Hello and welcome to the Battleground podcast with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

Well, thus far it's been another week of mixed news for Ukraine. First, we had a frankly

unexpected and disappointing outcome to the Washington DC summit between President Joe Biden

and British Prime Minister Sekeir Stama that was expected to end with an announcement that the

Ukrainians could now fire British storm shadow missiles into Russia proper. Instead, Biden seemed to have got

cold feet, possibly caused by Putin's threat that if stormshadows were used to attack targets in Russia,

he'd consider it a Kazas Beli and his country would, in effect, be at war with NATO,

and the American president as a result refused to give the necessary permission.

Quite why Biden allowed himself to be blackmailed by Putin's empty threats is anyone's

guess, but history will not look kindly on yet another example of Western prevarication.

Well, my guess, for what is worth all, is that it's very much linked to the upcoming presidential

election. We'll probably talk a bit more about that later, but simply put, Biden doesn't

want to provoke an international crisis with Moscow, which could impact Kamala Harris's

chances of winning in November. I think there's unlikely to be any change of mind

before the election, given that the Harris team will have their hands for dealing with a looming

crisis in the Middle East following Israel's apparent decision to up the ante in its confrontation

with Iran by its mass assassination attempts on Hezbollah in Lebanon

via exploding pages and walkie-talkies, which do, I think everyone agrees, threaten to provoke an all-out war.

So I think that means that Ukraine is not going to get any extra support from the US this side of the elections.

But looking at what's happening else where, you might ask, do they actually need it?

Because there's been a lot going on to hearten supporters of Ukraine.

And of course, I'm talking about what's perhaps no spectacular attack they've pulled off

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