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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics podcast. I'm Max Jeffrey and I'm joined by Katie Bulls and James Forsythe.

Putin's bombardment and invasion of Ukraine is ongoing with Russian forces moving in from the north, south and east of the country

and beginning to encircle Kiev.

James, what's the state of the invasion today?

Well, the Ukrainian president is warning that there are Russian sabotage teams in the capital itself.

And I think it is worth saying that although I think the

resistance that the Ukrainian military displayed on the first day of this conflict was perhaps

more robust than the Russians had expected, you know, over time, I think there is little doubt

about the kind of short-term military outcome of this conflict. I think the, my reading of Russia's war aims is this, is it wants to go into Ukraine,

destroy the Ukrainian military, install a puppet government,

which would not only have to accept neutrality,

but Ukraine essentially having no military forces at all,

and also very possibly wish to create a state in the Dombas, which would be

essentially akin to Belarus.

I think the bigger question is, how does Russia keep that puppet government in power without

some Russian military presence there?

And as soon as there is a Russian occupying force, that is very

vulnerable to kind of classic insurgency tactics. I also think that we are seeing from the

level of resistance from Ukrainian forces that this conflict will be bloody. I think it is also worth

saying that NATO are not going to take a role in this in terms of sending soldiers, creating a no-fly zone.

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