Now, the war in Ukraine has now been raging for approaching four years.

It was obviously back in February 2021 that Russia's invasion of Ukraine took place.

Obviously, war in Ukraine had been going on for many years before that.

We don't know how many people have been killed, but it's well into the high hundreds of

thousands, many more maimed and

terrible destruction. Now, a proposed peace deal is being floated, obviously by Donald Trump,

negotiations now taking place. What does this all mean? This is for, in much of, I guess, the Western media being framed as

a capitulation, a potential defeat, a victory for Putin and all the rest. What's actually

going on? What does this say about the balance of forces? What does this mean for Ukrainians

who are being killed in vast numbers?

And also just a broader context.

There's no better person to speak to you than Vladimir Ishenko, who is a sociologist from Ukraine.

He's written extensively about this, including a really compelling book called Towards the Abyss,

published in lots of different media outlets from the Guardian to Al Jazeera, and now based in Germany.

So it's great to speak to you, by the way.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

I just want to start.

So, I mean, this idea of, I guess, the way it's being described is as a defeat,

this would be a defeat, that, you know, sovereign Ukrainian land would be handed over to a country

which had illegally and unjustly invaded. So it's a kind of awarding, you know, even though it's not

the original maximalist

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