Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand. Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale ups online, in person and on the go. Shopify's made for

entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.

What if your bank did more than just bank? With HSBC Premier, it's like carrying your own entourage

in your wallet. Premier wealth management, check. Premier health perks, all clear. Premier travel benefits, you're covered. And Premier International Banking, see, we, yo, yeah. In fact, everything's Premier when your bank account is. Search HSBC Premier, HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.

Apply with £100,000 annual income or £100,000 savings or investments with HSBC UK or Premier status abroad. Hello and welcome to the Battleground Ukraine podcast with me, Patrick Bishop and Saul David.

There was this week no better indication of the weakened state of Russia's armed forces

after months of futile fighting in Bakwut, Wollah, and elsewhere,

than the scaled-back Victory Day parade in Moscow that featured just a single tank,

a World War II vintage T-34. There were in total just 51 vehicles on display,

including 10 armored vehicles used by Chechen forces. In 2021, by contrast,

there were 197 vehicles, which made an appearance, including many of Russia's latest tanks.

Yes, and on top of that, the fly pass was cancelled for the second year running, and the marching

troops were mainly cadets and students.

Now Putin tried to gloss over the humiliation of putting on such a threadbare military parade,

for reasons we imagine of both security and a lack of available kit, by launching one of his

trademark rants against the West, accusing it of provoking conflict, sowing hatred,

and destroying family values, instead of, we presume, just the families themselves.

Now, just hours after unleashing another barrage of cruise missiles against Kiev and other

Ukrainian cities, he raged that the West had forgotten, and I quote, who defeated the Nazis,

and instead had created a new cult of Nazism through the destruction of Soviet memorials.

But even as Putin was speaking, his turbulent ally, or perhaps nemesis,

Yevgeny Pregozhen, the boss of Wagner PMC, the mercenary outfit, had the temerity to issue his own

...