188. Has the West released the shackles on its donated equipment?
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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. For

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Battleground with me, Saul David and Patrick Bishop. Well, the drama of the Kursk invasion continues with Ukraine continuing its operations, albeit at a reduced tempo, and no sign yet of a coordinated counterattack from the Russians.

Ukrainian military say that the speed of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast has slowed due to the increasing Russian resistance in the direction of Kursk city. Russian mill bloggers claim that Russian forces are gradually stabilizing the front line in Kursk Oblast and that unspecified Russian reinforcements are arriving from unspecified areas and are establishing communications with Russian units already in the area.

There are also reports, I should say, that the Russians are digging trenches a good 20 kilometers beyond the furthest point of the Ukrainian advance. So they are clearly rattled and fear more advances. But today we're going to let others do most of the talking. We're going to hand over most of the show to Asgol Kruselnitsky and Julia Strauss, old friends of the podcast, whose reports from the front listeners will have enjoyed in the past.

Well, it's great to have the dynamic duo on board today. They've got boots on the ground. They're down in the Sumy region on the border with Russia, where, of course, Ukraine launched its shock and or attack 10 days ago as we speak. Guys, welcome back to the show.

Maybe I can start with you, Julius. Where are you and what are you seeing right now? I only got to Ukraine a few days ago. I haven't been here since April. So Asgol and I are old friends, as you know, and we met up in Kyiv and we drove up here yesterday, got in sort of middle of the day, bit after that.

Then this morning we set up fairly early and we decided to get as far up towards the border as we could get. We weren't quite sure how that was going to work out. And kind of as expected, we got stopped at a certain point. So we got about halfway to the border, about 20 miles north.

probably from sumi in 20 miles from the border give or take and eventually we got stopped by ukrainian checkpoint you know they've been keeping a very very tight lid on information around this entire sort of effort and they've maintained that tight lid and so part of that is not letting journalists in except under various sort of controlled and limited circumstances

Nevertheless, it was a very interesting trip up there. And the furthest point we got to is just sort of within the outer edge, I suppose, of the battlefield or maybe slightly outside. But it's being you can feel the ramifications of it up there. So we spoke to some villagers whose house was hit yesterday and also to some soldiers. And right now we're back in Sumi, the regional capital.

It's interesting, Julius, you mentioned the destruction of a house or the damage to a house because one of the justifications, not that they need any, of course, for the Ukrainians to advance into Russia proper is to actually protect this frontier belt or create, as I think Zelensky put it, a buffer zone.

And yet, on the other hand, there seems to be determination among the Ukrainians inside Russia to avoid civilian casualties. Are you getting any kind of sense of that? Is this a deliberate policy to make the Ukrainians, of course, look the complete opposite of the way the Russians behave in war? Well, I think in terms of the buffer zone, when I was here back in April, I did some reporting not very far away from here. And that seemed to be the Russian intent at the time. That's what they talked about.

was establishing a buffer zone on the Ukrainian side. So they were bombing and attempting to clear out villages a little bit over towards Kharkiv, but with the same sort of general principle.

I think there are many, many reasons that the Ukrainians have launched this initiative. At least half a dozen, I can think off the top of my head. And the buffer zone is probably one of them. I'm not technical enough to know whether a buffer zone would stop air launch glide bombs or not. I suspect it wouldn't entirely. But obviously, if they can get anti-aircraft weapons,

fire into those buffer zones, then perhaps it would deter it. The house that we saw, the locals said, was taken out by a glide bomb, and that obviously came from an aircraft. Ascult, one of the striking images that we've seen from the footage, as you say, it's all very controlled, is the way that the Ukrainians are more or less flaunting the Western kit that they're using

in this operation. So we've seen Strikers, Marders, Bradleys, all armoured vehicles, and now British Challenger 2 tanks have put in an appearance. I think that's probably from the Russian side. These are the ones, of course, which equip the 82nd Air Assault Brigade.

They've been at the heart of the operation. Do you think this is deliberate? And do you think this is an indication that Ukraine is basically saying to the world, okay, thanks very much for all the help you've given us, but we've got to use it the way we want to do it. We're no longer prepared to abide by these restraints. And sorry, this is a bit of a long question, but also do you think that could lead to

to real serious strategic weapons like Storm Shadow coming into play with or without British or Western approval. I spoke about this use of Western-provided weapons to a colonel who is linked closely to the Ukrainian general staff and also to a civilian person who's had a number of senior roles in the presidential administration.

And both of them said that the Ukrainian side gave advance warning to, they specifically said, the US, the UK, Germany and France, but probably other countries that have supported Ukraine and supplied weapons in advance, asking permission, basically, to use these weapons. And there was no objection. Britain reiterated that.

apparently, that Ukraine could use any weapons provided by Britain, and that goes for Challenger tanks, as Ukraine deemed necessary. The only exception being that long-range storm shadows could only be used within Ukrainian territory, Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.

But even that, there's a gray area because they have been allowed to use them for purely defensive purposes. And one of these is to try to prevent glide bombs that Julius and Saul mentioned just now from entering and causing tremendous devastation in Ukraine. And there's been this source that I spoke to, a Ukrainian colonel, said that Ukraine would

never use any of these weapons without the explicit permission of the countries providing them. Because he said, if they were cut off, if we were told that we'd been behaving badly and the weapons were cut off, that could signal the end of Ukraine's existence. So we're not going to take that chance.

So I think that over this summer, because of the way glide bombs and other weapons have been used by the Russians, and also because of their incursion into northern Kharkiv in May, where the Ukrainians knew for weeks that the Russians were gathering just on the other side of the border, but weren't allowed to strike at them.

These have led to a loosening of the restrictions and the feeling in Ukraine amongst people connected to the administration, the general staff, is that they're going to be relinquished probably completely. Including storm shutters, you think that we may see them...

being used to hit rear areas, hit command and control nodes, hardened ammunition shelters and aircraft shelters and all the rest of it? Do you think that's a real possibility? Look, I don't know how much of a possibility it is. It's a desire on the Ukrainian side.

And they are pleased by what seems to be the trend, the movement towards a loosening of any restrictions, not just by the UK, but America that provides lion's share of Western weapons to Ukraine. So it's a hope and it's one that the Ukrainians believe is now grounded in real possibility.

Yeah, it's very interesting. One of the successful operations we've been talking about the removal effectively of the Black Sea Fleet, the destruction of the submarine last week. But they've also, the Ukrainians, been very effective in targeting long-range airfields, or at least launching long-range strikes against airfields using what we can only assume are drones. They're obviously getting very good at the use of these drones. The electronic warfare capability is improving all the time, isn't it? Are you getting any sense, either of you, that

actually the pocket, which we would have imagined, that is the pocket obviously in Kursk, is not under intense aerial bombardment. I mean, nothing on social media seems to indicate that to us. And in that sense, the ability of the Russians to use their so-called air superiority has been much diminished. We also know for sure that the Ukrainians have got a certain amount of anti-air capabilities within the pocket too. But are you getting a sense that actually the

attacks on the Ukrainians from the Russians, certainly from the air, are not at any kind of intense rate at the moment? Can I answer that? Because that was something I talked to this Ukrainian colonel about on Monday. And indeed, he said that Ukraine has had successes. Some of them have been reported. Some in the area where Ukrainians have now

Russia in the Kursk area, but some much further afield. And he said air bases with bombers and with stockpiles of these glide bombs have been reduced to ashes. He said reduced to ashes. And he said that over the last few weeks, because these operations to destroy these air bases preceded this Ukrainian invasion into Kursk, he said that, for instance,

the number of glide bombs hitting Kharkiv, which was extensively, both Julius and I were there, and we were there when they were being pummeled daily, have been reduced to a sixth of the number of glide bombs that were launched at Kharkiv every day just a few weeks ago. So they've been reduced to a sixth. So there has been a rather dramatic reduction, seemingly, in Russia's capacity to use air power.

Just on the political front, as you know, I worked for Russia for several years. It's worth speculating a little bit on what's going through Putin's mind at the moment. And of course, we don't know, and nobody in the West knows, and probably very few people in Russia know, but he does have a pattern and he does have a certain way of behaving. And when things really throw him off, really throw him off guard, he does tend to behave in a certain way. I mean, I'm thinking back to the

Nordost theater siege in 2002, for example, where the Chechens seized a theater in the center of Moscow and Putin went into paralysis and he prevaricated and he didn't know what to do. And according to some accounts, he even offered his resignation to those around him. And they said, no, no, no, no, you've got to get up and you've got to lead.

And there are suggestions that this incursion has really thrown him off balance. Putin is a planner. He looks a long way ahead. He sets everything in motion. And then he sort of makes these last minute decisions. But only once every all the pieces are in place. This has thrown him off balance.

So, you know, my analysis, and it really is a guess, is that he doesn't quite know what to do at the moment. He's got to shore up his position at home. He's got to make damn sure that the people around him are not about to jump ship. And once he's done that, then he will act. I hate to be doom and gloom about it, but, you know, the good money probably says he's going to react very, very brutally towards Ukraine in some shape or form.

but it may not happen absolutely immediately. And so that's my sense is that there's probably more panic in the Kremlin than we imagine. Bit of a guess, but that's a sort of looking back at the history of his rule. Normally I would say, agree with you and say,

You know, you really need a huge earthquake, social, military, political, economic earthquake to get rid of or to really seriously undermine Putin. But this is sort of developing into something like that, isn't it? When you see these images of people obviously despairing, the kind of mirror images of what we saw from the Ukrainian civilian population repeatedly throughout the war, all this does have a political impact. And on that Putin paralysis issue,

issue. We saw it also, didn't we, with the march on Moscow, the Prigozhin-Vagda march on Moscow. He didn't know what to do. There was just silence and paralysis. And so this seems to be another instance of that. But this is a more dangerous scenario, I would say for him, if he's got his own people saying, why aren't you protecting us? Why are you ordering us to leave our homes? Why isn't the army there to actually stop the Ukrainians occupying us? All these things

of a new order of seriousness, I would have thought, in terms of how he's perceived as a strong man and a protector. That image has taken a massive hit.

Can I just jump in with one little thing? I'm going to hand over to Asghar Latta. But this one thing is really, for those of us who have worked in Russia, the defense of the motherland is a kind of an emotional credo that we in the West just cannot kind of feel. And one thing that was so interesting about the beginning of the

you know the 2022 february 22 attack on ukraine because it was quite a difficult cell for putin at home to say we're defending the motherland by bombing the hell out of ukraine this is not going to be a difficult cell to say we're defending mother russia against an incursion from the outside with british tanks and american armored vehicles and whatever

But it can still play out lots of different ways. But suddenly we are into a very different emotional space, I think, for Russia. Sounds like I'm being a sort of a new age psychologist. I'm not trying to be. But I think this is very different for Russia than anything that has happened up to now.

I wanted to add a few words on a question that Saul asked at the beginning to do with how Ukrainian soldiers were being received and how they were behaving towards the Russian population. And we spoke to, we ran into a group of Ukrainian soldiers at a cafe in this little town close to the border.

And they were amongst the troops who spearheaded this advance into Kursk. They were very modest, and you could just tell that they were the real thing. They were very able soldiers. They weren't boasting about what they were doing. And they'd been given four to five days, they said, to rotate out, which also gives an idea of the timetable that for now the Ukrainian high command is thinking that this is going to go on for a little while yet.

And one of them said that he talked to an elderly Russian woman and he asked her, you know, what do you think of us being here? And she said, well, you boys are very well behaved. And he said, well, you know, how does that compare, do you think, to...

the way Russian soldiers have raped and murdered, executed, tortured people. And she didn't want to give a direct answer. She said, well, nobody wanted the war. But definitely Ukraine wants and is confident that its soldiers aren't

going to rape and pillage anyway. But they want, and this colonel that I spoke to on Monday said, we hope that the world notices that we're not torturing prisoners. The Red Cross will have access to them. We're not castrating prisoners. And that was a reference to at least

300 apparently have been castrated, Ukrainian prisoners of war. And the UN issued a report earlier this month where they said about 95% of all Ukrainian prisoners of war have been tortured, and they included mention of castration. So definitely the Ukrainian side is interested in presenting a stark contrast between the way Russia behaves

its army and its society and its politicians and how Ukraine behaves. Well, that was fascinating stuff. Do join us in part two when Julius Nasco will be telling us where they think things are going next. The football season is back. Join Micah, Alan and me on the rest is football for top analysis, outrageous gossip and the inside track on everything going on in the Premier League. I'm going to say if Man City get injured,

I will of course be on match of the day

You're on Alan, aren't you? I am. And Mike is not. Mike, it's because you're doing Sunday, aren't you? Yeah, super Sunday. What's happening? I thought you were on with us. I can't work Saturday, Sunday. What? Two days working. I've been knackered. It's evil, right? I can't do both days. What am I listening to here? I can't do Saturday and Sunday. See?

room with you two idiots for 12 hours doing matching head of wobble will you your code work Saturdays and Sundays no wonder his career petered out the rest is football listen on Spotify Apple or wherever you get your podcasts or watches on YouTube welcome back well this is what our friends on the ground had to say next

No Ukrainian source at the moment, of course, is going to give us any kind of really clear insight into what the intentions were. Patrick and I were speculating on it only a couple of days ago when we had our emergency podcast. And we, like Julius, can think of multiple reasons. My own personal instinct is that it's a bit of a wait and see. Yes, they've got their goals, but they're sort of going to see how things pan out to Ukraine.

One really obvious benefit of this operation, of course, is drawing off Russian troops from other parts of the front, particularly in the Donbass, Pokrov's sector, where they've been making headway. They've been making headway in multiple areas, actually, but, you know, inching forward, but making ground nonetheless towards Chassivyar, too.

Are either of you seeing any sign that the intensity in those areas in terms of Russian operations are slackening and therefore this is paying off in that sense? You know, obviously right now we're up in Sumy, so we're not down in the Donbass or Pokrovsk. So we're looking at secondhand reports. And what I've been hearing, what I've been reading is that the answer is not very much, not very much change. I mean, going back to the thing about, you know, the rationale behind it.

without going through all the different rationals. I mean, the very obvious one for me was what was happening was not working, was not working for Ukraine. They were losing according to, slowly, but they were losing according to the existing dynamic. And so they simply had to shake up the board somehow. They had to change the basis of what was going on. I mean, I don't want to say they wanted to throw over the chessboard, but more or less, they wanted to change

the scope of the game. And it's that simple. They were slowly, slowly losing ground and Paklowska is under threat. Konstantinivka is under threat. That whole road is under threat. So they had to do, or they felt they had to do something. They've taken a gamble and we probably won't know for several weeks or months if that pays off.

as we talked about a bit earlier, you know, it's also thrown a wild card into the whole Moscow set up, the Moscow political set up. Who knows how that's going to play out? And, you know, I've felt from the very beginning of this war that, you know,

Before this war ends, we're going to go through a more dangerous phase. It's not going to sort of slowly, you know, slowly ramp down, ramp down, ramp down and then fizzle. And the reason we're going to go through a more dangerous phase is that if Putin feels that he's starting to lose, then he also is going to change the terms of the game in order not to lose.

And I don't know if we're close to that point now or not. And I don't think there is a way to know. But, you know, the rules of the game have changed on this side and they could now change on the other side too. And that, of course, is concerning. But I also feel that it's inevitable because if you look at the very, very big picture, if Russia wins in Ukraine...

It seems difficult now to imagine it stopping. They put so much energy and effort and forward momentum into this war on the West thing. It seems difficult that they're going to say, okay, that's fine and just go home again. Now, if you accept that line of logic, you don't have to, but if you do accept that line of logic,

Either we're dealing in a couple of years' time with Putin pushing potentially into somewhere else, Moldova, Georgia, whatever it happens to be, or we're dealing with Putin beginning to lose this war. And either way, things are going to get worse before they potentially get better. That's my sort of feeling on the big subject. And this is why I sort of reject this logic that, well, we must never annoy Putin too much. I think it's inevitable that we're going to come to a higher level of confrontation before we're out of this.

Now, just to get back to the here and now, it's interesting that...

that there are all sorts of indications that following your prediction, Saul, Ukraine intends to hold this ground. And to dig in, there was a little bit of news today that a military area commander has been appointed a major general, Moskaliov. I mean, that sort of probably has more symbolic significance than anything else, but it's sort of saying, okay, this is now our territory and we've got administration. We've already got an administration in place that's going to hold it.

Now, just thinking off the top of my head, looking at it geographically, it's not an obviously easy area to defend. And of course, the further they go, Ukraine goes, the more difficult that will become. But having said all that, it's also very difficult territory for Russia to retake for the simple reason that despite the evacuations, there are still a hell of a lot of

Russians in the area. So, you know, the traditional, the usual tactic that we've seen of just blitzing everything in their path is not going to work unless they're prepared to massacre thousands of their own people. That's just an immediate thought. I've got to be really fascinated to hear what you guys think.

Well, I don't think that they've got much compunction, the Russians or Putin, about massacring their own people. And the standard behavior until now has been that they blame the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians done it would be their knee-jerk reaction. But on what the immediate desires or aims of the Ukrainian side are, I agree with what Julius has said, that things will get much worse before they get

better, the soldiers that we met said we expect them to eventually bring up everything they've got and pummel us. Well, they used a different word to try to send us to hell. But some of the other aims, more immediate aims that they want to achieve are to demonstrate, I've been told, to demonstrate to their Western supporters that the weapons that they've been given

They can be used effectively. They didn't have a chance really to demonstrate that in last summer's offensive, Ukrainian much-vaunted offensive, which fizzled out. Here, they can showcase how they use effectively Western-provided weapons, and their hope is that will instill confidence and they'll get more weapons.

lifting morale and Julius spoke to that that something had to be shaken up and it had to be shaken up for the Ukrainian soldiers who I haven't seen anybody who wants to wave a white flag but

for months and months. They've been in these places like Pokrovsk, you mentioned, in southeast Ukraine, eastern Ukraine, and they're just being hit relentlessly from the air by artillery, missiles, rockets. And the Russians are, despite the Ukrainians' best efforts, taking sometimes just a few meters a day, sometimes 100 meters a day. They're not huge swathes of territory. But

They are advancing, and that's obviously depressing morale. These people, the soldiers that we've met, and I've read and talked to other people who've been part of this operation, it has lifted morale. It's lifted the morale of the general Ukrainian population on the subject of a buffer zone.

If they can, they will hold on to some of this territory. Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, and other people, including the people I've spoken to, have rooted the idea of using them as bargaining chips in any future serious peace negotiations. There was a peace conference in Switzerland recently where Russia wasn't invited. There's talk of another one this autumn where Moscow will be invited.

If Moscow comes and Ukraine is holding territory, that's an obvious bargaining chip. You spoke about Western weapons, Asghold. And of course, last week we had confirmation, I suppose, because we could see them in person.

that the F-16s are finally there. Is there any indication that they're in the air supporting this operation at all? I asked about that, and I didn't get a direct answer. It was like, watch this...

I suspect that they will somehow be used at some stage of this operation, but only if they can play a real part, not just a PR kind of fly past. If they can be used in a real way that advances this operation, I think we might see that over the next few days or weeks being used.

Just to pick up one point about morale, this morning we went to talk to these civilians whose house was flattened yesterday morning by a glide bomb. And there were three people in there. Maybe flattened is too strong, badly damaged. There were three people in the house. They all ended up in hospital. Amazingly, they all have survived so far. It was a grandmother, a daughter, and a granddaughter. So three generations of women in the house. And today we were speaking to their family who were cleaning up at the house.

And, you know, I said to him, is it worth it? I mean, is it worth this incursion? I mean, you're just provoking Russian retaliation, revenge, anger. Is it really worth it? And in that sort of circumstance, you could expect somebody to turn around and say, you know what? A plague on all their houses. I've had enough of Zelensky. I've had enough of Putin. I've had enough of this war. And it wasn't what they said, interestingly. They said, yeah.

They said it is worth it because we've been fighting on our land for two and a half years. We have to start fighting on their land because we have to show them. And that's the only way they're going to wake up to the cost of this war. And that's the only way out of this war eventually. Now, of course, that's a long string of sort of conditionals. Who knows how it's all going to play out? But that spoke to me of...

still remarkably high morale, despite this sense that, you know, things in Ukraine are not as, or people are not as optimistic as they used to be. That certainly flew in the face of that. Yeah, just moving on to a entirely separate matter, really, but America's part in all of this. I mean, we can speculate that the Biden dropping out of the race and Kamala Harris coming in

actually has given a tiny window of opportunity for the Ukrainians to take this sort of action. I don't personally think that there's a direct connection there, but obviously some people have suggested that. There have also been recent reports that Kamala Harris may not be such a positive thing, even if she becomes president for Ukraine. What's your assessment, the two of you, about this game-changing moment in the U.S. presidential race and how it will affect Ukraine?

I've heard from people who are aware of Kamala Harris now going to the top of the presidential ticket for the Democratic Party. They've been mostly very pleased because they have a lot of respect for Biden, but people were aware of his weaknesses and not being able to perform as desired because of age. There's a lot of affection and a lot of respect and

And gratitude toward Biden. But as far as I can see from people who are aware of American politics, they're broadly pleased and they hope that Kamala Harris as president would prosper.

continue the policy that Biden has been leading towards Ukraine. And I live in America, I am an American citizen. I haven't heard or read much that's convinced me that I should be worrying about Kamala Harris being less supportive of Ukraine. I think just to add a little bit, we like to think in clean categories. And I think, I mean, if you look at the US election, it's

through the eyes of Iran, for example, they would seem to want the Democrats to win. If you look through the eyes of Russia, they would seem to want Trump to win. If you look through the eyes of China, they would seem to want neither of them to win. I mean, there's some kind of disagreement on what would be better for China. But we have to be very careful with these things. I remember back in 2016, there was huge jubilation in Moscow when Trump won the first time around. But within a year or two, they were saying,

actually, we're not sure this is a good thing for Russia. This guy is a little bit unpredictable. Actually, it's worse than that. He's nuts. He's crazy. We don't know how to play the game against him. We don't understand the rules of the game. So on the surface of it, it would seem like a good thing for Russia that Trump wins the election. But

It just makes things even more unpredictable than they are already. So I'm not sure it's as clear cut as that. That's just my sort of personal prediction. You know, we've seen Trump in action before. We don't know what would come out of Trump intervening in the Ukraine-Russia war and how it would play out. We just have no idea.

Neither we suspect as Donald Trump at this point, but it was fantastic that you could come on. It's been really brilliant stuff and the listeners are very lucky to have you too. So thanks enormously. Take care of yourselves and we'll be speaking very soon. Thanks. Take care. Bye. Cheers, guys.

Well, that was great stuff, wasn't it, Patrick? We always get some pretty pungent opinions from both Asghold and Julius. And I was particularly interested to hear Julius's comment about things maybe getting worse before they get better. I think you and I could have predicted that too, but he does have a particular insight into the Russian mindset, doesn't he? And this idea that an attack on the Russian homeland is really going to, in some ways, uh,

unite a little bit of support for Putin. Obviously, he's going to lose a bit of support because people are saying, why aren't you defending us better? But yeah, it's interesting when you consider the vital importance of the defense of the motherland or the fatherland, as they probably call it these days, to the Russians.

Yeah, and equally fascinating for me, and I'm sure you were struck by this too, Saul, was that bit of intel from Ascolt saying that the West, the Americans and the Brits did indeed get a heads up before all this began. There's been speculation that this was a bit of a kind of left field conversation.

operation from Zelenskyy, but it seems that there was quite a high degree of consent coming from the Allies. Yeah, and finally, confirmation too, that I think we both suspected, you can see it on the ground, as we mentioned at the top of the pod, Patrick, that the Ukrainians for the moment are there to stay and they've bitten and now they want to hold and we'll have to see how long they can do that for and how effectively. And also whether the possibility they're going to

see more opportunities to take more ground, either from this pocket or other regions of the border. It's all still to play for. Absolutely. One final thing before we go. You can read and hear more from both Julius and Asgard on their various outlets. So go to Julius Strauss's Back to the Front site.

in which a lot of his reportage is carried, some of the archive and obviously all the stuff that he's going to be posting today. And you can read Asghold's terrific up-to-date reporting in the independent newspaper, the British independent newspaper.

Okay, that's all we have time for. Do join us next Wednesday when we'll be hearing the second part of the incredibly dramatic and tragic story of the Warsaw Uprising, this time from Claire Mulley, and also on Friday when we'll be hearing the latest from Ukraine. And a quick promise that if anything vital happens between now and then, we will put out an emergency pod. Goodbye. Goodbye.