War of attrition

So you can see where I'm heading here, that, you know, you've already got this kind of whole history of where Ukrainians have suffered as well.

So basically, we've got competitive war of attrition going on here, where Ukrainians, despite the fact that they're much smaller in terms of population and, uh, size and, um, resources, imagining, uh, uh, uh, managing to bog Russia down because Putin has forgotten that they were part of that same mentality of we're gonna survive this as well.

I've read several Russian experts o- over the last month who's saying that there is now every reason to think that the boot is on the Ukrainian foot, that the, the drone attacks on Crimea and so on have given it a whole new edge.

Do you think Ukraine could bring Putin down now?

But look, I think we'll have to see because as we all know, there are always ex- exogenous shocks in the system.

I think that the, uh, US attack, uh, with Israel on Iran is a, a major exogenous sho- shock that hasn't actually been all that good, you know, for Russia, for example, because it, you know, puts something else in the calculus that you really can't control.

So I would just say we have to watch this space, but, you know, there could well be that just as you get in a war of attrition, both sides exhaust themselves to a point where, you know, there has to be, and that's what a lot of people are hoping for who want to end the war, of course, that there has to be some kind of, uh, well, it's obviously not gonna be a reconciliation, but some kind of compromise reached.

Fiona, it is always so fabulous to talk to you.

They fought heroically and profoundly and really did cause a lot of trouble to Russia for a lot of times and imposed a real cost on them.

But as I said from before the war started and at every point between is that when you look at a war of attrition, you have all of these inputs here.

You have all these other inputs down here on the other side.

And a war of attrition doesn't care about your morality.

It doesn't care about your nationality, how hard you wave your flag.

It only cares about the inputs.