On President Trump, the war in Ukraine and Cold War II, the contest with China,

one of the most accomplished historians in the English-speaking world.

Neil Ferguson on Uncommon Knowledge Now.

Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson.

A native of Glasgow, Sir Neil Ferguson, holds a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in history

from Moddalen College, Oxford. A fellow at the Hoover Institution here at Stanford,

Sir Neil has published more than a dozen major works of history,

from his classic study of the First World War, the pity of war, to doom the politics of

catastrophe. He is currently working on the second volume of his life of Henry Kissinger.

Sir Neil is a founder of the University of Austin and a frequent contributor to the free press.

Neil, welcome back to this program.

It's great to be with you, PISA.

Ukraine. We begin with the background. Let me set up where we stand at this moment.

Since 23 or so, the war in Ukraine has settled into a stalemate. The Russians control about the eastern

one-fifth of the country, including Crimea and the Donbos. The Russians appear unable to capture

the remaining four-fifths. The Ukrainians appear unable to drive the Russians out of the

one-fifth they already occupy.

The death pole, highly disputed, but it appears clear that the lives lost include

50 to 100,000 Ukrainians and some hundreds of thousands of Russians.

On February 12th of this year, the Trump administration began negotiating with Russia to end the war without Ukraine's participation at that moment.

On February 19th, in a truth social post, President Trump wrote, quote,

A dictator without elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left."

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