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Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me, Saul David and Roger Morehouse. In a moment, we'll hear from Belgian war reporter Arnaud Dedeco, who has recently returned from Georgia, where he was covering anti-Russian demonstrations.
But first, the latest news from the battlefield, and that is that Ukraine has announced the capture of two Chinese nationals fighting for Russia. According to President Zelensky, they were taken prisoner in Donetsk and were part of a much larger force of 150 Chinese fighting for the Russians. He said he had the names and passport details of the Chinese combatants and insisted that
Beijing was aware of their participation in the war. He added, Russia's involvement of China, along with other countries, whether directly or indirectly in this war in Europe, is a clear signal that Putin intends to do anything but end the war. He's looking for ways to continue the fighting. Now, this, in my view, Roger, is clearly an attempt by Zelensky to link the war in Ukraine with the Trump administration's
fear of China, and it does seem to have done the trick. A US State Department spokeswoman said that the capture of Chinese citizens fighting for Russia was disturbing and that China was a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine as it provided, and I quote, 80% of the dual-use items Russia needs to sustain the war, end quote. But could these soldiers really have been sent by Beijing, do you think, Roger?
Yeah, it's certainly been the big story of the week, Saul, and you can understand why the Ukrainian government is trying to amplify it, because it supposedly would provide proof both of Putin's bad faith in the ongoing negotiations, but also of the fact that he's been trying to amplify it.
and also as evidence of a major escalation by the Kremlin, as you say. But I rather doubt that these soldiers are there as part of any sort of large-scale Beijing-backed operation. If they had been, of course, it would certainly change the game. But most Western intelligence sources are saying that it's unlikely that those soldiers were sent directly by China and that they were probably mercenaries of some sort that went there under their own steam, as it were.
Russia, after all, has routinely recruited foreign nationals into its armed forces through very often irregular means. And as we know, the Russians have used North Korean troops, albeit officially sent in the recent recent fighting in Kursk. Now, in response to Ukrainian demands for an explanation for the presence of these two Chinese nationals,
The Chinese foreign ministry stated that its troops were not fighting in Ukraine and that it has always asked its citizens to, quote, stay away from areas of armed conflict and avoid involvement in armed conflicts in any form, end quote.
The spokesperson added, "...the Chinese side's position on the issue of the Ukraine crisis is clear and unequivocal, and has won widespread approval from the international community." The cynics amongst us might dismiss that denial as just so many weasel words, but
But it remains to be seen how far Beijing's no-limits friendship with Putin's Russia will go. Another one to watch, perhaps. Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out amidst the current battle between China and America over tariffs. The latest news this morning, Roger, is that
Trump seems to have backed down. There's now a 90-day stay of execution or at least a maximum 10% tariffs for everyone but China. But China is actually going to get more than 100% tariffs. So that battle is ongoing. Elsewhere on the actual battlefield in Ukraine, Ukrainian sources say they've destroyed a $100 million bomb.
Russian strategic bomber known as a TU-22M. And it was destroyed. We don't know exactly how it was done, but there is some footage of it on social media showing the bomber erupting into flames before hurtling to the ground. It's probably a drone strike if it was the Ukrainians.
Russia's Ministry of Defense says that the aircraft crashed due to, as they put it, a technical malfunction after completing its combat mission. I know which of the two spokespeople I trust on this one. So it does seem like a big success for the Ukrainians. At the same time, President Zelensky has confirmed for the first time that Ukrainian troops actually hold territory in Russia's Belgorod border region. I mean, we reported this, I think, last week, maybe the week before,
Zelensky said, we continue to conduct active operations in the border areas on the enemy's territory and this is absolutely right. The war must return to where it came from. He added, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Sersky reported on the situation at the front, including our presence in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. So what sort of size are we talking about? Well, other sources claim it's only about five miles square. That's the Belgorod sliver. And there's also a tiny sliver still in Kursk. I mean, that
pocket was almost completely reduced over the last few weeks, but they still got a tiny bit of land there. The operation began last month and was done, according to Zelensky, to relieve pressure on Kyiv's embattled forces in eastern Ukraine, as well as diverting Russian attacks, which they expected on Ukraine's Sumy and Kharkiv regions in the northeast of the country. Well,
Well, as you say, if that was the intention, it doesn't seem to have worked because on Wednesday, Zelensky said that Russia was currently mounting a new multi-pronged push in the northeast, in the Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions. When asked about the claims on Wednesday, Oleksandr Sirsky, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said...
I can say that the president is absolutely right. This offensive has effectively already begun, end quote. According to some Ukrainian sources, this offensive is limited in nature, aiming primarily to cut the key supply route to Ukrainian forces in Kursk. And it's not thought that the regional capitals of Sumy or Kharkiv itself are threatened.
Meanwhile, Zelensky has accused Russia of, quote, dragging out the talks and trying to get the US stuck in endless, pointless discussions about fake conditions just to buy time and then try to grab more land, end quote. He'll be telling us that the Pope is Catholic next. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, Zelensky, you know, he's got a point, of course, hasn't he? Because just a few days ago, Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin supports the idea of a ceasefire in Ukraine, but that several issues are still hanging in the air. In other words, they need to sort these out before he can agree to a deal. These include the lack of control over the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian government's alleged inability to control the actions of unspecified extremist and nationalist units that are
I mean, this is a new one, actually, Roger. It's an attempt, of course, to promote Putin's false narrative that the current Ukrainian government is illegitimate and incapable of combating neo-Nazi groups.
The government itself has been called neo-Nazi, so they're getting a little bit confused in their messages here. But Trump recently expressed anger, pushing back a bit at Putin's claim that Zelensky was not legitimate and threatened to impose additional sanctions if Russia refused to make a deal. Well, Russia has refused to make a deal. So what has he done? Not a lot. Instead, he's authorized. This is really bizarre, really.
Roger, he's authorized the State Department officials to begin a second round of talks with the Russian ambassador in Washington on the subject of
not Ukraine, but normalizing US and Russian diplomatic operations. There's nothing on the agenda about discussions with Ukraine. So while Trump gets tough with China, the EU and the rest of the world over terrorists, as I've just mentioned, he continues to pussyfoot around Putin. Yeah, but perhaps not for long. The American president seems...
still to be rather upbeat about the prospect of some sort of ceasefire, perhaps as is his want, you know, seeking to talk up the deal with his eyes still very firmly fixed on the Nobel Prize. And he said on Monday, we're meeting with Russia, we're meeting with Ukraine, and we're getting sort of close, which sounds rather lukewarm by the standards of Trumpian rhetoric. But he did add,
I'm not happy about what's going on with the bombing because they, the Russians, are bombing like crazy right now. And he was referring with that, of course, to the recent Russian missile and drone strikes, including one on Krivyi Rih, Zelensky's hometown, of course, that killed 20 people at the weekend with nine children among the dead, the largest verified death toll among children in a single strike since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
Later this week, Russian air attacks targeted Kiev and Mykolaiv, while Ukraine responded with a mass drone attack on three Russian military airfields, which lasted for 10 hours, ranged across 11 regions, including Krasnodar, Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod, and even disrupted civil aviation.
According to Moscow sources, 158 Ukrainian drones were shot down. So, so much for that deal being close. Okay, we're now going to hear an extract from Belgian journalist Arnaud Dedecker, who's of course been on the podcast before.
He's recently traveled to Georgia to cover the anti-Russian demonstrations there. And then he moved across to Armenia in Yerevan. And this is the extract we're going to play you today when he spoke to some Russian deserters about what their experience had been like on the front line and how they're sort of trapped in a limbo now in Armenia. Do listen out on Monday when we'll put out the whole interview. But we're just going to give you an extract now.
Arno, returning briefly to Armenia and your experience talking to some of these Russian troops who had deserted the front lines, did they talk a little bit about what conditions were like for them when they were actually fighting?
Absolutely. So that was very interesting. First of all, for the context, for the setting of these interviews I did, I went to, I traveled, took place in a small cafe in the streets of Yerevan. The three guys accepted to talk to me because they wanted, eventually, they want to be able to leave Armenia.
but they don't have a lot of possibilities. It's either they stay in Armenia, where the situation is very bad, where they're not able to work, to open bank accounts, they have no documents, no papers. So it's either they stay in Yerevan with an increasing risk of the Russian police
patrolling the streets, finding these deserters and sending them back to Russia. And if they're being caught in Yerevan, sent back to Russia, there is two options. Either they go back to the front lines or they go to prison.
So that's why they wanted to talk to the Western media, to me, to a Belgium audience, to say, look, we are also victims. Yes, we took part of the Russians' war. Yes, we fought for a few months to a year in Ukraine, but it was against our will. We escaped. And now we try to integrate somehow. We want to go to the Western countries. We want to go to Germany, to France, etc.
and to try to integrate there. And so that's why they actually agreed to speak to me. Three guys for an hour, more or less. It was very interesting because there was a lot of similarities to be made. For instance, they all got taken on the streets and forcibly mobilized. So there was no choice. And it was one guy I spoke, they were around 25 to 30 years old. So one guy I spoke to was taken in the metro
in Moscow. Another one was in a supermarket in St. Petersburg, where the police basically just took them, sent them to the police station and started arguing. And eventually, one week later, they were already on the way to the front lines of Ukraine. And once they arrived in Ukraine, they explained the similar situations, which is
Bad equipment, bad training. No one cares about our lives. One of the guys I spoke to described it. He survived for weeks in Kupiansk, which is Kharkiv Oblast, where he had to survive at the very front line. He was trained as a medic, so he had to go to the front line, to the zero line, to take the corpses and under fire, under...
drones, attacks. And at some point, this guy, he said, we were 250 people in the trenches. Two weeks later, we were 30 left. The rest was killed. And then I asked one question about making friends in the trenches.
And I remember the guy telling me, yes, at the beginning, of course, we had interactions. I had some friends in the trenches because, of course, you need to interact. You need to speak to the people and then you create a bond with the people. And he told me that he had this connection with one guy that also got mobilized, one guy with five children at home back in Russia. And for days they were together. They tried to stick together to help each other.
And then eventually this guy, this friend was sent by the officers, was sent on an assault in Kupyansk. And two days later, the other guy was sent to take the bodies of the wounded. And he saw his friend still alive, but eventually he died in his arms after two days of being wounded. And then the quote of the guy, he said, I used to have friends, people I know on the front line, in the trenches,
But now, why should I still care? Because everyone dies. Eventually, we all die. And then he started crying and it was very dramatic. I asked, so how did you escape? How did you manage to leave this routine of death, of war, of trenches? How did you manage to escape? And he described that he was able to run away and he was shelled by the Ukrainians. And at this point, he showed me still the shrapnel in his body.
So he was losing a lot of blood. He was taken back to Moscow or to Russia. And in Russia, he was being treated, but very poorly, which means that he still had basically the bombshells in his body. When he was describing this, he showed the body and I could see the scars, very fresh. And then from the hospital in Russia, he contacted again this chatbot on Telegram because most of them were able to...
That's very interesting. There is these chatbots from Russian opposition run by a guy first in Georgia, now moves to Spain. But this guy has a whole network of volunteers reacting through a chatbot on Telegram. And whenever you're mobilized in Russia and you want to leave Russia as a deserter, you can chat on this Telegram bot and they help you.
And so eventually the three guys used this chatbot to escape and a very popular destination is Armenia. Why Armenia? Because the Russian passports makes it very easy for the Russian man to go to Armenia, which is not necessarily the case for Turkey or even for Georgia. Well, Georgia is a case apart.
changing more and more when we see the influence of Russia in Georgia growing. But for countries like Armenia, Russians don't need an extra international passport. They can just go with their Russian documents basically to Armenia. That's why a lot of these men, thousands of men are now in Yerevan trying to hide and live in very poor conditions. Honestly, it was difficult for me to make this report also on a personal level because
The three people I spoke to at the end, they actively took part of Russia's war in Ukraine, but they're victims of Putin's war.
So it's a very double and tricky subject. And I had to be very careful also to how I bring it to the Belgium and Western audience, because I obviously don't want to be the guy who speaks Russia's narrative. So I had to be very careful. And these guys also acknowledged, they said, yes, for weeks, for months, I took part actively in the fighting.
I tried to go to the medical battalions not to have to take the guns and to actively kill people. So I tried to be like in medical staff, evacuation teams. So that was their way to resist.
but eventually they all left and they all said to me like we never wanted to go there we were taken from the streets and we had we are victims so yeah that i think that was very interesting being the victim of the system of putin's system and being also actively taking part for months in ukraine doing well taking part of this invasion uh illegally invasion of ukraine so it was very interesting also for me on a personal level after working almost three years in ukraine to be able to see
The other part, let's say. I know, we know, you know, historically speaking, Russian armies or Soviet armies have always been extremely brutal in their treatment of deserters. Do you know what their punishment would be if they were caught now? Absolutely. And it goes even further than that. And I didn't, this is something maybe I wasn't fully aware or prepared to hear, but
One of the guys told me, he said, I lost everything. I can never go back to Russia because if I go back, I will be either arrested or stand back to the front lines in Ukraine. So I cannot go back to Russia. But even worse, my own family, I was about, it's all young guys I spoke to. My girlfriend, he was about to get married, doesn't want to speak to me anymore. My own dad, my own family, they don't want to speak to me anymore because I deserted.
And so not only they lost everything they had in Russia, all the roots, everything their life was based on is gone, but also their own family sees them as treaters, as deserters. There we can see that the Russian propaganda or that the Russian mentality is still very, or the support for the war is still very big. Even inside deserters that flee the war, the own families treat them as deserters and as a piece of garbage.
which puts these young men in a terrible, terrible situation where they have no network in Yerevan. They cannot go back to Russia. And even their own friends and family, they turn back on these Russian deserters. So it's a very, very...
difficult situation for them. And again, that's why they wanted to speak to me because they want to say, hear us out, let us come to Western countries, to Europe, to rebuild the life, at least to get a chance to build something and to get out of this chaos in Armenia. So actually very sad story and very dramatic for these men. Okay, we'll take a break there and do join us in a moment for listeners questions.
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Thank you. I couldn't have completed this project without a little extra coffee. And since I brushed with Colgate's Pro Series toothpaste with an expert level whitening for a vibrant glow, I could show up to set each day camera ready and smiling wide. Well, Kelly, looks like a little Colgate gave you a lot of confidence. Colgate Optic White. Find it at all major retailers. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Welcome back. Well, last week we had a question from a listener about the Ukrainian diaspora. And my answer was clearly not as full as it needed to have been, Roger, because Askol Kruselnitsky, who, of course, we heard from last week, wrote me a quick email just to remind me, actually, there is and always has been a very large Ukrainian diaspora defending and advocating for Ukraine. And it's been doing this for a long time. And it's particularly strong in various regions. And they include Kazakhstan.
Canada, the US, Britain, Germany, France, Australia and Argentina. Now, this diaspora, according to Asgol, ensure that Ukrainian language and culture was passed on to generations born in foreign countries through Ukrainian churches, schools and youth organizations.
Since Putin's initial 2014 invasion of Ukraine, these groups have done immense work to support Ukraine by sending money and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, advocating for other countries to back Ukraine, and many diasporans, of which he is one, have volunteered to serve in Ukraine's military, with some being killed in action. Asgore gave us a lot more detail, but the last couple of points he makes are people of Ukrainian origin form a larger proportion of
Canada's much smaller 40 million total population and so can exercise more political influence. There have been many Ukrainian ethnic members of the parliament and in the last Trudeau government a woman of Ukrainian origin who was an outspoken advocate for Ukraine, Chrystia Freeland, was foreign minister and later minister of finance. She was tipped to take over as prime minister when Trudeau
resigned but lost out in the leadership race to Mark Carney. Thanks so much for that, Asghold. Absolutely fascinating. Very good. So we had a message from Andy who said, great podcast. I'm a former weapons officer in the UK military. And he says, one aspect missing from the discussion on the supply of weapons to Ukraine from the West is the shelf life of all munitions. Like fruit and veg, Andy says, weapons have a shelf life after which they have to be destroyed.
The West will have been supplying Ukraine with those weapons close to or beyond their approved service life and replacing them in their own stocks with new units. There's nothing wrong with that, but the West, including the increasingly recalcitrant Trump administration,
would have incurred the replacement cost in any case, says Andy. So he's not heard this raised elsewhere. I think it's a very good point, Andy. In that sense, to be kind of blunt and probably a little bit glib about it, you can almost see Ukraine as a sort of, you know, an enormous weapons recycling scheme in that sense. But it does make a good point there that, you know, a lot of the discussion, particularly in
in American circles about, you know, what are we going to get back for our money and so on. And as he says, this is money that most of which you probably would have had to have spent anyway. So it just adds a different context to that particular debate. Yeah, quite. It's a really important point, actually. I'm sure some of the kit they've sent, it probably is still serviceable and would have remained in the in the arsenals for a bit. But
But much of it, as Andy also makes the point, you know, is past its sell by date and basically wouldn't have been used by a NATO armed force. So that initial figure of 300 billion that Trump claims has been donated to Ukraine now reduced, I think, to about 130 billion. We may have to reduce that still further. And this, you know, without being too glib about it, this could be good news for Ukraine in its ongoing negotiations with,
with the minerals deal. We didn't actually mention this at the top, but that's because there's no big news on that. But those discussions are still ongoing. So we had a very interesting message by email from an anonymous American who describes himself just as a Trump voter. And he says, you know, thanks for all your hard work on the pod. I love the content. I genuinely believe that these types of pods are the future for information.
Right to that. He has a couple of points to make, I suppose, from that position as being a Trump voter. And he says, in a sense, he's where he's coming from with this all is he's trying to, I suppose, explain in a way the sort of the mindset, his mindset, certainly, and that as as he puts it, probably the majority of Trump voters are.
And he says, just to sort of bear in mind, and he says in his email, you know, American politics and our society is in shambles. He says the last election we were left with Harris, who had a 30% approval rating. And now we have Trump, he says, who I voted for, who is, quote, an arrogant five-year-old who needs to shut up and listen more.
agree with that. But he sort of qualifies his when he talks about voting for Trump. He says, I appreciate you pointing out the feelings of people affected by the Ukraine conflict, as well as those around the world who how they feel about our actions, our American actions. I get it, he says. But don't put us all in the same box as hardcore MAGA lovers.
There are 20% who fall into that box, 20% who are far left and want to burn the country down, as he says, and 60% of us in the middle who just want to see things get better at home. And I kind of take that point. I think that's an important point to make, just to not lump everyone in with the MAGA crowd that seem to applaud Trump, whatever he does, even with his various about turns on terrorists and everything else. He seems to get applauded, whatever he does.
I think that's a very good point, just not to demonize, I suppose, all of the American center and right as Trump voters. So in that sense, I would agree, Trump derangement syndrome is a thing in the outside world. But I would argue on the evidence of the last three months, so is Trump's own derangement. What he's doing at the moment is
typical sort of bull in a china shop kind of mentality. But again, that point aside, we must resist the temptation to dismiss everything coming out of the American system at the moment as lunatic. Yeah, he makes a couple of interesting points there, doesn't he? I mean, he describes Trump as an arrogant five-year-old. Do you really want an arrogant five-year-old running your country? I'm not sure you do. But addressing a couple of issues, Canada and Ukraine. First of all, he says, we, that is the Americans, do not want Canada as a state.
So Canadians shouldn't get sucked into the rhetoric. We don't want it. And this is just Trump's way of trying to bully people into getting what he wants. It's his business attitude and not that of a statesman. On the issue of Ukraine, he agrees with us that he's handling it very badly. However, he is getting one thing that most people in America wanted, and that is for Europe to wake up.
some Americans, including many service members, have begun to look at the wars since World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. And there is a conversation brewing about why this was our problem to fix. Why did we sacrifice thousands of men's lives only to walk away from these conflicts with nothing? So that kind of fits into the
Trumpian idea. Europe's got to pay for its own defense. And also, if we are going to help Ukraine, we want to get something back for it. Others and I do not want to walk away from Ukraine and are not happy with the way Trump is handling it. But he wants to point out to our audience that we don't hate everyone. That's America.
We don't want to isolate everyone. Yes, we voted for Trump, but we are not all MAGA or else. Our country is in a mess. We want less government control, not more. We want to bring more focus on our vast issues at home. Our border is a mess. Our massive overspending is a huge issue and more.
Watch CNN and Fox News and you will see the two different stories. It's a shame. So it is a, you know, it's a very measured message, actually. And I think it is important for us to air it because we are and have been in danger of just saying, well, Trumpites and everyone else as if they all think alike. And clearly they do not. Yeah. And I think that I think it's fair. We do have to try and understand where they're coming from. And I hope we do try and do that.
That said, you know, at the moment, some of Trump's actions, particularly cuddling up to Russia, are rather hard to rationalize from our perspective. But I completely take the point. And thanks for the message. So we've got one here from Mike in Glasgow. Given the current stalemate, he writes, and the continuing Ukrainian struggles in wrestling on how best to use resource allocation, do you see anything when you gaze into your crystal ball that's the most likely solution?
strategic evolution on the battlefield in the next six to 12 months, particularly considering the fact that the Biden aid package may dry up in the coming months. Well, that was a question you put to Arno, which listeners will hear on Monday, Roger, you know, looking to your crystal ball about Georgia and his response wasn't that positive. But I'm not, you know, hugely pessimistic about Ukraine, actually. I mean, I think both of us would probably err on the side of caution with a ceasefire anytime soon for all the reasons we
We've already aired on the program. But I'm absolutely convinced that, one, the Ukrainians are determined to fight on. Two, Europe can give them a certain amount of backing. I don't think America is going to walk away either, certainly if Russia doesn't show any genuine interest in coming to terms on its side.
therefore may well back it reasonably solidly. And I think what we're going to see over the next few months is an increasing number of effective long range strikes by the Ukrainians. Not only have they perfected their drone strikes, they are also apparently, so we hear on the grapevine, getting very close to having their own ballistic missiles, which they're going to use against the Russians. So I think the Russians are going to be feeling a lot more economic pain,
from these strikes from the Ukrainians on the one hand, and also the likelihood, Roger, because this is looming very large, isn't it? A depression in oil prices. They're already falling as a result of all the tariff scenarios. And therefore, Russia is going to find it increasingly difficult to pay for its war as its main source of income, something like 30 or 40 percent of government spending, comes from its sale of
oil. So there could be a trouble afoot for Russia. And I know I've been accused of being too optimistic and certainly too pro-Ukraine on this podcast. But it does seem to me that things could be a little bit brighter for the Ukrainians in the months ahead. I would agree. And you made the point about the drone program in Ukraine, which has been
Yeah.
in developing its own drone weaponry, for example, which is now proving to be very successful at targeting Russian military infrastructure, but also petrochemical infrastructure as well. And as you say, that drop in the oil price is going to have a huge effect on the Russian economy.
So, yeah, I sort of share that. I don't necessarily see, in spite of all of the upheavals of the last few months, I don't see this as necessarily yet extinction-level events yet.
Okay, I think we've got one here for you, Roger. This is from Oliver, and it's about Eastern Europe. And he says, considering the historical experiences of Eastern European nations with Russia and previously Soviet influence, how has the current conflict in Ukraine specifically reshaped their threat perceptions? Are they working on any security alliances beyond NATO and long-term geopolitical orientations within the region? I feel like although Eastern Europe is united against Russia, they themselves are divided politically.
And if NATO collapses or the US pulls out of NATO, what next for Eastern Europe? So what's your reading on that, Roger? Yeah, I think there's an answer to that question. There's a hard call, really, which is, I suppose, the northern sector. I mean, Poland, certainly the Baltic states, Finland, and I would add Sweden to that as well, who are under no illusions about what Russia represents.
and are, you know, pretty belligerently minded collectively. So this is one aspect where I would say, in spite of the sort of, how do we put this, equivocations, as the software putting it, of places like Slovakia and Hungary, you know, that hardcore that I just mentioned are very determined that they realise, you know, have never thought that the Russian threat has gone away. They're acutely aware of it historically and always have been. Yeah.
I think even if in a nightmare scenario that the Americans decide to sort of, you know, row back or even pull out of NATO, which I'd
Honestly, I hesitate to say I can't see it happening after the last few months, but I think it's probably unlikely. But even in that nightmare scenario, I think there's every chance that they would form some sort of separate mutual assistance pact of some description, and hopefully with assistance from Western Europe as well. So in a sense, what I'm saying is they're not going to back down in what they see as a sort of existential crisis at the moment. The difference...
To go back to the question, the difference since 2022, maybe to an extent since 2014, since the initial invasion, is that for those countries, Ukraine has now become a hot war.
Before that, it was a Cold War. You know, the Estonian, you know, the cyber attack that the Russians did on Estonia, whenever that was in around the moving of the cemetery in Tallinn. You know, so they've always been acutely aware of the Russian threat, but it's been a sort of a latent threat. And now it's much more obvious and much more urgent in that sense.
So there's been a shift. They're going to be absolutely bang up to date with their NATO contributions. They're going to be right on or above the 2%. So there's absolutely, from their perspective, there will be absolutely no wiggle room for a Trump administration to say, well, if you're not fulfilling your dues, so we're not going to defend you.
And we saw cooperation between the three Baltic states announced, I think it was last week, where they were talking about this defensive line across their collective eastern frontier with Russia. So there's collaboration there. There's determination there. And I think with the backing of some significant Western countries, not least Britain, I could see separate sort of security alliances coming out of that in the event of some sort of restructuring or even a collapse of NATO. Yes.
Final question, and this is about the peace settlement. We didn't get a name for the writer of this, but the question is, what are the historical precedents for negotiated settlements in conflicts of this intensity and duration? And what conditions might be necessary for a genuine peace process to emerge in Ukraine? Very good question, isn't it? I was thinking back of the
you know, the conflicts of the 20th century, and it's really hard to think of one that is comparable, frankly, to what's going on here. I mean, it is a very unusual scenario. We're back to a kind of Second World War situation, aren't we, where one country has basically invaded its sovereign neighbor, even one that claims to have sort of historical claims on it. So, you know, what are we talking about, Roger, really? I mean, this is Germany invading Czechoslovak
here in early 1939, having already agreed to just take a bit where the Germans were living. It's that sort of scenario, isn't it? In terms of what conditions might be necessary for a genuine peace process to emerge?
both sides to accept that they are not going to win the war, i.e. win it entirely, and therefore better to stop now because things probably aren't going to improve. I think that's a calculation. And for both sides to get to that point, that is a really unlikely scenario, frankly, isn't it? And you can see, you know, with the current situation in Ukraine, Russia clearly doesn't feel by stopping now it's going to be better off.
than if it continues the war. So that's really the issue going on here. And that's why we've been saying for a long time, NATO, America and Europe needs to back Ukraine so that Russia does come to that conclusion. And that is going to begin to negotiate in good faith. But I can't really see that happening anytime soon. What's your feeling? Yeah, I mean, to go back to that question of, you know, what are the conditions, you know, in which some sort of genuine peace process can emerge?
Historically speaking, you'd have to say, well, one side has to be defeated or else at least has to come. You look at the example of the First World War, at least has to come to the realization that it can no longer win. But the problem there, as you rightly say, Saul, is that for Ukraine, this is about survival. And it knows that any...
negotiation with Russia from a position of sort of petitioning for peace, in effect, for a position of weakness, is going to end in Ukraine returning to the status of a vassal state of Russia, which obviously they don't want. This is about their sovereignty. It's about their independence. It's about them being able to decide their own future. So as you rightly say, I can't see it coming from that perspective. It's very difficult to envisage
you know, the conditions for realistic negotiations to emerge because it's about survival, quite simply from the Ukrainian perspective.
From the other side, as the aggressor, I mean, Russia could, as many commentators have said, Russia could end this tomorrow. At the moment, it won't because it still sees that it has, to put it in Trumpian terms, it still has quite a few cards to play. But I think with perhaps a proper collapse of the Russian economy, whether that's oil prices or the proper application of sanctions,
Putin himself coming under threat, perhaps from domestic unrest, then you could see that they actually start to think that it's not worth it. And you need to shore up the home front, you know, to make sure that Putin's position is secure or whatever it is. And if that means ending the war, then so be it. So,
It's difficult at the moment to see that possibility on either side, to be honest. But as you say, it's an interesting question and trying to compare it to other sort of conflicts in the 20th century doesn't provide us with much of a comforting answer, unfortunately.
Okay, that's all we have time for. Do listen out on Monday for that interview with Arno de Decker. Incredibly powerful and moving interview, in my opinion, Roger. And also next Wednesday, when Patrick will be returning to the podcast for an episode of Battleground 45. Goodbye.
Hello, it's Steph McGovern and Robert Peston from The Rest Is Money here. Now it's absolute carnage at the minute on the stock market across the world, all thanks to Donald Trump and his tariffs. So this week we've gone daily. We're going to bring you shorter episodes every lunchtime. Just trying to make sense of it all because, Robert, I mean, we've been in crises before, haven't we?
Yeah, I mean, I've been at the front line of reporting financial crises for decades, from Black Monday in 1987, through the global financial crisis, through the COVID crisis. I mean, you know, the list goes on. This is a unique crisis because it is driven by one man, Donald Trump. But it does share lots in common with those sagas we have lived through before. And
As we know, although what people see is falling share prices, it is to an extent what goes on in debt markets, financial markets, which is more important to our prosperity. And we are seeing absolute turmoil in bond markets, for example. So this is going to affect
every part of our lives. Yes, and so we'll be looking at things like what do we think is going to happen next? How much pain is Trump willing to take? And what similarities are there with things like the credit crunch that you and I covered together? So to try and make sense of all of us, join us on The Rest Is Money wherever you get your podcasts.