← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
Russian roulette?
00:35:24
As the death toll rises in Ukraine, what is the endgame for Putin and Zelenskyy? On this week’s episode of The World, Richard and Yalda discuss the possibility of World War III and dissect an alleged Iranian assassination attempt in the UAE. ...
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- [00:12]
Yalda Hakim
Hello, and welcome to the world. I'm Yalda, and this week I'm at home in London.
- [00:18]
Richard Engel
And I'm Richard Engel. And, Yalda, I see you've got your tree up.
- [00:21]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, I've got it up a little bit early this year. I'm going home for Christmas to Australia.
- [00:27]
Richard Engel
Looks great. I'm here in Kyiv and I will be going back to Lisbon to see my family. But I'm here because. And I've been here for a few days now because things started to intensify dramatically. We'll be talking about that first this week, what I'm hearing and seeing on the ground here.
- [00:45]
Yalda Hakim
And, Richard, I'll also be talking about a story that caught my eye this week, the murder of an Israeli Moldovan rabbi in the United Arab Emirates. I'm being told by those in the know that it was an Iranian hit job. So I'll be giving you a little bit of detail around that.
- [01:05]
Richard Engel
Interesting. Then we'll move on to this possible ceasefire in Lebanon. Does this signal the winding down of hostilities in the Middle east, or are we just seeing warfare of a different kind?
- [01:17]
Yalda Hakim
And, of course, we'll be answering some of our listener questions. We really enjoy getting those, so keep sending those in. And we'll be giving you our predictions.
- [01:26]
Richard Engel
And as always, please do follow us wherever you're listening and go subscribe to our YouTube channel. Leave us a comment and write to us at theworldky UK theworldky.uk.
- [01:51]
Yalda Hakim
So, Richard, let's get started, because, of course, you are in Ukraine, you're in Kyiv, one of my favorite places on the planet. Just tell me what's going on there right now.
- [02:01]
Richard Engel
It's such an amazing city. You know it well. I'm right in the center of town. I remember last time we were here together at a coffee shop just down the street. And it's a city that has so much potential. It's a cool city. It's a hip city. You get a sense if they were able to just sort of stop the war here and open up the airports, that money would flow in that it would be a very exciting destination. But right now, they're worried. According to a new study just out from the Institute for the Study of War, Russian troops are advancing at the fastest rate since the early days of the war. So they're advancing in Kursk, that little pocket of Russia that Ukraine took over. They're losing that. They've already lost about 40% of that. They're advancing on the front lines. They fired this new hypersonic missile that got NATO's attention. And it's not worrying people here because Russia doesn't have that many of these super fast missiles. But it's a sign of escalation and frankly, they just don't have enough men. There are women fighting in this war, too, but on the front lines, it's predominantly men, and they are running out of them. And that's a major problem. They just, over time, can't keep up this level of fight against Russia. And frankly, in all of this context, they're nervous now because they know the dynamic has shifted, that Putin is advancing, that the Ukrainians are trying to advance before President elect Trump arrives in the White House. And then there's the expectation that he's going to try and bring some ceasefire force. A ceasefire force, an end of hostilities. And Ukrainians are very, very nervous that if things continue at this pace, they're going to be left in a very weak position when that day arrives.
- [03:51]
Yalda Hakim
Almost three years into this conflict. I remember those early days when there was a call for mobilization. There was. The men were asked to go to the front lines. Frankly, we were seeing grandmothers on the front lines making Molotov cocktails. And it's extraordinary to see that coming up to the third anniversary of this conflict next year, we will still see that Ukraine has the same problems. Despite the backing of the west, they remain a country that has the problem of a lack of men, a lack of weapons, and a lack of, frankly, money. But I've always been struck by the resilience of the Ukrainian people. We've spoken a lot about it, haven't we, over the last couple of years? And just being in Kyiv, I imagine exactly what we've always seen there. And I think it would be the same right now, where the coffee shops, the restaurants are full and they're buzzing. And despite the curfews that they face, despite them knowing that their country is at war, they want to not give up the life that they know and enjoy.
- [04:52]
Richard Engel
It is like that. And the restaurants are full and people are out and there's, you know, this city still has a spring at its step and the Ukrainians are resilient as always. And I've, I've seen plenty of heroes, but there is also exhaustion. I was out with some of the recruiting patrols and we were walking with a police officer and a soldier, and they were stopping people at a shopping area. And so the police and soldier would kind of hang back around a corner, and when people would come around the corner, they would come up to them and start questioning them and serve them their papers right there. Immediately you have to go to military service. And we saw people running away. We saw people who would come around the corner, spot the officers and just turn on their heels and go in the opposite direction. So they're exhausted, they're tired. They don't want to necessarily, especially now that they believe that some sort of end is coming. Would you want to be sent to the front lines right now if you believe that, A, it's a meat grinder, two, your troops are losing, and three, in a couple of months a ceasefire is going to be imposed, or would you want to just kind of hang back and wait until. Wait for what's coming. I went out with another brigade called the Witches of Bucha. It's an all female unit. And you know all the significance of Bucha. It's where Russian war crimes were carried out, or allegedly. But there's a lot of documentation where rapes were carried out. I spoke to some rape victims. Women were raped by Russian troops while they were occupying Bucha, which is this little town right on the. On the outskirts of Kyiv. So now the Witches of Bucha, who are mothers, grandmothers, I spoke to a grandmother, wives of husbands who are at the front are taking up guns. They're trying to shoot down drones at night, and they're trying to get ready to defend the city because they're not wildly optimistic at this moment as they're seeing losses accumulate. New kinds of weapons coming from Russia and this looming Trump factor.
- [06:58]
Yalda Hakim
Last week, you and I were together here in London and we were at a conference and we caught up with the former Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba. He stepped down in September. He's been the foreign minister, the kind of voice of the Ukrainian people internationally since the beginning of this war. And a few things he said to me which I found quite striking. He said, the west wants us to win, but they don't want Russia to lose. And I just found that so striking that even though if you kind of look at this whole situation and you pull back, Ukraine was a gift to the United States, to the West. Right. If we take away, you know, the death toll, obviously, and the destruction of a state, it was a gift because it was their chance to rein Russia in. And yet what we've seen is a lack of credibility in their support for Ukraine. And this is something that the former foreign minister alluded to. He said that there has been a delay and thank you very much for all the weapons you've given us. But the fact that you have delayed everything at every twist and turn and haven't sent a very strong message to the Russians that we will do whatever it takes to support Ukraine, not just words, but in actions as well. We wouldn't be in the position that we're in today. And he also said the Ukrainian people want victory, but frankly, they now just also want an end to this war. And I just want to get a sense from you then in terms of what people are saying. You know, you say that they can see the end in sight. So is it that they just want this war to come to an end and what would that negotiation look like for them?
- [08:38]
Richard Engel
So they do want an end to the war, but they also want victory. And neither one of those concepts has been truly defined for them because it's a sensitive topic here. So there's not an open discussion on the state media about what the war end might look like. You're starting to see people expressing it in private. The official stance here is they're going to win the war, there will be a victory, that the Americans are with them, that if the Americans can't do it, the Europeans are going to step in and they're going to win the war and they're going to take back all of their territory, including Crimea. There's an increasingly unspoken about reality that that's not going to happen, that their troops haven't been able to take back the land in the east, that even President Zelensky conceded they're not going to be able to take back militarily, Crimea. So therefore, you have to redefine victory. What does victory look like? I think increasingly you're seeing it means we stopped the conflict. The Ukrainians resisted a Russian takeover. Putin didn't get to take over the country. There is a victory in that. But what they would like to see is our security guarantees weapons flows coming into this country so that it never happens again. A pathway to NATO, more weapons, more ability to defend themselves. So they won't have done all of this for nothing. First they lost Crimea and then now they potentially could lose Donbas, the sort of heartland of coal production in this country. They lose Mariupol, the port city, but for what? They must have some sort of security guarantees that it won't happen again. I'm not sure they're going to get them, but that's really what they want here. They want to end the war with dignity and security and some sort of confidence that in two years, three years, five years, we're not going to be doing this all again. When Vladimir Putin has decided he's ready to take another peace.
- [10:40]
Yalda Hakim
And I think the other thing that both of us have spoken to diplomats, as well as the security and defense establishment in the United States, in the UK, across Europe, and the sense is, if there is some sort of ceasefire, some kind of armistice, you know, put your weapons down and let's bring everyone to the negotiating table. Frankly, Putin could run rings around Trump, he cuts a deal with them, but they ultimately continue to fight this war. And the British diplomats and security guys that I've spoken to have said to me, you know, within three years, this war could, we could find ourselves back in the same place. If we do that, the Ukrainians are saying three years, three days, you know, they will be at it again. And so again, the former foreign minister was telling us that actually he feels there needs to be some kind of ceasefire armistice. And then he said the west and Ukraine then need to spend the next 10 years trying to regain territory or planning and sort of preparing to regain the territory that the Russians have taken over. So you just get a sense of just how messy this entire thing is. And then of course, Putin is also saber rattling with nuclear threats. That is something that he keeps pulling out of the bag, which terrifies the West. He's hysterical right now because of we talked about the long range missiles that President Joe Biden in the 11th hour has given Ukrainians permission to use. And so in response, the Russians, when they don't like something that the west has done or something that the outside world has done, they then start saying, okay, we've got the trump card, the nuclear card. They pull it out of the bag and they say, you've overstepped a red line and we're going to change our nuclear doctrine. That obviously makes the west increasingly nervous. I want to pick up a question from one of our listeners, Daryl, who's written in and said, how seriously should we take the threat of a nuclear war? I do think that whenever Putin pulls out the nuclear card, it's more, more about sort of a foe or a fake hysterical approach to something. You know, we've seen him do this before, so I'm not sure that we need to be worried about nuclear war at this point. Although it is a dangerous moment and frankly, we barely survived the 20th century, so it could go any which way at this point.
- [13:02]
Richard Engel
And there is this sense here that, ok, an end is coming, but it's Ukraine that's on the table. It's really a discussion of how much Ukrainian territory can this country give away. For peace. And after having swallowed that pill, they say, okay, well, can at least give us some sort of guarantees that this is the last time we're gonna have to slice off, accept a piece of our country being sliced off. And it raises the larger question that maybe taken the world, taken Europe, taken the United States, almost three years to figure out as much as the US And NATO and European countries and people love Ukraine, maybe those governments fear Russia more, and that's the bitter pill that they're starting to have to swallow down. And it's not a. It's. It's not pleasant.
- [13:58]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah.
- [13:59]
Richard Engel
And it makes a lot of fear, a lot of, A lot of fear here.
- [14:02]
Yalda Hakim
I think that's such an important point there that the west wants Ukraine to win, but they don't want Russia to lose because they fear Russia's nuclear weapons and what Russia is capable of doing. But, you know, we talked earlier about the lack of men in Ukraine. I mean, Russia has turned its war machine into some kind of meat grinder. You know, one of your predictions a few weeks ago was that, watch North Korea. And then, of course, we saw thousands of truths.
- [14:28]
Richard Engel
I'm still pleased about that one. That was a good one.
- [14:30]
Yalda Hakim
It was a good one. It was a good one.
- [14:32]
Richard Engel
And the plot just keeps getting richer with these North Koreans. There's like 11,000 of them.
- [14:38]
Yalda Hakim
Tell me, what are you hearing?
- [14:39]
Richard Engel
So it's fascinating stuff. So first of all, you have to understand these are North Korean soldiers coming from the Hermit Kingdom. Right. I've been to North Korea. It is wildly closed off. It's just a patriotic display every single day. You're always in uniform. You live in state facilities. It is an incredibly cold, controlled, and regimented life. And sometimes, as we talked about before, North Korea will use labor gangs or soldiers and send them off primarily to Russia to gain favor, but not on this level. So you've got 11,000 North Korean troops here. One of the funnier stories you've probably seen it is that this is the first time these, these young North Korean men are getting exposed to the free and open Internet. And guess what they're all searching for, according to all of the data, because it's causing, like, chokes on the Internet networks all around here. They're searching for porn. So there's a huge amount of new porn customers who've never seen this stuff before. They're also training for battle. And it looks like they're going to be used in combat soon. They're going to be used in combat. According to Ukrainian assessments, by the end of the month, so. Or the next several weeks, let's just say. And that's the. That's a major concern here because it's another army potentially used as cannon fodder at a time when the Ukrainians are already on their back foot. So, sure, it's easy to laugh it off. Look at all these, you know, guys discovering porn for the first time. But there is a real danger. There are 11,000 of them, and they're capable of firing, you know, mortars, drones, artillery, whatever.
- [16:21]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. And, Richard, again, just to quote Dmytro Culeba, the former foreign minister, when he was asked about North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, he said, let me just put it to you this way, okay? Russia has a friend that will send its men to the country to fight its war for. For it. He said, we have friends who are sort of going back and forth about whether they should send us weapons that we need, let alone troops on the ground. So that was an interesting point. And we sort of forget how interlinked all of these things are, because, of course, we've spoken a lot about the axis of upheaval, or the west likes to call them the axis of resistance or axis of evil. But in fact, for Russia, for China, for Iran, they have formed an alliance. They see it just the way that Western alliances operate, their alliances.
- [17:13]
Richard Engel
And the North Koreans are just the latest band of fellow travelers who have joined on to this war on Putin's side. First we had the Chechens, right? So he used the Chechens as a particular fighting force. He used Kadyrov's forces to fight and back up his war. He used the Wagner group until the Wagner group decided they didn't like the way the war was going. And there was a march toward Moscow and there was the later assassination of. Of Prigozhin, the Wagner leader. So he used the Chechens, he used Wagner, he's used now the North Koreans. He's used weapons from Iran, he's used artillery from North Korea. And there's a new group that is just getting a little bit attention. I was surprised. This one, I did say, I must say, surprise me. The Houthis are here, too. I was like, the Houthis? Putin is using the Houthis from Yemen in this crazy grab bag that he's got put together.
- [18:12]
Yalda Hakim
Basically, what's being done is they're being recruited and they're being promised large salaries, Russian citizenship, as well as contracts to lucrative deals. When they arrive, they're given no training and told, actually, you're going to fight this war for us, so many of them are actually, even though they're fighters and they've got their own militia in their own country in Yemen, they're part of this Russia, Iran machinery, where now we're seeing Putin tap into his friend. You know, the Iranians, their proxy, it's.
- [18:46]
Richard Engel
Through the Iranians, because the Iranians back the Houthis. The Iranians supply Russia, supply Putin with some weapons and support, political support, but mostly support through arms. And now the Houthis, too, join the party. Can you imagine what life must be like on one of those bases?
- [19:05]
Yalda Hakim
I wonder how they cope in the cold of Ukraine, though.
- [19:08]
Richard Engel
They're tardy people. I think they'll, you know, I think they're there. People compare them to the Afghan mujahideen, and the Afghan mujahideen dealt with the cold, you know, pretty well.
- [19:17]
Yalda Hakim
Pretty well.
- [19:17]
Richard Engel
And the Taliban dealt with the cold pretty well. These are, these are tough, tough people, tough fighters. And it's in a similar kind of vein as the toughest people of Central Asia.
- [19:28]
Yalda Hakim
Your folk, my folk, my people. But, Richard, it just gives you a sense of the fact that the nature of this warfare is shifting and changing. I mean, a story that really caught my eye this past week was the murder of a Israeli Moldovan rabbi in the uae. His name was Zvi Kogan. So he ran a grocery store in Dubai. He led an Orthodox congregation there in Abu Dhabi. And then he, his body disappeared. His wife called the authorities. Nothing was done about it. And then within 24 hours, you know, we learned that they. That the people who had taken him had killed him. So I've spent the last couple of days speaking to contacts in both Israel and the United Arab Emirates. And the sense I got from my Israeli contacts was they were pointing the finger of blame at Iran. They said that this has been Iran's MO for the last 30 years, where they target, assassinate, kill any sort of high profile Israeli Jewish person in the region.
- [20:39]
Richard Engel
So they don't think this is a target of opportunity, that someone saw a rabbi on the streets of the Emirates and had maybe just been watching Gaza on TV and was overcome with anger and lashed out. They think this was a assassination.
- [20:53]
Yalda Hakim
Exactly. They think the Iranians were behind this, that this wasn't just some kind of random attack, that this is how the Iranians operate. They look for targets to send a sort of chilling message to Israel. And there was a sense of shame and humiliation from the Emiratis because they like to sell themselves as a startup nation. One of the safest places on the planet. For the world to be exposed to this kind of murkier, darker underbelly of Iran attempting to use a place like Dubai, for example, as a playground to commit these sorts of assassinations and murders was really, I think, something that angered the likes of the ruler of the UAE because they'd signed the Abraham Accords, they'd created this partnership and deal with the Israelis. Then you have a situation where a rabbi gets picked up and gets killed. So I think increasingly these sorts of things are going to come to the forefront as these alliances strengthen and Iran propels itself forward and strengthens its connections and ties with the Russians, for example. So we see them more active on the battleground in Ukraine, it's all going to blur the line. So we see the Russians engage more in the Middle east to support their ally, Iran, and then we're going to see more of these sorts of targeted killings that become more public.
- [22:18]
Richard Engel
And this is already sort of the new politics. So what does it mean for the uae is this just means they're going to have to tighten security. How worried are they? Do they think it was a one off, that they can contain it or they think we better address this in a big way?
- [22:33]
Yalda Hakim
I think they're alarmed. And within 24 hours, we saw the, those who had committed the crime captured and, you know, God knows what's going to happen to them now in an Emirati prison. And so they wanted to send a very clear message that we will not tolerate this. And an Emirati official that I spoke to said, we are responsible for the safety of every citizen and civilian in the country and resident, so we will not tolerate this. I think it's also a question for the Israelis in general. Okay, what we need you to do now is your intelligence and security services need to work closely with ours. That is basically the messaging I'm hearing from the Israeli side. We know this goes on. We know who we're pointing the finger of blame at, the Iranians. We have a common enemy here, a common foe. So let's work together to ensure that this doesn't happen again. And I think the Emiratis want to send a very clear signal. You cannot turn our space and our country into some kind of playground for this kind of activity.
- [23:35]
Richard Engel
And Yelda, if we could just take a quick break now, there's something happening here in Kyiv and I just want to check it out. I'm hearing out the window. It's too faint. I don't think you'll hear it on this mic, the way it's set up here. But I'm hearing the air raid sirens going off in Kyiv right now, and the city's kind of gotten used to it, although people now, to a degree, are going back to the shelters. They suspended parliament here for a day after Russia fired that hypersonic missile because it can reach anywhere with almost no warning. Zelenskyy's office put out a statement saying, he's still working, he still goes into his office, but we'll go down to the bomb shelter. So there is an increased feeling of uneasiness here, but these air raid sirens are going off almost all the time now. There were, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, 188 drones fired just overnight.
- [24:47]
Yalda Hakim
Wow.
- [24:47]
Richard Engel
So the numbers are huge. And it's 1,000 plus days into it, and there's still no way to leave the country. There's no airports, there's a draft. They're hunting for soldiers in shopping malls. It's a tough place to live. And they know that some sort of moment of change could be coming and could be coming really soon. So everybody's trying to prepare for that moment, put themselves in the strongest position possible. And it seems like the Russians, with all this bizarre help that they're getting, are in a stronger position to do that. And so far, Trump is signaling he's not going to come in and bail them out, and the Europeans will see if they have that extra capacity to do it.
- [25:31]
Yalda Hakim
And also, when there is so much talk around ceasefires, whether that's Ukraine or in the Middle east, the traditional warfare may come to an end, but it doesn't mean the other tactics will sort of melt away as well. I think they will start to adopt those even more and up the ante around that.
- [25:48]
Richard Engel
Should we take some more questions? I think there was a question, actually, more or less on this subject right here.
- [25:54]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah.
- [25:54]
Richard Engel
Yes. Do you have it in front of you?
- [25:56]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. I mean, you know, we've got another listener, Lucy, who said, you know, she's loving the podcast so far. She said, richard, last week you said that you think even if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, it won't mean the end of the fighting completely, which is the point we're making right now. And then she goes on to say, I just wondered if there will be a ceasefire in the Middle east and maybe an end of the fighting in Ukraine with Trump. Will we still see war, but just by different means? I guess that's what we were just speaking to right now. But, Richard, we've been talking for the last few days, haven't we, about Potential ceasefire in Lebanon, because, of course, that is another conflict that we were covering over the last few months. And again, like all things, unfortunately, they drop away from the headline. But that doesn't mean that the displacement of people, the death toll that stops the bombardment of Lebanon has continued. However, in the last 48 hours, we are hearing that there's been some movements.
- [26:52]
Richard Engel
You wanna get into Lebanon? Let's do it. Let's roll up sleeves. Let's do it. Lebanon is. It's fascinating. And this potential ceasefire, this wobbly ceasefire is really interesting. I'm hearing it's basically because Hezbollah has been decimated. Hezbollah had their leadership eliminated. They had their weapons destroyed. There was one night that military officials describing the Night of the Long Knives, when they eliminated a huge percentage of Hezbollah's rocket missile capacity. They still have some short range capacity, but they've taken an enormous blow. Hassan Nasrallah is gone. Hassan Nasrallah, I don't wanna say he was Hezbollah, but he made Hezbollah an international phenomenon. He was charismatic. He had international connections. He was beloved by Iran. He was hard to interview. Did you ever meet him in person? I never met him in person.
- [27:40]
Yalda Hakim
I didn't. I never met.
- [27:41]
Richard Engel
Because by the time we started this kind of thing, he was already, you know, a ghost. You couldn't see him except on screens. You couldn't find him.
- [27:50]
Yalda Hakim
Which made his assassination so extraordinary as well, you know, that he was this kind of shadowy figure in the night who would move between tunnels and always did these sermons from, you know, an unknown.
- [28:03]
Richard Engel
He had a great sense of humor.
- [28:05]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, very charismatic.
- [28:07]
Richard Engel
Very charismatic. So he's gone. So that's a blow for Hezbollah and its international allure and recruiting capability. And all of his connection, his inner circle is gone. His commanders and sub commanders are gone. The weapons are largely gone. So they're calling a ceasefire basically because Israel is done with what it needed to do. And now it'll be up to Lebanon to say, okay, how do we deal with this? Who controls the country? Maybe they'll pull through it. And Lebanon. This is a new opportunity for Lebanon to go forward. But it's a trying time of transition. And it's not unrelated to here. It's a similar dynamic they both see. The Israelis see, the Netanyahu government sees that Trump is coming. Let's kind of clear the deck. Let's settle these old scores because a new phase is beginning, maybe a phase of conflict with Iran. We will see how it plays out. But in, I think both the Israelis and the Russians, Ukrainians, everyone is trying to position themselves for January 20th and be in the strongest position possible.
- [29:13]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, very much. And you predicted last week that we may see a Lebanon ceasefire this week. And so, you know, potentially, as you say, I want £5 every time you get it. And so that is likely to be on the cards now. We may find ourselves over the next couple of weeks, Richard, back in Lebanon covering the ceasefire. But I think, you know, what's tragic about Lebanon is they're such an extraordinary people. They have so much potential. What blew my mind is in 2006, the conflict with Israel lasted about a month and they had about 1,000 people dead. And this has just gone on and on and on and had the potential to really escalate. As you say. The Israelis are wrapping things up. They're done with the operations in Lebanon. And so they've completed that now. Which takes us then again to predictions. And I sort of wanted to get a sense of what your predictions.
- [30:13]
Richard Engel
I got money on the line. I don't know, I got five big ones riding on this. You want to go first while I.
- [30:20]
Yalda Hakim
No, I want to see what I.
- [30:21]
Richard Engel
Get an advantage then, then I can, you know, I can see what you say and use it.
- [30:25]
Yalda Hakim
I can, I can, you know, I, it's. It seems to me that I prefer to do the longer term predictions.
- [30:32]
Richard Engel
Yes, you like the long term predictions.
- [30:34]
Yalda Hakim
And it's great that you look at the kind of. Okay, the immediate. And in the next week we'll be looking at this situation.
- [30:40]
Richard Engel
That's kind of what we do for a living, right? I mean, we're always looking at, trying to figure out, can I get away with taking two days off here, Can I go see my fam or is this going to come and happen? So with that preamble, I would think that the North Koreans are going to come into this fight. I think they'll probably stop their searching online and get forced into this battle. The Ukrainians are already starting to engage with them to a degree. They're using big speakers like psyops operations and putting them out and saying in Korean, don't do this fight, it's not your fight. Lay down your weapons. Come defect to our side. Come join the party. This has nothing to do with you. No indicate they haven't had any defectors so far. They haven't recovered any bodies. So it seems like the combat phase with the North Koreans is coming. My guess is it's coming pretty soon. That's one. And I think when the ceasefire, I think the cease fire Lebanon does happen, does happen. And we start to see implementation of it, because it's not going to happen. Like, oh, here's ceasefire, it's done. Sure, the weapons stop, but then Hezbollah has to pull out from the south. People need to go back in. The army needs to go back in. I think we'll see the scale of the devastation and it will give us a glimpse of what Gaza is like, because some of those border towns right along the Israeli border which got occupied by Israeli troops, have been really flattened. So I think we'll get a sense of the devastation which hints at Gaza. And I think the North Koreans are going to come into battle. What do you think?
- [32:15]
Yalda Hakim
Well, yeah, and Richard, I think now you are. Well, I think all eyes are on January 20th. And for the next few weeks, we are going to see certain countries position themselves. And I think the Ukrainians are incredibly frustrated. And I think over the course of the next few weeks, we're going to see the Russians ramp things up, you know, make things as difficult as possible for Ukraine when it comes to the negotiating table. And they know that Donald Trump is a dealmaker. So post January 20th, when he's in office and he's promised that I'm going to resolve this conflict within 24 hours, that when both sides are brought to the negotiating table and Putin says, sure, I'm happy to negotiate, you guys back off and stop dangling all sorts of carrots in my face, whether it's NATO or whether it's Ukraine joining the European Union, you know, you guys back off and I will stop doing what I'm doing. You know, I have no problem. I'm happy to talk peace, which is what he said at different points. So I think it's going to get incredibly ugly over the course of the.
- [33:21]
Richard Engel
Next few weeks so that Putin can say, look what we're doing to you, and Trump can say, look what's happening to Ukraine. We gotta end this. It's as bad as it could possibly be. We gotta end this. And the Ukrainians will. Their concern is when they come and say, okay, well, what about security guarantees? What about weapons? What about our future? What about a pathway to NATO? Just stopping the fighting doesn't guarantee that this isn't going to happen again and again and again. That could get lost in all of this. You think long term, Yalda, that's a wonderful thing. But most people unfortunately don't. And the Ukrainians are worried that Trump is going to come and say, okay, the war is over. Great, you should be happy because the drones, these swarms of drones aren't coming at the cities anymore and they will be. But they'll also be very concerned that they were sold out and that they've got another conflict coming and this missed opportunity, you've said this two or three times that Ukrainians feel what more did the world want? They had a country that was willing to fight, was fighting brave as can be and was taking on the Russians and was pushing them back. And then they say, well, we never got the support we needed. As the world figured out, as much as it loves Ukraine, it fears Russia more. So it's a tough position to be in, an extraordinarily tough position to be in.
- [34:45]
Yalda Hakim
Well, we'll be watching all of the developments and no doubt we'll be crossing paths very, very soon. And I look forward to seeing you in the near future, Richard.
- [34:56]
Richard Engel
All right. Sounds great. Great to talk to you. Great to catch up, Richard.
- [34:59]
Yalda Hakim
Good to see.