Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop. Well, it's good to be back. Patrick, I've had a brief hiatus. You had one before then,

but we're now back in tandem. And as for Ukraine, well, a strange calm seems to have settled

over diplomatic efforts to end the war there after the drama of recent weeks. All the towing and

throwing by American officials and the much touted man-to-man phone conversation between presidents Putin and Trump

have produced, well, nothing that looks like progress so far. We'll be asking, is the anti-climax an

indication that the US is about to abandon its peacemaking project? And if so, how prepared is Ukraine and

Europe for the gap in resources, both military and political,

that its withdrawal from the scene will leave as it struggles to contain a Russia whose appetite

to keep fighting seems undiminished? Well, it's good to have you back against Saul. We've had a few

different people in the chair, including James last week. I thought he made a pretty good fist of it, Patrick, and I suspect both our jobs are at risk

in the longer term, aren't they? Yeah, he's definitely hot on our heels. So we better be

at the top of our game today. But anti-climax is whitesaw. I mean, that phone call, two hours

long, apparently, which Trump put into Putin on Monday,

produced markedly literal of substance, didn't it? Now, remember, this is the third time since taking

office that they've spoken. And all along, Trump's been saying, you know, we're going to sort it out. And we can be

pretty sure there's been anything real to shout about. We would have heard it announced in the

most public way possible, instead of which Trump decided just to put out a bland post on

truth social. And that said that things had gone very well.

Now, given Trump's tendency to hyperbole, that doesn't sound too good, does it?

He went on to say that Moscow and Kiev will, quote, immediately begin ceasefire talks with the aim of bringing an end to the war. And these conditions for

ceasefire would be negotiated between the two parties. This is in quotes, as it can only be

because they know details of the negotiation that nobody else would be aware of, not quite sure

...