Hello and welcome to the Battleground Ukraine podcast with me, Roger Morehouse and Saul David.

With the stasis on the battlefield largely persisting

this week, the most notable developments were once again in the air and in the diplomatic sphere.

On Sunday, a major Russian aerial assault was launched on Ukrainian territory, in which around 600

drones and more than 40 missiles struck across multiple regions,

including the capital Kiev, causing the deaths of four people and injuring at least 70.

Ukraine claimed that it had intercepted the majority of the missiles,

but it was nonetheless one of the heaviest attacks of recent months,

once again demonstrating Putin's contempt for Trump's supposed peace

plan. In response, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy described the attack as vile,

and vowed that Ukraine would retaliate. This dastardly attack took place at the end of the week

of the UN General Assembly, he said, adding that this is how Russia declares

its real position. He closed by giving his support to Trump's threat of harsher sanctions on Russia.

Well, Roger, as we've discussed a few times on the pod, we'll believe that the White

House has changed its position when we actually see it. But there have been, nonetheless,

some positive voices as regards Ukraine

from the American side over this last week. For one thing, as the Guardian reported on Wednesday,

the US Special Envoy Keith Kellogg told the Warsaw Security Conference that he believed that Putin,

and I quote, in his hearts, probably knows that he cannot win the war. Now, Kellogg has always been

more capable and rather better informed than his fellow Mboy Steve Wickoff and has paid the

price for that in Trumpian circles, but we might just take this statement as a reflection of how

narratives appear to be shifting in Western strategic circles. And there was also an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal this week that, citing

...