All right, Alexander, let's talk about the negotiations that are taking place in Riyadh, the negotiations that finished between the United States and Ukraine.

I don't know if you can call them negotiations.

You may want to talk about the talks that occurred between the United States and Ukraine and the real negotiations that are taking place between the United States and Russia.

What are your thoughts on the diplomacy that is happening right now in Saudi Arabia?

It is extremely interesting. I mean, it's a point which I made in my program yesterday, which is that the negotiating team that the

Ukrainian sent to Riyadh was on the face of it a very, very powerful one. It's headed by their

defense minister. There are some close aids of Zelensky himself. There are apparently lots of

military officers coming, joining the meeting. And they came to Riyadh for what was supposed to be a

meeting between experts, American and Russian experts, to discuss

the revival of the grain plan in the Black Sea. So clearly what the Ukrainians were trying to do

is that they were trying to shift the negotiations, the discussions, to a completely different footing. I mean,

you don't just send your defence minister, a whole pile of people like that, to discuss

technical issues. You're trying to renegotiate essentially what Putin and Trump agreed with

each other over the course of their recent telephone call.

And it's quite clear what the Ukrainian agenda is.

They want to move from this very limited ceasefire that we have at the moment,

which is unsatisfactory to them, this, you know, a ceasefire which places a hold on attacks on the respective energy systems for 30 days.

They want to move beyond that.

Basically, I think, towards the Macron-Zelensky plan of a ceasefire, a cessation of all operations on the sea and in the air,

which is intended to pave the way for a Western no-fly zone over Western Ukraine.

So I think that is what they came for.

And they had a meeting, very long meeting yesterday with the Americans.

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