505. Are Trump and Putin Underestimating Ukraine?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Politics – Episode 505

Title: Are Trump and Putin Underestimating Ukraine?
Date: February 25, 2026
Hosts: Alastair Campbell (from Kyiv), Rory Stewart
Main Theme:
A wide-ranging, insider discussion of the current state of the Ukraine war on its fourth anniversary, with unique on-the-ground insight from Kyiv. The episode critically explores support and fatigue from the West, the role of Trump and Putin, the complex path to EU membership for Ukraine, and the enduring resilience, anguish, and ambitions of the Ukrainian people.

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1. Ukrainian Resilience, Western Perception & On-the-Ground Reality

Key Points & Observations:

• Alistair Campbell reports live from Kyiv on the anniversary of the Russian invasion, having just attended a moving ceremony with President Zelenskyy in the Maidan (Kiev’s central square, synonymous with Ukrainian struggle for democracy).

• Impressions from Ukraine:

  • A juxtaposition of normalcy (“people just getting around their business”) and devastation (“then someone points out a cratered building where children died”) reflects daily psychological toll ([00:35], Campbell).
  • Profound sense of national pride and optimism, especially among youth, despite loss and trauma.
  • “The strongest impression I have…is just how resilient these people are. But the second is how much they hate being told that they’re resilient.” ([01:23], Campbell)
  • Ukrainians feel constant praise for resilience substitutes real, needed action from allies.

• Security & Zelenskyy:

  • The atmosphere around Zelenskyy is “phenomenally stressful;” he is “the number one target of the entire Russian machine” ([07:52], Stewart).
  • “It’s astonishing he’s still coming out in the open.” ([07:52], Stewart).

• Human Cost:

  • Both hosts remark on the powerful, tragic memorials of fallen soldiers in Maidan and the inability to comprehend the scale of casualties until seeing individual faces: “You just go on for row after row after row…” ([28:27], Campbell).
  • “It's quite difficult for us to comprehend hundreds of thousands of people. That [Winter Olympian’s helmet] was rather moving, powerful way of focusing on a dozen real examples.” ([29:24], Stewart)

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2. The State of the War: Has Trump & Putin Miscalculated?

Key Points:

• Trump Administration Approach:

  • Ukrainian perception is that “Trump is on Putin’s side against Ukraine” ([21:55], Campbell).
  • US negotiation efforts under Trump and advisor Wyckoff viewed as “completely fake” and presenting “the Russian maximalist position” ([14:11], Stewart).
  • US shift from key ally to “a bystander.” ($50 billion of support cut) ([15:52], Stewart).
  • Notable quote: “The person who showed [a quote] to me says, well, this is the problem when you have a very silly man in charge of this.” ([61:20], Campbell)

• America’s Diminished Role:

  • “If the US wants to say ‘Europe isn’t our problem, Europe should step up,’... then why is Europe not leading the negotiations instead of the US?” ([16:57], Stewart)
  • European nations, UK, and others now form the real “coalition of the willing.”

• Trump & Allies Wrong on Ukraine’s Fate:

  • “Russia is a much bigger, much stronger country. America’s wasting its money... Ukraine’s got to accept that it’s inevitably beaten. ...They’ve been proved completely wrong.” ([18:50], Stewart)
  • Despite diminished US aid, Ukraine “almost in a stronger position than we thought it was in six months ago” through successful long-range strikes, innovation, and high morale.

• Putin’s Calculations & Casualties:

  • Russian casualties: over 1.2 million, with at least 325,000 dead military personnel ([25:28], Campbell).
  • “Putin doesn’t care how many soldiers he loses, except he’s really scared of having to mobilize Moscow and St Petersburg.” ([25:28], Campbell)

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3. EU Membership for Ukraine: Urgency & Hard Realities

Key Points:

• Ukraine’s EU Aspirations:

  • 75% of Ukrainians say they would accept economic hardship to achieve EU membership ([09:21], Campbell).
  • “Zelensky is on the record as saying he wants to join the EU by January 1, 2027; Marta Kosk says that is impossible.” ([10:24], Campbell)

• Challenges:

  • EU enlargement process not fit for wartime urgency; new models like “gradual integration” or “reverse membership” are being discussed ([12:41], Campbell).
  • Civil society believes government moving “too slow on reform,” especially anti-corruption ([10:58], Campbell).
  • Ongoing corruption concerns—though “nobody has said Zelenskyy is personally corrupt,” yet retains some dubious figures in his inner circle ([40:35], Campbell).

• Political Tensions in the EU:

  • Hungary and Slovakia blocking vital loans, using energy dependence as leverage ([54:54], Campbell).
  • “Hungary is...objecting to the EU’s plan to loan 90 billion euros…this loan is absolutely essential to their defense.” ([54:54], Campbell)

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4. On-the-Ground Vignettes & Memorable Moments

Key Scenes:

• Railway as Recovery Symbol:

  • Bombed carriage displayed at Kyiv rail station as reminder of war reality; adjacent carriages converted to children’s beds/recovery center ([35:21], Campbell).
  • “Every act of creativity is an act of resistance.” – Marta Kos ([35:21], Campbell)

• Youth Optimism:

  • 18-year-old Dorina’s words: “If you got out of bed every day and only thought about the bad things…you’d never face the day. I get up every day and say, what can I do today to help my country?” ([35:21], Campbell)

• Quote Highlight:

  • On Western praise for “resilience”:
    "Praising their resilience is like standing on the shore watching a person struggle not to drown in a riptide. Instead of sending a lifeboat to save them, you praise them for being a strong swimmer." — Elsa Court, cited by Campbell ([57:20]–[59:30])

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5. Global Ripple Effects of the War

Key Insights:

• “When Russia invaded Ukraine, it’s reshaped things all the way from China to European economies to the US to the global south. It's sort of changing the world.” ([23:29]–[25:28], Stewart)
• China now dominates Russia as an economic tributary; India’s relationship shifting, European energy fundamentally reorganized; Finland and Sweden joined NATO ([23:29]–[25:28], Stewart).
• Possible new EU entrants: Iceland (possibly joining via referendum), potential domino effect on Norway ([25:28], Campbell).

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6. The Politics of Perception and the Next Phase

Key Topics:

• Sanctions and Shadow Economies:

  • Ukrainian frustration at “weak” Western sanctions; “America has become a complete bystander, Europe has to step up even more.” ([48:09], Campbell)
  • Russian oil shadow fleet unsanctioned by US ([48:33], Stewart).

• Frozen Conflict Fears:

  • Concerns Trump will “freeze” the conflict, claim a deal, but leave Ukraine “incredibly vulnerable” ([50:24], Campbell).

• Electoral Realities:

  • Holding elections amid martial law, mass displacement, and cyber threats deemed near impossible ([54:05], Campbell).

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7. Summing Up: Four Takeaways

([60:03], Stewart)

1. Scale of destruction and horror – “Being on the ground is showing you simply the scale…”
2. Ukrainian optimism and drive
3. US increasingly unpopular, marginal, and less relevant
4. Demand for meaningful support, not just admiration – “Stop simply sympathizing and admiring…concentrate on what we can do…provide financial support and allow Ukrainians to take more risk.” ([61:20], Stewart)

Campbell adds:

• Ukrainians deeply appreciate European and UK support but worry Europe is “still beholden to the idea the Americans are in charge.”
• “We are never going to be Russian. We don’t want to live like Russians, we are European.” ([62:31], Campbell)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Western inaction:
  “Praising their resilience is like standing on the shore watching a person struggle not to drown in a riptide. Instead of sending a lifeboat to save them, you praise them for being such a strong swimmer.”—Elsa Court, cited by Campbell [57:20–59:30]

• Zelenskyy’s Security Reality:
  “He is the number one target of the entire Russian machine… Astonishing he’s still coming out in the open.” — Stewart [07:52]

• Trump’s Position:
  “Real Ukrainians are basically saying...Trump is on Putin’s side against Ukraine.” — Campbell [21:55]

• On EU Expansion Urgency:
  “If we lose this war, you lose this war as well. Therefore you’ve got to do everything to get us into your orbit.”—Civil society view via Campbell [10:58]

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Conclusion:

This episode offers a raw, detailed, and deeply empathetic look at the ongoing war in Ukraine, blending sharp political analysis with vivid, human stories from Kyiv itself. It exposes Western fatigue, skepticism about American leadership under Trump, and a sense of European opportunity and obligation. The hosts do not shy from the moral and practical ambiguities, illuminating both the heroism and the suffering of the Ukrainian people and urging international partners to go far beyond admiration and rhetoric.

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Table of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:35–01:23 | Daily realities and psychology in Kyiv | | 07:52 | Zelenskyy’s personal risk and security | | 09:21–10:58 | Ukraine’s EU aspirations and public sentiment | | 12:41 | Gradual integration/"reverse membership" for EU accession | | 14:11–18:50 | Trump/Wyckoff’s "fake" negotiations and flawed assumptions | | 25:28 | The human cost: casualties and memorials | | 35:21 | Railway station vignette: recovery, resilience, and optimism | | 40:35–44:40 | Corruption, reform, and Zelenskyy’s critics | | 48:09 | Sanctions and the Russian shadow fleet | | 54:54 | Hungary’s EU loan block and energy leverage | | 57:20–59:30 | Critique of “resilience” narrative (Elsa Court quote) | | 60:03–62:31 | Stewart’s takeaways and Campbell’s European reflections |

(End of summary)

Transcript

[Alistair Campbell]

Thanks for listening to the rest Is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com

[Rory Stewart]

that's therestispolitics.com all they want to do is kill Zelenskyy. He is the number one target of the entire Russian machine.

[Alistair Campbell]

Real Ukrainians are basically saying, look, we've come to the conclusion that Trump is

[Rory Stewart]

on Putin's side, despite the fact that the US has done almost everything conceivable to weaken the Ukrainian side. Actually, they've been proved completely WR now seems to be almost in a stronger position than we thought it was in six months ago.

[Alistair Campbell]

You're walking around the place and it's fine, and people are just getting around their business. And then suddenly somebody will point out to you the top of a building that you just walked by that has been completely crated, and they'll tell you that some kids got killed there. The optimism and the sense of national pride is really, really powerful. It's moving because you feel it every time you talk to anybo.

[Rory Stewart]

Welcome to the Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart.

[Alistair Campbell]

And with me, Alistair Campbell and Alastair.

[Rory Stewart]

You are in Ukraine in a hotel room in Kyiv. Last time I spoke to you, which was Sunday morning, you were in Poland and you're there right on the anniversary, the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, speaking, as it were, from the ground. So tell us, how did you get there? What's going on?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, we've just come back from the Maidan where President Zelenskyy was leading an event, really moving event, actually, right in the square where all the flags and the pictures that you'll have seen on television of soldiers who've been killed in the last four years. And yeah, I was in Poland last time I spoke to you. We were invited to come with Marta Koss, who is the brilliant, I mean, really extraordinary commissioner for enlargement at the European Union. And it is quite a journey. You have to get to Warsaw, then get driven through some very, very flat countryside, kept looking for a tree of the day, and I couldn't quite get the quality. And then you get taken to this railway station in the middle of nowhere, get onto a sleeper train, 12 hours on the train. And then we got into, we got into Kyiv 5am and I promise you, I mean, I think I've, as you know, Rory, I've got quite a good work rate. Marta Kosk. What was great about being with her is that we were meeting all the people that she was meeting top levels of government, diplomacy, civil society, kids, everything. So we got a really good cross section of people. But we started by the first meeting, it was 5 o', clock, and the last meeting finished just after 10. And being me, Roy, I then interviewed two of the people who were at the meeting from civil society. So it's been absolutely flat out. But I'm really, really, really glad we came. You know, you and I have talked about Ukraine a lot over the last four years, because our podcast started roughly around the time of Putin's invasion. And even though we read a lot and you speak to other people, there is no substitute from getting a sense of things, from being here, from talking to people. And, you know, I think that the strongest impression I have. Well, there's two things that are sort of oddly related. The first is just how resilient these people are. But the second is how much they hate being told that they're resilient, because they basically feel that with the whole world coming and telling them how marvelous and how resilient they are, that that's stopping the whole world. And particularly, I have to say, in this order, probably the United States and then Europe, stopping the world from doing the things that they actually need to be done to defeat Putin. And the point is, they absolutely are convinced that Putin can be defeated and indeed must be defeated. I was saying this to our producer Callum this morning, that when I got to bed last night, my head was just a complete jumble of all the different impressions that you have. On the one hand, you're walking around the place, and as you know, Roy, I don't like wearing a coat, and it's not too cold and it's fine, and people are just getting around their business. And then suddenly, somebody will point out to you the top of a building that you just walked by that has been completely cratered, and they'll tell you that some kids got killed there. Another diplomat I met, the European Union ambassador here, one called Katerina Matanova, who's Czech, she was saying that just not far from here there is an energy plant that got zapped by missiles the other night and instantly thrived at 350,000 people without power in the freezing cold. And she said she was trying to get the world to take seriously the fact that Putin was using the cold as a murder weapon and people were dying of hypothermia. And she said people. Four years on, she couldn't get the media that interested. It just wasn't kind of big news anymore. And then we met some kids we met some young kids, amazing 18 year old girl called Dorina who just honestly was so positive talking on the one hand about how friends and family that have died or injured and, but just 100% convinced that provided the world stays awake and stays alive to what's going on that this, this can be won. So it's just been absolutely fascinating and of course seeing the Maidan just now we got very, very, very close up with Zelenskyy and hopefully we're seeing Zelenskyy later when he's meeting Ursula von der Lyon.

[Rory Stewart]

For listeners who aren't following day to day, Maidan is of course the word for the central square. And this is where the great Orange revolution demonstrations took place where a lot of Ukrainian polit and where Alistair has been with an enormous number of leaders from around the world today.

[Alistair Campbell]

But what was he? I mean, you know, he looks so stressed. You, when you see him close up, you just, you feel the, the pressure and the stress. When you see the level of security surrounding him, it is, you just think, well, living like that, look, you've had times in your life when you've had security. Doing it for like a few days can be make you feel stressed doing it like for four years with a level of security that's just so phenomenal. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy.

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[Rory Stewart]

And he's in a position which I think no world leader has really been in. You know, maybe Castro felt like this and the seventies, but he is the number one target of the entire Russian machine, of their intelligence services, their military, every Russian drone pilot, every potential assassin, all they want to do is kill Zelenskyy. It's actually astonishing that he's still coming out in the open. I mean, and his security team and he must be very stressed every time they appear in the Maidan.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, the level of security just to get there was pretty extraordinary. So you feel that, you see, because, you know, I've been in situations with, you know, American presidents probably always have the biggest level of security, but I never felt unsafe around American presidents. Whereas you're absolutely right. They were showing this yesterday. We went to one of these presentation on the damage that's been done in the last five years and I was talking to this guy who was just explaining how these drones that are used against Ukraine at the moment, how they're being used, how they've developed and you know, you see why they are absolutely paranoid about his security because of course, if he was taken out, that would be such a blow. An interesting. The other really interesting thing without. I don't want to overstate this, but because I think we. I sent you a poll last week. Zelensky in the United States is the most respected leader in the world. Trump is 16th. I don't know if you saw that your friend King Charles was number four. I'm sure that cheers you up to recent. After recent Royal News, where's 2 and

[Rory Stewart]

3 between Zelensky and King Charles? This is amazing.

[Alistair Campbell]

Oh, it's great. Zelensky number two was Mark Cardi and number three was Claudius. So the top three are basically Trump's bogey. People have run it but what's interesting when you are here, because we project Zelenskyy and we see Zelenskyy as this sort of hero, but of course, because you're in the country where he is the leader of the country, you do meet people who are not happy with him. One of the most interesting elements of the trip has been really getting deep into the whole debate about enlargement because they're desperate. There was a poll out recently, 75% of Ukrainians say that they would happily be poorer, lose out socially, economically, provided they could be in the European Union.

[Rory Stewart]

You do have a very unique perspective on this because you're traveling literally with the EU commissioner for enlargement. So you're traveling with. And she is very generous about what she says about the podcast. And when I saw her in Davos, was talking about our coverage in Moldova. But she's of course thinking all the time, presumably about this question. So tell us about, I mean, just before we get on back to Zelenskyy, where are we at the moment with EU enlargement?

[Alistair Campbell]

It's very, very compl. It and it's very, very difficult. And I mean, and honestly, I've been so impressed by Marta Cost because she's. This is, this has got to be one of the most important and toughest jobs in the world right now because you've got the countries that are queuing up and have been queuing up for some time. You know, the, the Balkan countries in particular. You've got Montenegro that thinks it's almost there. You've got Albania, that's getting closer. But of course, Ukraine. Zielinski is on the record as saying he wants to join the European Union by January 1, 2027. And Martukos is being explicit that is impossible.

[Rory Stewart]

You can't do it in nine months.

[Alistair Campbell]

But what's interesting talking to some of the civil society people in particular, is they think that it can be done, but they think that the Ukrainian government is going too slow on reform. One of the people we interviewed last night is somebody who is a big campaigner on corruption and corruption has been an issue. You know, he lost his right hand man not long ago. So I would say that the political will on enlargement is pretty intense. It's very intense on the Ukrainian side. They just think, look, we're at war. This is a civilizational battle. If we lose this war, you lose this war as well. And therefore you've got to do everything to get us into your orbit. And Martikos did say something very interesting. We went to a meeting with the speaker of the parliament and also some of the ministers later. And she was saying that the methodology that's being used for the enlargement process hasn't changed that much from when Spain and Portugal came in four decades ago in peacetime. And she's saying this is a sort of existential moment for Europe in wartime, so we have to find ways of doing this more quickly.

[Rory Stewart]

And one of the ideas that was floating around earlier this year was a very, very radical view, which is that you could almost bring someone into the European Union and leave the reforms until later, rather than doing it the other way around.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

So we've often talked about how we could bring the central. The Balkan countries, for example, into the single market while they wait for accession. And then I had somebody senior in the EU turn that around on its head and say, no, maybe you're thinking about it the wrong way. Maybe rather than trying to accelerate the reforms before you join, maybe we could pioneer a model for Ukraine and Moldova where they join and then they catch up.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, that is exactly what is being discussed. And I actually think that it would be fantastic if that could happen. Essentially, what that strain of thinking is basically saying that instead of accession being the end of the process, it is part of the process. So you basically, you virtually declare, you know, Moldova, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia, Ukraine are European Union countries, okay. But they don't have all the rights nor possibly all of the responsibilities, but that then becomes part of a process. So they're calling that. They're calling that either gradual integration or reverse membership.

[Rory Stewart]

I love the fact they always have this sort of funny jargon, but I

[Alistair Campbell]

think that is worth thinking about. I mean, it's so interesting. This is why the tragedy of us being out of the European Union now, because the Europeans really, really regret and miss the UK Being there. But at the same time, when you're having these discussions on the bigger picture about what's happening in Ukraine and the future of Ukraine, it's all about the European Union. The whole aim of their existence now is to get inside the European Union. A lot of disappointment about America. You know, you and I are quite biased on this, but I'll try and part my own bias. One of the people I met who's not in government, but somebody quite close to government and said, you know, it's just infuriating to see this Wyckoff guy and Trump announcing we're close to a deal, the negotiations are ongoing. She said, they're not real negotiations. They're completely fake.

[Rory Stewart]

They're totally performative My understanding of the situation is that Trump and Wyckoff, particularly Witkoff, have been pushing ahead. And just to remind listeners, they started with what was essentially a series of Russian talking points, the Russian maximalist position. And their original peace plan, which terrified everybody a few months ago, was effectively going to give Russia more territory than it had already taken, de facto recognition that territory, lift all the sanctions, limit the size of the Ukrainian army. And that was resisted. It was actually resisted not just by Ukraine, but it was resisted by the European Union and the UK and everyone that said this is not good enough.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, it kind of led to, in a way, to the coalition of the willing to that concept. And the coalition of the willing are having a meeting literally right now as we speak.

[Rory Stewart]

Tell us about them. Tell us a little bit about that concept and those people.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, it is obviously Zelenskyy, and it is a lot of the European, in particular the European nations. So to give you some of the names who were at the ceremony today, Jonas Gastora, who we interviewed on leading, Prime Minister Norway, Mette Fredriksen, who we also interviewed, Alexander Stub, who's coming out very, very soon on leading. They were all there today. So they will go off with Zelenskyy, with von der Leyen, with others, and then Keir, Starmer, Macron, Mertz are all on video calls somewhere else. And I think one of the things that is being discussed is the extent to which the change in the American position, and particularly now on spending. I mean, I don't know about you, Roy. I find it completely absurd that the Americans are still calling the shots on whether there should be a negotiation process and what it should be, when right now the Americans are making money out of all this, paid for by the Europeans buying American kit to supply to Ukraine.

[Rory Stewart]

It does from the outside seem completely insane. I think we talked about this probably when Trump came in, that what is likely to happen if the US Stopped providing money and started causing difficulties for the Ukrainians is that they would lose leverage if they're no longer the central player on the battlefield and they've basically cutting $50 billion worth of support for Ukraine. At some point, people are going to turn around and say, actually, you don't really matter. Not just Ukrainians will say, you don't really matter because you're not actually as vital to our war efforts as you might have been two, three years ago because you've just given us $50 billion less. But even the Russians might say, actually, we don't necessarily need to negotiate with you because you're not as critical war efforts. Now, there are still certain things that the US Is doing which are quite interesting and I don't quite understand. I was talking to my friend Shashank Joshi this morning from the Economist, and he was pointing out that some of these very successful recent long range Ukrainian strikes against Russian oil facilities depend on U.S. intelligence to be able to navigate around radar systems and get to the location. For some reason, the Americans are still facilitating that and that will be a problem. They take it away. But in other regards, you're absolutely right. I mean, if Europe has been forced partly by the US to provide an extra hundred billion euros of money and the US Is providing zero, and if the US Wants to say Europe isn't our problem, Europe should step up, Europe needs to deal with Russia, Europe needs to pay, Europe needs to fight, we don't care about Ukraine, then why is Europe not leading the negotiations instead of

[Alistair Campbell]

the U.S. well, I think that's a very, very good point. And when we were in Munich, remember after you left, I went to the event on the Arctic where Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, was there and somebody said to him, now that Europe is paying all this money and buying all the kit for Ukraine, which the Americans used to do and used to give, why are the Europeans not front and center in the negotiations? And he gave a very, very honest answer. He said, because Putin doesn't want us there and Trump lets him. Now that has to change. The other thing that I saw, in fact, somebody here pointed out to me I was talking to about the Americans and they played me this clip of an interview that Witkoff did this week. He said two things which were mind blowingly stupid. The first was quote, this is a very silly war, okay? Now you can talk about it being a horrible war, a brutal war, but silly makes it sound like a kind of Monty Python sketch that's gone a bit wrong. It's a war that Putin has started. The next thing he said was, Putin has always been very straight with me. Now what does that mean? What does that mean when he keeps saying, and Trump keeps saying that we're getting there, we're making progress? What is the progress that's being made when he's being straight? Because in his public positioning, Putin has not changed 1 inch since the start of this.

[Rory Stewart]

And I think one of the interesting things is that Trump's defense people have been proved wrong. Their basic view, I think, unless I've got this wrong, is that actually, and this was basically JD Vance's line before the election so going back 18 months now was Russia's going to win anyway. Russia is a much bigger, much stronger country. America's wasting its money and all it's doing is prolonging the suffering of the Ukrainians. Ukraine's got to accept that it's inevitably beaten. And given that, given that Russia's definitely going to win, we might as well stop spending any money on it. And then let's go and make some deals with Russia. Let's drop sanctions, let's get some mineral deals, let's make some money, because Russia is going to win anyway. And where they've been proven wrong is despite the fact that the US has done almost everything conceivable to weaken the Ukrainian side. Number one, no more money. Number two, actually stopping, even selling weapons often. Number three, okay, she's turning off entire systems. Number four, making it clear that all the NATO security guarantees are much flimsy and weaker than they were in the past, and threatening Greenland and all this kind of stuff. Despite all of that, what the Trump administration would have predicted, because they think the US is the only power in the world and Ukraine is too weak and the EU is too weak. They assumed that the Ukrainians would collapse like a house of cards and they would bring about what they predicted, which is that Russia would win and get all this stuff and then we'd lift sanctions. Actually, they've been proved completely wrong. What's actually happened over the last year is that I think over the last six months, Ukraine now seems to be paradoxically, almost in a stronger position than we thought it was in six months ago because it's managing to do these long range strikes, it's managing to do some very targeted attacks against Russian infantry. It's managing also to do these very surprising counterattacks with small troops into Russian territory. Russia has lost, killed and wounded, 1.2 million casualties, which is more than anyone has lost since the Second World War. In fact, our Defence Minister, Al Kanza says that it's actually they've lost more than the Americans lost in the entire Second World War. Least 350,000 killed, they're having difficulty replenishing and Ukraine now seems to be able to manufacture long range missiles rather than being totally dependent on everyone. So actually all the, it's not just that they are cruel and unpleasant, they actually prove to be completely wrong in their predictions and somebody needs to call them out. Their assessment of the defence and security situation and the relative strengths of Russia and Ukraine and the relative strengths of the US and the EU turned out to be completely wrong. Trump was wrong.

[Alistair Campbell]

And that is what leads me to say the talks in Geneva recently, Rory, I don't know if you're aware of this. So you had Wyckoff, you had the Russians and the Ukrainians, okay, meeting in Geneva. It didn't go anywhere. The Ukrainians came out and said that what they say the Russians came and said. Then Wyckoff said, it's going very well. Then he went back and played golf with Trump. And what's interesting about that, though, is that officials from the UK Germany, France and Italy just turned up, okay, Uninvited.

[Rory Stewart]

They just turned up.

[Alistair Campbell]

They didn't get in the room, but it meant they could talk to the Ukrainians, they could hang around. Now, I honestly think the next time that Trump comes out and says, I'm sending Wyckoff and I'm sending Jared Kushner and it's time for Ukraine to get its act together and get to the table, I think Keir Starmer, Macron Maloney, Merz Tusk, I think they should just turn up. I know there would be sort of. But let's be honest, Trump deals with diplomacy in a very unconventional way. But, you know, the only senior American I've seen here is Mike Pompeo, another interviewee from Leading, but he's the past, Right. When you saw all the leaders today, they were presented with these little candles by children. They walked up to put them down by all the flags and the pictures of the dead soldiers. I kept looking for somebody from the United States. I didn't see anybody. No. I maybe missed it, or maybe there are people I don't recognize. But the fact that nobody's talking about who have America sent to this, and it does lead you to believe, and quite a lot of people, I'm afraid, have said to me in terms, and I should make clear, not Zelensky people, not government people, because they have to be very, very careful. And everybody understands that. But real Ukrainians are basically saying, look, we've come to the conclusion, this is a conclusion you came to a long time ago, that Trump is on Putin's side against Ukraine. Now, if that's the case, and if Ukraine sees its future totally with Europe, then Europe can't just become the new banker. They have to become the driver of the progress that gets made. And I think there's an opportunity there. But I think it means, as you say, it means calling out the Americans a bit.

[Rory Stewart]

So much to get into. And I really would love to get some sense when we come back from the break of what things look like and how Zelensky is going. But one last topic before we go to the break. I think maybe if we step back and look at the last four years, one of the things that struck me is the way in which this war has reshaped so many things so far beyond Russia and Ukraine, in very unexpected ways. Let's take one example. Because of this war, China has ended up in a completely different position to the world and to Russia, it's ended up essentially making Russia into a kind of tributary state. It gets cheap oil. Russia is completely dependent on China, and China is now dominating that whole region. It's had an effect on countries like India because of course, India's got cheaper. And then India's been hit with 50% tariffs by Trump. It's changed the relationship between the global south, reshaped that whole balance that we were talking about with Alexander Stub in that the leading interview's about to come out, partly because they've had to make some very, very difficult decisions from Biden onwards about whether they're on the US side on this or whether they're going to try to remain neutral. It's completely reshaped European energy policy, as you've pointed out often. It's brought Finland and Sweden into NATO. It's also exposed these incredible fractures between the US's willingness to pay for European defense. It's created this whole situation of Europe spending far more in defense and then suddenly worrying that maybe its defense industry isn't able to absorb the money. And how's it going to make this special? So all of this has just happened in the four years of our podcast. So just to throw it back to you, you're right at the heart of this because you're in Ukraine, but actually what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine has reshaped things all the way from China to European economies to the US to the global south. It's sort of changing the world.

[Alistair Campbell]

There's no doubt about that. And interestingly, down at the Maidan just now, couple of people came over to talk to me, and one was a journalist from Iceland and another was a political advisor from Norway, because Jonas Gastora, the Norwegian prime minister, is here as well. And I was talking to them about our miniseries we've done with Ken Rosen on the Arctic. And I was just saying I just can't. The Arctic's just become this sort of thing. We ended up having a discussion, quite a serious discussion, about the possibility, because the Icelandics are going to be having a referendum probably later this year about whether to reopen the accession talks, because, you know, they were already talking about accession to the European Union, reopen that. And then the Norwegians kind of chipping in. Well, of course, if Iceland goes into the European Union, then we're left in the eea, European Partnership they're part of. It's just going to be US and Liechtenstein. So then does that move the Norwegians, who would then become one of the richest countries in the European Union? And, of course, what this guy said about Iceland was that, you know, if you go through the various waves of enlargement, this will be the first time in quite a while that one of the rich European democracies has rejoined the European union. So you're 100% right. It's completely reshaping these things. And of course, while that goes on, I don't think we should probably is just worth bringing people up to date with some of the. The stat. So you mentioned 1.2 million casualties. There's some talk and casualties, just to be clear, that means military being killed and also being injured so as they can't fight, and so that. So 1.2 million. There is a report I read before I came out here which was predicting that if things carry on as they are, we will reach 2 million casualties by the spring. Okay? The Russian Deaths, military deaths, 325,000. So if you imagine Wembley Stadium, Twickenham, Old Trafford, the three biggest stadiums in Britain, that is not enough to fit in the bodies of Russians who've died. Okay? And one thing that somebody who knows Russia told me is that Putin, we know that doesn't care about human life. He doesn't care how many soldiers he loses. The one thing he's really scared of is having to mobilize in Moscow and St. Petersburg. So that's maybe just worth keeping an eye on. Ukrainian forces, between half a million and 600,000 casualties. As for fatalities, it's between 100,000 and 140,000. And I can't tell you, Rory, how we went down yesterday without all the sort of the fuss that there was today, with all the security and the VIPs and all that stuff, just walking around that place where all the pictures are and all the flags are. It's just horrible because you're looking at young men and young women, and usually the photos are of them smiling. Some of them is with guns, but usually it's just sort of family photos of kids who are smiling, and you just go. You just go on for row after row after row after row.

[Rory Stewart]

I thought one of the most moving things Just on that is we saw a micro version of this on the helmet of the Ukrainian Winter Olympics contender who had shown some of the Ukrainian athletes killed. And the BBC did rather a good piece on this, which we'll share in the newsletter. But I thought it was such a moving way of bringing it down to the individual level because you get a little biography of the individual and then you find that often with the men, it's that they've signed up and they've been killed on the front line. Some of them only two weeks after enlisting women trying to get their grandmothers to safety. And when a bomb suddenly attacks their house. Young girls killed out in the open on their way to and from. I mean, it's nothing compared to what she was seeing. But I just thought as a. Because it's quite difficult for us to comprehend hundreds of thousands of people. That was rather moving, powerful way of making us focus on a dozen real examples.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, but the athlete was not allowed to wear that in competition because the Olympic committee said you can't mix politics with the Olympics. And then one of the members of the IOC is Mr. Infantino, the head of FIFA, who goes to the border. Peace. And puts on one of Trump's red baseball caps. So try and tell me that's not mixing in politics because it is. So the hypocrisy of that is pretty nauseating as well.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and then I'd love to get more of a sense of what you've seen on the ground. But quick break and then back for more.

[Alistair Campbell]

Cool. See you in a minute.

[Katie K]

Hi guys, it's Katie K. And Anthony Scaramucci here from the Rest is Politics Us. We have just recorded a four part series that's all about Donald Trump becoming the global phenomenon we know him as today.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

You know Caddy, I knew Donald Trump since 2005. So in this series we rewind the clock right back and dig into the people, the events and the scale scandals that built him.

[Katie K]

Yeah, we're going to take you from his days in military school, what he learned there, how he actually weirdly thrived there, to his father's ties to the Ku Klux Klan, his days as a business mogul in New York and how that really shaped his worldview and his way of doing business. And we're going to explore parts of the Trump story that you might never have even heard of.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Not to mention Caddy, the nefarious trickster Roy Cohn. Where's my Roy Cohn?

[Rory Stewart]

Cohn.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

I heard him say that so many times. I mean, I was only there for 11 days. Caddy, where's my Roy Cohn? Well, let me tell you something. If you want to know who Roy Cohn was, you're going to tune into

[Katie K]

this series with all the headlines that come out of Trump world every single day. We just felt there'd never really been a more important time to try to understand the America that created Donald Trump. To give you a flavor of the series, we've left a clip at the end of this show to listen to episode one of Becoming Trump. Head over to the rest Is Politics Us. Wherever you get your podcasts,

[Rory Stewart]

This episode is brought to you by Whoop.

[Alistair Campbell]

Whoopee. If politics teaches you anything, it's that the danger comes when you only focus on the headline and miss what's really driving the outcomes underneath.

[Rory Stewart]

And listen, I'm wearing the Whoop now. Okay? So I actually use this device. Shoshana particularly really loves it. She works out every day. She really wants to know what her resilience level, how far she can push in a training session, and what it tells you basically when you wake up in the morning is what your resilience is and how high you can push it. So yesterday, for example, it said to me, listen, you had massive resilience. You didn't push yourself hard enough in your training session. You could have done much more.

[Alistair Campbell]

So it's giving you personalized insights so you can build routines that last and add more life to your years. So if you want better to understand how you can feel and live at your best for years to come, head to join.whoop.com tripp and get started on Whoop today.

[Rory Stewart]

You can even sign up for a free 30 day trial so you can try Whoop risk free and start your year with a bit of momentum. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. Now, it's Mother's Day coming up and an aura frame is what I'd call a proper upgrade from the usual Mother's Day flowers from the gas station.

[Alistair Campbell]

Now, flowers only last three days, Rory. On average.

[Rory Stewart]

Exactly. This doesn't. This is a wonderful photo frame, but it's a photo frame where the photographs change. You preload it with family photos before it ships. It arrives already full of all those memories and you can keep adding those photos from anywhere you put it up. We've got one at home and it's really lovely because you see all these beautiful high definition images scrolling through throughout the day.

[Alistair Campbell]

So aura frames is the perfect gift every time. And for a limited Time save on that perfect gift by visiting auraframes.co.uk to get pound 35 off Aura's best selling Carver matte frames, named the top frame by the Independent by using promo code Politics at checkout.

[Rory Stewart]

That's a U r a frames.co.uk promo code politics. The deal is exclusive to listeners, so order yours now to get it in time for Mother's Day. Welcome back to the Restless Politics with

[Alistair Campbell]

me, Rory Stewart and with me Alistair Campbell. Okay, Rory, traditional to have a little bit of plugging after the break. Olaf Scholz latest interview on Leading. Really interesting, very interesting on Ukraine as well. He actually is one of those voices who's confident Putin knows he's lost. Well, we'll see. Also want to plug the Archie series with Ken Rosen. But also one of the things we've been doing here, me and our long suffering producer Callum, who's had to get used to the pace at which I work, Roy, and he's finding it very difficult. These young people, they do need, seem to need an awful lot of rest. They have to eat a lot, they have to have meal breaks. Anyway, we've sort of managed to get through it, but he and I have been keeping a daily diary which is going out in the newsletter that we send out automatically to members. If you're a trip member, you'll get that anyway. But if you're not, well, if you're not, you should be. But if you're not and you don't want to be, just go to the link in the description below.

[Rory Stewart]

That sounds brilliant. And we'll get Callum's side of the story on your terrible, scandalous libels against young people. So this will be great. I'm looking forward to this diary very much.

[Alistair Campbell]

Listen, I'm a fan of young people. I promote young people all the time, I go into schools all the time. And the wonderful woman Dorina, who I mentioned, she, she actually knew how to get hold of because her first words to me were, I read your book, but what can I do? So they, they're great young people. No.

[Rory Stewart]

Oh, that's beautiful. Well, let's, let's, let's. I'm looking forward also to hearing Callum's side of the story. Anyway, can we just start a little bit on some of the videos you, you sent me, for example, a video of an intensive care unit.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, that was pretty amazing. So when you arrive at the railway station, do you remember in January there was a train that was bombed and I can't remember the exact numbers, but some people were killed. So what they've done, we had this amazing briefing from the head of the railways and they've had over a thousand attacks on the railways. He showed us a map of Ukraine and every red line was a drone or a missile that's been detected and the whole map was red. So they've had over a thousand attacks. They've lost about, I think, 50 locomotive engines, which obviously are quite important part of their infrastructure. They've had sabotage and damage to lots of rail track. What they've done with this bombed out carriage is they brought it back to Kyiv. They've parked it on the track inside the railway station. So anybody who's coming in there can see it as a reminder of this is what we're facing. But then the carriage next to it is an intensive care unit. So it's a train carriage which is no longer functioning as a train carriage and it's been converted into an intensive care unit. And then the next one, I have to say, Roy, at six foot three, the sleeper bed was not quite big enough. But what they've done in this one, they've taken a sleeper train and they've made the beds all into children's beds. And so they've got a train carriage there that's a children's recovery center. And it was just, you see so many things like that that you just see, and I'm not going to use the R word resilience, but you see the kind of innovation and their invention and their creativity. Went to a great event with Marta Kos. She was at a bookshop where there were some artists, poets and writers, and. And she came up with this great line. She said, every act of creativity is an act of resistance. Because of course, you know, dictators don't believe in creativity. They believe in telling you what you should think, what you should read, what you should write. And that was just full of young, mainly young people who were. They all had stories of people that they know who've been killed or brothers that are at the front line. And, you know, they've all got those stories and they'll tell you those stories. But there was one young woman in particular called Dorina, who just, honestly, she. She just left you with this sense of optimism. And I said, well, how do you stay so optimistic? And she said, well, what alternative do you have? If you got out of bed every day and only thought about the bad things that are happening and the friends you've lost and the family that are at risk, if you only thought of those things, you'd Never face the day. I get up every day and I say, what can I do today to help my country? Honestly, it was just so moving.

[Rory Stewart]

And presumably there are people you're meeting who will be very angry with Zelenskyy. There have been these incredible corruption allegations, and that's a problem also for EU accession, because people in the EU would be reluctant, taken in. And of course, it's a real talking point for particularly the Trump administration when it wants to say, why are we supporting Ukraine? To emphasize corruption. And then there's been a lot of changes up at senior levels. The military. There seems to be a good new defense minister in. But there's got to be people, presumably, who are saying to you, zelenskyy's not doing this right, and we'd be better off with someone else.

[Alistair Campbell]

They're not necessarily saying the second bit.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

I haven't met anybody who thinks it's a good idea to have an election. And Zelensky has also said that if the negotiations, the fake negotiations, as some of them call it, led by Wyckoff, if they lead to the sort of delineation that's being talked of now, they would lose that in a referendum anyway. There was nobody I met who said to me candidate A or B would be better than Zelenskyy. Nobody. And I think people recognize that he is facing such a challenge, and he's done extraordinary stuff in four years. But I met, for example, a woman called Hannah Hopko, who runs something called the National Interest Advocacy Network, and a woman called Daria Kalenyuk, who's. She runs something called the Anti Corruption Action Center. And I think their main argument. Well, they had a lot of arguments that are very, very fiery, but they feel that Zelenskyy isn't going fast enough on the reform, and in part because the corruption historically is a huge problem, you know, going back to days of Yanukovych, who made off with 70 billion. Right.

[Rory Stewart]

Big sort of oligarchic thing. Am I right? That although it's not on that scale, there's still been some very, very disturbing allegations about people who were very close to Zelenskyy, some of his closest friends, some of his business partners, some of his deputies. And tragically, in a war, a sense that people are making off with billions of dollars that could otherwise have been spent on defending Ukraine, including people who've

[Alistair Campbell]

been arrested trying to flee the country. But now, again, nobody has said to me, zelenskyy is personally corrupt.

[Rory Stewart]

Right.

[Alistair Campbell]

What they have said is that some of the people who support and surround Zelenskyy are more interested in their own affairs than the country. Now, I don't know if that's true or that's not true.

[Rory Stewart]

I mean, when one hears that, why on earth would. There must be a reason why he keeps them around. Is it that they're loyal to him? Are they effective at their job? It's always a bit bizarre when you see a situation where you've got somebody at the top who people say isn't corrupt, but nevertheless continues to surround themselves with crooks.

[Alistair Campbell]

Look, I don't know, because I don't know him well enough to be able to make a judgment about that. But for example, just to give you one example, one of the people who was critical of him said that if you were to really boil down who is in charge of this reform process to get us towards the European Union, it's not him, it's not a minister, it's not the people that you've been talking to. And they gave me a name that I've never heard of, and they said, he's a guy who works for Zelensky, and he's a guy who back in the day used to say that the Maidan protesters shot themselves. Okay, now, I've not checked that out. I'm just giving you a flavor of people thinking. I guess what it's saying is that there are still people from the old guard who are around, right? And I said, hold on, you know, come on, give the guy a break. This guy, just put yourself in his shoes. And she said, the reason why we are still standing, Zelensky has done a good job in many ways. The reason we're still standing is because of the strength of the Ukrainian people. And what the Ukrainian people are saying now is we want the reforms necessary to make it 100% clear we are going into the European Union, we are never going back under the sphere of Russian influence. There was some very harsh words said. It became a bit of an argument. Right, because there was. It was a room full of different people. Yeah, but I, I think that there is still huge. You can sense the respect for him. I mean, today, just at the maiden, when you see him arrive, there's a sort of. There were lots of big cheeses there. But, you know, when he arrived, there's a real sense around him. And because we were so close to him, I, you know, as you know, I like studying people's movements and body language and their face where he. He looked really, really stressed. Now you could say, well, why wouldn't he look Stressed. And of course, this. His. Just imagine what his day is like today. He goes through all that ceremony stuff. He's now probably got, I don't know, dozen. He'll have dozens of meetings with dozens of people, and he'll. Every one of them, he'll have a different argument, a different thing to go for. But what these civil society people were saying to the European Commission people is you need to put them under more pressure. Right, but that's a hard position. I mean, Marta Kos is, you know, you imagine she's the person who's got to say to the Ukrainians, we love you, we support you, we're desperate for you get into the European Union, but you're not ready. And they can say, hold on a minute, we're fighting a war for all of you. So it's a really difficult argument. I'll tell you one thing that has come through. And there's the British ambassador. They have this role of six weeks. They roll in an hour because, you know, six weeks and then you go home for a couple of weeks. So at the moment, the number two woman called Lottie Soren is in charge. And she said something really interesting when I talked to her is that she said that she referred to something called a narrative frustration. And what she, I think, means by that, it goes back to what we're talking about in the first half, is that between them, these two very powerful propaganda machines, the Kremlin and the White House, this is meat speaking, by the way. Now, she used the phrase narrative frustration. I'm telling you, what I think it is, is they create the general sense that the momentum is always with Russia, that Putin holds all the cards. What you see when you're here is actually, no, it doesn't hold all the cards, because the psychology of this is all going in one direction. And if only America was right behind this and if only the European Union really was driving the political. Will you get this feeling this thing could change? But what they all say is Putin has to be defeated. I didn't meet anybody who didn't say that.

[Rory Stewart]

Just listening to you, I'm reminded of the fact that when people like us at the beginning of these conflicts try to predict what's going to happen, one of the things that goes wrong is that anybody analyzing a conflict tends to focus on stuff they can count. What's your population? What's your defence budget? How many soldiers have you got? How much fancy kit have you got? And tend to assume that the country with more of that will win. So obviously, in this case, once Russia began, the general assumption would have been that Russia could have defeated Ukraine quite quickly. It's a much, much bigger country with a much bigger defense budget. Then the second mistake we often make is around sanctions. So we tend to look at these people's economies and we think, okay, if we sanction Russia, it's going to pose incredible pain. I think I've said to you before, I remember in 2014, when they invaded Crimea, being at a National Security Council, not in a meeting, but in a side meeting where somebody said they believed that Putin would collapse within six months during the sanctions. Of course, in this case, what happens is we impose sanctions. Actually, the Russian economy grew quite strongly in 2023, 2024, and in fact, it turned out that they found all these other links into Saudi Arabia and China and India and all this kind of. And you're pointing to the thing that we never manage to count and goes wrong again and again. And I think it's at the heart of where Trump gets the world wrong, which is this question of morale and national pride. And that's really what I suppose is one of the key elements driving Ukraine here. It's defeated all the odds, despite everything that you could put on a spreadsheet. It's done extraordinary things because of this sense of national pride. And it reminds me a little bit of, in a much more difficult and much more disturbing context of Afghanistan, where, again, the US Military spent one and a half trillion dollars, had the most advanced equipment in the world, and were effectively defeated by people riding around on donkeys with Kalashikovs. And that's important because so much of Trump's worldview is that America can tell everybody else, including the European Union and Britain and Canada, what to do, because they have more money and they have more weapons than anyone else. And I heard that a little bit at Munich. One of the leaders and one of the huge tech giants said to me, listen, it's all very well. You're talking about trying to have its own cloud computing or AI or tech structures, but frankly, you can forget about it because you can't afford it. We're going to be spending $250 billion this year, and you haven't got the money, so you just got to suck it up. And listening to him, I felt, actually, you've missed the point about national pride, that the world isn't just about numbers. And I think maybe I've turned to a more pompous philosophical point. But I guess what I'm hearing from you in Ukraine is that right at the core of the things is this almost impossible to quantify question of the Ukrainians just keeping fighting.

[Alistair Campbell]

No, you're absolutely right, Rory. And of course, it is intangible. There's something intangible about it. But you really do feel it. You really do feel it. Even the people who are being critical, they're coming from that perspective of, I love this country so much, I really feel for the future of this country. We will never be Russian again. They feel it so strongly. They also do say, Roy, that they think we've been pretty pathetic on sanctions. They think the only way Putin's going to be absolutely destroyed is if the we really take them on the economy. They don't think we've done enough to deal with the shadow fleet. I didn't realize this. I mean, to be fair to the European Union and the UK we have tripled the numbers of sanctioned vessels in the Russian shadow fleet. The Americans have not increased that number in the last year.

[Rory Stewart]

And the shadow fleet, Alistair, just for listeners, is vessels that aren't flagged as being Russian vessels, but which are smuggling Russian oil predominantly out and a lot of it through the Baltic so that we could stop these ships if we wanted to.

[Alistair Campbell]

Exactly. And so, yeah, it's basically these are the ships that are allowing Russia to continue to sell oil around the world. And of course, you mentioned India. I remember months or months ago, maybe years ago, I remember we did a big thing about how basically India was just becoming the place where the Russian oil was getting refined, so they were both making money out of it. So the sanctions, they think that they've been weak. But there was one guy who said to me that the truth is when it comes to sanctions, America has become a complete bystander, Europe has to step up even more. And the other thing that you keep hearing again and again is their worry, and we see this in Gaza as well. Let's be frank about this, because this is the way Trump talks and is what sort of gets him out of bed in the morning is this feeling that both Ukraine and Gaza are just part of a sort of bigger business commercial enterprise to make the rich Americans even richer a worry there?

[Rory Stewart]

Just because you've made me think about that, presumably a worry that I thought you might be about to say that what happens is that Trump freezes a conflict, doesn't get a peace deal, but he sort of freezes a conflict, claims that he's got peace, moves on, and everyone then assumes, well, it's not an issue anymore. So in mean, we've seen that in Gaza, people talking much less about Gaza, but in Ukraine, I guess the fear would be he tries to force through some sort of frozen deal and claims it's all been sorted out. And then Ukraine is left in this unbelievably weak vulnerable position where Russia reconsolidates ready to go again and nobody's paying any attention.

[Alistair Campbell]

Exactly. And I said, I went to this. This event is called rdna5, rapid damage and needs assessment. And it's the fifth report because we're now going into the fifth year of war and the numbers are mind blowing. And this is not some sort of, you know, left wing think tank operation. This is the World bank, the United nations, the European Commission and the government of Ukraine doing this big report. They've done it every year since the war started. And they're saying that the total cost of reconstruction, of the damage done so far is in the area of $600 billion. When you look at the areas that have been worst hit, and this again just brings it home. How many people have been hit by this? Housing is the biggest sector damage by far, 61 billion. The transport system 40 billion, energy 24.8 billion. But that's going up. Commerce and industry 19.2. And the other thing to say, Roy, is that 40, 75% of all that damage is on what are being called the frontline oblast. So I'm in Kyiv now. The people here say they are on the front line because they are getting it and they definitely got hit by this sort of winter as weapon of war thing. But you know, we've not seen where the real sort of catastrophic damage, the sort of Gaza style damage has been done. But the numbers, those numbers are huge. And that means that economically the worst thing that could happen happen is that Trump comes along, they do some sort of deal. Trump announces it like he did the Gaza peace deal. This is the biggest day for humanity in the history of humankind. I should get the Nobel Peace Prize, all that stuff. And then actually Ukraine's economic situation and security situation remains incredibly vulnerable. So this is why it was very interesting to read this report and also to watch the people presenting it.

[Rory Stewart]

To put it in context, it sounds like that the sort of figures you're talking about will be very close to the total annual revenue of the Ukrainian government in a normal year. I mean, these incredible amounts of money,

[Alistair Campbell]

it's way above that, way above that.

[Rory Stewart]

And so actually to do it, I mean, normally when we were doing relief efforts in DFID, we felt we were being generous giving 100 million but you're not talking about 10 times that, which is a billion. You're not talking about 100 times that, which is 10 billion. You're talking about 1,000 times the amount of money that international donors would usually be providing to try to get Ukraine back on its feet again.

[Alistair Campbell]

And don't forget as well, Roy, there are four point. I think the figure was 4.7 million Ukrainians, many of them women and children, living in European Union. There's many more living in the UK the overall figure was something like. I think it might be as many as 11 million people displaced either overseas or internally. When we had a meeting with the Electoral Commission because of course, there's a big talk about when and how they could hold elections. They're really worried about electronic voting because the Russian cyber attacks are relentless. They're worried about postal voting for the same reasons. But they're saying, how can you hold elections when you have millions of people living abroad, hundreds of thousands who are serving in the military? So that was a really. Again, we think you see Trump saying, Trump comes out and says Zelensky should have an election, okay? And then when you sit down and listen to the people who would actually have to organize that, you just realize how virtually impossible that would be added to, which is illegal, because you can't have elections here when you have martial law.

[Rory Stewart]

Two more things, just in case you've picked up particularly on them. One of them is that there's been a big story recently about how Hungary and Slovakia have got themselves into an ever deeper conflict with Ukraine because Ukraine gets more than half its electricity from Hungary and Slovakia. And Hungary and Slovakia get a lot of their crude oil on pipelines running from Ukraine. And as they've got into a fight about this, the Ukrainians have bombed pipelines and haven't fixed it. So there's not as much crude oil coming in from Russia into Hungary and Slovakia. In return, the Hungarians and Slovaks are cutting off electricity supplies, stopping or threatening to veto the $100 billion EU package and to veto the sanctions. Are you hearing much about this on the trip? That one?

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, absolutely. And you, you know, as ever, when you're talking about the MAGA ideology, the influence of America, Russia and its role within the European Union, the name Orban comes up again and again and again. And Hungary has. It's not just that they're threatening to. They have said they are objecting to the European Union's plan to loan 90 billion euros. Well, given that Ukraine is basically living almost month to month, hand to mouth in terms of getting money, this loan is absolutely essential to their defense and to having some sort of budget. And the foreign minister, Seizhato, Hungarian foreign minister, he was absolutely explicit last week. He said, we are blocking this EU loan for Ukraine until oil transit to Hungary via the relevant pipeline resumes. So listen, Hungary is. You and I have talked about this so often. I am totally with Guy Fofster on this. The European Union has allowed this guy to get away with way too much. They're all, they can't say it publicly because they're diplomats, but basically a lot is hanging on the election on April 12th. But then again, when you hear about the level we heard in Moldova, 300 million euros being spent by the Russians on disadvantage information to destabilize the Moldovan campaign. Just imagine how much they're pumping into Hungary to help Orban there. And of course, Trump sends you a little poodle Rubio to say, vote Orban.

[Rory Stewart]

And the hypocrisy of that, because one of the talking points that Trump keeps selling is it's all the fault of the European Unions, who are terrible hypocrites because they keep buying Russian oil. And if we didn't buy Russian oil and give all this money to Russia, there wouldn't be a problem with Ukraine. But the biggest offender on buying Russian oil is Hungary, and Trump is letting them continue to buy Russian oil, didn't put any sanctions on Hungary and in fact, encouraging the Hungarians to torpedo aid packages, torpedo sanctions, and keep buying Russian oil, making it entirely clear that it's simply a talking point, it's not real. When he actually has a chance to deal with the big offender that's buying Russian oil, he doesn't. He just uses it to cast shame and blame on anyone that's challenging him.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, well, the other, the other thing that has really alarmed people is that back to sport, which, as you know, Rory, is the most important thing in the world.

[Rory Stewart]

I thought you, you might, you might question that, given that you're in the middle of the Ukraine war.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, but let me tell you why, Let me tell you why sport is relevant in this context is that one of Trump's senior, he's the commissioner for competition or sport or something, is backed the fact that Russian and Belarusian athletes are going to be allowed to take part in the Paralympics, which are going to follow the Winter Olympics that are taking place now. Now, the Ukrainians have responded by saying they're not going to send any officials, they're going to boycott the opening ceremony, and they're calling on others so to do. But the Americans have basically come out, and I think Infantino's come out as well, and basically saying, look, you know, sport's not about politics, it's about competition. We should let these people in. That is the thin end of a very, very, very large wedge. I don't know. There's a lot, there's a, there's, there's a lot to unbundle. I'll tell you what I do want to do is that I talked about this, this point about resilience. And it's really interesting because it's such an obvious thing to say, isn't it? If you were sent here now. Yeah. And you said, oh, Minister, you've got just make a five minute speech and just make them feel warm and good about Britain. You would say, you know, and there's not a single person in the United Kingdom who hasn't turned on their news day after day and admired your fortitude and your strength and your resilience. Okay, and you think you were saying things they want to hear. Some of them do. But I read this wonderful piece in the. If I've written my whole column in the New World about this theme of resilience, because I'm a big fan of resilience. I think resilience is a hugely important quality. I read this piece in the Kyiv Independent and I saw the byline Elsa Court, and I checked it out. It turns out she's a Brit who lives here. But anyway, she says it's hard not to feel tired when those outside Ukraine choose to highlight resilience. Ukrainians shouldn't have to be resilient. If Ukraine's partners were to give the kind of support Kyiv continually begged for, civilians would not have to be suffering. Praising their resilience is like standing on the shore watching a person struggle not to drown in a riptide. Instead of sending a lifeboat to save them, you praise them for being such a strong swimmer. If you decide a nation is resilient, you shrink your obligation to take any action to help them. And that is a thought that I've heard quite a lot of people.

[Rory Stewart]

It's beautiful. It's beautiful. She could almost been quoting Dr. Johnson's letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, where he says, is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and when he reaches ground, encumbers him with help.

[Alistair Campbell]

Rory, I'm not going to let that go. Dear listener, dear viewer, I did not tell Rory I was going to be Reading that out. So he has that and he said, is that what Eaton does for you? Is it a memory thing?

[Rory Stewart]

That's. It's all about memory. That's where all the comes from.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, that was good. That was good.

[Rory Stewart]

Thank you. Well, just to come to it, I mean, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So let me just take the four takeaways that I've taken from your trip. Number one, being on the ground is showing you simply the scale of the destruction and the horror. Secondly, it's showing you the optimism and the drive of Ukrainians. Thirdly, it's showing you how the US is increasingly unpopular, marginal and possibly less relevant as time goes forward to the peace treaty. And finally, the great demand on the ground is for us to stop simply sympathizing and admiring the situation and concentrate on what we can do and what more risk we can take in confronting Russia. And risk, because Russia will often threaten nuclear weapons. Trump will thump his chest on the Russian side. But for this to work, we owe them to move immediately against the shadow fleets, to provide the financial support and the missiles and to allow the Ukrainians to take more risk against Russia. And if they do. Actually, some of the figures are beginning to suggest that Ukraine is not quite in the kind of hole that Trump and Vance were suggesting they were nine months ago.

[Alistair Campbell]

Rory, I think you've summed it up absolutely brilliantly. I think that's absolutely right. That is absolutely right. The optimism and the sense of national pride is really, really powerful and very, very moving. And not just moving because you had the leaders standing there paying tribute in the Maidan is moving because you feel it every time you talk to anybody. The thing I would add to that, alongside the sense of America being increasingly unpopular, almost derided, so that, quote, this is a very silly war, the person who showed to me says, well, this is the problem when you have a very silly man in charge of this. So being derided. And I think they really do, they genuinely do appreciate the support of Europe and the uk. They genuinely do. You hear that a lot. You know, I was so probably the high moment of the whole trip where it was on the train where the Ukrainian security gave around to check our passports. And so Callum and I are sitting in there in our carriage in our little sort of compartment and he takes my passport, he looks at it and he goes, military.

[Rory Stewart]

There we are. It's all that fitness, fitness training you're doing. Hello.

[Alistair Campbell]

I just said special forces. So anyway, so whether, even if you're a 68 year old soldier, the minute that you show your passport. They do appreciate Europe and no doubt about that. But there is a big but I think they worry that we, we, Europe, uk, Norway, all the others that are really supportive. I think they worry that we're still a little bit beholden to the idea that the Americans are in charge of this. So that's the other thing that gave me hope. I actually see this on so many levels as a massive thing for Europe if it gets its act together. And if you then understand that what all the, I mean, just ask yourself this. You have all this sort of MAGA stuff coming out. Europe's a basket case. We had Brexit it, but nobody else is trying to leave the European Union. They're all trying to get in. They're all trying to get in in part because of the values. So you hear that here the whole time. We are never going to be Russian. We don't want to live like the Russians, we don't want to think like the Russians. We are European. So I think with that, and I think eventually, and I've told you my big vision of course, is, you know, Ukraine, UK and Canada join on the same day. I think it's just a great idea for the world.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, Alistair, on that, thank you. And you're there actually for a few more days. So let's look forward to picking up on this next week and seeing what more that you see. And possibly I think you'll be in a meeting with Zelenskyy himself. But thank you so much for calling in. If this reporting is really beginning to pique your interest in detailed stuff on Ukraine, in addition to what Alice is producing, the podcast Battleground with Saul David and Patrick Bishop is absolutely unmissable for the granular detail of what's going on in Ukraine at the moment.

[Alistair Campbell]

Now, those of you who are creatures of habit may have noticed that this is the main episode coming out now and Question Time normally comes afterwards, but Question Time went out yesterday, so if you missed that, you can catch up on it. And the other thing to say is, because Roy's been practicing for the next Winter Olympics and has not been here, it means I've been doing quite a lot of stuff on my own with the long suffering Callum. So there's loads of stuff that we'll be putting out in different ways. Interviews and social media clips and what have you in the coming days and weeks.

[Rory Stewart]

Looking forward to it all.

[Alistair Campbell]

See you soon. Bye bye.

[Rory Stewart]

Thank you. Bye bye.

[Katie K]

He's the man you think you know everything about, billionaire Donald Trump Donald Trump.

[Alistair Campbell]

Donald Trump.

[Katie K]

But most people only met him halfway through his story.

[Rory Stewart]

I, I am officially running for President

[Alistair Campbell]

of the United States.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

The manifestation of Donald Trump's personality comes with a lot of complexity. A parent like Fred Trump, it's my way or the highway.

[Katie K]

There were two paths. Work hard, Go into the family business or the path of his brother who was an alcoholic.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

He goes to this military school, but he takes none of the community stuff because he's a self employed.

[Katie K]

He had this whole carousing playboy background, which in a way was a bit of a sham. He leaves early and he doesn't drink anything.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

What Trump learns is that self image is going to work for him throughout his career.

[Katie K]

He meets Ivana Marie Zelenkova.

[Rory Stewart]

Ultimately, Ivana does exactly as I tell her to do.

[Katie K]

The way that Donald Trump sees the world today.

[Rory Stewart]

This is Liberation Day.

[Katie K]

You can see where it comes from.

[Rory Stewart]

We let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets and everything. It's not free trade.

[Katie K]

We'll explore the events.

[Alistair Campbell]

Trump has been saying that he will run it as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke. And the people he happened to meet.

[Carvana Advertiser]

Roy Cohn, the ultimate dirty trickster who

[Anthony Scaramucci]

made Donald Trump into the man we see today.

[Alistair Campbell]

I alone can fix it.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Guys, the story doesn't end there. We have so much more to get into. To hear it, sign [e-mail] Did Vladimir

[Rory Stewart]

Putin interfere in the US 2016 presidential election? I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist. And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. And we are the hosts of the Rest Is Classified. And in our latest series, we're going deep inside the 2016 election to reveal the true story of whether the Russians helped Donald Trump take the White House. This is the unbelievable story of how Russian spies first hacked and then leaked emails belonging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, how Julian Assange got involved with Putin's spies, and how 2016 marked the point that the world changed forever. Get the full insider scoop by listening to the Rest Is Classified. Wherever you get your podcasts,