This is laying the ground for, for a real softening, isn't it?

Oh, it really is.

Um, and of course, it plays right into Trump's hands.

I mean, once again, Putin is playing Donald Trump for all he's worth.

And i-it's terribly disingenuous when, when Witkoff comes out today and says, uh, "Oh, well, this is a lesson to Ukraine what can happen when you cooperate," uh, which is a, is an appalling thing to say if you think about it.

You know, the, um, Russia invaded Ukraine on full scale in twenty twenty-two.

They'd already invaded parts of Eastern Ukraine and seized Crimea in twenty fourteen.

And also, we now have a suggestion that Putin could be open to a meeting with Donald Trump in China.

It-- does it suggest he's emboldened?

Oh, I think he is definitely emboldened, and he feels comfortable with the, with the BRICS setup.

Um, so I think that's, that's a, a plus for BRICS, but I'm, I'm slightly cautious, perhaps more so than, uh, the two people who've spoken so far.

Um, it seems to me a bit of a Swiss cheese agreement.

In other words, it's quite a, quite a few holes in it, and they seem to be more united by being against Donald Trump and what he's doing, but without actually mentioning him or America by name and sort of tiptoeing around some of the issues.

So, uh, yes, I think it's very significant that they've come out with this declaration after two failures earlier this year.

Um, but, uh, I think there's a, a, a lot of it that-- a lot of things that are not yet being said.

Where could this go wrong?

Mm.

Um, he has to be able to show his people that he's got something out of this, what supposedly was a three-day war.

He was gonna take Kiev in three days.

He was gonna rule Ukraine in, in a week.

Um, and here we are in a war that's gone on for four and a half years, longer than the First World War, and he's no closer to doing that a- at, at all.

And so he can't now turn around to his people and say, "Well, okay, we're gonna sue for peace against Ukraine." He has to have at least the four territories in Eastern Ukraine, plus Crimea, which are now officially part of the Russian Constitution.

That was, that was done back in twenty twenty-three, which was a really stupid thing to do, to be honest, because, um, [laughs] he's not going to achieve that.

And these staggering casualty figures, I mean, uh, are, are the Russian, are Russians told anything close to the real scale of the losses?

But if they do manage to get it through, uh, one thing I would say is that considering it's, it's Donald Trump's eightieth birthday today, that would be a big birthday present from his son-in-law, uh, Jared Kushner, wouldn't it? Um, Steven, where does-- If you do have the United States losing its crown in the way that, uh, Nina has just described it, it opens the way up for an other huge superpowers to, to sort of muscle in as well, doesn't it?

Particularly China.

I mean, China is the obvious one.

Um, you know, Russia sees itself as a superpower, but it's not.

Um, it's shown in the last, sadly, nearly five years, um, indeed, if we go back to twenty fourteen, the seizure of Crimea, that even Ukraine, they, they haven't been able to defeat the Ukrainian army.

Um, so the army is not the s-- army of a superpower.

The economy is in a terrible state.

It's, it's one of those, um, rather complicated situations, but it also always brings up the question of the role that NATO plays and, and, and how much people listen.