Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome back to Conversations. I'm very pleased and really honored to be joined today by Tom Tukinat, a member of Parliament in the United Kingdom from the wonderfully named consistency of Tunebridge and Marley.

Did I pronounce that correctly? I doubt it. Tom Bridged. Tom Bridged. It looks like Tom Bridged, so I figured it couldn't be pronounced Tom Bridged. Anyway, it's Kent, I believe. Tom has been in the Parliament, a Conservative member since 2015, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, which is a real, not just a bully, but a place to help shape policy.

I think, and before that very involved in our affairs for our policy debates, that's how we met certain British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan and really get a wonderful speech. People should go back and look at almost a year ago, I was thinking about this, which is, we're two weeks on from a year on the, our pull out from Afghanistan and very moving speech really on the floor of the House. Anyway, Tom, thanks so much for joining me today.

No, it's good to be with you again. I should also have mentioned Tom was a candidate for Tory party leadership, which would in turn make one Prime Minister and did better than everyone expected, but was eliminated in one of those rounds. It's such a complicated system. I'm not even sure how that worked. It seems to me you made it a rounder to longer than ever expected.

I made several rounds longer than anybody expected.

So we want to talk about Ukraine. It's you've been following very closely and have been outspoken, outspoken, advocate of a strong western stance on and I think we're earlier on also worrying about putting and calling attention to the dangers.

But I think you were just there week ago. So we're speaking just on August 31st, so just locate people when they see this in the future, but you were just there on and you crazy dependence day and key of a member's taking.

Well, yeah, and I went to I went to Ukraine for their independence day, actually, and one of the reasons I went is because some people I think you are one of those nations seem to value your independence day very highly.

You got your independence off some very, very fine people, but the Ukrainians got their independence off of a totalitarian dictatorship and have quite rightly valued it very highly. This was their 31st anniversary.

And, you know, it's it's it's an anniversary that's marked with quite a lot of darkness as well, of course, because it's a six month anniversary of the latest round of invasions. I say the latest because, of course, Russia has been intervening in Ukraine ever since their independence 31 years ago.

And I think this is the most famous in 2014 actually invaded Crimea and the Donbass.

And so has been there, but but most famously this year on the 24th of February, so six months before the independence day, Russian troops tried to encircle and capture Kiev and thank God failed not.

Not just down to their own incompetence, although that was an important element, but down to the extraordinary courage that you created people and some fantastic leadership by president.

The Lord image of enski, so it's been it was a hell of a hell of a thing to be there for there for their independence day this year, you can imagine.

And it was very moving to be with some very, very brave people.

What struck you about their mood, their sense of their what they've done and their prospects and also say a word, I don't want to look present forward mostly, but.

People forget how close run a thing it was shortly after February 24th or maybe not, but I feel that one is sort of settled into a kind of well, of course they beat back the Russians and now it's the kind of the tough slog, but that was not and of course was it.

No, not at all, and I have to say, I mean, I, you know, I don't think I'm alone in, in fact, I know I'm not alone because I spoke to a lot of my military friends who are still serving and we firmly expected the Russians to win in a matter of weeks.

I know the American military did as well, so this is, you know, this was a pretty universal view.

In fact, so much so that you may remember President Biden offered a helicopter to go and get President Zelensky out and he very famously responded, I don't need a lift, I need ammunition.

And thank God he did because his courage solidified the defense of Kiev and in solidifying the defense of Kiev, he did solidified the defense of the whole country and he's been quite literally personally quite literally on the front line of freedom ever since and so it's been quite remarkable.

So I don't think, I don't think it was a full gone conclusion at all, there are various reasons I'm for will come to them as to why the Russians failed partly their own fault, partly the courage of Ukrainians and partly thank God, people like Ben Wallace who's our defense secretary who got weapons into Ukraine when a lot of people are either saying there's no point they'll be defeated so quickly they won't count or it can all wait don't get involved and that's just people in our own system let alone in other countries.

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