296. How LA Unrest Impacts The Russia-Ukraine War
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Hello and welcome to Battleground with me, Patrick Bishop and Saul David. It's hardly surprising that the world has turned its eyes away from Ukraine this week. Instead, they're focused on another conflict –

The decision by Donald Trump to claim that what most people saw as a series of low-level clashes between law enforcement officers and protesters complaining about his hardline immigration policies was in fact an insurrection. And he went on, of course, to portray Los Angeles, where the trouble began, as a city in flames. It's extraordinary, isn't it, Patrick? And if a fire does break out there, it'll be Donald Trump who raised it.

Our show is about Ukraine, but in recent months, much of what we talk about has, by necessity, focused on the behavior and thought processes of the U.S. president. And this one seems no different. The reason, of course, is that whatever he does has an impact, great or small, on the future of the Russia-Ukraine war.

But what do you think about this latest turn of events tells us, Patrick? Well, I don't know about you, but it seems to me that this is kind of definitive proof that he's turned away from Ukraine. He's absolutely lost interest in his peace mission, much vaunted. And he's changing the narrative completely to focus on what he sees as the enemy within. So, you know, this is beneficial from his point of view from a number of aspects, particularly

It carries on the kind of culture wars, the designation of Democrats as being somehow un-American, etc. But it also, from the Ukrainian perspective, has the effect of diverting attention away from what is actually a massive failure for him. And it also provides an opportunity for him to posture as a kind of great war leader, etc. Except this time, the enemy is actually...

his fellow Americans but looking at it from the

point of view of what it means for Ukraine and the future of the war. I think this means that Putin is now completely off the hook as far as the Americans are concerned. He's got nothing to fear, I think, any further from Donald Trump. Do you agree, Saul? Well, we'll have to wait and see, but it certainly looks that way at the moment, doesn't it, Patrick? And Trump's reaction to the Russian response to that incredible attack

Ukrainian drone strike, which we reported last week, in which they destroyed up to a third of Russia's long range aviation was very telling, I think, Patrick, when, of course, he basically after a phone call with Putin said, or reported Putin's words that now I'm going to respond quite heavily. And that

as far as Trump was concerned, was to be expected. So instead of making the obvious point that actually this incredible success was in many ways degrading the Russian ability to fight war, Trump was saying, no, there's going to be tit for tat and that's effectively what Ukrainians deserve. So he's always equated incredibly in our eyes, Patrick,

Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure with the Ukrainian strikes on legitimate Russian military targets. And it's been totally mystifying for us to try and work out what on earth is going on. But meanwhile, of course, the Europeans seem determined to increase the pressure on Russia by tightening the economic screws with regards to sanctions.

But we have to ask the question, will that make any difference if the U.S. is not in lockstep beside them? And we suspect that it won't.

So going back to Trump's withdrawal from the peace process, Patrick, how do you think it translates itself in practical terms? Well, I think Ukraine's got to brace itself for a halt in U.S. aid, a pretty significant one, both in hardware, possibly also intelligence sharing, and certainly diplomatic support. So if they're sensible, and I think they are sensible, they're going to base all future efforts

planning on a landscape which is free from all US support. Now, Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, signaled as much when he was answering questions about the upcoming defense budget. He said that unequivocally that aid to Ukraine is going to be cut, though he didn't give any specifics, but it's obviously bad news, if not unexpected. I mean, just looking back at what they've

given over the years that's like 66 billion dollars since the full scale invasion began back in February 2022

He framed it, Hegseth, as a kind of general kind of housekeeping budget reduction. He said, this administration takes a very different view of the Ukraine conflict. We believe that a negotiated, peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation's interests also, especially with all the competing interests around the globe. So,

You know, he's basically saying, as you were mentioning earlier, sort of a kind of moral equivalence here. This is just like a faraway fight in which you've got two parties. There's not much to choose between them in terms of the justice of their relative positions. We just want it to be brought to an end. And there's no kind of moral element in this or indeed grand strategic element at all. It's just a faraway squabble.

which we just want to wash our hands of. What remains to be seen is whether Kiev will be allowed to buy U.S. kit, which it wants to do, it said it is willing and able to do, and whether the U.S. will actually sell this stuff to them.

But the real question, as you were mentioning earlier, Saul, is can Europe, it's been talking a good fight, but is it actually in any position to move in to fill up the gap? Well, that is the question. And the answer, of course, is we're going to have to, or at least that was the warning earlier.

given by NATO General Secretary Mark Rutter, who told a press conference in London earlier this week that unless we reinvest in our military capabilities, we'd better start learning Russian. Now, appearing to directly address our Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, ahead of her spending review on Wednesday, he said, if you do not go to the 5%, including the 3.5% for defence spending, you could still have the NHS, the pension system, but you better learn to speak Russian. That's the consequence.

So how did Reeves respond? Well, she announced a massive increase in spending on the NHS and she claimed a raising of defence spending to 2.6% by the late 2020s. But there was quite a coruscating response to that from former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

who wrote that the government has folded in intelligence spending, Ukraine spending, and even foreign office money to the notional defense figure. The result is that the core defense spending will not even be 2.5% as promised, not even close. There was no path to 3% either. It was just a con all along. Now, we may well look back on this moment, according to Wallace, as the end of

of NATO within a couple of years' time. And by that, he really means the end of US participation in NATO. Why? Because at the upcoming NATO meeting in Holland, which will be attended by Trump, members of the alliance are expected to be asked to agree to commit 3.5% of GDP by the 2030s

A further 1.5% would be required for defence-related measures. The cash cost of such a goal for each country has been estimated by comparing the NATO figures for spending levels in 2024 to World Bank figures for the size of GDP. And just a bit of context, the current target is 2%, which has not been

been met by all the NATO states, as we've mentioned before. I think at least five or six are still tardy in that respect. Only Poland currently tops the 3.5% level. The US itself spent 3.3.8% on defence in 2024, although the sheer size of its economy means that is dwarf. It means that it dwarfed contributions from the rest of the alliance. All of this, Patrick, must be music to Putin's ears, don't you think? I think so, yeah. I mean...

Everything is sort of going his way, just on all fronts, really. I mean, the so-called crinks, that's what Roger Boyce calls them. That means China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which looks like a sort of pretty weird assembly of quite nasty states with little in common except their hostility towards the West and indeed towards their own people. But they don't necessarily have much kind of strategic influence

to make friends with each other. But that's what they're doing and they're being pretty successful. So just look at the US-China situation. I mean, after all the sturm und drang of Trump's opening moves in his so-called trade war with China,

He's now sort of meekly after a phone call to Xi Jinping asking if they could perhaps talk. There's now been a deal done in London, which basically rose back virtually everything that Trump set out to do. So I think most analysts are saying this is actually a win all around for China. We won't go into the specifics here, but just on his other foreign policy fronts, he

We don't really know how things are going in Iran, but certainly elsewhere, on the Gaza front, he's completely failed to secure a ceasefire there. And as we were saying, he's now realized he's on a hiding to nothing in Ukraine. So, yeah, I mean, Putin has got everything he could possibly hope for from the US. He will grind on with his war. I think we've all agreed that he's got no intention of

of seeking peace in any form, and indeed, various reasons, which we've mentioned before on the pod, he can't really stop the war. His own survival depends on it. And things are looking pretty good on the battlefield, leaving aside the wonderful success of last week from a Ukrainian point of view, Spider's Web. Actually, on the ground, the situation is pretty ominous for Ukraine, isn't it? Last week, we had a spring in our step, but if we actually look

as a result of spider's web. But if we look at what's actually happening physically on the front lines, the old meat grinder is grinding away. And there's every sign that Russia is serious about

some kind of summer offensive. Yeah, that's right. The latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War in Washington notes that Russian forces recently advanced to the Dnipro-Donetsk administrative border as Kremlin officials continue to demonstrate that Russia has wider territorial ambitions in Ukraine, even beyond those four provinces, Luhansk, Donetsk,

zaparich and kerson and also of course crimea that it claims is its own already and then we had kremlin spokesman dmitry peskov claiming on the 9th of june that russia has begun an offensive into the dnipro oblast 2 or within as he put it the framework of the creation of a

buffer zone. So this is an attempt to gain even more territory than those provinces that they've claimed. There was some pushback, I have to say, from the Ukrainians. Ukraine's southern defence forces appeared to confirm on Sunday that Russian troops were trying to enter the region, that's the Dnipro region, but had not yet broken through. The enemy does not abandon its intentions to enter the Dnipro region, the spokesman said. Our soldiers are

courageously and professionally holding their section of the front, disrupting the occupiers' plans. This work does not stop for a minute. But what seems to be the case from all these sources, Patrick, is that they've actually now reached the border. That doesn't mean the whole of Donetsk has been cleared, of course, but in that particular bit of Donetsk, they are now up on the border with the next blast. There have been reports from the ISW and elsewhere on a slightly rosier note, Patrick. As you know, I do like to add

one or two bits of encouragement when we're getting into these depressing events, that Ukraine has made recent gains on the battlefield in various locations in the Donbass, including Vovchansk, Borova, Liman and Toresk. And also that Ukrainian troops continue to strike Russian military and defence industrial targets in the Russian rear, which they've been doing, of course, for the last couple of years, including recently the Tambov gunpowder plant in Kototsk, Ukraine.

And that's Tambov Oblast in Russia, an airfield in Voronezh Oblast and an ammunition depot in Kursk Oblast. So they're still continuing those long range strikes. Less encouraging and trusting enough, Patrick. And in line with comments made by Colonel Hazan on the podcast last week, which I think was a bit of a scoop for us.

is a recent interview given by Ukraine's foreign intelligence spokesperson, Oleg Alexandrov, to Politico, in which he claims exactly the same thing that we heard from Colonel Kazan, that Chinese manufacturers are providing Russian developers with hardware, electronics, navigation,

optical and telemetry systems, engines, microcircuits, and etc. to improve and grow its drone production. And this does seem to be having an effect because its long-range drone production increased from 15,000 drones in 2024 to over 30,000 drones in 2025. And a lot of this is apparently down to China. That's right. Yeah, I mean, they've managed to dodge

responsibility for it thus far, but I think anyone who knows anything about it, including the Trump White House, of course, knows that they're in it up to their necks and that without Chinese support, the Russian war effort would be seriously undermined. I think we're talking of Trump and we can't get away from him, can we? I know it's not sort of strictly relevant to our

podcast today, but it seems to me that the events in Los Angeles in particular do suggest that Trump is serious about moving America in the direction of an authoritarian state. I'm thinking about the way he deals with two very different people, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Brazil.

The tone of language he uses with both is markedly different towards Putin. He's soothing. His tone when Putin does something atrocious like raining down bombs on civilians in Ukraine is more in sorrow than anger. He constantly reiterates how he thinks he's a good guy and he's someone he can do business with.

And yet his fellow American, Gavin Newsom, whose only problem really is that he's a Democrat, is reviled in the most horrible language. You know, Gavin Newscombe, he calls him. Now, even 10 years ago, the idea that an American president would talk about a fellow elected American politician like this would seem shocking and unbelievable. But here we have the president of the United States doing this freely and

against someone who is a fellow American, a fellow politician, an elected representative who's just presenting a very, what most people regard as, even if they don't disagree with it, a not unreasonable point of view completely within the legality of his position. Now, I remember soon after Trump came to power,

I was predicting that American Civil War was not over fanciful and I don't see any reason to change my mind following this latest move which seems to me the act of a pyromaniac. But getting back to Ukraine, what this means all round is I think this is going to be very much part of Trump's focus going forward.

And this, of course, can only massively weaken the United States in the world and really create a sort of global situation where Russia and China can carry on their designs without any interference from the US. Okay, we'll take a break there. Do join us in a moment for listeners' questions.

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Welcome back. Well, the first question is from Peter Kellythorne, and it is not surprisingly about Spiderweb and the increased use of Ukrainian aviation in the tactical role. Dear Patrick, Saul and team, writes Peter, thank you for your fantastic podcast. I contacted you once before about the issues around F-16 usage in Ukraine.

My first point question to you is about Operation Spiderweb. It's a bit of a moot point as any information is likely to remain classified, but I'm sure that you remember the drone incursions into the airspace of various airfields in the UK and US around a year or so ago. I think it's

possible this was a feasibility test for Operation Spiderweb. They would need to trial the communication links, etc., to ensure the concept worked before committing significant resources for the full operation. What do you think? Well, my immediate response to that, Patrick, is I don't think that Peter's right. Why? Because it seems that the Ukrainians, understandably, were so determined on operational security. They didn't tell anyone about this, and they certainly didn't tell the Americans. So,

Were they under their own auspices trying to operate drones into airfares in the UK and US?

Very unlikely in my view. Patrick, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, there have been a remarkable number of these incursions, particularly in the US, into military airspace. And it's something that gives a lot of concern, obviously, to the military authorities. There's been a lot of work investigating what's going on here. And I think the short answer is that some of it is just like, you know, amateur drone flyers wandering into space.

kind of security zones, but some of it is definitely malign. So you've got various congressional inquiries have come to the conclusion that the most probable culprits are drug cartels over the border of Mexico and

and also people smugglers who are basically scoping out land, doing a recce to see where military forces might be encountered, etc. And so, yeah, it's a criminal activity rather than a political activity, if you like. And yeah, I think completely agree, Saul, that the Ukrainians were not going to share any of this stuff with the US or the UK before they actually launched the attack. Contrary, I think, to what the Russians have been saying, we'll come on to that later.

But there's another question that Peter raises, which is about the use of tactical air power, the increasing use of fixed wing aircraft, etc. on the battlefront. And although

We've been a little bit kind of underwhelmed by what F-16s, the much-vaunted F-16s that Europe has been supplying Ukraine with, have achieved. It seems that we're being a little bit unfair here, and they are actually beginning to have a significant impact. I was looking at something just yesterday. I was

which is some video of a strike by, not an F-16, but a MiG-29 on a house, which was somewhere in the southern front. That's all the location we got for it, which was clearly used as a sort of barracks-cum-ammunition facility.

depot, where you see this bomb flying down from the MiG-29 onto the building, completely demolishing. I can't believe anyone got out of there alive. So this is what seems to be going on. You get unmanned UAVs identifying the target.

and guiding or locating it for an F-16 or a MiG-29 to then come in and bomb it. Now, the bomb used, interestingly, was a hammer, French-manufactured hammer bomb, which is a very effective inertial GPS-guided system, relatively cheap, as these bombs go at around $150.

euros a pop and clearly very effective so this is the crucial point here is that the aircraft got through without any kind of response from Russian air defences and it does seem to reinforce the point that the Ukrainians have been making or analysts have been making that Russian air defences are being systematically degraded by strikes and that there are big holes in their air defence

Okay, moving on to George Tyler, and he asked the question, Ukrainian counter-offensive. And it's interesting, Patrick, just as a general point here, that our listeners seem to be much more optimistic in this particular pod than we are. And it's quite nice to hear some of these comments. But in any case, George Rice, I've seen the chatter about Ukraine building up reserves for a counter-offensive this summer. Allegedly, the Russian advance is

especially their bridgehead over the Beechock between Murnohrad and Konstantinivka is a trap being laid for the reported counteroffensive. Do you think a major Ukrainian offensive is possible at all this year? Well,

We've heard little snippets about the possibility. I think there's a very strong chance that they'll be trying something, whether it's major or whether they will be hoping to catch the Russians off balance in certain areas, possibly this bridgehead over the Beechek. I think wherever they're pushing their snout forward, I mentioned Dnipro earlier on in the programme where Russia's hoping to make gains. I think in those sort of areas, not least because it's a new area of Ukraine that the Russians are trying to push into, I think there is a very strong, indeed,

almost inevitable likelihood that there will be counterattacks in some shape or form. But we just don't know. We haven't heard any information that this is going to be at any kind of large scale at this point. Yeah, I mean, all the talk has been of this Russian summer offensive. But as you say, it's quite likely that the Ukrainians

will strike back, especially as you say on these new fronts, you know, whether it be edging forward, there'll be salience, which will be vulnerable, etc. But what it certainly won't be is a counter-offensive a la 2023. That's just remembering today's all that is exactly two years since the great, much heralded Ukrainian counter-offensive was launched.

Looking back, I mean, there was so much kind of pre-publicity about it, wasn't there? It seemed like a massive security failure that they gave the Russians so much advance warning. And of course, the Russians had spent the winter preparing good old fashioned defenses, which were extremely effective against what was a pretty conventional operation, wasn't it, by and large?

Anyway, that was a bit of disappointment to us. So I don't think they'll be doing anything like that again. They simply haven't got the resources to do it, even if they wanted to. But I think we can expect something imaginative, something that doesn't require enormous manpower, but plays to the Ukrainian strengths, which, as always, are cunning, doing the unexpected, and

and making a massive use of the slight edge they've got in battlefield technology. - Okay, moving on to a question from Tom Martin in Owensound, Ontario. And he's really asking a question about where next because loyal listeners to the Ukraine podcast will know we also have a separate feed going out every Wednesday

We started out with Battleground 44, covering the events of 80 years ago, and then moved on to 1945. Well, of course, we're rapidly approaching the end of the war. And the question is actually in our minds at the moment, Patrick, isn't it? We've spoken about this a few times, about what to do next, if anything. But Tom's view is we're coming to the end of World War II in September.

And this loyal listener doesn't want it to end. So my big idea for you folks is to use this September to officially end Battleground 45 and to begin either Battleground 39 or Battleground Cold War. Interesting how World War II starts on September 1st, 1939 and ends on September 2nd, 1945, says Tom.

Going the Battleground 39 route will allow you to eventually complete the whole of the Second World War. God forbid the war in Ukraine lasts that long. And going the Battleground Cold War route would be good too. You wouldn't need to do it consecutively, but maybe in five-year chunks. The bottom line, lads, says Tom, is you have to do something after September. Whatever it is, I'll be listening. Okay, so we hear what you say. But we've been, as Saul says, we've been...

pondering all sorts of possibilities but listeners uh if you've got any thoughts about what you would like to hear we would be delighted if you could share them with us because uh

We are a bit at sea at the moment, aren't we, about which is the best way to go. We'd love to carry on, but you've got to get something that's got a narrative line, that's got kind of implications for today, etc. And it's not that easy to find. Cold War? Yeah, perhaps, but it's a big kind of baggy subject, isn't it, really? I think we need something with a bit more of a kind of shape to it, if you like.

Yeah, but one thing we absolutely will not be doing, and that's dropping our coverage of Ukraine. So however long this takes, we'll be along for the ride. And when the Ukraine war comes to an end, because all wars eventually have to come to an end, even the Afghanistan conflict finally came to an end, we'll be looking at replacing Ukraine with something else, whether it's contemporary, whether it's historical, whether it's a mix of both. Time will tell, but your suggestions would be very interesting to hear.

Okay, got one here from Cameron Wilson. It says, Dear Patrick and Saul, greetings from Melbourne, Australia. Well, g'day, Cameron. He goes on to ask...

Given Trump's increasing frustration with Putin and the threats to walk away if a deal can't be done, do you think Europe could now more actively join the fight to end the war if the USA walks away? Leaving aside the issues you've already pointed out with the coalition of the willing, this is what our Prime Minister Keir Starmer said,

proposed the uh problems with that of course we're getting enough peacekeepers to actually uh monitor a peace post-war he asked again would europe be willing to get involved in a police action in ukraine and how do you think russia would respond to this

Well, I think the short answer to that, and what you think, Saul, is no. I just don't think, from a British perspective, by government's own admission, we can't defend ourselves, let alone Ukraine. This was really the upshot of what was revealed at the launch of this strategic, or rather the unveiling of the much-talked-about Strategic Defense Review initiative

carried out by an independent panel in what Britain's defence needs are in the coming years. Now, what it really did show up was just how weak we are and also by extension from how unprepared we are for any kind of action, be it offensive or defensive. And I think more and more is being said that actually brings home to the

British public that the idea of us being in some sort of conflict, direct conflict with Russia is by no means a fantasy. There's a very good article today in the Times by Ed Lucas, who's a friend of the podcast, was on the other day, in which he draws everyone's attention to a new podcast called The War Game, in which seasoned decision-makers say,

People who've been in government and in high command explore the dilemmas posed by a scenario in which Russia did launch a direct attack on us. They include Ben Wallace, who you were talking about earlier, Amber Rudd, Jack Straw, as well as a bunch of retired generals, foreign policy bigwigs, etc. And I think from what we know of what's being said in it,

we really are in no position to actually withstand any serious attack on us. It's not necessarily going to be a full-scale invasion or anything like that. I think the general view is that we're looking at some sort of probing operation, which is really designed to further undermine NATO and to demonstrate just how weak the alliance is becoming. So, yeah, I mean, the picture, I think, is pretty grim here.

And from what you were saying earlier, Saul, about the British commitment to spending has been a lot of rhetoric. But the reality is that the money just simply isn't being made available for something that would significantly improve the fighting capacity and the defensive capacity of the British army.

forces. Okay, we've got a question from Steve Jones about the transparency with regard to Operation Spiderweb. And his question is, it was a fantastic achievement, but as an ex-military pilot, I'm curious about Ukraine's decision to be so open about how the operation was carried out. Does it make strategic sense to reveal those details to the enemy, especially if the methods or technologies used could be applied again in the future? What might be the reasons behind such transparency in this case?

Two obvious reasons, in my view, Patrick. One we've already talked about, which is when you say this is how we did it, you create complete confusion. I mean, there was chaos in Siberia and other parts of Russia immediately after the operation because people were thinking any vehicle that we see, any lorry might actually be holding Ukrainian drones. So first of all, you spread that kind of fear. Secondly, and the

The other obvious point is that once the operation has taken place, you've got those lorries sitting there. It's quite clear what happened and how the Ukrainians did it. Therefore, there is no need to be quiet about it because the Russians are going to know. They've got the vehicles. They've got the sliding roofs. They've got the drones that have disappeared. They've got the drivers saying this is what happened. These are the people we spoke to. So all that information is going to come out.

anyway. And I'm afraid the Ukrainians wanted to get as much kudos and PR value out of this as possible. And they knew that any of the details they were going to give the Russians were going to have anyway. That's the way I see it, Patrick. Yeah, I think it was very smart information strategy, wasn't it? It was basically a

a big mind game element going on there as well. You've got you keeping the Russians guessing, aren't you? You're saying, okay, we've done that one. We don't mind. We're not going to do it again. We've got plenty of other schemes up our sleeves. And so you'll have the FSB running around in all directions. Maybe it's a double bluff. Maybe they are going to do another Shrek quadcopter launch again. So I think it's, again, shows how smart

the Ukrainian security services are, as well as demonstrating fantastic military skills. So yeah, I think you're absolutely right. It was all there for the Russians to investigate, discover the technique. So nothing to be gained from keeping Sturm about that. All right, we've got one here from Oliver Hugh Jones. He writes, the press is starting to treat Trump as the reality TV grifter that he really is, instead of asking the respectful questions that would usually be put to the office of the president of

of the United States. I'm sure most of your listeners will have heard the taco Trump always chickens out question put to Trump during a recent press meeting. He fumbled his way out of it, but it underscores the issue that US under the Trump administration is more and more being seen as a laughing stock

on the world stage. And this bodes very badly for global security, not only Ukraine. President Macron, speaking at the Shangri-La dialogue with Pete Hegseth listening on, was 100% right that the EU and the US need to ensure that the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are ended now so as not to embolden China and its regional aspirations.

With regard to Ukraine, the EU and the US need to throttle Russia's ability to sell its oil and gas globally. And the EU needs to swallow the bitter pill and completely remove its reliance on Russian gas. Only then will Putin lose the ability to fund his war. I long for a day when I don't have to listen to your Friday podcast.

He says, not because I don't enjoy the coverage, but because the war will have ended. And we do too. But I basically agree with all the points that Oliver's making here. I mean, we've already kind of hinted at some of them today and in previous podcasts. We're absolutely of the opinion that

Trump's recent behavior is bad news, not only for Western security in general, but for the U.S. in particular. And we just hope that at some stage the American voting public realize that. And your point earlier on actually about Gavin Newsom, Patrick's interesting because there are already articles suggesting this

The behavior of Trump towards Newsom in California is actually good news for Newsom's presidential hopes in the future. And we'll have to wait and see on that one. But of course, the next big moment for the U.S. electorate to make their point is the midterms.

And we'll have to see how a lot of Trump's posturing and taco behavior actually translates into votes. So the drama continues, doesn't it, Saul? Whatever else it is, it's incredibly enthralling and absorbing. So that's not going to change. Do join us on Wednesday for another episode of Battleground 45. And again on Friday for more from Ukraine. Goodbye.