This is John Bachelor, the Kursk Salient, the bulge in the line, the advance by the

Ukrainian forces, surprising the Russians.

The question raised by a headline in the Washington Post in these last days

was that there were ceasefire talks planned underway or about to be underway in Doha between representatives of the Ukrainian

foreign ministry and or executive and someone speaking for Russia partial

ceasefire talks partial ceasefire talks, temporary

ceasefire talks, something looking like negotiated endings, and then

the cursed offensive, the cursed salient.

And to John Hardy's knowledge and mine, we don't know what's happened to the talk of talks.

Here's John Hardy of the Foundation for the Defense of democracies to explain more of this tonight.

Right, so before the Washington Post reported on that story, I was not aware of it. It sounds like it's been kept pretty close hold. I don't think in fact I think we really know that Ukraine's General Seriisci, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian

armed forces, kept plans for the Kursk offense a very close hold.

So I doubt that diplomats, the Ukrainian diplomats really had any inkling of

an idea of what was about to come in Kursk until it happened. I think Ukrainian military intelligence,

even the whor was blood,

was brought in fairly late in the game.

So I think this was a situation where the foreign ministry

probably didn't, you know, wasn't in coordination with Ukrainian

military and general staff.