today is Thursday, the Thursday, the 29th of January. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. As you may notice, my home remedies for my voice have not worked yet. I'm Mike Baker.

Your eyes and ears and sort of your voice on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed.

First up, nearly four years into Putin's invasion of Ukraine, a new report finds a scale of Moscow's

battlefield losses now exceeds those suffered across all of its

conflicts since World War II combined. I'll have those details. Later in the show, the U.S. moves

to ease sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, part of Washington's push to reopen and stabilize

the country's economy after Maduro's removal.

Plus, President Trump ramps up his warnings to Iran, threatening severe consequences

if the regime refuses to reach a deal.

And in today's back of the brief, a public clash between Poland's foreign minister and

Elon Musk following reports that Russia may be

exploiting Starlink on the battlefield. Plus later, I'll ask for your home remedies again, see what we

can do about this voice. But first, today's PDB spotlight. It's been almost four years since Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border,

launching Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of the country. Now, back in February of 2022,

many assumed, of course, that the war would be brutal, but brief, a quick decapitation strike,

a rapid collapse of Ukraine's defenses.

That was the thinking.

That didn't happen.

And the new study shows the human cost of what followed is far greater than most people could have imagined at the time.

A major study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies paints a stark picture

of a war defined not by sweeping

victories, but by relentless attrition.

...