Hello and welcome to the battleground podcast with me, Roger Morehouse and Saul David.

In a moment we'll be giving you an update on the movements on the ground this week,

but we'll start with the current status of this mysterious Trump-Putin axis that seems to

have come into existence over this past couple of months. Tantalisingly, it was reported on Monday

that President Trump was supposedly very angry and even pissed off following a morning phone call with Putin,

after recognising, belatedly, one might add, the bullheaded intransigence of Russian negotiating tactics over Ukraine.

In an interview with NBC, he criticised Putin for his attacks on Zelensky's credibility

and even threatened to impose a 50% tariff on those countries buying Russian oil,

tariffs being his new weapon of choice, it seems.

Of course, Trump's anger later cooled, and he walked back his comments,

defending Putin's integrity, such as it is,

and instead criticising Zelensky for negotiating in bad faith on the minerals deal.

He said of Putin, I don't think he's going to go back on his word. I've known him for a long time.

We've always gotten on along well. I think he'll be okay. In a new twist on the 1st of April,

Russia went on the offensive itself, claiming that Trump was

not addressing its needs in the negotiations, and that it consequently cannot accept US ideas

as they currently stand. Later that day, they doubled down, with a newspaper report noted

by the BBC's Steve Rosenberg, accusing the Trump administration of administrative insanity,

inexperience, immaturity, bragging and arrogance, and concluding that Donald's mood changes

as often as the wind. There are some truth bombs there amongst the propaganda.

This comes, of course, after weeks of Trump putting all the pressure on Ukraine

to force concessions while parroting Kremlin propaganda fibs, and all supposedly in the hope of

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