231. Ukraine kills Russian general on the Kremlin's doorstep.
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Hello and welcome to the Friday episode of the Battleground Podcast with me, Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

This week, two events dominated the news. Donald Trump's interview with Time magazine with some highly revealing comments on the Russia-Ukraine war and the extraordinary assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces, and his assistant Major Ilya Polykarpov by agents of the Ukrainian Security Service, or SBU as it's known, in Moscow on Tuesday.

Well, let's turn to the Trump interview first. This came on the back of his selection as the Time magazine person of the year, as they now call it.

It's a kind of strange award, isn't it, Saul? It's had some curious, well, not curious, I suppose they were very significant in their day, but people who came to a sticky end. Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of France, won it in 1931. He ended up being executed for collaboration. Adolf Hitler, unsurprising, I suppose, in 1938, and so on and so forth. But the first thing that struck me about it was how extraordinarily excruciatingly, you could say,

inarticular Trump was. You know, it's very hard to work out what he's actually saying half the time. If you think back to the election campaign, Trump supporters were always mocking his opponent, Kamala Harris, for her so-called word salads that contained a lot of verbiage but not much meaning. Well, Trump must know that this is a big deal, this interview. It's his first major statement of intent since the election, and the words are going to be scrutinized all over the world as if

as if it was holy writ but nonetheless it's quite hard to define the meaning in much of what he says having said all that there is a lot to ponder over now these are point blank will you commit to protecting ukrainian sovereignty from russia

And he responds, I would like to see Ukraine okay, ready, question mark. You have to go back a little bit further. It would never have happened if I were president. Would never have happened. He said that many, many times, hasn't he? And his question oppresses him and says, but it has happened. So the question people want to know is, would you abandon Ukraine?

And then this provokes another ramble. He says, I had a meeting recently with a group of people from the government where they came in and briefed me, and I'm not speaking out of turn. But then he goes on about the casualties, the numbers of dead soldiers that have been killed in the last months.

are numbers that are staggering, both Russians and Ukrainians. But the crucial bit, the real meat of the matter, is he says very emphatically, I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We're just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. Now they're doing not only missiles, but they're doing other types of weapons.

And I think that's a very big mistake. We'll come on to analyze that a bit later on, Saul. But just to carry on with his utterances on Ukraine, the question again is many people around the world have this question for you. Will you abandon Ukraine?

Ukraine. This is a bit more encouraging. He says, I want to reach an agreement. And the only way you're going to do, you're going to reach an agreement is not to abandon. You understand what that means, right? And a question, a rather dogged question, it says, well, no, tell me. Well, I just said it. You can't reach an agreement if you abandon, in my opinion. And then he reverts this to his old cry of, you know, this would never have happened if I'd been

Also, interestingly, he says something about the North Korean troops' arrival on the battlefield was a very complicating factor. Well, you can say that again. And he then boasts about, I know Kim Jong-un. I get along very well with Kim. I'm probably the only one he's ever dealt with. So, Saul, what did you make of it? What powers of divining the words of the Donald that I have?

Well, it's not really a rousing endorsement, is it, Patrick? I mean, asked multiple times whether he's going to abandon Ukraine. In the end, he said something which actually has been picked up by a lot of news outlets, which is, I'm not going to abandon. But he doesn't give us any more detail than that. And, you know, in my view, this is not a huge sign that he can be entirely trusted. Obviously, we're gonna have to wait and see. The next few weeks, things will

get a little bit clearer. But the bit I was particularly interested in, because he did go into it in more details, the other bit you mentioned, which is not escalating the war by sending missiles into Russia. And it may be, as I suggested last week, that he said to Zelensky, we need to tone it down. And that might be why we haven't seen any medium range strikes by attackings.

and storm shadows recently. But if they aren't using those weapons, obviously they've got their own long range drones. But there's something else they can do to hurt Russia. And that, of course, is the other top story, which is assassinate some of the key personnel. In particular, people like Kirillov, who've been accused of committing war crimes.

I mean, we'll come on to the audacity of the attack in a minute, Patrick, but the sequence of events is really interesting because it's almost like it was set up. It began early in the war when Kirillov previously accused Ukraine, without any evidence, of course, of conspiring to build a dirty bomb. In the summer of 2023, he also leveled baseless accusations of Washington, claiming the U.S. was corrupt.

supplying Kiev with special drones carrying infected mosquitoes, which of course, in his eyes, would be intended to spread malaria amongst Russian troops. And in October this year, in response to the fact that he has authorized the use of various chemical weapons on the battlefield, and we mentioned these in previous episodes, in particular chloropicrin, which is a choking agent. So these have really been used in CS grenades and other things. And as a result of that,

Britain in October sanctioned him. And the UK previously said Kirillov was a significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation, spreading lies to mask Russia's shameful and dangerous behaviour. And then on Monday, and this got very interesting, Ukrainian prosecutors

undoubtedly in preparation for the assassination, charged Kirillov in absentia with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine. Russia, of course, denied those accusations. And the SBU, which is supposed to have carried out the assassination, has claimed that Russia has used chemical weapons nearly 5,000 times under Kirillov's leadership. So all this led to the killing itself, Patrick. But it was pretty extraordinary, wasn't it? How did they pull it off? Tell us. Yeah.

Well, the first thing you've got to say is it couldn't happen to a nicer bloke, could it? A war criminal and also a liar in the service of barbarism, which is how the Times put it today when they were basically applauding the assassination and saying it's a legitimate act of war. I certainly wouldn't argue with that.

But it was, you've got to take your hat off to the skill of the Ukrainian intelligence service. It was, of course, them. So basically, this was an explosive device planted in a scooter, one of those electric scooters that you can hire for a quick journey around town, which was parked up at the entrance of

Kirillov's residence, presumably, which was a few miles outside Moscow or from the center of Moscow. It killed him and his assistant, Major Polikarpov. And people have no doubt looked at the images. It's pretty impressive in its precision, actually, because the assassin will come on to who that might have been.

in a moment, set it up, retreated to a safe distance, apparently from a car, was monitoring the entrance on a camera, which was being relayed back to Ukraine. And then on the signal, detonated 300 grams of TNT, which was enough to take out the two Russians. The Russians, of course, have denounced this as a terrorist attack. Irony is...

is always absent in these statements, isn't it? Denouncing it as a war crime, etc., etc. And they've already nabbed a 29-year-old, and who's Becky, who they say has been recruited by Ukrainian special forces, who's named on a state news agency as Ahmed Kubanov. And there's a quote from him,

He says, I arrived in Moscow on an assignment from the Ukrainian special services. Why did I do this? They offered me $100,000 and a European passport. There's a photograph of him, actually, in which he's looking remarkably resigned and relaxed. There's also reports that a second suspect has been detained. But, of course...

You know, the faint hearts who seem to think this is somehow kind of overstepping the mark are very concerned about what the Russian response might be. What do you think it will be, Saul? Well, I mean, this has happened before, as we'll come on to in a moment. And there's not a lot they actually can do in response. I mean, we know for sure that Russia has been attempting to take out Ukraine.

the Ukrainian leadership since the beginning of the war. I mean, most recently, of course, they did manage to poison the wife of the head of Ukrainian military intelligence. That's Badanov's wife, something which, of course, he vowed to respond to. But, you know, the difference between the Ukrainians and the Russians in this respect, in the special services respect,

in the security services respect is that actually the Ukrainians do have the capacity to pull these things off. And just think about it, Patrick. I mean, this is in the middle of Moscow, for goodness sake. And going back, by the way, to the guy they wheeled out and said, this is the guy responsible. In my view, that is entirely for the domestic audience. They've got to grab someone to show they're not completely incompetent and they've got some patsy, basically. Either they will actually try him or he's just being told to say he did it. I suspect the people who were actually

truly responsible are long gone now, but I don't know that for sure. The response has been, as you've already kind of hinted at, Patrick, particularly hysterical. Our old friend Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and, of course, former prime minister, has threatened Ukrainian leadership with imminent revenge for the assassination.

Realising the inevitability of its military defeat, he said it launches cowardly and despicable strikes in peaceful cities. I mean, just think about that comment, Patrick, for just two seconds. It launches cowardly and despicable strikes in peaceful cities.

when large chunks of, you know, urban Ukraine have been leveled by what are clearly cowardly attacks directed against civilians. So it's the pot calling the kettle black big time here. The Kremlin and Russian propagandists, needless to say, have attempted to frame Kirillov's assassination as an unprovoked terrorist act, as you mentioned, rather than the consequence of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Kirillov's responsibility for Russian chemical weapons attacks and information operations attacks.

against Ukraine. Yeah, it's quite impressive though, Saul, isn't it? The sang-froid of the Ukrainian leadership. They're clearly pretty confident that, as you say, the FSB just hasn't got the capability, hasn't got the capacity to do them any serious harm. So yeah, well, I hope that turns out to be the case. But

The FSB hasn't had a great war, has it? And this is another example of its fundamental incompetence, along with, of course, the whole kind of military structure as well. So that's kind of good news. And this is something that this is not a one-off, is it? As you mentioned earlier, there have been several other very significant assassinations. Only last week, the SBU admitted, I think, I don't know whether openly or via a conversation with a journalist, as is what happened here in the Kirilov case when they gave it.

An official told Reuters that it was indeed the SBU what done it. But last week, they killed a Russian missile scientist who was working on upgrading cruise missiles being used in Ukraine. His name was Mikhail Shatsky, and his body was found in a forest park eight miles southeast of the Moscow city center.

Well, Moscow hasn't said anything about that one. And earlier on this year, Ukraine did admit that it was behind the killing of a senior Russian naval officer in a car in Crimea. And also a high-ranking officer in the GRU, that's the Military Intelligence Service, was killed outside his house in a village.

Moscow region. So they're pretty proficient at this. And I can only see this campaign continuing, can't you? Yeah, absolutely right. I mean, there have been a number of other attacks, of course, in occupied Ukraine and in the Crimea against civilians. I mean, we're talking about military characters in this respect. But there was also, I seem to remember a few months ago, Patrick, an Air Force commander who was

allegedly responsible for launching long range missiles, and in particular one that killed a vast number of people in one of the Ukrainian cities. And he was taken out. And that was a hell of a long way also from the front lines, not in occupied Ukraine at all, but actually in Russia proper. So they are very good at this. And obviously, they're going to keep doing it.

Well, in other news, I mean, you talked briefly about the North Koreans. Maybe listeners are wondering what's going on with the North Koreans. Well, according to U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, they are engaged in combat operations and suffering losses in Kursk or Blask.

as Russian official sources continue to avoid reporting on or confirming that they've actually been deployed to combat in Russia. No news that they're actually fighting in occupied Ukraine yet, but they are definitely fighting in Kursk. And I think you've got some other news, haven't you, Patrick, that confirms that and indicates that they're not actually performing that well, not that we're that surprised. Yeah, I suppose when we were talking about the

the difficulties they were going to face with having never operated jointly together before, the language difficulties, etc. It's not terribly surprising to hear the report that North Korean soldiers accidentally killed eight Russians in

after a misunderstanding caused by the language barrier. Now, this emanates from Ukrainian intelligence. According to their account of what happened, some North Korea's open fire on vehicles from the Chechen Akhmat Legion in Kursk, and the Russians had already had problems trying to communicate with their new allies. But there's also evidence that they're actually getting

killed on the battlefield. So there was a report that 30-odd North Korean soldiers were killed over the last weekend during fighting in the Kursk region. Okay, we'll take a break there. Do join us in a moment when we'll be responding to listeners' questions.

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Welcome back. Well, we had a lot of interest from listeners in sending money or aid and support in whatever way they can to organizations that are helping Ukraine. And we've got a message from Dave here saying, please, could you give us the details of some of these organizations that you could recommend sending welfare, morale packages, et cetera, to Ukrainian troops on the front line? And he goes, unlike many, I feel a great sympathy for their position and wish them well.

Well, there's a whole range of them, aren't there, Saul? I'll just read out some of them. We mentioned some last week. We mentioned the one that Julian Evans, the writer, is backing. So you should have those details from last week's pod. But some other ones, just to give a shout out here. United Help Ukraine, that's sending supplies to soldiers and first responders, boots, helmets, protective equipment, first aid kits, and so forth.

the Help Ukraine Center, which accepts donations for medications, food, hygiene products, and similar.

Spirit of America, which provides non-lethal frontline assistance to Ukrainian soldiers, including, as we said, surveillance drones. British Red Cross also supports the Ukrainian Red Cross Society of Sister Organization with healthcare, psychosocial support and more. The Come Back Alive Foundation. Then there's more official bodies, the Disasters Emergency Committee,

which is so far, this is a British enterprise, which has so far raised £438 million to help Ukraine. That's impressive. The British-Ukraine aid, etc. But it's really a question, isn't it, of getting onto your search engine and just looking around and seeing one that takes your fancy. We've got a particular one here with...

We'd like to mention John Fowler says, please, could you inform your listeners about Ukrainian action? Now, John has just been in a team that delivered five trucks, another five trucks to Ukraine full of medical supplies.

And that brings the total to more than 350 vehicles they've taken out since the war began, but they desperately need more. So he says, please visit Ukrainian Action, the Ukrainian Action website, and make a donation. Even a pound is welcome.

he says. So yeah, there's plenty to get your teeth into there with Christmas on us. And, you know, people have charitable thoughts. So let's give to these good causes. Okay, we've got another message from Nick coming back to us again on Russia's ability to continue its war effort. He writes, if you persist in your representation of the Russian economy as being the same size as Spain's, you'll be doing your listeners no favours. In your last episode, Saul also suggested that it was in imminent danger of collapse. Of course, it's the Russian economy. If, as you've

claim you're aiming to provide objective analysis and not simply be cheerleaders for the Ukrainians, you owe them a better understanding. On December 1st, The Economist published an article entitled Russia's plunging currency spells trouble for its war effort. It concludes with, after two years of strong growth, which confounded analysts' predictions, Russia's pace of expansion will slow. The economic bill for the war is at last coming due. It

it could be big. So we have mentioned that. And we're not saying it's going to implode immediately, but we are saying there's a lot of trouble brewing, which the economist seems to be agreeing with us, is how I read it. Patrick, what's your feeling about this? Well, I don't quite get Nick's point, really. I mean, I don't think we're at any stage we said that Russia, the

was about to go down the plug hole. But we did say that all the danger signals are there. I've said frequently that basically they're defying economic gravity at the moment. And of course, you could do that for a while, but eventually it plunges to Earth. Just to quote a very serious-minded and sober outfit, the Atlantic Council, that's a U.S. think tank, a few months ago when Russia just raised, or the Central Bank had just raised its impact.

interest rates to 21%. That was in late October. It came out with an analysis and it said, you know, pretty much echoing what the economy is saying. It's on a now a wartime economy, but it's in danger of overheating due to a combination of factors, including rising inflation, sanctions pressure, and record defense spending. Now, I think it is true that people were quite surprised at how resilient or apparently resilient the economy seemed to be.

and that things have taken a bit longer than you might expect. But nonetheless, it concludes that the fate of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine appears to have placed Vladimir Putin in an unenviable economic position if the war continues for an extended period and is accompanied by factors including increased sanctions, which is possible.

a big possibility as part of the Trump negotiation tactic or strategy. Inefficient military leadership, well, we've seen that, and pervasive corruption, that never goes away. This could plunge Russia into a severe economic crisis.

recession. And even if those war ends tomorrow, all those problems have been stored up. It's a very artificial economic situation. So I don't think there's anyone to say Russia is in a good place. And the fact that its economy may not be quite as small as it's been characterized, it doesn't really change that, does it? So, you know, I don't think any serious economist thinks that Russia is in a good place.

Okay, moving on to Paul. Love the pod and love what you do. I have to give you a big thanks for reading my last email about my grandparents from Ukraine in full. You made my usually stoic father shed a tear. Now for my question. A little while ago, there were scattered reports of small Russian militias carrying out small actions throughout Western Russia. In your analysis, are they Ukrainian-sponsored agents or is there a genuine, organized, armed anti-Putin insurgency in Russia? Looking forward to hearing from you. Well, Mike,

I mean, I think he's referring, isn't he, Patrick, to the various actions which were going across the border and into Western Russia from Ukraine, but they were led by Russians. I mean, these were Russian dissidents, I suppose you'd call them from the Moscow's perspective. And that almost certainly is still ongoing, but there haven't been any large scale incursions because, of course, the Ukrainians did it themselves.

with the major incursion into curse. But it is true that the news from those guys has definitely tailed off a little bit. Have you heard anything, Patrick? No, I checked it out. I mean, nothing since really the spring of this year. But there was quite a lot of interest in them, wasn't there, in the summer of last year, the Legion of Free Russia we're talking about here and another one called the Russian Volunteer Corps. And they seem to be sort of, you know,

pro-democracy, anti-autocracy, etc. But I think they haven't really amounted to very much, certainly in military terms and even in propaganda terms. So quite what happened there, I don't know, but I don't think they're really a factor in what's going on at the moment.

Okay, moving on. Rob from Edinburgh, big fan of the podcast. I'm wondering if you'd be able to discuss a concern that I have regarding how the situation in Syria will affect Ukraine. On the surface, it appears that Russia has had its nose bloodied in Syria and that the withdrawal of military resources there would only be a good thing. However, I'm concerned that this withdrawal would allow Russia to reallocate more high quality and equipment and troops, especially in the region.

especially specialists and veteran soldiers away from the Middle East and Africa and send them to Ukraine when they can cause more damage. Is this a real concern or am I way off the mark here? I mean, my first immediate thought about this, well, we don't know what's going to happen with the bases in Syria. The

Early indications are that discussions between Moscow and the new government of Syria are not going well and that there will be a phase reduction and probably they will leave entirely. But we don't know that for sure. My first thought about whether or not this is going to be a problem if they do reallocate these

troops is, I don't think there are a huge number of them, are there, Patrick? I mean, it's not as though they're going to make an enormous difference to what's going on in Ukraine. And one of the reasons why they've been drawn down, of course, and there aren't many of them there, which is why they couldn't really intervene in the war when things started going against Assad's regime, is because they were relatively small in number. So I don't

Personally, I think it's going to make a huge amount of difference if they do come back to Ukraine. And the larger benefit of this being a humiliation for Putin will actually be to Ukraine's benefit. No, I think that's absolutely right, Saul. And I think if they had significant numbers of troops there, they would have been able to put up a defense of their two bases there, the naval base and the air base, because they didn't. I think their presence there really was really an air presence, wasn't it, where they were using their

jets to pound the rebel positions over the years and support the Assad regime. So I think in terms of the military balance in Ukraine, it's not going to make any significant change to the situation as it stands. It's much more of a sort of political diplomatic setback, isn't it? And that is pretty profound, as we said last week. I've got one here from Norma Graham. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about this, Saul. And she says, listening to the latest news,

I found myself vehemently disagreeing with you, which is unusual. I get that you're trying to keep us from despair at the probable effects of the Trump victory, but I have to say despair may be more realistic. Putin owns Trump. It was Russian agents calling in bomb threats on election day to voting locations in predominantly Democrat regions. It's Russian disinformation that has helped to lead almost half of Americans to vote against their own best interests.

I cannot believe, much as I would like to, that Trump and the Republican Party will now bite the hand that feeds them, especially when that hand will wield a compromat whip should they turn against him. Compromat, of course, being compromising blackmail material, essentially, that the Kremlin is supposed or alleged to hold on Trump. She says, I recommend you read Philip Z. O'Brien's recent article and see if that might offer a dose of

realism. Have you read Phil O'Brien's piece on this subject? No. Well, we've been quoting Phil many times over the last couple of years, and he's normally got a very sober and pretty accurate view on what's going on, particularly with his discussion on the way the war is going and what really matters in terms of why wars are won. We quoted him many times on that, but he does seem to have a visceral... He is American himself, of course, Philips.

Norma, I should point out, just to give you a bit of context, is Canadian. She doesn't mention it in this, but I think she has done in previous messages to us. I know her personally. She's an absolutely charming lady. She's a member of the independent company, which is the We Have Ways, our sister podcast kind of special group.

who get together and Norma comes over generally for the We Have Ways Festival in the summer. She's absolutely charming. But on this one, I think I'm glad you're saying all of this, Norma, and not us, because we're taken to a task enough on trying to keep a kind of, you know, even keel when we're discussing with Trump. And you absolutely seem to

as has Phillips, seem to swallow the line that Trump is completely in the hands of the Russians. And while, of course, that's possible, I don't think that is actually the case. I think he has a lot more freedom. I think that the Russians are behaving in a way that they are genuinely concerned that the kind of tactics, as Patrick mentioned a minute ago, are going to be pretty tough, which is why they've been determined to grab so much land. So no, I'm not buying all of this

Norma, we all have our own opinion on this, but that is very much going down conspiracy theory territory, and I'm not going in that direction personally. What about you, Patrick? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I hear what you say, but I don't really agree that it's Russian disinformation that won the election for Trump. You've got a very, very vigorous press in the United States, most of which, most of the print media anyway, was against Trump. Most of the big TV networks were against Trump, but he still won by a comfortable majority. So it's not as if the message, the anti-Trump message wasn't being broadcast loud and clear.

So I think blaming the Russians for it is a bit unrealistic. I think you've got to look to what it was that Trump was saying that appealed to the voters and think about that. That's in a way more alarming perhaps to some of your outlook than the idea that the Russians are behind it all.

Okay, Ben Hodgson on the Isle of Wight says, art of war versus art of the deal. I mean, art of the deal was a Trump book, I think, wasn't it, Patrick? And, you know, so in theory, he's going to be bringing the art of the deal to war. This is the new art of war, as it were. And the question from Ben is, might Ahmad al-Shara allow Russia to keep their bases in return for vital war reparations for the Russian carpet bombings, thus allowing Syria to rebuild? Don't

possible. I don't think it's likely, given that Russian bombs have killed a lot of rebels. And the second question is, and I think this is one a little bit more credible, might Zelensky offer Trump the US highly favourable Donbass mineral exploitation rights in return for game-changing military aid, thus depriving Putin of those same military exploitation benefits?

Possibly. We've spoken about the valuable minerals underneath the ground in the Donbass, which is one reason. There are many, of course, for the Russians wanting to get their hands on that territory. But it also looks, all the indications, which we'll repeat again, look like Trump is going to go for a freezing of the front lines as they are at the moment, which means a lot of that land is already in Russian hands. And therefore, they won't be mineral exploitation rights that are in the...

in the gift of Zelensky to give to the Americans. That sort of thing does go on. And it's true that American companies often follow their armies into areas where they can take, you know, they can benefit from. We certainly saw this with Iraq, didn't we, Patrick? But this is likely to be a deal. I don't think that's that, you know, that's particularly likely in the immediate future.

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, that often comes up, the resource wealth of the Donbass coal, of course, but I'm not sure that would be particularly attractive. But what is attractive, of course, is the lithium. There are big lithium deposits there, which, of course, are vital components in batteries, and batteries being definitely something that people are extremely interested in developing and having the means to actually build energy.

high power and long-lasting battery. So that would certainly be something that American manufacturers would like to have access to. But as you say, I just don't think it's going to happen. There's another question actually being asked here by...

which is, might Ahmed al-Shara allow Russia to keep their bases in Syria in return for vital, quote, war reparations for the Russian carpet bombing, thus allowing Syria to rebuild? Of course, Ahmed al-Shara is the real name of Abu Muhammad al-Jilani, the leader of the Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led the

the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad earlier this month. So I think that's quite an interesting question that. I don't think there's going to be any reparations forthcoming from Russia for rebuilding Syria. Of course, they were responsible for a vast amount of the destruction of cities like Homs and Hama and Aleppo. But what I think they might do, and I said this last week, and I've been speaking to a few people about it, and they've kind of

been in agreement with me, saying that the one thing that the Syrians might be interested in and might be prepared to do a deal over the bases over is one Bashar al-Assad. I think he was remarkably stupid to go to Moscow. I think he might well have walked into a trap. And he has shown himself not to be the sharpest knife in the box. For example, his downfall can be traced directly to the fact that he spurned

an overture from the Turkish leader Recep Erdoğan recently when he reached out to Assad saying that he's prepared to normalize relations with Syria in order to facilitate the return of refugees from Turkey to Syria. There are about four million Syrians who've fled to Turkey but he

He turned the Bashar, turned that down, and that more or less sort of gave, Turkey gave the Green Light then to rebels to get going. And with the unexpected, it has to be a result of a total collapse of the Assad regime. So I would not be at all surprised if he found himself on a plane back to Damascus as part of a deal that would return the bases or secure the bases for the Russians.

Simon Rutherford is asking, now that Ukraine can use storm shadows, these are the British-supplied cruise missiles, of course, I'm surprised, he says, they haven't used them to attack the Kursk

I think he means the Kerch Bridge, which is the bridge that connects Crimea to Russia proper. Well, it's not Russian, but you know what I mean. And it appears they've given up, Ukraine has given up on retaking Crimea. Even if they can't retake it, surely it would be a big feather in Ukraine's cap if they could completely destroy Putin's bridge. And he goes on to say, we haven't heard anything about maritime drones for a long time.

Are they not being used anymore? Or is Putin keeping what marine assets he has left well away and out of the range of the drones? So, I mean, what do you think about Storm Shadow's utility in these circumstances, Saul? Well, the other point to say before I go on to what they can actually do is that this may also be...

a suggestion from maybe I'm giving Trump too much influence at this stage, but it may be that he's just said, look, lay off with the storm shadows for the moment. Crimea in some Western minds is definitely not going to come back to Ukraine, whatever happens in the Donbass. And

And therefore, they may really be accepting that even firing storm shadows into the bridge that links Crimea with Russia proper, as you said, Patrick, is not on. So that might be one reason. But actually, the real reason is storm shadows are the wrong bit of kit to destroy the bridge. They can blow holes in it, but they're not going to bring it down. As far as I know, from an engineering perspective, it really needs to be brought down immediately.

with a strike from below, which of course they did initially using those marine drones. Simon also mentions why haven't we seen more of the marine drones? Well, they're obviously taking precautions, aren't they? In other words, they've got a lot of defences around that bridge to stop them getting as far as the bridge. And as far as the ships are concerned, why haven't we seen more of them being taken out by these marine drones? Well, they've

gone a hell of a long way away from the Crimea. They're back in Russia proper. They're a long way away. So, I mean, the marine drones did what they were intended to do, which is to take out the Russian Black Sea fleet capability from the west part of Black Sea, which, of course, the Ukrainians needed clear so that they could continue with their grain exports, which are, you'll have noticed, perhaps, have gone out of the news now because they're just happening on a fairly regular basis.

Yeah, yeah, that's a bit of good unreported news. But you're absolutely right. I mean, Storm Shadow can't destroy the bridge. It hasn't got that capacity. You know, bridges are pretty, a modern bridge like that, it's a tough structure, concrete and steel driven deep into the seabed. I mean, it could hit it without doubt, but whatever damage could be easily repaired. So it'd be a waste of a good Storm Shadow of which they have a very limited supply. The German Taurus cruise missiles are said to

to be capable of doing the job. But of course, the Germans haven't given them to Ukraine, though with the government, the coalition collapsed and elections on the way, maybe the new government might change that policy. Just to get back to the Ukrainian point, I was interested by an interview that Zelensky gave to a French newspaper, Le Parisien. And in it, he says that although Ukraine is never going to recognize Ukraine,

Russian rule in Crimea and other occupied territories, he says it's really only diplomatic pressure could force Moscow to withdraw. He says we cannot give up our territories. The Ukrainian constitution forbids us to do so. De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We do not have the strength to recover them. We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit down

at the negotiating table. Now, that's quite an open admission of Ukraine's position, isn't it? And that militarily, they're never going to drive the Russians out. And it's only by a combination of international pressure from various quarters that that's going to achieve that.

Okay, one last one. This is from Susie. Hi there as a Canadian. I would love your take on how far Trump could take this joke to annex Canada. There are a lot of obstacles in his way, e.g. NATO and Congress. My real thought is that it would destabilize America's position in the world too much. Also, do you think Canada's military would put up a good fight? Social media is filled with comments about how America's army would

end us in a matter of hours but I'm not sure about that would love your thought well Susie I wouldn't take this too seriously I mean Patrick do you hear any of this this is a throwaway comment I mean Canada as you point out is part of NATO and unless NATO collapses it's not going to happen it really isn't I mean it takes me back all the way to the 19th century when there wasn't a

pretty serious attempt or at least a consideration that America would take over Canada. It's pretty remarkable in some ways that there wasn't ever a serious military expedition launched from the USA to take over Canada. But that's not going to happen now. Absolutely not.

Yeah, further proof, if needed, about the opacity of Donald Trump's statement. I just want to finish with one last one, Saul, from Ryan Hutley in Detroit, Michigan, because this is the other side of the argument from what we were hearing from Norma. So Ryan opens with a compliment, as we've often heard.

Notice, haven't we all, compliments can often be followed by a quick knee to the groin. And this is the case there from Ryan, who says, as I've said many times before, I thoroughly enjoy this podcast and the 1944 pod as well. Well, that is good to hear. He said, that said, I find many of your comments over the course of the war to be very left-leaning, often to the extent of hyperbole and fear-mongering.

Everyone has their own view of politics, and I know that journalists and the like have been swayed heavily to the left over the last half century, so I try and overlook it as much as possible. He goes on in this vein saying, you have spilled as much ink deriding Donald Trump and conservatives in general, trying to pigeonhole us all into one ideological camp.

Despite all the information and analysis available to you, such as Mike Pompeo's comments in his interview with the BBC, the prospect of Trump's re-election was, quote, the end of the world for Ukraine. Well, this is a reference, of course. We did, in fact, Ryan, report fully what Mike Pompeo said and indeed took some

comfort from it, didn't we? So we were saying, look, it's not as straightforward as it seems. We've got Pompeo saying this stuff. So therefore, you know, we were trying to give a more nuanced view back then on what Trump might actually do. And he goes on and says, since Trump's re-election, your stance has significantly softened.

And when possibly becoming even hopeful that he could force Russia into a reasonably fair deal for Ukraine. And yet there's never been any mea culpa for the weeks and months of fear-filled episodes. Well, I think you're slightly overstating the case here, Ryan, I have to say. I'm not sure there's much of a left and a right in all this. I don't regard myself as being either left-wing or right-wing. And the terms don't really have much meaning nowadays, do they?

I think I operate from a basic set of principles. I vote for

the party that seems to most reflect them, although it's quite hard to discern these days. I think, you know, the problem for Europeans is the character of Donald Trump. You know, he appears to us to be someone who has a very, very strained relationship with truth. Of course, we all know that politicians have a way of doing things, which is not the way that ordinary folk would do them. But I think he is in a class of his own when it comes to

that. And so, yeah, I think based on his utterances and the people around him, we would justify him being alarmed at what his presidency might mean. But I don't think we can reach to be accused of

We were analyzing the situation as it was at the time. And, you know, if you're a listener, you'll have heard that we're usually quite happy to issue a mea culpa when we call it wrong. We've done it several times, at least on the show, but I'm not going to do it this time.

Let's see what Trump actually does, shall we, and then pass judgment. Okay, that's all we have time for. Do join us next Wednesday for another episode of Battleground 44, and also on Friday when we'll be giving a summary of the year's events in Ukraine for our last pod of the year. And we should also say in the interim, have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy the new year.