Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me Saul David and Roger Morehouse.

In a moment, we'll hear from Belgian war reporter Arnaud de Deco, who has recently returned from

Georgia where he was covering anti-Russian demonstrations.

But first, the latest news from the battlefield, and that is that Ukraine has announced the capture

of two Chinese nationals fighting for Russia.

According to President Zelensky, they were taken prisoner in Donetsk and were part of a much

larger force of 150 Chinese fighting for the Russians. He said he had the names and passport

details of the Chinese combatants and insisted that Beijing was aware of their participation in the war.

He added, Russia's involvement of China, along with other countries, whether directly or

indirectly in this war in Europe, is a clear signal that Putin intends to do anything but end the war.

He's looking for ways to continue the fighting. Now, this, in my view, Roger, is clearly an attempt

by Zelensky to link the war in Ukraine with the Trump administration's fear of China, and it does seem to

have done the trick. A US State Department spokeswoman said that the capture of Chinese citizens

fighting for Russia was disturbing and that China was a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine,

as it provided, and I quote, 80% of the dual-use items, Russia needs to sustain the war, end quote.

But could these soldiers really have been sent by Beijing, do you think, Roger?

Yeah, it's certainly been a big story of the week, Saul, and you can understand why the

Ukrainian government is trying to amplify it, because it supposedly would provide proof

both of Putin's bad faith in the ongoing

negotiations and also as evidence of a major escalation by the Kremlin, as you say. But I'd rather

doubt that these soldiers are there as part of any sort of large-scale Beijing-backed operation.

If they had been, of course, it would certainly change the game.

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