Could you sum up the major events that have happened in the Russia-Ukraine conflict this week?

Yeah, starting off in Europe, the story this week is definitely hybrid escalation.

Perhaps not in the way that people are used to hearing, though.

So, oddly enough, this story of hybrid escalation starts with a ceasefire announcement, or perhaps not quite a ceasefire.

And what I mean by that is that on the 11th, This has happened before.

This was the most recent time he made an announcement that there was a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, specifically on their energy infrastructure, just like last time officials from both countries said.

to our knowledge.

So turning now to you, Andrew, what are the latest updates in terms of the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

So we'll start off with Russia and Ukraine, where the war trended towards military escalation.

This week, Russia conducted... a particularly vicious and large-scale bombardment of Ukraine, including multiple regions, numerous different cities.

On October 7th, those attacks are continuing into the present day at the time of recording on October 8th.

So the latest, and I'm certain this will be updated shortly, is that at least 30 people were killed and over 100 wounded.

And again, those numbers are likely set to rise based off what we know about these kinds of attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Now, looking at the European continent more broadly, Lithuania deployed soldiers along its border with Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

And as a result, we are seeing these last-minute trade talks at the moment, and it is possible that we will hear of extra sanctions and tariffs being put in place by the EU if no deal is

If you had to condense it down to just a couple of sentences, what would you say has been some of the main developments from this past quarter? And again, what should we expect going into the next?

Yeah, well, speaking of systems of governance that are more deeply entrenched than the Maduro regime.

Iranian regime, right? Sebastian, point well taken about the likelihood, the differences between those two governments and what the Trump administration may choose to do over, well, for the rest of the year.

In Iran, of course, we saw the opposite choice being made.

We saw very direct, very high intensity intervention between the U.S. and Israel, otherwise a late primarily just from the United States.

The war in Iran has been the story out of the region over the quarter for very obvious reasons.

You know, the decision to go to war, of course, is owned by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Where do you see the situation standing currently and where do you think it's going to go?

This is important for a region that is isolated and cut off from maritime access, from a lot of international aid, and also doesn't garner the same international attention that some other conflicts around the world might receive.

So on your last point there, I can probably guess the answer to this question, but have you seen or are you tracking any sort of international effort, either from governments, from the United Nations, or from countries civil society organizations to put together something resembling an aid response to this crisis.

So over to you now, Andrew, for transatlantic relations as well as the Middle East.

All right.

So as I'm sure listeners are aware, there was a meeting of the UN General Assembly this week.

And as usual, most of the significant news items came out of the sidebar conversations in meetings that take place in New York.

That is the case here as far as NATO and the Russia-Ukraine war goes.

One of the most important things that I think listeners should take a look at and take a deeper dive into is the de-escalation that recently occurred not between Russia.

But in terms of getting every single signature on the paper, that actually might prove to be a little bit more difficult.

Andrew? Question.

What do you guys think that Carney's assessment was going into this, knowing there is going to be some sort of retaliatory reaction from Trump? Maybe just rhetoric.

Maybe not.

Likely not.

Right.

So clearly he is making some sort of a risk assessment and determined that Canada had more to gain, either in the near or the long term future.

So Andrew, why don't you start us off with the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war? What are some things you're keeping an eye on?