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Hi and welcome back to Foreign Office. I'm Michael Weiss, Director of Special Investigations,

the Pre-Resha Foundation, as well as Senior Correspondent at Yahoo News. Apologies for the hiatus.

I was in Ukraine for a week reporting, interviewing the Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov,

as well as the head of their Military Intelligence Service, Karela Budanov,

a story that should post imminently at Yahoo News. But this week, I am joined by my friend,

Mark Palomaropoulos. He's a former veteran officer and highly decorated one at that. At the CIA,

he was the chief of for the head of European. What is it, Mark? The European?

The European Federation. No one can get that right. It's just a lot of contrast.

Eurasia always reminds me of like fascist Russian philosophers, but anyway, we'll

want to hold that against the agency. But anyway, I invited Mark on because we like to pick

each other's brains offline about what's happening in Ukraine and more to the point how the Western press

and Western policy community, including various think tankers and pundits, seem to be quite pessimistic

about Ukraine's chances of pulling off a stunningly successful counteroffensive, which will get

underway imminently. We don't know exactly where, although if I'm inclined to make a proposition

or place my bets, I would look more south than east at the moment, including frankly Crimea,

...