Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me, Patrick Bishop and Saul David.

The future of the Ukraine war, it would seem now, lies in the hands of just two people,

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Their calculations about how they play their respective hands

as maneuvering begins to bring an end to the war will ultimately decide the fate of not just Ukraine,

it will also reshape fundamentally the landscape of European security.

Well, personal chemistry obviously is going to play a large part in this drama. And given the

massive egos, massive but also fragile, it must be said, of those involved, anything could

happen. That, I suppose, makes speculation rather futile,

but nonetheless, there are enough known knowns for us to feel confident that we can make a few

safest predictions about the likely Russian strategy, wouldn't you say, so what?

Yeah, I'd love to think so, Patrick. I'm not sure that is the case, but the first noises

coming from Moscow suggest that Putin thinks he might be able to play Trump by flattering him.

Admittedly, not a bad opening move, and he's chosen an interesting way of doing it. That is, by

endorsing Trump's unshakable conviction that he is the victim of a historic injustice

when in his mind the 2020 election was stolen from him by Democrat skullduggery.

This is what Putin said. I couldn't disagree with him that if he had been president,

if they hadn't stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022

could have been avoided. So the message is Trump is a well-statesman who would have sorted

out Ukraine if it hadn't been robbed of victory. Now, this is soft-sooping of the most blatant,

obvious kind, isn't it, Patrick? Designed to create a special bond with Trump that will enable Putin to strike a deal with him

over Zelensky's head. The question is, will O'Donnell go for it?

Yeah, the charm offensive has been going on for quite a while now, of course. The Russian

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