Hello and welcome to Battleground. It's good to be back, Patrick. I'd been away for the last two

podcasts, but an awful lot happened since then. Patrick and I were about to record an episode

of Battleground 45, which indeed we will do in a few minutes. But of course, the news has come in

and it's coming in every day, turning the conflict in ever more shocking directions. And the latest is

that Trump suspended all military aid to Ukraine. It's really hard to say those

words, Patrick. I never really thought we'd get to this point. We saw it as a possibility. I think

the Trumpite said last autumn, if they got in, if Trump actually became president for the

second time, one of the ways of putting pressure on the Ukrainians

to make a deal was the threat to cut off A, but we really didn't think it would come to this, did we?

There was a doomsday scenario, wasn't it, Saul? And here it is, you know, it's just happened.

Now, they're saying, or some voices are saying from the White House of this is a pause. We're not cutting this off forever.

So at first sight, it appears to be a continuation of the bully boy tactics we saw on the Ovaloffice.

Last Friday, this time it's actually following through by putting a strangle hold really on

Volodymya Zelensky's room for maneuver. So basically, in practical terms,

that means everything basically grinds to all military activity using American weapons systems

to relies on supply chains. So we can see attackams, Haimars, parts for Abrams' tanks, all this sort of stuff.

Ammunition will, over the next couple of weeks, dry up, which will severely degrade,

not just Ukraine's ability to attack Russians, but actually to defend themselves.

So this is a pressure of the most brutal kind, which can only, it would seem, be relieved by some act of a basement by Zelensky to grovel to the White House, essentially. A, do you see him doing that, soul, and B, what form, you know, how low does he have to go in order to actually get

Donald's blessing to resume talks? Well, very low. I mean, what seems to have prompted this,

Patrick, kind of apart from the, you know, the preamble, the disastrous meeting last Friday

in the White House, is a kind of almost an offhand comment Zelensky made yesterday that actually no

...