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Learn more at visit11labs.io slash Atlantic to get started for free. Hello, and welcome back to the David Frum show.

I'm David Frum, a staff writer at the Atlantic.

My guest today will be Tim Mack and Adrian Karatnicki. Two experts on Ukraine, Tim Mack based in Ukraine,

Adrian Karatniki, a frequent visitor to Ukraine and advisor to Ukrainian governments past and present.

But before we open our three-way dialogue about recent events in Ukraine, I want to open

with some thoughts about more recent events that have occurred since our conversation was

recorded.

Over the night of July 31st, the city of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, was hit by one of the largest drone and missile attacks upon that city since the full-scale Russian invasion began

in February of 2022. As I record on the 1st of August, we know that at least 27 locations were struck, 31 people

were killed, about 160 were injured, the second single deadliest day of civilian attack on

Kiv since the beginning of the full-scale war in February 2022. The Ukrainian government has declared

August 1st a day of morning as Ukrainians dig out from this

terrible, terrible attack intended to terrorize and harm civilians only. President Trump has reacted

to the attack with a slight change of tone. At the beginning of his presidency, he blamed the Ukrainians

for the war, which is a lie. They were, of course, invaded and attacked, invaded in 2014, attacked again in 2022. And he has taken a fault on both sides, but mostly on the Ukrainian side. The sympathy of his government toward the Russian side was very evident. His vice president being perhaps even more extreme in opposition to Ukraine than the things the president said himself. Now, we have heard in recent weeks about a so-called Trump pivot, where he now

begins to say that the war is unfortunate. He expresses some condemnation of some of the things

the Russians have done, and he promises some kind of increased American action at some point

in the future. After this latest July 31st

overnight attack on Kiev, he has apparently said that he's bringing forward the deadline for

some of these things he might do in the future a few more days. So it may be that anytime soon,

that you'll begin to see some economic sanctions on Russia. You can believe that or not.

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