Welcome to U-Kis-I-Tel, the newly rebranded podcast from the UK and a changing Europe.

Every month, we'll be getting together with a guest who's an expert in their field to talk through some of the key issues of our time.

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because this is the place you'll figure out what's really going on.

Thank you. because this is the place you'll figure out what's really going on. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the UK and a Changing Europe podcast.

I'm really pleased that today for this edition we've got with us Anne Applebound. And it's of course a staff writer for the Atlantic and also a Pulitzer Prize winning historian. She's written so much and covered so many issues that we're going to get through a lot today. But first and foremost, Anne, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Can we start with Ukraine and what's happening in Ukraine? I was very struck. A year ago,

you wrote an article in which you said, the U.S. is naive about Russia. Ukraine can't afford to be.

Do you think a year on, the West is less naive than it used to be? Oh, by definition, the West is less naive. I mean, the number of people who've had

to completely revise their views of what Russia is and what Russia's intentions are is very

large. I think the major shift has probably occurred in Europe, from a belief

that Russia was still a kind of partner to an understanding that Russia could pose an existential threat

to Central Europe, maybe even Western Europe, and not just a political and economic

threat, but also a military threat. There's a lot of talk at the moment about what the ultimate

objective should be, and there are people still cautioning against a Russian defeat and saying

that actually ultimately we're going to have to negotiate.

What do you make of that? What's your take of that?

Well, so of course we're going to have to negotiate one way or the other, the war will end

with a negotiation. But I think it's important to understand that if you want the war to

end forever, in other words, you don't want it to end for six months and then continue, or even three years and then continue, if you want there to be an end to Russian imperialism in the modern world, if you want Ukraine to survive as a state, if you want Russia's neighbors to remain normal, stable countries,

then yes, there has to be a Russian defeat, and it has to come in the form of a Russian

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