
[24:14] Yeah, I don't think it's quite as good news for Russia as has been that kind of headline reporting would suggest. I mean, there is a number going around 760 million US dollars a day is coming into the coffers. And that's actually a figure that came from Ukraine, from the Kyiv School of Economics Institute. But as you say, that all these are mitigating factors, not least the fact that if you are carrying, if you're a cargo ship carrying Russian oil, then you're quite vulnerable these days. So Ukraine's expanded its operations to actually strike shadow fleet tankers. So all in all, there's a lot of pressure, even though that sounds impressive, that number, there are a lot of other factors which undermine the benefit that it's bringing to Russia.

Speaker 5:
[25:06] Question here from Toby in Bristol. Thanks for continuing to cover the Ukraine War and all your hard work. His question is, at the start of the war, there's a lot of talk from Western countries whenever a new piece of technology was given. And he gives the examples, of course, of the tanks, high Mars, etc. This doesn't seem to be happening anymore. Is it because the tech is more secret, not as useful or simply has Ukraine outgrown the need for Western weapons to some extent by creating their own domestic ones? Well, it's definitely the latter, Patrick, isn't it? But it's also, I think it's also fair to say some new kit is still getting through. I mean, one of the big issues, as you mentioned earlier, is the need for air defense, the need to get their hands on Patriot missiles, which are chiefly used to combat ballistic missiles. That's the ones that effectively go into space and come down at quite a rapid rate and are very, very difficult to knock out of the sky unless you've got sophisticated kit. But what we do know is that the British have recently been supplying air defense systems, which Zelensky has talked about and thanked us for, which are used to take out Shahid drones, in particular, Martlet missiles, which cost much less. Now, there is still some new kit going into Ukraine, but they are very proud of the fact that they have developed multiple systems, almost all unmanned systems that are having, as we've been saying over the last few weeks, a real effect on the battlefield.

Speaker 6:
[26:25] Yeah, I mean, the up-to-date numbers are quite hard to find, but more than a year ago, Ukraine was already producing 55% of the equipment it was using on the battlefield. And of the remainder, 25% was coming from Europe and 20% was coming from the United States, which is encouraging all around. But of course, the problem is that the very high-tech, most advanced and decisive capabilities like the rocket artillery, the high-mars, et cetera, which are used most effectively in these deep strikes, the bulk of that does actually come from America. Also the howitzer ammunition, that's 82% a year ago is coming from the US. And of course, as you mentioned, the Patriots. So of course, there are other elements, vital elements in the picture. The satellite intel needed for advanced targeting, that's still very much the province of the US. So, you know, in simple terms, Ukraine could actually fight without Western gear, they couldn't defend itself very effectively, or indeed carry out deep strike operations without it. That's the long and the short of it. But the direction of travel is very much, as you say, Saul, that it is moving towards ever greater independence, really, on the kind of KIP front. Okay, got one here from James in Penguin, Tanzmania. Is that, can that be right? Is that the sort of town called Penguin?

Speaker 5:
[27:58] There must be, there must be.

Speaker 6:
[27:59] Don't see why not. There are bound to be loads of penguins down there, aren't there? If there's anything like the Falklands, where there are vast numbers of penguins, it's pretty much on the same, well, not the same latitude, but it's the same sort of roughly in the same part of the world. To Saul, Patrick and Roger, he writes, thank you so much for the informative podcast. I came for the Ukraine conflict. I'm always very interested in getting updates on the technical and practical aspects of it, especially regarding drone and cyber warfare. Well, you have lots to get your teeth into from David Alexander this week. Well, interest here is, of course, because James is part of Australia, we're in Tasmania next door to Australia. So the Orcas Pact has a real significant meaning for anyone in Australia. This, of course, is the American, Australian and British pact, which is meant to be a defense pact involving hundreds of billions of dollars between these nations. Now, his question is, given all the uncertainty, given the Americas growing unreliability, it would seem as a military and diplomatic partner, how solid is that Orcas Pact? He also makes another point about surely in terms of the China-Taiwan conflict, given what's going on in Iran, this would be a good time for Xi Jinping to make a move on Taiwan. Well, that certainly I think would have crossed his mind several times. I'm sure you agree, Saul, I mean, America's performance in this conflict has not been particularly impressive. They proved themselves to be very good at actually playing things up and not actually terribly successful in achieving any good outcomes thus far. But to get back to Orcas, I think the short answer really is, Orcas is a pretty deeply embedded organization, isn't it, or agreement. It's still functioning despite all Trump's rhetoric and his proven unreliability. It's structurally, I think, pretty strong as the general view. Of course, politically, they're bound to be wobbles, and it's probably not as solid as it looked a few years ago. So Trump may have shaken the structures of Orcas, but I think the view is that it hasn't actually broken it. And actually recently, the administration did come out and say that they were still committed to it after having raised a few concerns earlier on. Have you had a look at this, Saul?

Speaker 5:
[30:33] Yeah, it's very interesting, isn't it, Patrick? Because one particular area of concern for me recently was to hear that the so-called Five Eyes intelligence sharing partnership is in doubt now. Or there are some questions about its long-term survival. And that, of course, the Five Eyes being Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia and America. Because the Americans were saying, well, actually, we don't trust the Brits anymore. I mean, this is all part of the spat with our government's unwillingness to provide bases for the attacks in Iran. And this seems to be a bit of a reaction to that. But could Orcas also be affected? I mean, it was set up, as you suggested, Patrick, as a trilateral security partnership. Basically, to bolster security in the Indo-Pacific, and certainly seen as a counter to China's regional influence. Now, you could say on the one hand, this is what America is really interested in. It's not that interested in the Middle East. It's certainly not interested in Europe, but it is interested in Pacific security. So if anything is going to survive, it will be this. And Patrick, you will also probably remember this, that Orcas infuriated the French because it resulted in a kind of deal for the Americans to provide nuclear submarines to the Australians, but also for the Americans and the British to build nuclear submarines in the future. And this scuppered a deal that the Australians had already started going down the track of with France, for France to build them nuclear submarines. So there was a little bit of a spat over all of that, but I'm a little bit more optimistic that Orcas will survive intact because of the point I've just made, that the Pacific is something that really matters to Americans and this is something they would like to feel. They've got strong support from both Britain and Australia. And if that sounds like a contradiction in terms in relation to their behavior everywhere else, including with NATO, well, that's just the nature, I'm afraid, of the current Trump administration. And just remember listeners that, yeah, and some of you may even be Trump supporters, but just remember, there was no absolute guarantee that the Trump administration or any future iteration with similar kind of principles is going to continue into the future.

Speaker 6:
[32:42] Jim Petfer raises a point, Jim doesn't say where he's from, but he's asking something that would have crossed, I think, lots of listeners' minds, which is the possibility or the likelihood of any Russian aggression in the Balkans. And I think he probably also means the Baltic States and the question obviously is, where would Russia find the troops, even assuming Russia's tech capability enabled them to take ground, makes a comparison with Trump and Iran. He would then find it necessary to put troops in to actually hold what have been taken. Has Putin overplayed his hand, he asks. Well, I think that's a statement of reality, isn't it, Saul? I mean, common sense tells you that if you can't even supply the troops now to make up for your losses in Ukraine, then you're going to be hard pressed to find the troops of any quality at all who would be competent to launch any kind of operation against the Baltic states. We've often talked about the possibility of some sort of provocative incursion or something like that to kind of test NATO resolve. But I wonder whether you would have the sort of troops that you would need for an operation like that. I wonder where Russia would find them now.

Speaker 5:
[34:03] Yeah, and I totally agree with you, Patrick. We have been discussing this in recent weeks, and you can't rule anything out with Russia, not least when it gets increasingly desperate, or at least Putin and the regime get increasingly desperate to distract the populace of Russia from what is actually happening domestically. But at the same time, in practical terms, for the reasons you've already given, there is no way, honestly, that they can launch a conventional strike, in my view, on a Baltic country at the moment. And that doesn't mean, of course, that they're not going to continue to use hybrid warfare. I mean, one of the points about hybrid warfare is to make, is to keep your enemies, in inverted commas, off balance and make them think that you may launch other kinds of attacks. And of course, what all of this does is encourage people to kind of try and give you what you want. Now, this system worked very effectively until the actual attack on Ukraine. But that's the problem. Now, they've attacked Ukraine and degraded their military to such an extent. The rest of the world has been able to see what effectively what a paper tiger Russia really is. And so the real fear that there's going to be an attack because they simply don't have the men materials and ability to do it, I'm afraid, has become much more apparent. So I would be more optimistic and I may sound like I'm contradicting what I said a few weeks ago, but I would be more optimistic if I was living in the Baltic States now that there isn't going to be an attack from Russia because they simply don't have the capability to do it.

Speaker 6:
[35:28] I just want to flag up one here from Lukasz in Krakow, Poland, which we have visited on our trips to Ukraine. And he's asking, really pondering about whether NATO is still an effective alliance and should we not in Europe be actually rethinking the structure of it and trying to boost our own independent kind of NATO type alliance on European soil among European nations. But there's one point he makes here which I think is worth thinking about. And this is a reference to Mark Rutter, the NATO Secretary General, and the way that Rutter and all the other EU leaders up until this point have been pretty timid in their response to Trump's tactics, his rhetoric, his bullying, I think we can fairly say. And instead of standing up to him, there is still I think a tendency to triumplicate him and flatter him and generally calculate that the best thing you can do is, insofar as it is possible, stay on his right side. And Lukasz comment is that Trump is a weak, gullible and mentally declining man, bowing to him only builds his confidence. Well, it's interesting that I think the tide is actually beginning to turn and that people are seeing, or leaders, should I say, are understanding at last that there's actually not a great deal to be gained from flattering Trump and appeasing him. And that he's so mercurial that no matter how you may suck up to him, in a second his whole attitude can change and you will go from being a favorite to being cast into the outer darkness and becoming an enemy. And we've seen that very much here in the UK where Prime Minister Stammer, his strategy from the beginning really has had been to get on Trump's right side. Endless kind of gestures, lots of kind of gifts being offered to him, things that matter to him, like the state visit last autumn, the royal visit which is coming up any day soon. Well, all of that has got him perhaps precisely nowhere. And he's now actually regularly in the crosshairs of Trump's rhetoric, negative rhetoric, and insults flying from Washington across the Atlantic on a practically daily basis. However, having said all that, my eye was caught by a story, I don't know if you saw it or not, about how the Ukrainians, who I think have given the terrible dressing down that we saw Zelensky get in the White House in February last year, they still think, or Zelensky still thinks that there is something to be gained from every now and again, doing something to boost Trump's not-inconservable ego. And I'm thinking of this idea that they've apparently floated about calling it when this is all over, to call part of the Donbass Donnyland. As a sort of homage to the Donald. Yeah, so they still think there's a bit of mileage in the flattering. So what do you think? Do you think that will get them anywhere?

Speaker 5:
[38:45] No, not really. Although it is true that having things named after him, and so that in some ways there's a historical monument to him. So maybe it's not as nutty as it seems. I think there's been a lot of pushback from Ukrainians recently. I mean, I think we've heard a lot of Zelensky's comments about support from America and how it hasn't been consistent and obviously contrasting that with the relationship with Putin. I mean, we heard this week, of course, he made the point that or he or someone in the Ukrainian government made the point is pretty outrageous that Western negotiators, American negotiators have been to Moscow on multiple occasions, but have never visited Kiev once during the so-called peace process. So there definitely is a bit of pushback. I think they're playing both ends against the middle, Patrick, and why wouldn't they? They understand really that they've got themselves into a position where militarily they can do a lot of things. You talked about the high-tech stuff. So they're not as dependent on the US as they once were, and they are beginning to flex their muscles just a tiny bit in a diplomatic sense, which frankly is good to see.

Speaker 6:
[39:47] Yeah, we've also seen it from France, haven't we? I thought that Professor Macron's comments, I think it was a week or more ago now, when he gently chided Trump, saying that, when do you think before you open your mouth? Which I think was a lot more effective than just saying, you know, why don't you just shut up? And I think it was not necessarily directed at Trump personally, because I think Trump is impervious to constructive criticism. He takes any criticism at all as a challenge, as an insult, and he will hit back very hard. But I think it was more to the American political establishment, saying, look, you know, this guy is doing you a great deal more harm than good, and you really have to do something about him. And that is a trend, I think, that is growing, not just outside America, but inside America. Still astonishes me that there hasn't been more pushback from the military and security establishment against what is clearly a development, which are injurious to America's well-being. And it's indeed, you know, it's security, integrity. So maybe that will start to happen, but they are leaving it a bit late.

Speaker 5:
[40:56] Okay, that's all we have time for. Do join us next Wednesday when we'll be putting out another special from our trip to Ukraine. And also on Friday, when we'll be bringing you the latest news. Goodbye.

Speaker 4:
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