Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with Trump not just throwing Ukraine under the bus,

but now it's leader who he is trashing because Zelensky correctly observed

that Trump is getting his talking points from the Russian information space.

Joining us from Berlin is Simon Schuster, a reporter for Time magazine, based in New York City

by way of Moscow, Kiev and Berlin.

He has previously covered Russia and the former Soviet Union for Reuters, the Associated

Press, the Moscow Times and Foreign Policy, and is the author of The Showman, inside

the invasion that shook the world and made a leader of Vladimir Showman, Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Lodomier Zelensky.

His latest articles at time include Inside Elon Musk's War in Washington

and why Biden's Ukraine win was Zelensky's loss.

Then we'll get an assessment of what Ukraine can do to defend itself and rebuild after the horrendous damage Russia has inflicted on the country,

following some kind of settlement Trump and Putin will have imposed on it from the so-called peace talks in Saudi Arabia.

Joining us is Emma Ashford, a senior fellow in the reimagining grand strategy program at the Stimson Center,

a visiting professor at Georgetown University, and a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

With expertise in the politics of Russia and Europe, her work focuses on questions of grand strategy,

international security, and the future of U.S. foreign policy.

She is the author of Oil, the State and War, The Foreign Policies of Petro-S.

And her forthcoming book is First Among Equals, U.S. foreign policy for a multipolar world.

And we'll discuss a article at Foreign Affairs.

Ukraine must guarantee its own security. A European

...