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

Well, even as the latest round of trilateral peace talks began in Geneva

this week, the omens did not look good for Ukraine. On the one hand, we had Russia's state

Duma Defense Committee deputy chairperson Alexei Jurybiov, who often acts as a bullhorn for the

Kremlin's true diplomatic and military aims,

reiterating on February 14 that Russia and I quote will not be satisfied with only Ukraine's surrender of Luhans, Donetsk, Zaporica and Herzoglasts,

and that Russia must additionally achieve regime change in Kiev

to remove any allegedly Russophobic and neo-Nazi government.

Senior criminal and officials have similarly recently claimed that post-war Ukraine must be friendly

to Russia, implying that Russia will only be satisfied with the Ukraine led by a pro-Russian

government that implements pro-Russian policies.

Yeah, it's fascinating this.

And for all the sort of naive talk that we've had from Trump and his acolytes about Putin wanting peace,

this is a perfect example of a Kremlin official saying the quiet bit out loud, isn't it?

I only wish more people in Washington were listening.

Instead of that, we had President Trump this week trying to force

Kiev into a peace deal without exerting similar pressure on Moscow, the same situation as we've had

so often up until this point. And of course, this is a situation that President Zelensky,

with masterful understatement, described this week as not fair.

This, of course, was after Trump had said on the eve of the talks this week, that Ukraine had better come to the table fast.

Now, Zelensky's main concern was that Ukrainian people would not accept a deal that resulted in Russia seizing

Donbass, obviously the collective name for Donetsk and Luchansk Oblasts. He said, emotionally, people

...