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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on the 9th of June, 2026
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on Monaco Radio, 50 hours from kickoff. Is the 2026 World cup already looking fiasco esque? Is anybody willing or able to broker a piece in Lebanon? And might we have to rethink ancient stereotypes about French working practices? I'm Andrew Muller, the Monocle Daily start. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Terry Stiasney and David Brennan will discuss today's big stories and we'll bring you another interview from my recent trip to Odessa. Today it's my discussion with John Herbst, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle. D. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Terry Stiasney, political journalist and author, most recently of Believable Lies, the Misfits who Fought Churchill's Secret Propaganda War, and David Brennan, reporter with ABC News.
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A
Hello.
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B
Hi, Terry. Since we've got your book plug out of the way, we can move on to listeners. Sincerely, I recommend it. We can move on to other things, which is that just in time for the World cup, you have at last embraced your inner football fan, Terry.
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A
I have, I have. And I think I kind of couldn't avoid it, really, because I live in Islington and Arsenal won the Champions League.
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B
No, they didn't.
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A
They won the Premier League. See, I, I don't know that they lost Champions League. Not that much of a football fan. I forget. Yeah, so I, I, I got a, I got a red hat. That's, that's about as far as it goes anyway. Having won the Premier League, where there was an amazing parade all through the streets, went all the way around from the stadium all the way around to within shouting distance of my house. And I thought I couldn't miss it. So I was out there with fans and it was actually amazingly nice atmosphere, was really close. Saw the bus go by and yeah, it was much, much nicer and friendlier than I would have expected a big, big football event to be.
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B
Well, clearly you enjoyed it because you still have got the hat and the face paint on. So you're looking forward to the World cup, which we shall be getting to very shortly.
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A
I, I think I always get sort of a bit into the World cup, you know, who's kind of get, get drawn into it because there's always just sort of massive national excitement and then usually Followed by mass in England, but slightly put off by the. By the time zone thing. So I probably watch lots of first halves of lots of matches.
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B
So shameless bandwagon jumper then, David. Whereas you, as I understand it, may well be spending much of this upcoming sporting jamboree sitting in a park with a pair of binoculars.
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C
Me and the pigeons. That's right, yeah. Finding a new appreciation through the Merlin bird app, which I recommend to everyone out there.
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B
Just to be clear, you don't have shares in this or anything, do you?
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C
Let's say no.
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B
Okay, good, good. This is, this is a bird watching thing which you have recently taken up.
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C
It is. Yeah, it's a great. A great little app which kind of helps you learn a little bit more about the birds around you that you see every day. And I realize it really does sound like I'm. I'm pitching this.
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B
It really does. But what's been your favorite so far?
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C
I. As I was saying to you before, really like the cormorant. I think they're cormorant cool. Seabirds. Yeah.
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B
Okay, well, you can't whack a cormorant or indeed a seabird. It's. It's nice when you see two of them because I can't believe I'm about to say this one good turn deserves another. Let's. Let's. Let's just. Let's just forget that ever happened. We will start in the United States, so far proving the least hospitable of the three nations hosting the 2026 World cup, which kicks off in Mexico City on Thursday. Entry to the US has been refused to Omar Attan, a world. A well credentialed referee who was due to officiate at the tournament possib, probably because he is from Somalia. An allocation of tickets for traveling fans of Iran has been abruptly revoked and they are not alone. Added to which are escalating grumbling about the prices of tickets and the prospect doubtless related of empty seats at matches. Thousands of tickets are reportedly available for the opening games of the United States against Paraguay on Saturday and Canada against Bosnia Herzegovina on Friday. Most other matches are still not sold out. Terry, first of all, are you incredulous as I am that Canada versus Bosnia Herzegovina is not a sellout?
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I'm not saying it's one of those things that you probably would think actually perhaps there are more, you know, Bosnians in Canada or in the States than, you know, you might have a lot of.
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B
I'm sure there are many Bosnians in Canada.
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A
But nevertheless, no. Who would be sort of dashing to go and fill the seats. But I think just looking at the sheer cost of going to this World Cup, I mean, not only the ticket prices, the transport prices, but the idea that if you are trying to follow your team around, you could end up doing, you know, hundreds, thousands of miles around three different countries, according to wherever people end up. And I think, you know, and added to that, the idea that you might get turned back or detained or something at the border, I'm not entirely surprised that people are missing out on this one.
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B
Well, just on, on the actual ticket prices, is it as simple as that, that they are just too expensive? The officially, the cheap seats for the United States versus Paraguay. I emphasize, David, the cheap seats are 1,100.
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C
This is very interesting because I've heard a lot of the conversations on the American side of this where people are very used to paying, so they say that kind of price for a ticket, for a premium game of some kind. So the American market seems to be a lot less surprised at these prices than the foreign market. So it's been an interesting debate. I suppose if you have that price of a ticket for an NFL game, for example, or even a college football game, these kind of classic American sports that people really do love, perhaps it's easier to find people to pay for that. Whereas soccer is still not one of the more popular sports. It is growing very fast. There is a huge population of, you know, dual citizens and people with heritage of places like Mexico, for example, who really do love their football in America. But, you know, purely speculating, maybe there's an element of that, that people would be willing to pay that for some sports, but maybe not for football, soccer.
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B
Terry. Nevertheless, there is much plausible reporting that many hotels in host cities who would have obviously anticipating an absolute jamboree, are rather struggling for custom. Could this possibly be something to do? Well, partly with the prices, but also for what you were saying earlier, a reluctance on the part of many people, understandable. To spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on a trip which may end as soon as they try to enter the United States?
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A
Yes, I think, you know, particularly if I were coming from a country where the US wasn't particularly favourable and not one that's necessarily on the, you know, from which you can't travel to the United States. Yeah. Apart from the sheer cost, the idea that I might not get, you know, a permanent to travel would, would certainly. I think it has been putting a lot of people off and I think, you know, there have been so many sort of horror stories over the last few months of, you know, people who have either been detained or they have ended up somewhere because they did something slightly marginally wrong. And I think, you know, if you are planning to spend that kind of money as well, and to think, you know, this could. This could all go wrong in ways that I can't forese, is going to be a bit of a deterrent, I think.
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B
Which does bring us, David, to the case of Omar Attan, a referee from Somalia, obviously one of the absolute global elite of referees. That's why he'd been selected to officiate at this World Cup. He was travelling on a diplomatic passport, which is supposed to ease you through most such difficulties at the border. He was nevertheless held for 11 hours, informed that he wasn't coming in. I mean, stories like this, and I suspect this isn't going to be the last of them, these became suddenly inevitable, didn't they, as soon as President Trump was reelected?
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C
Yeah, and I think that all the signs that we've seen in the lead up to this indicated that this was going to happen. We knew this was going to happen. The administration has been quite clear on how it feels about this. FIFA has been quite happy to try and hand wave all of these questions away, hasn't addressed any of these concerns. I believe that referee has since been refused entry. He's been taken off the list, FIFA's list of officials, which strikes me as pret. So I think FIFA knew this was going to happen, has said little, has done less. If this is the tone for the World Cup, I mean, I think we're going to be hearing and seeing a lot more of these stories. There's lots of teams who haven't even arrived yet. Some of the fixtures don't kick off until late next week. This might just be the beginning.
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B
Well, on the subject of the inevitable, Terry FIFA buckling to the United States, refusing to admit Omar Aten. Now, probably FIFA could not have changed the mind of President Trump on this, not even if they gave him another prize, another big stupid trophy that means absolutely nothing at all. But could FIFA not have rather pointedly found Mr. Artan a couple of games to referee in Mexico or Canada?
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A
Well, you would think. And you think you also ought to set out the principle quite clearly that if we have accredited someone, we think they are worth, you know, having as a referee at the World cup and they are in, you know, in good standing. Why would you turn this guy down? And I think it's not a good sign that they cave at the first problem, because we've already seen, you know, some problems, as David was saying, with, with players who have been held up at the, you know, held up and told that they might not be allowed in, delayed, not allowed to get on the planes and eventually allowed in. And, you know, you think they sort of say no, draw a line and, you know, if, if we say that they're coming, they're coming.
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B
Do we think, nevertheless, just finally on this, Dave, and this is where I will invite you to speculate inanely that the football will eventually drown out the controversies because there's at least when the World cup is held in a non traditional location, an amount of this sort of thing in the build up there certainly was in Qatar four years ago. Does all this tend to get chased off the front pages once the first
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C
ball has been kicked in the past, as you say? Absolutely. I think football fans, football authorities have a remarkable ability to ignore the obvious and to display selective amnesia. There's usually one game that sets the tournament alight, that sets the tone for the tournament, that excites everyone. We get all these fun stages.
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B
It might be Canada versus Bosnia.
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C
I think it will, I'm sure it will, but I think that could happen. I think the difference though this time is you touched on it before. Previously, nations have been expected to bow down to FIFA this way. It seems to have gone. That dynamic seems to have flipped. And also we have the element in this that we haven't had before, which is President Donald Trump. He is never quiet. I doubt he'll be quiet through this tournament. There's a good chance he will be there at the World cup final sometime in July. I can't remember the exact date, so it's a bit unprecedented. I think we'll have to see.
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B
Well, to the Middle east now, where Iranian threats to strike Israel should Israel strike Lebanon do not appear to have stayed Israel's hand, which is to say that at least eight people have been killed by Israeli raids on southern Lebanon today, bringing the total of such deaths since March to 3,666, with more than 11,000 injured. Israel and Lebanon did agree a ceasefire last week, though this was rejected by Hezbollah, which is who Israel's quarrel is actually with US President Donald Trump, in between overseeing the building of a wrestling rink in the grounds of the White House and sleeping through a basketball game, has insisted that he is wrangling, quote, the final throws of what will be a very, very good deal. Though attentive listeners may feel like they have heard this before, David, at which Point. Big shout out to the researcher at CNN, who actually counted. There have been 37 deals promised by Donald Trump since hostilities commenced back in February, which, for perspective, is 32 more than Lou Bega had Mambos.
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C
That's a tough assignment to dig through all of those. Absolutely. Shout out to that reporter. Absolutely. And shout out to Lubago while we're on the topic.
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B
Why not, if he's listening. Are you excited, though, for this very, very good deal?
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C
I am. It presumably will be a great one because it's been this long.
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B
Well, actually, no, hang on. Just to pull you up there. He said very, very good. He hasn't said, great, my bad.
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C
I'll take that back. I don't wanna over promise. No, yeah. I mean, from what we've seen, there's no real reason to believe that a deal is any closer than it was 24 hours ago, a week ago, two weeks ago, a month ago. I believe Trump has just said on Truth Social that the helicopter that went down in the Strait of Homer's overnight was shot down and has hinted at imminent American retaliation. So this time tomorrow, we may be even further or even closer to a deal. Who knows? But, yeah, everything that we have seen and everything that we have heard suggests that the US and the Iranian sides are still very far apart on the key issues. And we know that the Israelis are not particularly keen on the deal being made at all. So there seems to be a lot of obstacles still.
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B
Well, indeed so. And on which thought, Terry, do we get the sense at this point, weirdly, that whatever, whether President Trump says or does, that neither Iran nor Israel are really paying much attention to him at this point?
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A
I think certainly this week we have seen that, and I think we often with Donald Trump, we get these flurries of phone calls when either he starts ringing up journalists or journalists start ringing him up, and he picks up the phone when he's obviously not busy organizing one of these brilliant deals, he's taking calls from journalists. And. And I got the sense of somebody slightly flailing when he said, you know, he was talking about Netanyahu and Iran, and he was saying, I call the shots, I call the shots. And you just get as though he was almost trying to convince himself that he was calling the shots in a situation where it was clear that, you know, this seemed to be directly between Israel and Iran and the United States had very little to do with it.
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B
I mean, does this then bring us back to the fact, David, that if you look at this from Israel's perspective, whether you agree with that perspective or not, that they regard this as the best chance they have ever had or are ever going to have to defang Hezbollah as thoroughly as possible, which, by the way, to remind our listeners, is something which in theory, the actual government of Lebanon also very much wants and indeed what international law demands.
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C
Yeah, I think you're right. I think they do see this as a great window. However, I think that the larger picture they clearly still have in mind, based on their public comments, whether that's Netanyahu, the head Mossad said, the same military chiefs, they've all said that the operation with Iran is not over until the regime in Tehran falls. So that's the ultimate goal here. That is then obviously directly linked to Hezbollah. They don't believe, presumably, that Hezbollah can operate at this level without the regime still being in power in Tehran. So we can talk about deals all that we want, but the Israelis are very publicly saying that they are not interested in ending this.
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B
But on that thought of regime change in Tehran, Terry, which was, if you remember back to the early stages of Operation Epic Fury, what this was supposed to be all about, and which, with all due acknowledgement, that they did kill the supreme leader and a great many of Iran's high command, the actual regime does still seem to be very much intact. If that isn't an option, does this just, whatever this is, just go on interminably?
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A
Well, I think, you know, obviously some of the main difficulties are going to be economic. I think people will still be worried about, you know, how on earth are we going to get things through the Strait of Hormuz. But as you say, you know, the regime is, to all intents and purposes, still there. You know, the Revolutionary Guard is still there. You know, there may be a successor, but other people have come in to, to fill the jobs of the people who were killed, and they don't seem to be doing anything any differently. And, yeah, so you are going to end up negotiating with a slight different version of the same set of people. They don't seem to have any different policies. And of course, you know, they are fighting to stay in power, to stay in charge. And so their backs are against the wall and they're going, they've got every incentive to not, you know, do what Donald Trump wants them to and to try and, you know, hold their positions.
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B
Well, to France now, and an apparent rebuke to the stereotype much cherished elsewhere in Europe, that the entire country spends the entire summer doing nothing beyond giving their accordions or mistresses the occasional playful squeez and the rest of the year doing as little as they can get away with rousing themselves, only to fling the odd cafe table at the gendarmes if anyone threatens their pension entitlements. It says here, however, that at least 15% of French folk use only half their paid leave and that 5% only reluctantly down tools on France's admittedly plentiful public holidays. Relatedly, in the world of work, new research in the United States suggests that working from home may boost productivity but may also boost isolation and consequent mental ill. Insert joke about president working from home, et cetera. Terry we will start though with the age old mockery of French working habits. Is it in fact actually jealousy on the part of everybody else?
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A
Yes, I think to a certain extent. I think the idea that, you know, basically France takes the whole of August off and they take pretty much half of May off as well because, you know, most of May is bank holidays and then you do this thing called Faire le Pont, which is if the bank holiday is on a Thursday and your weekend is on a, on Saturday, so you may as well take Friday off as well. So you get four days. You know, there is a lot of, of truth in that, but I think at the same time it, it doesn't necessarily apply to everybody. I think if you're a young worker, it doesn't necessarily apply to you. I think it's the more established people, if you're more senior, you get to say, right, I'm not in the office in August. But it's also slightly frowned upon. I think if you're in a more kind of corporate, more modern corporate world to actually take that holiday. I mean, I've got a friend who works in, you know, international French business and she's like, no, nobody actually takes, you know, the 35 hours. You're not really, you are allowed to have your 35 hour week, but it would be quite frowned on if you do it. So I think, you know, it's not necessarily the whole country that still operates
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B
like that, because on that thought, David, there are some who are floating the idea around the 35 hour week that some employees could perhaps trade some of their mandated paid leave for more work but more money if that's what they want. Except the unions are absolutely foaming at the mouth over this proposition. One Marilis Leon, who is the Secretary General of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, has described the idea as straight from the house of horrors. Is this possibly an overreaction or are they correct in protecting those entitlements that diligently.
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C
I don't want to play too much into the French bashing.
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B
Oh, go on.
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C
Very dramatic. Dramatic bunch, aren't they? I'm sure that they'll be able to marshal plentiful protests if this does keep going. But I mean, it is set against a kind of larger backdrop of French labour market reforms which are deeply unpopular with some people and obviously popular with some others, including the President. So it seems like this could be another point of contention in that wider battle.
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B
Terry, as French listeners may be hastening to remind us, even as we speak, it is the fact, or at least research suggests that French productivity actually outstrips British productivity by around 10 to 20%. Which means there's two possible interpretations to that, either of which, as an Australian, I'm perfectly happy with, which are either that the British are even lazier than the French, they just take longer to do very little, or that there's actually something to be said for the way that the French structure their working week.
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A
I think probably the British spend more time in the office pretending to do stuff while actually not getting things done. You know, you may be sitting, I'm really, really busy working through my lunch, whereas the French person's going to go and take a nice proper two hour lunch. You're probably actually, you know, doing your Internet shopping or something like that. I mean, you know, lots of French time in an office apparently is taken up by. You have to go around and shake hands with everybody when you arrive at work in the morning. And if you don't do that, that is considered extremely impolite. So after that they're probably really productive.
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B
Is that, is that, is that true or is that just.
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A
That is something a French. A friend who works in France told
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B
me this sounds like she was very
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A
relieved that after Covid, you didn't have to kiss everybody anymore.
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B
This sounds like the equivalent of one of those stories that you tell tourists visiting somewhere for the first. Like, you know, in London it's customary when entering a London underground carriage to shake hands with every other person.
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A
I believe it probably French listeners feel free to call in and tell us it's not.
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B
But David, there is a relationship here to the idea of remote working. Like what is more productive and what isn't there is. I think there's possibly an argument, is there, that the prevalence of remote working, the increasing prevalence of remote working actually makes it more important to protect time, time off for workers. Because I'm old enough to remember that you left the office at 6 o' clock or whenever in the afternoon. And the only reason that somebody from work would contact you until the following morning was in, you know, proper world will end if you do not deal with this kind of emergency. Nobody's emailing you, asking you if you've seen any scissors.
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C
Yeah. The bleed over can be exhausting. And I think you mentioned before about the issue of isolation with working from home. If you are isolated and you're also working, working outside of your working hours, you don't have that separation between the office and your home. I think a lot of people experience that during COVID when, you know, you, you got up, you went to your desk in, in your bedroom, you started work, and then, you know, you finished work and you're just in the same space all the time. It can be mentally exhausting.
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B
But just finally on this, Terry, that setup is not that new or not that unusual to people who, like yourself and myself, have spent any amount of our time as. As working writers, most of which we do do ourselves.
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A
Looking out the window.
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B
Yeah. Staring. Yeah. Writing 20 words and then cleaning the kitchen. Yes, I've been there. That kind of thing. But with all due acknowledgement that we could be embarking on further stereotypes here, that of the scrivener trade, is working from home in protracted isolation actually bad for the mental health?
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A
I think it depends on the kind of work. I think if it's.
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D
Yeah.
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A
People like us, when you're writing, you're doing something that allows you to think, right, I'm going to, you know, take some time out now to go and, you know, walk the dog, go for a swim, do something else. That is not my job. That will allow me to come back refreshed and do it better, that is great. I think if you are doing a more conventional corporate job where you have to keep all of your spreadsheets open and your office software is checking whether you've moved your mouse sufficiently and if you step away for too long, you know, you will be in trouble. I think that must be absolutely depressing because then you can't, you know, get away and go and talk with your friends around the water cooler or, you know, pop out to go and get some fresh air. And I think that is probably extreme, extremely isolating, and probably quite depressing.
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B
Well, on the subject of isolation to space, which it seems is not far enough to escape the footling fries of fashion, Prada has gotten together with aerospace concern Axiom Space to design an outfit that will be worn by the next humans to walk on the moon. The outer shell or extravehicular mobility unit was revealed a few years back in a nicely meta touch. It was designed in part by Esther Marquis, who did the spacesuits for Apple TVs mildly AMUs parallel history series for all mankind. Revealed this week was the liquid cooling and ventilation garment, or approximately space underwear. It is gray, aside from Prada's signature red stripe. Terry, can you see yourself wearing this?
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A
I don't know. There probably will be some kind of spin off in a few years time. There will be some kind of, you know, Prada design. This is sort of athletic, you know, sportswear that has got space cooling technology and they will probably try to sell it to normal people like us for vast amounts of money. But I think it is probably more to do with shifting stuff on Earth in the same way that, you know, couture isn't really for everybody to buy, it's just basically to sell more sunglasses.
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B
I mean, the news hook for this, David, is that the crew of Artemis III was revealed earlier today. This is the mission that will blast off in 2027 by way of further preparation for Artemis IV which will land on the moon in 2028. We will return presently to the subject of what these people will be wearing, but as a baseline. Are you excited about this?
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C
I am quite excited about this. I think Artemis 2 was, was a wonderful little injection of kind of curiosity and hope in the news cycle. I think people absolutely loved it. We at ABC News did a whole coverage plan for it and people really responded to it. It had so much interest. I think people really needed it because,
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B
Terry, this will doubtless sell some garments, but obviously with all due respect to Prada, they are building something here which has to be functional. Obviously it has to actually do the thing it does as well as look good, but it does, it does prompt the question that. It struck me that there's just something about any actually purely functional clothing. It just tends to end up looking cool anyway. I mean, obviously a spacesuit as worn by the Apollo astronauts is probably not something you could sort of wear around the house, but it, it does look objectively really badass.
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A
It does, it does look pretty cool. I mean, it does look like it was something that was designed for a costume for a film. I mean, it. You. I mean, I'm sure it must have to do all the correct things in terms of regulating temperature and everything, but it looks like something out of, you know, a science fiction, you know, like an Apple. Apple TV series or something like that. It's interesting to note there is also a decathlon Spacesuit, which I think is probably more in my price range, but I'm not sure if you like, you know, which, which suit am I getting? Am I getting the decathlon one or the Prada one? I hope, you know, the astronauts, you know, do they rank them according to this?
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B
But does, does that tell us something? And again, apologies in advance to Prada about fashion more more broadly. David, this was the thought that occurred to me earlier that if, if clothing that is designed for a reason, if practicality is what actually matters, kind of automatically looks cool, does it tell us something about how silly a lot of more gratuitous clothing is?
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C
Well, maybe we should have a more gratuitous spacesuit, which is very, you know, very, very out there. Something that you would wear up and down the catwalk. We could test them against each other
- [27:42]
B
or maybe they could just go all the way sci fi. They could have like wings on the helmets and that kind of thing.
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C
Yeah, I think, I think that would be, I mean, ultimately we want to look at our best because we don't know what we're going to run into out there. Impressions matter. Let's make it cool.
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B
Well, on that useful note, David Brennan and Terry Stiasny, thank you both for joining us. And finally on today's show, if there was an overarching motif of the recent Black Sea security forum in Odessa, it was cautious but growing optimism about the host country's prospects in its war with Russia, even despite the ebbing interest of the United States. I spoke to John Herbst, who was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine between 2003 and 2006, and I began by asking him if he now sees any end to this five year long special military operation which isn't a Russian defeat.
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D
It depends how you define Russian defeat. I mean, look, I think I've actually spoken about what Russian defeat is, which is Ukraine emerging as a stable, secure, economically viable, independent state. I felt that barring a serious diminution of Western support, there was no way that could be avoided. In other words, Russia would suffer that as a defeat. But it's even possible given Putin's intransigence and the very recent developments we've seen on the battlefield and with UK Ukrainian deep strikes into Russia, that they could have a defeat larger than that. I'm not predicting and I'm not saying it will happen, but it's conceivable now in ways was not conceivable, say six months ago.
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B
I was going to offer as a benchmark the last time we spoke, which was about A block away from here a year ago. Do you think the balance has tilted that significantly in Ukraine's favor since?
- [29:33]
D
Even then I was not pessimistic the way a large number of commentators were. But of course it's gotten much better. Look, a year ago people were saying Russia's making these grinding but still clear gains, small at extreme cost. And most were extrapolating that continuing forward to lead to an ultimate Russian taking of all of Donbas and more territory. And I always thought that was problematic analysis of then because those gains were so painful, so costly. Now those costs, I don't know, a year ago might have been 25, 26 or even 30,000 casualties a month. Now we're talking about casualties over 35. Fyodorov has the goal of making it 50,000. We've seen recent reports suggesting those casualties are over 50% KIAs. Normally it's one to three, you know, one, one dead, three wounded. So clearly that's gotten worse. Clearly Ukraine now has a drone advantage they did not have a year ago. And if you recall a year ago and 14, 15 months ago, experts who were not so expert were predicting a scaling up of Russian drones to give them a clear advantage with drones, which never materialized. And now we've seen the opposite. So today Ukraine is a net gainer of territory. Many people are still projecting Russia will continue to advance along the phrase that people use the Russian phrases in the Kramatorsk direction. And maybe that's so. But they've also lost ground around Kherson, which is strategically also very important. Again, they've all together lost more territory than they've gained over the past six or so weeks at greater cost and casualties. And as Ukraine Ukrainian deep fires into Russia, which were always a serious matter starting in February, if not earlier of 24 are now much more potent.
- [31:30]
B
Does it strike you again, using that benchmark of versus this time a year ago, that the United States now has less say over how this transpires?
- [31:39]
D
There's no doubt that the US stepping back in certain, which is which I regret, but I've never felt were decisive as one encouraged and led to Europe stepping up in ways that are positive and maybe not completely predictable. But you also have the very important fact of what Ukraine has done with drones and air offense or AI related air offense and defense and not just air on ground at sea, which has given them a new edge and a certain swagger which is legit legitimate. I mean, I think that the commentary from most experts on the implications of the war in the Middle east regarding the war on Ukraine have been off. They've all highlighted the very clear downsides, which are real. Increased oil prices, suspension of U.S. sanctions on Russian oil, shifting of attention to the Middle east, what that's done to American weapons supplies, all real and all probable problematic. But they've underestimated what the war has done for Ukraine's international position and Ukraine's ability to fund more work with its defense industry as the Gulf Arabs are now eager to buy Ukrainian products. And that's going to be not just more Ukrainian production for them, but for Ukraine to use into Russia.
- [33:00]
B
It would be an absolutely extraordinary irony. But do you think, do you think it's possible that the United States might end up kind of regretting sleeping on this relationship with Ukraine?
- [33:10]
D
Well, yes and no, because I don't think the United States overall has been sleeping. And we saw this as regards Ukrainian drones. We saw some dismissive remarks from the President of the United States what, six or seven weeks ago. And at roughly the same, same time we heard a statement coming from the Secretary of the army saying Ukraine drones were being used to American advantage in the Middle East. And then we saw Secretary Driscoll's testimony in Congress two or three weeks ago where he explained in some detail how impressive Ukrainians defense industry is, how it's synced up with the battlefield and how this has a real impact in Ukraine's favor on the battlefield. Now the United States needs to further develop a comparable system for its own security purposes.
- [34:05]
B
Just as a final thought then, if we think to the, I guess, reasonable possibility that we're both sitting in this vicinity another year from now, would you care to predict how the situation might have evolved by then?
- [34:17]
D
I think it's highly likely that Ukraine's superiority at the moment on drones, then again, the use of AI in war is going to grow in the next 12 months. Less confidence saying that they'll be in a comparably strong or a stronger position, say two years from now. But I think that's a more likely than the opposite. And I think if that's true, one, the battlefield will get better for Ukraine. You know, maybe as some experts predict, Ukraine. Ukraine will continue to lose some ground in Donbas, But I think that it's highly likely that Ukraine is going to make life far more difficult for Russia around Kherson and in the land bridge from occupied Ukraine to Crimea. And if the strikes which are having some impact today along that land bridge, I've seen estimates ranging from 1 to 5% of Russian trucks being hit. That's not insignificant. 5% is actually significant. 1% is not insignificant. If that were to grow to 20 or 30%, that's huge. And the Russian position occupied southern mainland Ukraine will be in danger. And maintaining Russia's position in Crimea will be far more expensive, and that will have a significant impact on the overall state of the war. I don't know if it'll be true that a year from now it'll be 20 or more percent, but there's a decent chance of that. And Even it was 10, 12%, that means that Ukraine's position in the south will be notably stronger.
- [35:53]
B
That was John Herbst, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, speaking to me at the recent Black Sea Security Forum in Odessa. There's more from Odessa on the current episode of the Foreign Desk. And there will be yet more from Odessa on the next episode of the Foreign Desk that's available this Saturday. That's all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Terry Stiasney and David Brennan. The show was produced by Thomas Waterhouse and researched by Joanna Moser. Our studio manager was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow.
- [36:22]
A
Thanks for listening.