281. Will Trump Walk Away?
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Hello and welcome to the Battleground podcast with me, Saul David and Roger Morehouse. Well, it seems that we're entering the endgame for the Trump administration's peace initiative and the omens for an agreement do not look good.

At the weekend, Putin announced the 30-hour Easter truce that involved, I suppose, inevitably numerous Russian violations in the form of artillery and drone attacks. And that was, according to Jean-Noël Barreau, the French foreign minister, little more than, and I quote, a charm operation aimed at preventing President Trump from becoming impatient and angry. I couldn't have put it better myself.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, was making it clear that its patience was not inexhaustible and that if a peace deal was not agreed upon soon, it would walk away. It was trying to put pressure on both warring parties, of course, but particularly the Ukrainians, who have the most to lose from a bad deal. Yes, and just how bad the deal the Americans proposed seven point plan would be for the Ukrainians.

was revealed on Tuesday of this week by the Daily Telegraph. Not only would Trump let Putin keep almost all the territory he has seized, he would bar Ukraine from joining NATO and provide it with no clear US security guarantee. Even more controversially, the plan would offer a formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea.

the region of Ukraine that Putin illegally annexed in 2014, thus violating a central principle of international law and of the post-1945 world order that no country can annex the territory of another by force. There would be, moreover, a virtual freezing of the front lines and a de facto US recognition that almost all the Ukrainian territory that is currently occupied would be taken by Russia.

So what's in this plan for Ukraine? Well, you'd have to say not a lot, bar the return by Russia of two slivers of territory on the east bank of the Dnipro River and the handing over of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Ukraine, to American control. The last two points, six and seven in the plan, reveal Trump's real motives for doing this deal, and neither are of particular benefit to Ukraine. Far from it, indeed.

Point six concerns the minerals deal that would allow US companies unprecedented access to Ukraine's natural resources.

Worse still on this, I've seen it suggested that this point would potentially obstruct Ukraine's future membership of the EU, as it could be interpreted as an infringement of that country's economic sovereignty, one of the critical criteria for EU membership. Moreover, point seven concerns the lifting of all US sanctions on Russia and an agreement for both countries to cooperate on energy. So it's win-win for Washington and Moscow, but

But I think it's fair to say that it's a deal that comprehensively sells Ukraine down the river. And more than that, sets a very dangerous precedent for the future. What would you say, Saul? Yeah, I agree. And that's why I think Zelensky's government is very unlikely to sign up to it.

The intention was for Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, and Steve Witkoff, Witless Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, to present the plan to high-level Ukrainian and European officials in London on Wednesday. But significantly, both pulled out at the last moment, leaving the hapless General Kellogg, Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, to conduct negotiations. Why did this happen? Because they must have realised, in my view, that Ukrainians were about to push back.

And the first indication of this came on Tuesday when President Zelensky said that he could never accept a deal that recognised Russia's occupation of Crimea.

His deputies, meanwhile, were trying to say all the right things. The talks in London were a way to achieve, and I quote, a full and unconditional ceasefire as a first step towards peace, said Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff. After arriving in London with Andriy Sabir, Ukraine's foreign minister, and Rustem Umarov, the defense minister, Yermak said that the path to peace is not easy, but stressed that Ukraine remains committed to efforts to ending the three-year war.

But the fact that the talks have been downgraded to lower level officials was confirmed when the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany also withdrew. And I suppose the other question that arises from this, Roger, is would Putin agree to this deal anyway? Well, I think if he had any sense, he might do. Freezing the conflict on the current front lines would actually serve Russia quite well.

It would give them time to rebuild their forces, recruit and train manpower, and crucially, for the Kremlin to replenish its depleted stocks of hardware. And all the while, of course, Ukraine would be without the long-term security guarantee of NATO membership, and so one would imagine would be open to a renewed Russian offensive at the time of Putin's choosing.

Remember that this war was never about territory anyway. Russia is already the largest country on the planet and has little need for more land. What Putin wants is an end to the threat that he perceives in Ukraine as a sovereign, independent and independently minded nation.

So the idea of him coming back to launch another invasion in due course is not at all fanciful, I would say. In fact, I think it's rather likely. In addition, as we've been saying for a long time on this podcast, if the war continues as it is, things could well get worse for Russia. It's losing men and material already at an alarming rate.

On Tuesday, for example, if we are to believe Ukraine's high command, Russia lost some 1,200 soldiers and 85 artillery systems. And that's in a single day.

Now, we know that the Russian way of war, as has always been, you know, tends to be rather wasteful of its own manpower, relying on those vast demographic resources that it has to win the day. But these sorts of sustained material losses are surely putting a severe dent in the Russian economy. And the human losses risk provoking yet another bout of domestic unrest.

So might the Kremlin get out now with a win? Well, that was the thrust of an article in the FT this week, which reported that Putin had told Steve Witkoff on the 11th of April that he was willing to end the war in Ukraine on the current front lines.

But as usual, we're getting mixed messages from Russia. On Wednesday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said Russia was continuing dialogue on a possible settlement with Washington, but was not in contact with Europe or Ukraine. He stressed that Russia remains opposed to any European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine following a ceasefire. And on this last point,

This latest proposed deal, if it's even worthy of the name, would give Putin yet another strategic win, in that it would be a deal made over the heads of the Ukrainians, thereby seemingly confirming the Kremlin's view of that country as merely a renegade province rather than a sovereign state, and it would exclude the Europeans, thereby driving a wedge between the US and Europe, another key strategic objective for Putin.

So if Putin has any sense, I think he'd accept and thereby heap the pressure again onto the Ukrainians, forcing them into the bad optics of rejecting Trump's deal. But that said, I still think there's a good chance that Putin will overreach himself and refuse to agree to the deal that's been proposed in the hope of winning more concessions.

Certainly, the hardliners in Russia will not be happy with him rowing back from the unilateral annexation of the four Ukrainian provinces that was announced by the Kremlin in 2022. Both Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Head Sergei Naryshkin said as recently as last week that recognition of Russia's annexation of those four oblasts was a minimum requirement of any peace deal.

How then could Putin justify a U-turn from this position? And if the seven-point plan is agreed and actually hand over some territory that it currently occupies? Yeah, it's hard to see that happening, I have to say. But it's even harder to see Ukraine and Europe signing up to this plan. Some Ukrainians, understandably, are describing the plan as an instrument of surrender worse than the Munich Agreement of 1938. And I have to say, Roger, I agree.

It rewards naked aggression and leaves Ukraine no guarantee that Russia won't come back, as you've already pointed out, in the future. Why would it not? The real danger for Ukraine, of course, is that it's blamed for the failure of the peace talks, which in turn gives Trump the excuse to wash his hands of the Ukraine war. In that potentially doomsday scenario, is Ukraine capable of fighting on? Well, I would argue that it is.

Figures recently released by Kiev show that the US provides about a third of its weapons, Europe another third, and the rest are home-produced. But when it actually comes to killing Russians, two-thirds of the damage is done by home-grown kits, particularly drones.

That Ukraine's military ingenuity, particularly in the fields of drone and electromagnetic or EW capability, might be of a measurable benefit to NATO was underlined by a WhatsApp message I received this week from friend of the podcast, Colonel Pavlo Hazan, who is in charge of the Territorial Army's electrocution.

electromagnetic warfare capability. And he wrote to me, good evening, Saul. I hope you are doing well. I have good news concerning development of our collaboration with NATO in the field of electromagnetic warfare. Ten days ago, on the 11th of April, at the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group hosted at NATO headquarters in Brussels, 10 nations signed a joint letter of intent to establish the Capability Coalition for Electromagnetic Warfare.

The coalition was created with a specific focus on supporting Ukraine, which has been fighting against Russia since 2014. The coalition leader is Germany, might surprise you, Roger. And the members of the coalition are the UK, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Poland. And that grouping, I think, are really the hardcore of NATO, indeed Europe in terms of its support for Ukraine. So that's not that surprising.

Pavlo goes on to write, EW coalition will manage the technical support for the armed forces of Ukraine, equipment, technologies, and training, as well as exchange of knowledge and information between Ukraine and other signatories from NATO. I'm playing a coordination role from the armed forces of Ukraine in the electromagnetic warfare coalition. And this is all pretty significant in my view, Roger. I mean, it's absolutely fascinating, isn't it? Note, of course, that at

the US is not a member of this coalition. It almost certainly would have been during Biden's time as president. So, you know, a fair bit's changed there. We're not that surprised about that, but it does show you that other key members of NATO value Ukraine's military expertise and are determined to stand by her for as long as it takes. And today, of course, we've had the additional news coming from Vice President Vance, another warning that if the deal's not done soon, America's going to walk away. And

Many European countries, including the UK, responded to that and saying they are not going to walk away. Well, good to hear. And as you say, I mean, it does reinforce that idea that perhaps not all is lost if the Americans do decide to walk away from all of this. OK, we'll take a break there and do join us in a moment for listeners questions and an update on Russia's cyber operations from security expert David Alexander.

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Welcome back. Well, the good news is that we have another cybersecurity update from David Alexander. It's quite long in detail, so I'll just read out some of the key bits.

He notes that the Russian-linked Shukwurm espionage group is continuing to mount an intense cyber campaign against organizations in Ukraine. Now, this group, Shukwurm, is believed to be part of the FSB, first appeared in 2013 and has focused most of its operations on Ukraine. Its tools and tactics are quite basic, according to David, and poorly implemented compared to other Russian groups, such as Sandworm, which is part of the GRU, which is military intelligence group.

But what's notable is the number of attacks and their frequency, making them a persistent and real threat to Ukrainian operations. If nothing else, they take up a lot of Ukrainian cyber defense resources, says David, to monitor and defend against them. Other...

Highlights of cyber security information. Well, Russian cyber attacks have increased in Poland. Polish authorities say they are intensifying as they get closer to the country's presidential election on May 18th. As well as disinformation, the Russians are reported to be targeting critical national infrastructure services like water and electricity distribution systems.

This is intended to reduce confidence in the existing government and its agencies by causing unrest and uncertainty in the electorate. And only earlier this month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the IT systems of his political party have been the target of a cyber attack, which he described as foreign interference, for which you can safely assume, says David, he meant Russian threat actors.

A couple of other points. Interesting one here, Roger. A massive TikTok disinformation campaign has been used against Ukraine. Now, it's interesting because the Ukraine Center for Countering Disinformation confirms that it's identified and shut down thousands of TikTok accounts that have been exploiting a loophole in the TikTok algorithm to influence public opinion in Ukraine. And

elsewhere. TikTok allows new unverified accounts to go viral, meaning disinformation can be spread without an account being properly verified. Closing down these accounts, which the Ukrainians have been doing as fast as they can, is a bit like playing whack-a-mole, writes David. So those are the latest cybersecurity highlights. Fascinating stuff. Yeah, we've got some questions coming in. Do send us some more questions for us to

If you can think of anything fiendish for myself and Saul or for Patrick when he comes back.

We've got one from Carlos in Madrid who says, just waking to read the incredibly disappointing but not entirely surprising news that the disgraceful US administration is considering washing its hands of the situation in Ukraine. One of the reports I read, said Carlos, said the following, the consensus is that the collective weight of Ukraine and its allies would still be insufficient to counter Russian aggression in the future. Can you explain why this should be?

Surely, if the European allies got involved on the ground and in the skies, he says it would have a massive effect, especially given the incompetence the Russians have shown in their three-day stroke three-year special operation.

Many thanks, love the show and keep up the good work, says Carlos. What do you think of that prospect, Saul? That seems to be almost a looming interview, that some sort of European intervention of some sort, doesn't it? Yeah, I think we're still a fair way off European boots on the ground. Of course, if there had been some kind of peace deal, I think the implication of even the seven-point plan, disgraceful as it is,

would have been that European peacekeepers would have been deployed in some capacity, although the Russians were expected to object to that. But that the Europeans might have to be the staunch supporters of Ukraine moving forward. I think that's very likely. It's going to be military support to begin with. Whether at some point they may decide to have some kind of air umbrella over Ukraine, that's

sort of halfway house, I don't know. I mean, the argument against any more involvement, Roger, has always been, well, you know, we don't want to provoke a nuclear war. But I think the war thus far has shown you with all those red lines that have been crossed that that is vanishingly unlikely. And remember that both UK and France do have a nuclear capability. It's not as though they can't respond to Russian threat.

So I think the most likely scenario is that there is a reaffirmation of support for Ukraine in the short to medium term, an attempt to build up the defence industrial base. Actually, one of the stories which we didn't mention this week, but I noted a few days ago, Roger, was that...

British Aerospace is massively ramping up its production of 155mm shells. So when I said on the podcast a week or two ago that Europe is beginning to step up, it's beginning to firm up its defence industrial base, that is exactly what is happening. So we may not be a million miles away from Europe being able to fill at least some of the gap that might be left if the US pulls out of this war.

Indeed, a related question actually from Evan, this question of Europe's position and possibly stepping up. And he mentions this question of frozen Russian assets, which are, as we understand it, and as he explains in his note there, predominantly held within Europe. There's about $300 billion worth that are held in Europe, but only a small amount, he says, held in the USA.

So the suggestion he gives is, could the EU take the initiative by confronting Russia and presenting them with an ultimatum, ceasefire and get out of Ukraine with a clear deadline, or we, i.e. the EU and the UK, will release those seized assets to Ukraine in the form of reparations and will continue the defense in the regaining sovereign territory? He says the clock is ticking on securing these assets.

as the agreement within the EU has to be renewed every six months and is due this summer of 2025 and requires all 27 member states' agreement or the funds will be returned to Russia. The Trump administration's acquiescence to the Russian narrative, that's nicely put, Evan,

will only embolden Putin's allies within the EU, Viktor Orban and Robert Fico of Slovakia, not to agree renewal, thus returning those assets to Russia. I absolutely agree. I was listening to a podcast on this recently as well, on this very matter. I absolutely agree with the intention there. I think it would be a very good way of the EU exerting real pressure against Russia and

and short of what the previous question, actually becoming militarily involved. So to me, this would seem to be a very good option. Unfortunately, there does seem to be some degree, how do we put this gently, of sort of reluctance, maybe moral, even moral cowardice, I suppose, in a way, of actually using that particular lever against the Russians, perhaps because of fear of opening themselves to Russian countermeasures.

So at the moment, as far as I know, it's something that is still within the realms of the possible, but not yet on the table. Like you, Evan, I think it would be a very useful lever to pull from the European side. Okay, we've got a question from Daniel, and this is about a

potential Russian spring summer offensive with the changing of seasons, he writes, and with summer on the horizon, will there be a large-scale Russian offensive and will it be more successful than last year? I'm concerned that they will be able to take more ground, especially if the US stops intelligence sharing. Do you think they'll be able to take any major cities like Sumy or Kharkiv?

Well, a good question. Zelensky himself, of course, has warned about an offensive. They say that up to 70,000 Russian troops are massing on the Sumy border and that offensive is very likely. The real question is whether it would have much effect.

What you will have noticed over the last few months, Roger, and what our listeners will have heard from us is that the relationship between the Russians losing lives and gaining territory is getting steadily worse for them. In other words, they're losing the same number of lives, if not more, every day in these ceaseless attacks, and they're gaining very little ground. And I can't see any reason why this much-mooted spring or summer offensive is going to change much. The one thing that might make a little bit of difference...

of course, is if America pulls out of this war and stops intelligence sharing. That is absolutely the case. But what we also know is that it's not just U.S. intelligence that the Ukrainians are relying on. The Europeans also have a means of giving them a lot of this vital information. So, of course, it would be a loss if America pulls out. And yes, it might make some difference. But the idea that the Russians, with all their incompetence,

are suddenly going to go streaming across the plains of eastern Ukraine. I can't see that happening anytime soon, I'm afraid. And I can't even see them capturing cities as close to the Russian border as Sumy and Kharkiv. Agreed. Next question is from Joe in London regarding a YouTube blogger, which I hadn't seen before, actually. He says, I recently watched Bald and Bankrupt's

latest YouTube video where he revisits Ukraine after being there during the very first days of the full-scale invasion. And I wondered if you guys had had the chance to watch it and what you made of it

My question is considering that you often discuss the information war and the importance of accurate reporting. How do you assess the value if any of a travel vloggers perspective like Baldwin bankrupts in documenting aspects of life in Ukraine during wartime and what potential biases or limitations might viewers need to be aware of when consuming such content? Having read that

question, a contribution from Joe. I had a look at Bolden Bancroft's video on YouTube, which I thought was really good, actually. Really powerful. He's tremendously easy to watch and easy to listen to. His Russian is very good, or Ukrainian is very good. I mean, he converses very, very well.

And seems to be very adept at, you know, just stopping people in the street and talking to them. It really, you know, brings the place alive in a really sort of powerful way. So I felt like it was really, really useful in that sense. Very good. It didn't seem to be pushing an agenda. Have you had a look at it so far?

I haven't. But, you know, in principle, if you think about it, Roger, there's absolutely nothing wrong with someone who is a good communicator, like it sounds like he is, going out on the ground and just talking to ordinary people. I mean, of course, we'll never know, you know, exactly how much he edits, what he leaves out, what he leaves in. But if you're just talking to ordinary people and giving a sense of

through the video of what life is like in Ukraine, then that's absolutely the sort of thing that people need to be watching. We hope that we give a kind of insight into the reality of things on the ground, partly by ourselves going out there, but also by talking to a lot of people who are there. I mean, the last couple of weeks, we've been speaking to our war correspondent friends of the podcast, both Arno and Baldi, and we'll continue to do that

In fact, we got a message a few days ago from Baldy saying, do you want a little piece on the so-called Easter ceasefire? We didn't get the chance to do that. But what is pretty clear is that the so-called Easter ceasefire, as I've already mentioned at the top of the show, was nothing of the kind. Yes, a few of the long range strikes were stopped, but of course, the Russians didn't.

kept violating as they have done since the various truces were put in place following the 2014 start of the war. So, you know, it's absolutely important that people on the ground give an unfiltered and unvarnished sense of what life is like for the Ukrainians. So good on him for doing that.

Okay, we've got a question from Sophia in London on the environmental aspect of the war. She works in environmental planning and was wondering about this. It seems, she writes, like an unreported area of the conflict. I've heard that one of the many war crimes leveled against Russia is ecocide. I think people don't take this as seriously as it should be taken, as the often long-term effects are devastating, particularly for agriculture and public health. And of course, it's absurd.

Absolutely right, Sophia. We have had a couple of people on actually commenting on this, possibly people writing in letters. I mean, there are so many aspects of this that are clear. And one of the most obvious ones is the sheer number of munitions. We had Baldy, I think, talking about this last week. Enormous area, half-diamond.

the square mileage of the UK is now sown with landmines. I mean, this is an absolute poisoning of the ground, but also incredibly dangerous. And that's before we get onto the Zaparicia Dam and all the deliberate destruction by the Russians and all the trouble that caused. I mean, there are aspects all over the country that are going to take decades to put right as far as damage to the ecosystem, aren't there, Roger? Any other kind of obvious things you can think of?

Yeah, the other one that I immediately thought of there was their sort of rather casual targeting of the Chernobyl site as well, which is just astonishingly reckless given what we know about Chernobyl.

So, yeah, this is obviously going to be a huge aspect after whatever, whenever the piece is achieved in whatever form that takes. Of course, I can fully understand why it's not a question for today, but it's absolutely a question for tomorrow, Sophia. So I completely appreciate that. And you're right. I mean, I think EcoSide is...

is a rather gentle way of putting it, actually. That is seemingly part of Russia's hybrid warfare toolkit.

as you can see as you mentioned the destruction of the Zaporizhia Dam so absolutely. Question from David in the USA about whether or not the recent Easter truce was even a truce well we've already answered that in one sense was it in name only and perhaps an effort to appease Trump's negotiating team asked David well yes it absolutely was that but

How was it perceived internationally and how could it influence diplomatic efforts or the provision of aid? Well, it was perceived internationally in exactly the same way that you've just explained, as I mentioned at the top with the quote from the French foreign minister. How could it influence diplomatic efforts or the provision of aid? I'm not exactly sure because it's certainly not going to lead inexorably to any peace deal. I mean, we're pretty pessimistic, frankly, about the prospects of peace.

after the events of the last few days. And given the sort of peace that the US was trying to impose on Ukraine, that may not necessarily be a bad thing. Yeah, and I agree. I would say that most of the international community that is engaged with this, with the exception of Putin's new best friend of President Trump, are...

now admittedly belatedly but are pretty much wise to Russian methods so as you heard from that quote that you used at the beginning Saul I think it's pretty clear what the international community thought of this Easter truce that it was a ruse effectively

By the way, Roger, as a quick aside, and this is a social media question, I've noticed that my followers, not that they are exactly lesion, go up and down partly on the back of the comments I make on the podcast. And I just wondered if you as a kind of pretty avid social media user also notice your numbers moving around depending on how robust you've been in terms of your criticism of the Trump administration or not.

Uh, I, yeah, interesting. I have, I have seen them, um, going up and down. I think, I think that's as much as anything to do with, you know, the general upheaval this, cause I, I use sort of Twitter as you know, so quite a lot. So I think the general sort of upheaval on Twitter and the general distaste that many people feel from, from Mr. Musk, uh,

has taken a lot of my followers off Twitter altogether. So I see the numbers dropping occasionally and then they sort of recover and then they drop again. I haven't actually tied it into sort of my comments on Ukraine. I think I try and be consistently robust on Ukraine rather than up and down. But so I haven't really tied it to that. I've always thought it was just about this sort of the general ups and downs of Elon Musk. But, you know, we'll see. I'll keep an eye on that going forward.

Yeah, and I would urge anyone listening actually to not to follow me because I'm not a great one. You know, I don't write that many original comments. I retweet a lot of stuff, which is the easy way out. But Roger is incredibly amusing and robust in his opinions. So if anyone enjoys Twitter, then you really must follow Roger because it is very entertaining. What is your handle, Roger, just so people can easily find you?

At Roger underscore Morehouse.

Good stuff. Okay, moving on. Last few questions. Ukraine heading for defeat? Asked Dennis from Berlin. I feel that it is and can no longer pretend otherwise. He goes on to say the war is not about territory. It's about reducing Ukraine to a failed state. Russia appears to be steadily accomplishing its minimum strategic objectives, including fracturing the Ukrainian state politically, territorial and culturally, maintaining sufficient territorial acquisitions to support a range of acceptable political military outcomes, not

quite sure where Denis is getting his terminology from. Sounds a bit academic to me. Maintain strategic material overreach, exhaust Ukraine's ability to continue fighting, normalise the conflict's abnormalities and undercut and erode Ukraine's ability to conduct offensive operations. And there's no doubt that Russia is intending to do all of that, Denis. But has it achieved any of that is the real question. And I don't think it has. I mean, if you listen to some of the people we've spoken to in Ukraine recently,

And if you had any sense of the kind of spirit of that country that we've heard on the ground when we've been over there, you will realize this is a country a long way from defeat. If anything, the war has underpinned their sense of national identity. And the idea that the Ukrainian state is being fractured politically, territorially, and culturally is nonsense. Of course, it's lost a bit of territory, but the rest of the country is pretty firmly in lockstep with

behind Zelensky, which leads me to another question, actually, Roger, which is that, you know, is Zelensky under threat? And this is a question that comes from James. Well, he potentially was before these recent shenanigans. And if anything, Trump's treatment of him has actually made him far more popular.

So, no, I don't think Zelensky is going anywhere anytime soon. What will happen, of course, after a peace deal is a different matter. And we go back to, of course, Churchill in the Second World War, a great war leader. Maybe Zelensky will be seen as a great war leader, but not the man to lead Ukraine once peace is restored. That's possible. But that he's going to be removed anytime soon. I don't think that's likely at all.

Yeah, and just to go back to that question from Dennis from Berlin, I mean, with the sort of paradox here, the irony, I suppose, is that what Putin has said

created via his invasion of Ukraine is the very thing that he sort of feared the most, which is a Ukraine that has a, you know, a very sort of vibrant and violent sense of itself, if you like, you know, really, a really galvanized Ukrainian national identity in a way that it wasn't there before. So yeah, you can, a lot of what he says in that email, I, you know, I would,

I would broadly agree with. I think he is slightly too pessimistic. The problem that we come back to that you mentioned again, Saul, is that in the process he's created, you know, the thing that Russia then cannot possibly really absorb, which is a very patriotically minded, very nationalistically minded Ukraine.

that is aware of what it is in a way that maybe 10 or 15 years ago, you know, a huge number of Ukrainians didn't really see themselves necessarily as Ukrainians. Now they do. That's a huge change. So I think that's one thing that maybe argues against Denis's rather

pessimistic scenario. You never mind a pessimistic scenario, I've noticed, Roger. We very much divide, don't we, on this podcast between the pessimists and the optimists. And I've lost Patrick for a few weeks, but I've gained a more than worthy substitute on the pessimism stage.

Yes, I'm always on the side of Eeyore. Of reality, as you might put it. Pessimist in chief, yeah. Okay, moving on. Last couple. Chris says, very nicely, says, I know all your listeners appreciate the thoughtful and multifaceted coverage of the war in Ukraine, but is there any chance of expanded coverage to other conflicts because of not getting that much attention to the news cycle? I'm sure he writes that

The podcast has limited time and resources. It does. But I know personally, I'm better informed about the war in Ukraine because of the Battleground podcast. And it would be amazing to have the same context for other conflicts around the world. Well, some of our loyal listeners will know we did try something similar for Gaza. We couldn't please anyone over that conflict. Would we shy away from covering other conflicts in the future? Absolutely not, actually. I think what is most likely to happen when we stop coverage of Ukraine, that is when peace returns to

Ukraine, wherever that might be, is that we realise that what we've done with Ukraine almost by accident is provide actually, as Chris has pointed out, quite a valuable service. And we will try and do that for other current conflicts at least once a week, while also devoting one episode a week to history.

Indeed, good point. And thanks, Chris, for that positive commentary. Last one, David Iser from Melbourne, Australia, who suggests, he says, I can recommend reading Mary Trump's Too Much and Never Enough, which would support your analysis of Trump's shallow motivations. He says the book covers the Trump family life and is written in the context of the COVID crisis.

It would be dismissed by some as having been written by a disgruntled former employee. I remember that was, I think, how it was often dismissed at the time when it came out. However, he says it offers insight which accords with current observations. For example, he says everything is measured in financial worth. Trump is a terrible dealmaker and often ends up with terrible deals. Thanks again, he says. I think we can see that element.

that you mentioned that everything is measured in Trump's mind in financial worth. We can see that playing out in real time with the current negotiations. You know, everything that Trump and his negotiators seem to present on the Ukraine war is around, you know, what's in it for America? What's the, what's, where's America's benefit from this?

As we said, well, we've said numerous times on this podcast, you know, Trump seems to live in a sort of a morality free, value free world in which it's all about financial worth. And it's about, you know, doing some ridiculous deal that supposedly gets you some benefit. And you can, I think, trying to deal with this conflict in that way.

is going to come back and bite the Americans on the backside, I think. I mean, it's an interesting recommendation, this book. I haven't read it, David. I will perhaps have a look at it. But then again, thinking about Trump too much doesn't do much good for my blood pressure, if I'm honest. So I'll bear that in mind. Thanks for the recommendation. Yeah, me neither, Roger. But I completely agree with you. I mean, this sort of, you know, attempt to

slough off all the old strategic partnerships and treat everyone in the same way is going to bite America because at some point people are already doing it, are beginning to say we can't rely on the US. So that's fine if the US wants to operate in a vacuum and treat everyone as a potential enemy and a potential friend. But if it also wants to be able to rely on a block of still

quite powerful economic nations, and that is chiefly, of course, Europe and Canada, it better change its way rather rapidly. We're already beginning to see European defence industries selling weapons on the basis that there is no link to America. This is what people are asking when they're buying arms around the world these days. And we're not just talking about other Europeans. We're talking about globally.

So Trump is doing immense damage, as I've already mentioned on this podcast, to the American defense industry and...

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in a couple of years' time at the midterms, which is the first chance for the American people to say, hold on a second, this has gone way too far. Not only is he damaging the domestic economy, he's damaging these crucial strategic partnerships, which we've relied on since the Second World War. They are not just a one-way street with Europe getting all the benefit. Americans need to understand that. And it'll be really interesting to see whether American voters say enough's enough in a couple of years' time.

Indeed, we shall see. Great. Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you for your questions. Thanks for listening again this week. And we'll see you next week again. Thanks very much.