Deep Dive
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Hello and welcome to the Battleground podcast with me, Roger Morehouse and Saul David. In a moment, we'll be giving you an update on the movements on the ground this week, but we'll start with the current status of this mysterious Trump-Putin axis that seems to have come into existence over this past couple of months.
Tantalizingly, it was reported on Monday that President Trump was supposedly very angry and even pissed off following a morning phone call with Putin after recognizing, belatedly one might add, the bullheaded intransigence of Russian negotiating tactics over Ukraine. In an interview with NBC, he criticized Putin for his attacks on Zelensky's credibility and even threatened to impose a 50% tariff on those countries buying Russian oil,
Tariffs being his new weapon of choice, it seems. Of course, Trump's anger later cooled and he walked back his comments, defending Putin's integrity, such as it is, and instead criticising Zelensky for negotiating in bad faith on the minerals deal. He said of Putin, I don't think he's going to go back on his word. I've known him for a long time. We've always gotten along well. I think he'll be OK.
In a new twist, on the 1st of April, Russia went on to the offensive itself, claiming that Trump was not addressing its needs in the negotiations and that it consequently cannot accept US ideas as they currently stand.
Later that day, they doubled down with a newspaper report noted by the BBC's Steve Rosenberg, accusing the Trump administration of administrative insanity, inexperience, immaturity, bragging and arrogance, and concluding that Donald's mood changes as often as the wind. There are some truth bombs there amongst the propaganda. This comes, of course, after weeks of Trump putting all the pressure on Ukraine to force concessions while parroting Kremlin propaganda fibs.
and all supposedly in the hope of securing some sort of deal. So what do you think about this, Saul? Where does this leave us? Is this perhaps the scales falling from Trump's eyes? Is it too much to imagine that he's finally seeing Putin for the duplicitous individual that he is? Yeah, probably a little bit optimistic to draw that conclusion at this point, Roger. We might be getting there, but we've still got a fair way to go.
And I agree that the fact that Trump criticized Putin at all is interesting. And the Russian reaction is certainly intriguing, too. On Tuesday, Sergei Rybakov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, put a bit more meat on the bone of the response when he told International Affairs magazine that Russia was giving, and I quote, serious consideration to Washington's peace proposal, but that it failed to address the root causes of the conflict.
This, of course, is code for the replacement of President Zelensky's government with one more amenable to Russia. Putin said something similar earlier this week when he suggested that Zelensky should be replaced with a UN-led interim government. Trump's response was he was pissed off.
Trump is, of course, unpredictable and thoroughly unscripted and is very much prone to shooting from the hip. But such utterances aside, he has, I suspect, already nailed his colours to the mast as a proponent of the idea of spheres of influence, a world in which countries like Ukraine are permitted to exist only on the whim of their larger neighbours.
And of course, let's bear in mind that Trump has expressed his rather theatrical frustration with Putin before, threatening sanctions in January and via his previous Kremlin envoy, Keith Kellogg, again in February. Neither instance brought anything of substance. And as you say, the only genuine pressure of any sort was exerted on Zelensky in Ukraine. And on the Russian response to all of this and their criticism of Trump, I'm not sure there is much to be read into it as yet.
I suspect it's an exercise in playing to the Russian gallery. Autocratic regimes still have to legitimize themselves in the eyes of their people, of course. And Russia is no different in that respect. And what better way to endear yourself to the Russian people by being seen to stick it to the Donald and refuse to be pushed around by the U.S.?
Even so, it seems that the odious Trump-Putin bromance is not quite dead in the water. Interestingly, this week, reports from Kyiv suggested that Zelensky had instructed his lieutenants to prepare for a presidential election to be held after any ceasefire has been agreed. This, of course, was a demand raised by Trump, echoing Putin's cynical criticism of his opponent's supposed democratic shortcomings. So, yet again, Zelensky is attempting to meet US demands as best he can.
According to The Economist, the knives are out domestically for Zelensky, with former President Petro Poroshenko the frontrunner to potentially replace him. Bolstered by his own visit to Washington in February,
But despite all of this, Zelensky may yet prevail. He certainly received a popularity bounce following his disgraceful treatment at the hands of Trump and Vice President Vance in the Oval Office a month ago. And his current popularity rating at around 68% is notably higher than Trump's 47% or Starmer's current stand of minus 35%.
None of them, of course, can get close to Putin's current popularity rating, which has been quoted by the Russian sources as 156.7%. Not quite sure how you get to that figure.
Yes, good old fashioned sort of Soviet style statistics there. I suspect you're right about that bromance, Saul. Certainly, Trump continues to play hardball with the much touted rare earth minerals deal. And we know this because the White House briefed that Trump was dissatisfied with Zelensky for trying to back out of the latest agreement.
which, according to the Telegraph, which has seen a draft, was the most one-sided yet, with America laying claim to half of Ukraine's oil, gas and hydrocarbon resources and insisting on taking all the proceeds until at least $100 billion, the money used to support Ukraine, has been repaid.
The response of Andrzej Sibija, Ukraine's foreign minister, was that they were still working to achieve a text that would be mutually acceptable, i.e. better terms for Ukraine and ones that would not preclude EU membership in the future. A tantalising fragment of evidence emerged this week which appeared to contradict the idea of a burgeoning Trump-Putin love-in, however.
and it was news that Finnish President Alexander Stubb played a round of golf with Trump at the weekend in Mar-a-Lago, and emerged from the experience strangely optimistic about Europe's prospects.
I think Trump is listening to Europe on Ukraine, he said, citing the influence of Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in pressing Europe's case. Given the sense of urgency in evidence in Washington and the foot-dragging and obstructionism from the Kremlin, he concluded that, I have the sense that time for Russia might be running out. Well, fingers crossed on that.
In other news, Putin's evident commitment to peace in Ukraine was demonstrated on 1 April when he announced the largest military call-up since 2011, with some 160,000 recruits aged between 18 and 30 destined to be conscripted this summer, bringing the total size of the Russian armed forces to nearly 2.4 million.
Of course, the accompanying narrative from the Russian Defence Ministry told us that those new recruits would not be sent to fight in the special military operation against Ukraine. But even for April Fool's Day, this was perhaps a fib too far. What do you think about this, Saul? Is this testament to the scale of Russian losses in Ukraine and maybe even evidence of a whiff of desperation?
Yeah, a bit of both. And also, I think, Roger, an attempt to send the signal that this is business as usual. We're going to continue to fight the war until a ceasefire is in place, if indeed it ever gets into place. And we've already discussed at the top how unlikely that is in the foreseeable future.
What's clear, I think, and we'll talk about what's happening on the ground in a minute, is that Russia is still taking enormous losses. It's trying to gain more ground, of course, to put it in a stronger bargaining position. And as it does so, it loses increasing numbers of men, hence the need to recruit more. So what about those events on the ground this week? Well, as in recent weeks, there have been a few movements to note that
Russian attacks continued near Belgorod, Kupyansk, Lyman, Chassivya and near Turetsk, but without making any significant advances. And a similar story unfolded in Pokrovsk, where the Russian advance appears to have stalled. Now, this, we've mentioned before, of course, is a significant success for Ukraine because the capture of Pokrovsk has long been touted as an
as a major Russian objective. Indeed, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Sersky, had claimed that as many as 7,000 Russian soldiers were killed in fighting for the city in January alone. I mean, it's an extraordinary figure, isn't it?
And that needs to be set against, of course, the recent estimates of up to a quarter of a million Russian soldiers killed and maybe as many as 900,000 wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion. Now, the comparative stasis on the ground also seems to have extended to the air. Unusually, the night of the 31st of March to the 1st of April saw, according to Ukrainian sources, only two Russian missiles shot down and no Russian drone activity.
And this was in contrast to most nights recently, when as many as 150 drones were fired at Ukrainian targets. So what should we read into that, do you think, Roger? Well, it would be nice to imagine that it could be interpreted as signalling some sort of willingness to enter talks on the side of the Kremlin, of course. But I think for all the reasons that we've mentioned over the past few weeks, I fear that would be a rather fanciful conclusion to draw.
What's most likely, Saul, is simply that Russia is husbanding its resources and building capacity for a resumption of drone attacks in due course. And of course, we must remember that only at the beginning of this week, the Russians launched a massed drone raid against the city of Dnipro, with some 170 drones being launched today.
Thankfully, only a fraction of those got through Ukrainian air defences, but they still resulted in four killed and dozens of injured on the ground. And in response, Zelensky said that Russia is mocking the world's peacekeeping efforts. Elsewhere, an attack on an energy facility in Kherson this week left some 45,000 inhabitants without power and significantly constituted a blatant violation of the energy infrastructure ceasefire agreed last week, but of course already essentially defunct.
Now, we shall see if this serves to concentrate Trump's mind any further on Russian transgressions, but personally, I doubt it. Okay, we're now going to hear from Ukrainian-American journalist and friend of the podcast, Asgol Kruzelnitsky, who's just returned to Washington, D.C. from Ukraine.
Asghar, welcome back to the podcast. It's good to be back. Now, you've just returned to the US from Ukraine. So you are in a unique position to gauge the opinion of both countries in the midst of these extraordinary events over the last few weeks, where on the one hand, Donald Trump's been cozying up to Putin and very much setting his face against Ukraine and Ukraine.
Europe. And on the other hand, now that he's not getting what he wants, which is a quick ceasefire, he's beginning to lash out a little bit. But let's talk about Ukraine first. Asghar, what was the mood there before you left? Well, I left about 10 days ago, and I'll describe
what people were thinking in the last days that I was there. But I was there for the whole time that Trump kicked off his peace negotiation efforts. And civilians and military, the people of Ukraine are surprisingly well acquainted with American politics and with Trump's character and his previous attitude towards Ukraine, which everybody had noted was
always slightly critical and tepid at best, and in stark contrast to his never losing an opportunity to praise Putin, the Russian dictator advocating the destruction of Ukraine. So when Trump began his peace initiatives in February, and he began with insulting criticisms of the Ukrainian President Zelensky, calling him a dictator, saying that he was trying to stay
in power without elections and culminating in that crude televised verbal assault from the Oval Office against Zelensky by Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance. There wasn't so much surprise that Trump was ill-disposed towards Ukraine as shock at the hostility and the venom with which the two leaders were attacking Ukraine.
But after that initial shock, and amongst many people, there was a sense of betrayal. But that was a sense of being betrayed by the American leadership, by the American government. People still were trying to distinguish and still do distinguish between Trump and his cronies and Republicans.
the American people as a whole, who they still regard as their friends. But then people obviously discussed what the impact of Trump's statements and attitude would be on the front lines, on Ukraine's ability to defend herself. And there was a moment of anxiety when he, for a few days, turned off the military supplies that America provides. And they're the lion's share of foreign
military aid to Ukraine, but he turned that back on. So people have become acclimatized in Ukraine to Trump's erratic behavior.
performances and his methods. And a few people still, in a wishful thinking kind of way, hope that Trump will come around, will understand that he's never going to get a deal with Putin. Putin will lie and deceive him. Some people hope that
Still, that Trump's theatrical and nasty displays are part of some wily strategy that will eventually work against Putin in Ukraine's favor. But most people realize that Trump doesn't really like Ukraine. That was solidified by his attempt to make a deal about mineral rights, which was more like a reparations deal against the defeated Ukraine.
enemy than some sort of negotiation by two countries that are supposed to be one another's friends. People have lived through these shocks and surprises, and they don't expect very much of Trump. They don't lose hope that despite Trump's hostility towards Ukraine, that Putin's intransigence and Putin's attempts to play Trump will eventually be
anger Trump so that he does support Ukraine more. But what people have decided is that Ukraine's got to seek new friends or forge closer ties with old friends like Britain, Europe. Ukraine has to increase the number of weapons it can produce itself so as to reduce reliance on other countries. And they hope that America will
eventually do the right thing by them. But what it has done is nobody's said, well, now we've got to surrender. People know that they've got to fight on and they know the consequences, the nightmarish consequences of a Russian victory. So over this last month and a half,
where Trump has criticized, insulted Ukraine, and then floated these peace plans, which he said would bring about a ceasefire within 24 hours or very, very soon. People think that he's realized it's not going to be that fast. It's not going to be something that Putin is going to help him with. So people aren't happy in Ukraine, but...
they're not at a position of fear. They don't think that there's going to be an immediate collapse in Ukraine. And in fact, it's just reinforced their view that they've got to be more self-reliant. Interesting, very interesting. I mean, it seems that after three years of the, since the full-scale invasion, you know, the people of Ukraine have got a much more kind of realistic view, frankly, on what's likely to happen next. Maybe we
in the West observing a little bit too quick to jump on one news story or another. And therefore, we oscillate in our thinking. And I think you've really hit the nail on the head there, Asgol, that the fact that you don't suddenly get overexcited about a new idea that might be favorable and vice versa. But since you've been back in the States, what reading are you getting of the American people
and their attitude to both what Trump's been trying to do and also the reaction of the Russians, which is, you know, playing what we all could have predicted, which is, let's just string this out as long as possible, because we're all getting the sense that Putin doesn't really want peace.
Well, despite my accent, I was born in London. I am British. I became an American citizen in 2015, the year before I watched the full magnificence of American democracy at work, which brought Trump to his first presidential term at the White House.
But I became an American citizen, not because I had to. My wife is American. I had a green card. I became an American citizen because I'd always admired America really as that crucible of modern democracy and a beacon for democracy and human rights and decency around the world, despite racism.
America's many flaws. And despite those flaws, we don't see queues of people lining up outside the Chinese or Russian embassies to get residency permits there. Every American embassy around the world will have a large queue of people whose dream was to live here.
When Trump and J.D. Vance started savaging Ukraine and Zelensky, lots of my American friends messaged me and said, oh, we're ashamed of being American. Some said, and there are many people I've heard who are seriously thinking of moving to Canada or to Europe. And I said that I
I haven't lost heart that America has gone down some irretrievably dark course. And in fact, less than half of those eligible to vote voted for Trump. So it's not as if there's an overwhelming support for what he does in America.
But since I've been here, I've talked to people who are serious or were serious players in the Republican Party that Trump now leads. And so many of them have said that because of the American electoral system where Trump can effectively dominate,
decide who will be the Republican Party's candidate for any post, congressional, post-Senator, House of Representatives, or state political jobs. And he's used that to ensure that his own supporters or people who
pay obeisance and a psychophantic towards him become candidates for those political posts. And in private, lots of these people have told me, they've told journalists and other people that in private,
they're shocked or they loathe Trump. They want to keep their jobs. Many of them justify continuing working for a Trump administration by saying, well, if it wasn't me, it would be some real ultra extreme Trump supporter who would have no kind of compunction about carrying out Trump's most extreme orders.
So they justify to themselves that at least they're not as bad as somebody who Trump might replace them with. Latterly, there have been signs of pushback against Trump's policies, not only towards Ukraine, but domestic policies that he's trying to impose and also his economic policies, these massive policies.
25% tariffs that he's imposing on friends and foes alike. And you can detect that there's a pushback. It's being cautious because people are worried they don't want to be caught in the crosshairs of Trump's public insulting excoriations of them and possibly the end of their
careers. But people are beginning to cautiously push back against some of his policies. And in recent days, there have been positive signs that both Republicans and Democrats in their House of Representatives and in the Senate are coming together to push Trump towards a more pro-Ukrainian attitude in his peace negotiations.
Yeah, well, that's very interesting to hear, Asghold. I mean, we'll be keeping a very close eye on this and hopefully getting you back in a week or two to let us know what's happening stateside. When is your next trip to Ukraine planned for? I'm still figuring that out. What I've found, which may sound curious, is that...
I feel more at ease and psychologically comfortable in Ukraine than in this America where crazy things are happening. And it's obvious that Trump wakes up at three in the morning and decides to slap another tariff or punish a country or decide that he wants America to colonize Greece.
or Mexico or Panama. And that's disconcerting. And it's more comfortable psychologically, as I say, in Ukraine, where people are not subject to this erratic, crazy pendulum of policy change. And unfortunately,
Overall, the government, even though not everybody supports President Zelensky, there's a feeling that he and the administration, the army, political and civic activists are honest and they're interested in doing the right thing, the decent thing. And there's a feeling that that's increasingly absent in America.
Well, that says it all, Asgol. Well, as ever, thanks so much for your contribution. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Okay, let's take a break there. We'll be back very soon to address listeners' questions.
Hello, I'm William Durrumpal. And I'm Anita Arnand. And we are the hosts of Empire, also from Goldhanger. And we're here to tell you about our recent mini-series that we've just done on The Troubles. In it, we try to get to the very heart of the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the 1960s all the way up to 1998.
It's something that we both lived through and remember from our childhoods, but younger listeners may not know anything about it. And it's a time when there was division along religious and political lines. Neighbors turned against each other. Residential city streets became battlegrounds. Thousands were killed.
and the IRA bombed London. It seemed as if an end was out of reach, but in 1998, a peace process finally brought those 30 years of violence to an end. But the memory of the troubles is still present, not only within Northern Irish communities who experienced it, but
but in international relations and political approaches to peace. And new audiences are starting to understand this national trauma through films like Belfast and kneecap and TV shows like Derry Girls. In fact, our guest on the miniseries is Patrick Radden Keefe. Now, he's the author of the non-fiction book that inspired the hit TV drama Say Nothing.
It's one of my favourite books. It's, I think, the kind of in-cold blood for our generation, extraordinary work of non-fiction. And if you'd like to hear more about this very recent conflict that put Northern Ireland on the global stage and hear from Patrick Radden Keefe, we've left a clip of the miniseries at the end of this episode. To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back. Well, before we turn to the first question, I should just mention that we've had another update from our cyber security expert, David Alexander, who I'm also pleased to say has recently recovered from a quite a serious health scare. We're sending you our best wishes, David, and our
appreciation for your regular updates. Now, this latest one concerns the recent cyber attack that disabled Ukrainian state railway online ticketing and freight systems on the 22nd of January. And David writes, as you all know, trains are now the main mode of transportation for domestic and international passengers and the movement of large scale freight, including military logistics for personnel and materials. And through this cyber attack, the trains still ran to schedule and on time.
How did this come about? Well, as David explains, Ukraine has developed a resilient approach intended to ensure that any cyber disruption is minimal in nature. Contingency paper-based systems existed in readiness and were brought into use, ensuring that tickets could be bought and freight could be moved. There was a minor impact on the volumes of people and freight, but only temporary. And it's interesting to get this corrective from David because, of course, it was reported in most Western newspapers at
as a major success for Russia. Now, two anonymous Ukrainian sources, says David, said that the attack looked like it had been carried out by Russia, but no formal attribution has been made. Let's face it, who else stands to gain from such an attack, says David. This is, he goes on to write, far from the first cyber attack on Ukrainian railway IT systems.
And the vast majority of them fail. Listeners should not think there was a problem with their cybersecurity. It's just that this time the Russians got lucky. And David added in a second message that the Russians themselves have been hit by a cyber attack that disrupted access for users of Internet service provider Lovett, including the public business Lovett.
and some parts of their critical national infrastructure in and around Moscow and St. Petersburg for three days. And that was attributed, at least to the IT army of Ukraine, who used their telegram channel to claim credit for the disruption. Interesting stuff. But on to the first question, Saul. We have a question from Ben, who writes that, with Trump's patience bound to run out with the Russians stalling for an end to the conflict,
Is there any chance of the Ukrainians pulling off or attempting another incursion into Russia to hold on to territory? This would either provide another powerful bargaining chip for them when it comes to negotiations in the event of sea fire or cause the Russians to stall long enough, trying to win their territory back, for Trump to get annoyed with them and turn on them.
What do you think about that one? Possibility of further Ukrainian incursions? Well, there's already been one, actually, which I think we mentioned last week, and that was into Bryansk. Made a little bit of headway, but it wasn't in any great size. And I think what the Ukrainians are probably trying to do there is
test the strength of the Russian defences. If they'd been weaker, they might have pushed more troops into the breach. But apparently this was only a kind of battalion size advance with armoured vehicles and maybe one or two tanks. So not serious. It's been pushed back a little bit. I think it still holds when I last checked a little bit of ground in Russia. But again, it's just a tiny sliver. So
Is there a possibility they might do more of this? There absolutely is, as the weeks and months continue, if we don't have a ceasefire agreement in place in the near future. I got a message from Samuel, and he points out he's a big fan of the podcast. And he adds, even Dostoevsky admits to the Russian propensity to lie in his 1873 essay, Something About Lying. Why would Ukrainian allies change tack and suddenly think that Russia will stay true to their word?
And he adds, can you also speak to the Ukrainian diaspora as a key to upholding Ukrainian culture, liturgy, language, etc.? Even if territory was ceded to Russia over the long haul, could the Ukrainian diaspora be the living legacy around the world? Well, let's start with the lying. Of course, Samuel's right. There's a long tradition of lying and Ukrainians know all about this. So the question is, why don't they're
allies understand it too. Well, I think the Europeans understand it very well. And they've made a number of pronouncements about this recently, about the duplicity of the Russians. The Americans are the ones who really need to be brought on board. But it may be, of course, as we've already pointed out,
at the beginning of this pod that Trump's administration is beginning to see that all this obfuscation is deliberate and that Russian claims that they want peace are just that, claims and not valid. Yeah, good point. And on that wider question of the role that the Ukrainian diaspora could conceivably play going forward, I think it's an interesting example to look back
at the experience of the Poles, certainly under communism, but also before that as well, and also the Baltic states under communism. Because in both cases, the Polish diaspora served a vital function, and the Baltic diaspora served a vital function in, exactly as you say, kind of keeping the dream alive, keeping contacts with the home country. I mean, obviously, in those examples, they were wholly occupied.
So it's slightly different to this scenario, but still played a really vital role. And one individual you can point up as sort of crucial in that is Zbigniew Brzezinski, of course, was born in Poland and ended up as security advisor to the Carter administration in the US and was really influential in, you know, the latter years of the
of the Cold War, the late 70s, early 80s, and so on, those sort of crucial years of the Cold War. So those voices, those diaspora voices can have a real role. I mean, the question says, you know, ask specifically about culture and language and so on. And yes, absolutely. But also a really rather more cold-eyed role in politics as well, and how the outside world views the Ukrainian question going forward, whatever, you know, is the end result of the current war.
It's a really interesting question. Yeah, and you make a good point there, Roger, because it's pretty clear the pressure is being put on various administrations, including in the US. Maybe it's not having as much effect as it should have, but you know, sizable population of Ukrainians in America, something like one and a half million, and their voices need to be listened to, of course. So it is interesting that the role that the diaspora
can play. And this links very neatly with a question from Enda O'Sullivan in Dublin, Ireland. And this is about Armenia. As a longtime listener, writes Enda, I'm aware that you have some connection to and a certain fondness for Armenia. And indeed, I do, of course, because I'm descended on my father's side from Armenians, although we haven't
be near the territory that is now Armenia for many, many centuries. And in fact, so the family law says we originally came from the bit of Armenia that was now in modern Turkey. So there is no direct connection. But in any case, Enda goes on to write, according to David Gregorian's article in The Telegraph, Putin has wider ambitions to retake the old Soviet republic.
Not much effort will be needed to formally annex Armenia, a country that has been under Putin's thumb more than any one of the remaining Soviet republics. Wouldn't it be awful to see that? But who would help them? They are not really in Europe and the current US administration, a bunch of hillbillies, are not going to be of much assistance. Well, it is absolutely true that Armenia is in a
pretty dodgy position, isn't it, Roger? I mean, you've got Azerbaijan on one side, which of course is Muslim. And one of the reasons Armenia has been relatively close to Russia is because of the Orthodox connection, the Armenians being Armenian Orthodox, which I suppose is a link with Russia. But now they are gradually moving further away from Russia, aren't they? Which does put them in a pretty parlous position, I would suggest.
It does, and the Caucasus is sort of traditionally, or the Kremlin certainly sees it traditionally as its own sort of playground.
And part of that sort of much vaunted near abroad that we often talk about or hear them discussing. So to a large extent, also, although independent, of course, since 91, those countries have never really escaped Russia's orbit in that sense as well. I mean, they're still to some extent allowed to exist by the Kremlin. You can see that most obviously in the case of Georgia. And Georgia, of course, was subject to a Russian invasion in 2008.
and still is subject to Russian interference through its political system. So I would certainly fear for the fate of the independent republics of the Caucasus, certainly in the event of any sort of Russian victory in Ukraine. It'll be the Caucasus, to my mind, it'll be the Caucasus and then Moldova next before potentially the Baltic states. The Baltic states, of course,
members of NATO. So that's a major deterrent for the Kremlin. But yeah, certainly, I think the Caucasus is looking rather in a perilous situation at the moment, which is sad to say. Now, Enda goes on to ask a second question, which is that according to President Zelensky, Russia is preparing an offensive in either Sumy or Kharkiv, but I don't see much talk about this. What do you think that might look like? Do you sense any panic in Zelensky? He was described today as buoyant by
Jeremy Bowen. Well, it is true that Zelensky has been warning about this. It may be one of those quite clever tactics to actually say to the Russians, we know what you're about to do, therefore don't even think about doing it. He may be just trying to give a general sense that Russia is still a threat, or they may have actually solid intelligence that is about to take place. And it might link in, of course, Roger, with the increased number of troop numbers that Moscow has needed. I mean, we're thinking, yes, that's a sign they're losing a lot of people.
but they may also be attempting to take as much ground as they can before Trump finally loses patience and insists on some kind of peace deal. So it could be any of the above. Yeah, absolutely. Another question here from Daniel in Dundee. He says, two weeks ago, Ukrainian Lieutenant Colonel was quoted in the Mirror and the Daily Mail as saying that he can't shake the feeling that Russia was warned about the pause in intelligence sharing as Moscow made its advances within hours.
This morning, he says it was speculated that the Russians will have known about the Houthi bombing from the signal chat after lifting it from Vitkov's phone, but obviously did not warn them as so as not to tip off the West, which is an interesting sort of prospect. It honestly wouldn't surprise me. He goes on and says, if
If they had a group chat for Yemen, they presumably have one for Ukraine. And with Vitkov flying everywhere for meetings with the Russians, they will have lifted that chat and will know about the pause in advance or in real time.
That scenario would mean that their incompetence has caused an ally battlefield losses, which is far more serious than merely sending it to a journalist. I think he's right in that scenario, if that's correct. And I don't understand necessarily the sort of technological implications of it. But if there is a chat, a group chat on Ukraine, it sounds ridiculous to even say the words Ukraine.
in the White House team, then I just hope they've got the right security in place that it can't be lifted in that way. Because if there are any opportunity, I'm sure the Russians would be on it very keenly. So I think, you know, let's hope that there's someone in the White House with the brains and integrity to actually sort this out and look into it and restore some operational security.
What do you think, Saul? Yeah, it's definitely possible. And an even more sinister conclusion might be that they told the Russians they were about to stop intelligence sharing. You know, this is the pressure we're putting on Ukrainians. This is what we're going to do if they don't play ball and come to the negotiating table. And this is roughly when we're going to do it. Now, that may be a bit fanciful to think they gave that amount of detail. But it is certainly true that the Russian advances were made in Kursk, which was the beginning of the end, of course,
for the Kursk incursion within, as this colonel says, hours of that actual pause in intelligence sharing, which meant that the Ukrainians were hamstrung, really, when it came to countering that thrust as far as targeting using HIMARS and other American equipment. So,
It could be a very serious charge. This is probably going to take, you know, a few years to come out in all its detail, Roger, when historians get hold of some of the detail. But it's certainly a possibility. And if true, it'll be a real black mark on the part of the Trump administration.
Okay, question from Will Wright in Southampton in the UK. I'm surprised no one has commented in terms that Donald Trump would understand. He is talking of dividing the spoils of Ukraine with Russia and seems totally oblivious to peace, justice and stability. And yet, Will goes on to give the example of if Mexico invaded the USA to arrest
cover the states that were taken by them with war. Would Trump, for the sake of peace, be happy to allow Mexico to keep large areas of Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona and also allow them to keep large oil fields and other major infrastructure assets? I think not. Yet this is what he seems to be asking Ukraine to do for the sake of
peace and ending this war. And it is a good point, isn't it, Roger? I mean, a long time ago, of course, we're going back a century and a half to the events when Mexico was forced to relinquish these territories. But nevertheless, it could be a valid claim for Mexico to say these were historically controlled by us. And that's the problem, isn't it, when you start listening to irredentist claims like the Germans in the 1930s? Yeah, I take the point. But
I think there's a sort of wider question here that our questioner, Will Wright, is not really seeing, which is that Trump sees the world, I think, in terms of big powers, as does Putin. You know, the big powers, world powers,
This is the whole question, this sort of spheres of influence viewpoint, which was very fashionable in the 1930s. And look where that ended up. And it seems to be coming back into fashion now. And the logic of that is that the big world powers, and in this case, we can say the US, Russia, China, and probably precious few others,
maybe Europe in that if Europe gets its act together in Trump's vision. But those are the countries that have the rights because of their, you know, might and their economic power to order small ones about. So in that scenario, you know, Mexico is not going to be invading the
the US. Mexico is going to be ordered about by the US. So in a sense, you know, I appreciate the logic of Will's question, but this isn't the way that Trump thinks. So you're not going to sort of change that by positing that scenario that he gives.
There's no logic in what he thinks anyway, because he puts Russia up as a major world power, almost equal to the US as a superpower, when it clearly is not. I mean, there's something like four European countries that have a GDP greater than Russia's. Yes, it's got nuclear weapons, but it's got precious little else.
So the idea that he somehow fathomed that Russia, China and the United States should divide up the world is based on a historical fallacy, frankly, a little bit like the idea that Russia won the Second World War when clearly it was the economic might of the West that won the Second World War.
Yeah, I agree. It stems from a rather peculiar reading of history and sort of current affairs. But as far as we can divine, you know, Trump's worldview, as it were, in inverted commas, out of his public utterances and his actions over the last few months, it would seem to be that that's what it is, that he does see it in terms of big powers, and he includes Russia in that. So at the moment, I think, Saul, that's kind of the best guess we've got.
Okay, last question, or more to the point, last message. And this comes from Ian from Montreal, Canada. And he says, what are the longer term consequences of this tariff game Trump's been playing? Now that UK and Europe more broadly are in the tariff crosshairs, what sort of new political economic framework can we expect in the future to lead the charge in both pushing back against American extortion as a single block on the one hand, and picking up
the slack in the Ukraine conflict. On the other hand, I don't see a way out of the current events without some new coalition being formed from the still sane segments of the West.
what would this look like? And who, if anyone, can take the lead in making this happen? Well, it's a very good question, isn't it, Roger? And we are getting to the point, of course, where Europe is beginning to push back against the United States. You know, who's going to be the one to, you know, to push back? Well, Europe's already doing it. I mean, the European Union has just said if they're going to put tariffs on us, we are going to respond in kind. And that's all, frankly, you can do with this type of bullying. So, you know,
Where that all leads us in the medium term is a bit more of a concern because everybody loses in a tariff war. That's clear. I think the message that needs to be sent to the Trump administration, and it's already happening in the Far East, you'll have noticed, Roger, in the last couple of days, when China, South Korea and Japan, I mean, what kind of unholy alliance is that?
have said they will respond to tariffs jointly against the United States. So, you know, don't think of this as new geopolitical blocks being formed, but do think of this as pushback. So the answer to Ian's question is it's already happening and a damn good thing, frankly. And Britain needs to take a firmer stance in all of this, in my view. If you just roll over and say, you know, what do we need to do to avoid tariffs? You are basically playing Trump's game.
Yeah, agreed. And it's, you know, it is an interesting moment in geopolitics at the moment. And I think a timely one in that this does provoke Europe to, in a sense, step up its game and sort of realize what it's there to defend and so on.
then that's a welcome result of Trump's rather sort of bull in a china shop diplomacy on this. So I agree, it's a very interesting moment and let's have fingers crossed that Europe can step up to the plate. And finally, the second part of Ian's message is fascinating actually because it's a
follow up to the recent interview we did with Alan Philps. And he says, and the possibility of China exploiting Russia's overstretched position in order to, as Alan put it, retake the Russian Far East north of the Amur River. Well, Ian would like to point out that we'd probably be better off not describing Vladivostok and the surrounding region as a
and I quote, formerly Chinese or being taken from the Chinese. More accurately, it was territory of the multi-ethnic Qing Empire with far more of a Manchu population than Chinese in the era of the An'er annexation. The modern day People's Republic of China's claims to the ownership of all former Qing territory beyond their control is as valid as Russia claiming Kazakhstan, given that it was part of the
former Soviet Union Russian Empire, which is to say not valid at all. Of course, this doesn't change the reality on the ground, where China is in a prime position to seize the territory by force if they so choose. But while this may seem to be a petty point, says Ian, I bring it up not to fight Russia's corner, but because I think it's important to be precise, given that this was the exact same pretext used by Putin for his own special military operation in Ukraine. It sets a bad precedent in relation to other regimes.
with irredentist ambitions. Very good point, Ian. Thank you for that. And thank you for that clarification. Okay, that's all we have time for. Do join us on Wednesday for part two of the story of the Battle of Okinawa. And also on Friday when we'll be hearing the latest from Ukraine. Goodbye. Goodbye. So here's a clip from our series on the troubles. This is the strangest thing about this story is that Northern Ireland is so small.
And listen, there are other, I mean, you could tell a similar story about Sarajevo or any number of other types of places where there's been a conflict, Rwanda, and then the conflict ends and everybody still kind of lives in the same community and you see these people. But, you know, there's an instance even as adults where Helen McConville was with her own family in McDonald's and sees one of the people who abducted
her mother. There's a moment that I describe in the book where Michael McConville actually gets into the back of a black taxi in Belfast as an adult. He sees in the mirror in the front of the taxi, he realizes that the man driving him is one of the people who decades earlier abducted his mother. The strangest, most eerie aspect of this is he doesn't say anything. He doesn't even know if that guy
recognizes him and they drive in silence and then he just pays the guy's money and leaves. To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcasts. ♪