Hello, this is the Red Box Podcast. I'm Matt Cholick. Now, do you speak Russian?

The foreign office probably could do with your help. We've revealed on the program that,

in the last few years, the number of fluent Russian speakers in the foreign office has fallen

by more than a quarter. So we're going to take a look at what this means for

its ability to engage with Russia in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine, particularly

the real warnings after the annexation of Crimea about the decline in language abilities

in the foreign office. So that's coming up in our big thing, just to remember.

First, it's our Colourless Panel. No think of which today, because David

or one of which is offering a spa break or something. So we've got Daniel

Finkelstein and Oliver Kam.

Does this make us the penultimate for mentors?

What is it? Is it Finkel Kam? Fin Kam? Kamovich.

Kamovich. Kamovich. There's definitely something involving Kamovich.

Let's talk about Ukraine. And this suggestion that Britain's concerned that

France and Germany will offer President Putin an easy off-lamp.

And you know, there's a sort of concern that Putin then might get away with it.

Danny, one person's getting away with it is another person's ending the war, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a very, very difficult question. I'll be fascinated to know what Oliver has to say.

On the one hand, Boris Johnson made the right point earlier in this when he said,

Putin cannot be seen to win out of this kind of aggression.

And when you, you know, you fight as we do, it is to try to prevent this kind of aggression

from seeing to gain anybody anything.

...