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A historic victory for Ukraine, a humiliating setback for Russia.

Territory taken back, which is three times the size of Greater London.

If it hadn't been for the death of the Queen,

that news would have dominated conversation not just here,

but globally. My guest on political thinking this week is a man whose voice is heard more and more

often in debates about how we should respond to the aggression of Vladimir Putin. Aggression,

not just in Ukraine, but here at home as well. His name is Christopher Steele, a name which was for years

almost unknown beyond Whitehall as head of the Russia desk at MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service,

he was paid to live in the shadows. But Steele's name became used and abused again and again by Donald Trump and his

allies after it was revealed that long after he'd left MI6 and set up his own private company,

he was the author of the Russia dossier, what Trump called the dirty dossier,

that examined links between Putin and the man who was then running to

be president of the United States. Christel, welcome to political thinking. Hello.

Who are you, people may wonder. Should they think of you as a spy, a hired hand, a patriot,

or all of the above? Well, perhaps declaring an interest here, Nick, we've known each other for many years,

so you know better than most, who I am.

I spent 22 years in the Foreign Service of Britain and did postings in Moscow and Paris.

And then in 2009, I set up my own business, a corporate intelligence company called

Orbis. And initially in the first sort of five or six years of the company, we were fairly

low profile. We used to talk about ourselves as being the hidden hand. And then, of course, in 2016,

we took on this tasking to investigate Trump's links with Russia,

...