Are Bonobos the original Hookup culture with Amy Perish

Well, it is Friday, the 13th, which is not really the best day for stuff here in America. Friday, the 13th is an unlucky day except for all of you watching this because we have a great guest. So we're really lucky to have him. Again, it's Friday the 13th, 2026. This is the latest episode of what we call the dictators, we being Jonathan Fink and I. My co-host here from the Silicon Curtain on the dictators. And today we have a very special guest who's been interviewed by both of us several times Tim Ash. Tim is a friend. He is an economist by trade specializing in international trade. He is an expert on the Russian sanctions. He writes and speaks frequently about the war and Ukraine. He just recently returned from a trip to Turkey. And since we don't really talk enough in my opinion about Turkey and it being central to a lot of what's going on, a linchpin to what's going on in Ukraine and Europe. I thought we would talk about that. So anyway, Tim, welcome to again what we call the dictators. Great. Bless you to be here again. And as I said, let's start off. You just recently returned from a visit, several day visit to Turkey. As I said, I at least don't talk enough about Turkey in terms of its importance in not just international affairs, but specifically with the war in Ukraine. And it's relations with both Russia, NATO and Ukraine. So if you could just tell us a little bit briefly about your trip there, what you've learned and maybe why is Turkey so important to what's going on right now in the world specifically in Europe? Yeah, Sean, no, look, I've covered Turkey 25 years, not quite as long as you're Korean. I'm a frequent visitor. I write a lot on Turkey, mostly about macro and I guess geopolitics and there's always very interesting politics going on around Turkey. I guess what is kind of interesting is, you know, if you go back three to four years, actually a bit longer than that. Foreign Minister had this kind of line. The foreign policy was about trying to have no problems with any neighbours. And it was kind of famous last words for Davatoglu because very soon they had problems with all the neighbours, essentially. I mean, if you remember, falling out with Assad, difficult relationships with Europe, with Greece, obviously in Russia, Ukraine war. And also challenging relationships with the US. Remember, you know, Pastor Brunson, if you remember that one, Turkey getting thrown off the F-35 program because it decided not to buy Patrick missiles to buy S-400s. I mean, you know, complicated relationship. And, you know, actually when the war in Ukraine hit, I mean, you know, I mean, I was pretty critical to not abiding by, or not joining the Western sanctions effort on Russia. And I guess it got a lot of criticism and accusations of trying to get round sanctions. Actually, I've, what's the word I'm looking for? I've kind of nuanced my view a bit. And in terms of, I mean, let me explain it a bit with a little bit more detail really. I mean, what's interesting now, if you go back, you come over four years. And now, you know, whereas everyone had lots and lots of problems with many of its neighbours, suddenly, you know, it has, you know, Turkey is kind of central to, you know, a lot of efforts by country. We've had, you know, much better relationship with the US, for example, that's an obvious one. The Trump-air-to-one relationship is very transactional. Trump appreciates air-to-one for bringing the live solutions, obviously. The Turks have been, you know, very helpful in Syria. I mean, the whole Syria scenario now has changed, right? I mean, obviously, Turkey took some risks in terms of pushing our, our share, took opportunities provided by Israel's, I guess, attacks. I guess it took advantage of that and pushed on with back in our share and now Turkey is a dominant player in Syria and that's been used for the Americans, particularly for Trump, because Trump wants to get US troops out of Syria and I guess Turkey has provided a conduit for that. And also, you know, if you think back a few years, Turkey had difficult relationships with various Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, after the Qashoggi incident. And now suddenly, Erdogan is in Riyadh, he's the guest of the Crown Prince, he's also gesting off to Cairo. I mean, we had back-to-back trips by Erdogan to both Saudi Arabia and Cairo and the relationship between sort of the Egyptian administration and Erdogan is suddenly, you know, Rosie again, which is pretty extraordinary. Remember, the Egyptian administration didn't particularly like Erdogan's push and support for the Muslim brother movement and political Islam in particular. But all that seems to be set aside and I guess the reasons for that numerous, but particularly you know, concern about US policy is the US dependable. Obviously, with particular reference to Saudi Arabia, we obviously had Israeli strikes on Qatar against Hamas, obviously, which really unnerved the Arab states. And we've seen efforts now to deepen ties within the region and slightly beyond. We had the Saudi-Pakistan strategic relationship, actually. Saudi, I guess, wanting to benefit from the Pakistan nuclear umbrella. And now we've seen this deepening relationship again with between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and maybe even Pakistan, the stock of a Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan strategic relationship. And I mean, it's complicated region, but it reflects, as I said, uncertainty about the role of the US, concern about an increasingly dominant Israel in the region and, you know, Israeli actions, what perceived in Turkey and the Gulf States to be destabilizing countries around it. And so it's forced these countries to work and cooperate more carefully together. Turkey's also kind of an interesting one that I can link back into the war in Ukraine. In Turkey has particular capabilities in defense and military industrial complexes. Remember back to the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan? I mean, it's a long-running conflict, but the final war, the final war was driven. Well, he ended up in a scary success, but driven by the use of Turkish drone technology, which was game-changing against Armenia. I mean, helped by the fact that Russia was involved in the war in Ukraine. It struggled to counter the Israeli push against Armenia, even though Russia has a defense pact with Armenia. It wasn't able to honor it because Russia was stuck in the war in Ukraine. And Turkey, Azerbaijan took advantage of that to impose a defeat ultimately on Armenia. Now one of the big takeouts from that was that I guess regional players understood that Turkey had this particular specialism in drones. And again, we saw that in the early period of the war in Ukraine. Remember when Russian troops in the first couple of weeks after invasion, by car, by or act our drones were deployed with incredible success. I mean, essentially, Turkish drones used in Ukraine against Russia's assault. And it was a great advert, actually, for Turkey's defense and military industries. But now is giving Erdogan leverage both diplomatically, but also strategically. Countries want to come, want to talk to Turkey because Turkey can offer solutions in the military industrial complex. And also, I think, related to that, there is a push by many, including myself. In the face of the war in Ukraine and the U.S., the weakening U.S. security backs not for Europe, for Europe actually to deepen defense ties with Turkey. If you think of the challenges that Europe now faces, this Russian aggression, the fact that a desire to reduce its Europe's dependency on the Americans, Turkey can fill a lot of holes, obviously it's an NATO member, but it has a huge army experience, military, if the coalition of the willing wants to put a significant force on the ground in Ukraine to please any peace deal. The bridge and the French can put a few thousand on the ground. The one country in European NATO that can actually provide tens of thousands of troops is Turkey. You know, 400,000 regular troops, another 300,000 reserve troops, hundreds of tanks, armour personnel carriers. You know, it can fill a lot of the gaps in Europe's defence in this intervening period before Europe steps up its own defence spending and military industrial production. It's also, you know, Turkey can make tanks, again, armour personnel carriers, shells, I mentioned drones in scale. And actually, the Europe's 155mm shell programme, there was a lot of fanfare about the checks coordinating it. Actually, a lot of the production was in Turkey. So again, look, in the end, all roads can elite to Turkey one way or another. Key for European's defence. Turkey has been pretty instrumental in helping Ukraine in its defence. Turkey has helped the US in terms of solutions in Syria. It's also been working actively behind the scenes to bring peace in Gaza, Turkey's a member of Trump's peace board. And actually, most recently in terms of negotiations between the US and Iran, Turkey has also been pretty central to that one. Turkey, you know, itself has, I mean, it's very, very concerned about what's happening, potentially could happen in Iran. No friend, in particular of the Islamic Republic and the repressive regime. But Turkey doesn't want a situation where the US intervenes in Iran with no kind of game plan. And you see the collapse of the regime into a civil war style scenario. And Turkey's concern there is the Kurdish population bordering Turkey. One of the big pluses of Turkey with the developments in the war in Syria is it's helping to push forward the Kurdish peace process itself in Turkey itself. And this is a huge priority for Erdogan. He wants to go to elections in 2728, likely with the support of the large ethnic Kurdish population domestically. He probably needs it to win that election. Delivering a Kurdish peace is central to that. And, you know, it develops in Syria, I've been encouraging of that process. But if if suddenly the US intervenes and destabilize Iran to the point that it spurs the Kurdish, a kind of Kurdish independence or autonomy movements in Iran itself, that could be very destabilizing to the Kurdish peace process itself in Turkey. I just final point, perhaps. Again, I started off by saying that I was very critical of Turkey initially upon the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, particularly this idea that Russia continues to trade with, so Turkey continues to trade with Russia. Actually, I kind of knew once the view a little bit. And as I said, and what changed a little bit was in the 2023 election in Turkey. And I asked my Ukrainian friends, you know, who you wanted to win in that election. It was kind of interesting. Most of the Ukrainian sources I have said, actually, they wanted Erdogan to win not Kylish-Yoroglu in that election. And I said, well, how is that possible? They said, well, actually, you know, this administration, the Erdogan administration has done enormous amounts to support Turkey. They're sorry to call it Ukraine in its world with Russia, particularly again, supply of drones, supply of munitions, armaments, a lot of stuff behind the scenes. And, you know, the question I guess is how Turkey gets away with it, you know, without being subject to attack from Russia. And I think probably one of the explanations is Russia needs Turkey still as a conduit for trade. There's a quid pro-Krova, but ultimately Ukrainians, I think, really, really value the relationship with Turkey. What Turkey's done to help them in the war against Russia. So, anyway, I've gone around the houses quite a lot there, but, you know, Turkey's, at the moment, pretty central to so many geopolitical themes going on, war in Ukraine, Europe's defence, peace process in Syria, negotiations about some kind of deal on Iran, but then a more broader sort of gold, Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean, security arrangement as well, which is kind of interesting also, obviously, the peace in Gaza is another part of that story, right? So, everyone wants to talk to Erdogan at the moment, so it's foreign minister Hakan Fidham. That's excellent. Now, we've lost your video, it seems to. I don't know if there's any way to. Yeah, we've got some general glitches going on here today. I've even popped in and out, but Tim, we hear you fine, but we've lost your video, so if that's okay with you otherwise, you might want to reboot. I don't know if that'll bring you back, but right now we've got you solid on voice, but can't see or afraid icons here. You can't hear us. We might have to remove and add again. Let me. I'm going to. Folks, I'm going to try to remove and make Tim come back, so I'm afraid that my magic act works here. Hello. How's that? Can you hear us again now? Can you hear? I still can't see him, but. No, we can't see him. Well, I'm going to move that discussion still, sort of, Turkey adjacent, but when we do get him back, and I'm going to ask about. The trains strikes against shadow vessels close to the. So, you know, I'm not being rude. I've muted him while he reboots. He will come back. Yeah, so please do. He will come back. Yes. But, yeah, it's clearly. Ukraine has to trade carefully, intact in the grey fleet, especially when it is in close proximity to the Turkish coast, for instance, and, you know, not to overtly bring the war into Turkish territorial waters. So, I think that's a good one to tackle next. I was keen to ask Tim about his take on the highly performative, possibly hollow peace process. I think that's one that will be very useful to get his view on, especially given the kind of discussion he has with policy makers and those in the sort of corridors of. Well, yeah, he's got some recent articles, actually, that I wanted to talk to him too. So, if we could discuss this amongst us, and hopefully he'll look a click back on, he's posted a couple of articles recently on the. Wait, maybe he's back. There he is. The man himself. So, we don't have to make up what he says. He will say it himself. So, can you hear us Tim? Can you hear us Tim? Maybe he can't. We know it's more scope. Tim, can you hear us? Can you hear? No. Seems not. No reaction. No reaction. Oh, no reaction. He's kind of here. He's kind of gone and now he's gone. Tim wrote a great article about two things that we're going to hopefully discuss. One is how the markets go crazy. Every time there's a hint of a breakthrough in the peace process, that's nonsense. I've written about the American stock market, how it's totally disconnected from American life. And whenever anything, Trump says anything about, you know, bringing industry, bringing factories, bringing employment back to America, which is all BS, the stock market goes crazy. We have record stop trading in America, even though the average American is suffering you know, we're not doing well here folks. Well, Pamp Bonnie brought that up. We're not talking about Pamp Bonnie now, but she was bragging about the SMP and this and that and the other. It's just disconnected from everything. One wonders as well whether actually this isn't in itself a former drift, which is you make an outrageous statement about tariffs. Yes. Stop market goes crazy, things crash, things dive and then you walk it back. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Up it goes again. We saw that highly sort of performative, I would almost sort of say, using this global platform of announcements at Davos, we saw that sort of process as well. I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, certain insiders weren't being informed about having statements. In a normal world, Jonathan, we'd have a major investigation. That was exactly done here. Inside of trading. Yeah, I forget the company where Trump actually announced that it was going to be coming out with a major new, I think a drug. I'm not sure our product and all his cronies, the tech bros made billions and billions of dollars on this just before the stock shut up. In a normal world, there'd be an SEC investigation. Now it's just another day with Trump. Looks like we're still got a few sort of glitches there with. Yeah. So we will keep, keep ad living until he's able to join us. I would like to touch upon the thing that I talked to him about off there. Again, with the not the American stock market world markets going crazy on any hint of a breakthrough in the piece. The go to negotiations. And he said beyond them being, you know, insane and moronic that there's not going to be any peace, right away folks, that these negotiations, as we've talked about a lot, are just the distraction. They're just an annoyance. They're just a delay by the Kremlin and that this is going to go on and on and on. We hate this. We would love the war to end yesterday or three years ago and never start. But the fact is, these so-called negotiations are not negotiations at all. And they're going to go on for a long time. It's performative. It's nonsense. And things written about that, specifically about how the markets keep, you know, saying, oh yeah, they showed up. They showed up. So the market's going to go really, really high. They serve tea. Oh wow, that's great. And the tea was hot. So the market goes crazy again. You know, it's just ridiculous. Folks, there's not going to be any peace breakthrough, any negotiation breakthrough in the near future, unfortunately with possibly not this year and into next year. Although, you know, it's, yeah, the question is as to whether, you know, the Russian economy, whether it can actually weather through the rest of this year. But I think until there's some significant Black Swan event or some significant economic implosion, Putin will keep going because he has to. It's a Pied Dickinson who's based in Kiev has written about this as well. You know, Putin has not painted himself into a corner. He cannot end the war without invoking considerable risk for his regime. While we're talking, my good friend there, BME-UK, our trustee moderator in many of these live streams has said, are we not running a fundraiser? So I'm going to pop that up into the comments there. It's still the Christmas campaign, but it's very close to its target, it's worth just sort of mentioning that so we can get that one over the line before it. You can just return from Kiev. I have to get that in there. I mean, you're like, you're a hero. You've been dodging Russian drones and missiles for over a week or so. Tell us a little bit summary about your visit to Ukraine. What did you hear, see, and what did you learn? Yeah, well, cold. I think is the main story there. Absolutely. No, not a meter light either, yeah. No, exactly. And it's worse for some people in some areas. The impression I got is people have to carry on. But when you talk to them privately, this phrase, Ukrainians are resilient. It's something that we use a lot, but if we use it in an unthinking way, it now becomes something of not quite an insult, but it really grates because they have to carry on. They've got no choice about it. And yet the conditions are incredibly harsh for many people. And privately, many people who put a brave public face on things will tell you that their elderly parents are sick. They'll tell you that their children are sick because they're having to live in in these cold temperatures day after day and they're not necessarily getting hot meals. And people got a thought to go to cafes all the time, you know, as far as might be able to do. And even then, the generators often go down even in the in the cafes and public places. So it's the story behind the headlines and even behind the activism is that it's incredibly tough on people. How did you find the morale? I mean, everybody asks that all the time and everybody's different, but in general, you were in Kiev. How did you find the morale of the Ukrainians in Kiev during this relentless onslaught on their energy infrastructure? I think there's a sense of exhaustion. Absolutely. It's four years and this is maybe the harshest winter so far. But also there's the sense that there's no option. I sometimes think that the psychological impact of Trump's games is actually worse, perhaps even than the cold and the missiles, because what Ukrainians don't like is BS. They don't like the sort of hollow, performative nonsense. They don't like being bullied. They don't like being manipulated. And above all, they don't like lies. And of course, these are abundant. Also, the sort of hollow rhetoric of many Europeans, especially Mark Rutger, I think I got a sense of almost universal irritation that he came over and did his little performative stunt in front of a ruined power station. People are angry about that. Those who are grandstanding or supporting their own political profiles by using Ukrainian tragedy as a backdrop, it's annoying. If people come with actual support, that's different. They're welcome with their canals, but if they use it in a manipulative way, then frankly, I think Ukrainians are sick and tired of that as well as Trump's games. So it's all round. I know we put the finger at Trump all the time and rightly so, but there's huge hypocrisy amongst so-called democratic allies across Europe as well. It is Mark Rutger to make me enraged, not just that stunt, of course, but his comments about how weak NATO is, how they couldn't possibly go it alone. I mean, just giving Russia their talking points, and this is the head of NATO, but I've been against the whole Mark for a long time, and I understand he wasn't exactly a very popular, was a prime minister of the Netherlands, that he, not the most popular guy, and he's definitely not the best head of- He's a diplomat, he's a manager, he's someone who's put in there to sort of flatter people's egos and keep things together, but what we need is leadership now. Well, there I can sort of hear- I think I know that you can hear us. Sorry guys, I am back. I- You're back, sorry, there we were. We hear you. Yeah. I thought you were not getting lunch or something. It sounds great. Let's fire another question at you. Yeah. You can hear us go ask, there is- Is Ukraine having to be quite mindful then? Because it has hit some, uh, grave fleet vessels. It has struck some that are close to or, I believe, even in turquoise turquoise waters. Isn't that- Aren't they on a bit of a knife edge there? And are they having to be quite mindful not to push Turkey out of its so-called comfort zone? Yeah, I mean, that was a bit sensitive to the Turks. Obviously, any security is important for everyone. Also, the Kedaks. Remember, they hit a couple of the CPC pipeline moorings or one of the CPC pipeline moorings in Novgorod's Thisk and the Kedaks were fretting. I think there's three or four moorings and one was out of action for a renovation and they- they hit this one, took that out of direction so they were relying on one. And that really disrupted energy supply. Oh, guess it. Sorry, oil exports, how the Kazakhs down. And that strained relation a little bit between Kazakhs down and Ukraine. And obviously, those exports are important to supply Europe with alternative to Russian energy. So anyway, whatever. I mean, that's, I guess, the things were signaling, I guess, that they had some cards, right? I mean, you know, they have options. They can- they can certainly in terms of naval warfare, they have the ability to hurt Russia wherever it is, right? And so that was that that was going on. I think now it's calmed down a bit and and obviously there's been more action by- by the US and actually European NATO countries. I mean, the France and the Brits, bordered some- some shadow fleet vessels in the Mediterranean and I think in the North Sea as well. So I mean, there's been less- I think that the Ukraine's have done less of that recently. But, you know, as I said, I mean, Ukraine has proven through the remarkable ingenuity of its of its innovation and military tech that it can hurt Russia at range. And, you know, I guess you know, this, as you mentioned already, I mean, the brutal- the brutal Russian attacks on- on Ukraine's critical infrastructure, civilian and critical infrastructure over this winter, you know, would suggest that Ukraine will want to hit back hard going forward. I just want today and you- they're doing exactly that's him and I think they're doing a wonderful job in Belgorod. These Belgorodians are suffering. They're starting to suffer at least. They're having a very cold dark winter in Belgorod right next to- as most people know, the oblast near the Ukrainian border and good for them. I don't want to see any civilian suffer, but if civilians have to suffer, I think they're the right ones to suffer. Just my opinion. Tim, are you still there? Yes, I have. I mean, you know, you've made the call. comments. I usually make those kind of comments and I definitely people they have there's really no. Strategic, you know, I mean, it's nice to see Bill got suffering. They've moved onto some of the neighboring towns there, which I guess strategically could disrupt some of the frontline activities of rational logistics and so on. But is that really going to move the dial team or is it only strikes that take out substations around Moscow that's really going to move the dials strategically for Ukraine? Well, you know, you know, the vulnerability for Putin, obviously, Moscow and the St. Petersburg, right? I mean, you know, if you look at the military deaths in Russia, they've typically been, you know, in poorer areas, right? Away from Moscow and St. Petersburg, right? You know, he's protected that population that, you know, I guess politically, ultimately, are more influential and the bigger threats are Putin himself, right? Look, I mean, there's, you know, we've spoken many times in the past about Russia's vulnerabilities. You know, the Russian economy has proven very durable as I've argued in the past, it's because Putin knew the war was going to happen. He built up these defences. Our sanctions have been a lot softer than they could have been, you know, but four years in, you know, the vulnerabilities are increasing. I was just looking at some data in terms of Russian energy exports for January and they're down with third, another third down from the year earlier. The euro's all price discount is, I think, the highest level it's been. Obviously, the pressure on India, the lookal Rosneft sanctions are beginning to have some impact. This pressure on Shadow Fleet, the European Union action to make it even more difficult for, for third countries, individuals and corporates to help Russia break sanctions. I mean, they are having some impact. They are wearing Russia down over time. They're making Putin make difficult decisions, guns versus butter. And I mean, the hope is, you know, eventually, you know, you may have some kind of discontent in Russia itself that might change behavior in Russia. I mean, you know, maybe it's a fall on hope. It's not a base case. But, you know, the pregozion affair came from nowhere, right? I mean, no one ever expected that. And no one expected that pregozion to have been a couple of hundred kilometers outside. I said Moscow, so, look, again, it's not the base case, but you can't really doubt. But the more pressure we put on Russia, on the economy, you know, might just do something to change the direction of traveling in Russia and change Putin's calculus, unfortunately. You know, the Trump said at the start, well, you know, in that famous, over-office meeting with Jolensky, you know, Jolensky doesn't have the cards. Well, Trump had a lot of cards. It is willing to use them, right? And maybe we saw that a little bit with Rod Nefton. Look, all the problem is we argued in the past is that Trump ultimately doesn't seem willing to really oppose the significant cost on Russia. And, you know, I guess over the last couple of weeks, we've seen commentary about this 12 trillion deal that some of you have heard. It's significantly larger than the Russian economy. I mean, is it clear? I'm going to, I've got not made the statement. Then, is it clear that 12 million deal is just an absolute ludicrous sort of ploy? Am I misguided in thinking like that? Well, it is ludicrous, right? I mean, people who know actual facts, you know, Russian economy is something less than $2 trillion. So as you mentioned, it's set 12 trillion dollars and six times the size of the Russian economy. I mean, you know, I don't know what they're thinking. Could it be a deal over 100 years or something? You know, in the end, look, we know what Trump's personality is. He likes big deals. He likes shiny things, lots of dollar signs. And I think the Russians have figured out what makes him tick, right? And I mean, look, I think in the end, we can try and explain away Trump's behavior towards Ukraine and Russia. I think what is crystal clear is that Trump would love a scenario where he can go back to business as normal with Russia. And if the Russians are suggesting, you know, there's this huge deal in the in the pipeline, you know, that's the kind of thing, unfortunately, that can sway Trump, I think, you know, and I guess Europe, you're creating this need to make sure they get to the White House and they work hard to kind of sideline the Russians and make sure that the holes in that 12 trillion dollar deal are kind blown through, right? So anyway, look, we are where we are. I mean, I guess the key point I was going to make was that the Russian economy is, you know, is very durable, right? And, you know, the hope that suddenly it falls off a cliff and it changes the dynamics in this war, you know, we may end up waiting a long time for that, but we can help ourselves by doing more in terms of sanctions, increasing the cost. But in tensions, that also weapons supplies to the Ukrainians, but unfortunately, the US administration does not want to, similarly, does not want to do that. There's a really interesting article this week in Bloomberg, Mark Champion, one of the opinion piece, opinion guys, he made a really interesting comment. He argued that the problem in the Biden administration was the Biden administration was too easily pulled, pushed over or put on the defensive by Moscow when he raised the nuclear card, whenever the Kremlin threatens some kind of nuclear angle to push back on US support for Ukraine, you know, Biden, you know, chickened out basically. And Mark Champion argues that actually the card the Russians are using with Trump is the peace card, right? The Trump is so eager for this peace card, peace deal for his Nobel Prize, but they're stringing him along again. The they're continuously dangling this peace process to keep Trump from doing anything particularly aggressive against Russia, right? I think that's quite an interesting angle. Well, I want to mention to that in your opinion, not your opinion, it's a fact. I think the Russian economy is far more durable than I think most people gave it credit and the way that the West, and particularly the United States under Trump is in quotes pressuring the Russian economy. It's just not going to happen anytime soon. And I just wanted to add that you're right. We never know when a progogeant like event is going to happen. However, if we are going to try and wait for the Russian population to rise up because they're very unhappy and somehow stage a mass demonstrations or got for a bit of revolution, we're going to be waiting a very, very long time because they're just not that discontent. They've had hundreds of years of this type of an attitude by the Tsar's and they're perfectly willing to go along with their lives right now. And except in the Eastern part of Russia and the smaller cities, they're not suffering in Moscow or St. Petersburg or Nysni Novgorod or any of those other major cities. Life is pretty much going on as usual. So let me just ask you, if things remain the way they are, I mean sanctions are not increased any more than they are now. How long do you see the Russian economy sputtering along before there really is a drop off to the point that somebody, the oligarchs, the military, the intelligence services, might make a move against Putin. How many years or months or where are we at with something like that? And I had to add to that. We're still buying hydrocarbons, LNG. We're not attacking the Great Fleet. Well, I mean the irony is, if things don't change. I mean the irony of that is that Trump keeps banging Europe about buying energy from Russia. The two biggest purchases of Russian energy are actually Trump's allies hungry and Slovakia. Right? I mean the irony of that. I mean in terms of we don't know, we don't know how close the Russian economy is to cracking in the political establishments and whatever. We just don't know the pre-Groes and the fair. It could be next week, it could be 10 years from now. We simply don't know. What I would say is that we can do a lot more. I mean look, in the end it's about increasing the cost and risk to Putin of continuing the war. It's about increasing arms supplies to Ukraine, to increase the casualty rate of Russia and Russians in this war and then obviously tightening sanctions to increase the economic cost. I mean that's the solution. That's the answer to getting put into a series of negotiation phase, or ensuring he loses. And pushing Russians to come to realization, this is a losing strategy. It is remarkable. You know the I mean the latest data suggests what 35,000 Russian troops killed are injured in the last month or so, or each month. And I think in the whole of the the war in Afghanistan, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, I think 15,000 Soviet troops were killed. I mean, that's extraordinary, right? Like a double casualty rate per month, asked for the, I think it was four years in the, maybe more in the war in Africa. Because actually, a spy came up, I believe, as the saturation of Ukrainian drones intensifies, and that's not really covered so much in the media, but Ukraine is actually increasing its drone capability as an effectiveness. And one assumes lowering the ratio casualties to, or improving their ratio casualties to Russia, we don't have those sort of figures. Yeah, I mean, I was listening into you a little bit earlier when I had my technical problems. And look, I mean, I think the reality is, this negotiation is ridiculous, right? I mean, we'd all agree that, you know, I mean, Trump, you know, famous, it said, this war was the easiest to resolve in the rough to the US presidential elections, talk about he could resolve in 24 hours. Then he wins the presidency, talks about 100 days, then it's by Easter, then it's by Christmas. And now we have this June deadline. I mean, the reality is that Trump is totally Mr. Hannit, Mr. Manit, the negotiations. I mean, we all have a huge amount of experience of following Russia under Putin. You know, he only responds to pressure, right? Hard power, strengths. You show weakness and you show appeasements. He bites your arm off and he takes more. And I think this piece process is going nowhere because Putin thinks that, you know, just by playing the long game, Trump will roll over and Putin will get everything he wants, right? And, you know, I was at a couple of conferences this week and you mentioned the market. I mean, it's extraordinary, actually, if you look at Ukrainian, you're a bomb crisis. Any talk of a piece deal or a negotiation or anything that the market rallies, right? And I just wanted to say that, you know, in my mind, Russia, well, Putin's only interest is Ukraine failing, right? There is no secure, prosperous piece for Ukraine, while Putin is still around, right? Well, Putin is still on the border. There is no, I mean, this idea that Trump seems to think that, you know, it's all about, as you mentioned, Jonathan, I mean, all about territory and you can have this nice free, free economic zone between Russia and Ukraine and everyone can prosper. You know, Trump may think like that. And I think a lot of the oligarchs that Trump talks to, maybe the people of the Baltic property and his various real estate developments. I mean, maybe those kind of people think it's all about money and land, but it really isn't, right? What it is about is Putin's desire to take and control the whole of Ukraine, right? He wakes up every morning thinking how to screw Ukraine. And whatever piece is the green, there is no way that Putin will be satisfied with a secure and prosperous Ukraine on the roots of EU accession. He will always intervene to destabilize the country and ensure that it doesn't have a secure and prosperous future, right? And the only way to ensure Ukraine's peace is either they supply Ukraine with a kick to defeat Putin or supply Ukraine with a kick to ensure that they can secure their own borders. I mean, that's, you know, it's 101 Putin, you know, for a guy you guys and, you know, I've covered Russia since the 1980s, he's on the Soviet Union then. Putin is easy to understand Putin, you know, and Trump hires Wicoff and Kushner, who in my mind, have zero understanding of Putin to manage this peace process. And he's been completely played by Putin. And the only deal, I mean, Putin would probably accept a version of a 28-mile plan, you know, that Russia gets the whole of Donbass, including Ukraine's four-ter cities. And we're very weak security guarantees from the US. I mean, you know, that, I mean, the Ukrainians have been forced to say, oh, well, you know, there's now some kind of agreement on security guarantees. With this US presidency, can the Ukrainians be sure that if they give up those frontline defences that if Russia, which inevitably will, attack it again, will the US come in and defend Ukraine? Absolutely not. I mean, the Ukrainians have got that stupid to give up their frontline defences in some kind of ridiculous, some ridiculous assurance from Trump that he will deploy US forces to defend them in that scenario. That's just not going to happen, right? So, so it's like a phony peace process, right? The Ukrainians don't think it's, you talk to the private, the Ukrainians don't take this process. Seriously, they're going along with it because they, they need the drawdown of US weapons, they need patriot missiles to defend their skies, they're buying time until a point that they are able to defend themselves without the Americans, right? I mean, that's what that's about. And Trump has very Putin, Freudian flip, Putin himself just thinks the longer I leave it, the weaker Ukraine is, the more likely Trump will break the NATO alliance as over Greenland and all the other things. And the NATO alliance will be in the less of a less strong position to provide Ukraine with support. And ultimately, maybe Trump will force you Lensky to accept a terrible deal where he does give up those fortress frontline defences. And I mean, as I said, there are a couple of angles for that. One is that I think inevitably Putin will use that to further attack Ukraine. But the other one is I think Putin thinks that it will destabilize Ukraine politically, socially and economically, to the point that there is another opportunity for Russia to intervene or Putin to intervene to attack Ukraine. So, you know, I think it's naive, naive wishful thinking by the Trump administration. They seem to have zero understanding of Putin. And do you see the election thing fitting very much into that, this idea of forcing elections on Ukraine, turning the narrative into, well, you know, maybe it's not peace, but Ukraine has to have elections blah, blah, blah. That also seems to me to be a fundamental strategic goal of Russia, because they see it as massively destabilizing in wartime. And Zalensky is forced to kind of play along with this hollow and performative process, not just literally turning it down, but at the same time his language is kind of quite nuanced. And interestingly, I don't know if you saw the FTPs by, I think, probably was Christopher Miller who has an interesting and checkered history of covering Ukraine. But he seemed to position this as like, yes, there's going to be elections, but then you look at what Zalensky actually said and it's incredibly nuanced and it's contingent on stable peace. So there's an extraordinary kind of narrative game going on, it seems. No, no, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's incredibly narrative. They would love elections because they know it's hellishly difficult to hold elections at time of war and obviously during martial law, right? I mean, I guess to hold elections you'd have to lift martial law, which means the front lines will probably depopulate and that will just massively weaken Ukraine's defenses. And as you said, it will cause political and social. It's supposed to, I mean, the opinion polls suggest that Ukraine don't really want elections at this point in time. The other standard difficulty is even very composition leaders are in the same camp, right? Everyone understands that you need some kind of peace and security to be able to hold elections. So again, it's the naivety of the Trump administration just falling for this. And again, the idea that it's lying pushed by some of the maggot guys that Ukraine's not a democracy. I mean, Putin, I think Russia has had two presidents in 25 years, right? Ukraine's had what, six, seven presidents over that period of time. -Cindical, they've had one and a half presidents. -Well, one and a half presidents, obviously, the jobs want, right? So, I mean, Russia's hardly a beacon of democracy and obviously the Trump administration is not pushing for early elections in Venezuela either. So it seems to be very selective. The Trump administration should be very selective in its, it's pushing a democratic agenda. I mean, notable that, you know, various Trump administration people are going to want to pest over the next few days, just prior to the elections in Hungary. And, you know, the gerrymandering of the Hungarian political system to ensure that Viktor Orbán wins another turn is pretty extraordinary. You know, that guy changed the electoral rules to a, well, a constituency-based system. And the poll experts all tell me that for Magyar, Peter Magyar, the opposition leader to win, he will need to win by five percentage points in the popular vote because they gerrymandered the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the constituency system there. And obviously today we have some Soviet style compromise, threatened on Peter Magyar. Magyar has a ten-point lead over, over Orbán at this point in time. So clearly, Orbán is scraping the barrel, but I don't see the Trump administration guys complaining about democracy in Hungary, particularly, although I think there's much reason to focus on the fairness of that particular election coming up. No, they want to learn how to do it here. They're copying his plan. That's exactly what's going on here with the Jerry Mandering. Let me ask you this. You talked about the only solution to the war in Ukraine. The end with half a brain, I think, is that we need to arm Ukraine. We need to supply them with all the armaments, with all the drones, with all the ammunition. And everything they need to win. And they would have won if we did this four years ago. They would have won if we did this four years ago. What do you think Tim, about all of the money, the funds that you're about to have now, the funds that you're about to have now are common? To use now a common team group. They're actually going to-- To use the group they're actually going to fulfill those promises. A little bit of an audio glitch there as well. I said, I'd meet you at 10 there. We'll get an illogative feedback. We got a little feedback, then. I think brother ought to feedback, as if the FSB are kind of a-- Well, let me just avoid that. Maybe he'll come back or you can answer. As you know, over the last week or so, Europe, NATO, the EU, has appropriated a lot of funds, a lot of money and weaponry to Ukraine for the next year. But they've done that before and not really come through in a timely manner with actually getting all of those funds and/or weapons or ammunition to Ukraine. Do you see them doing that this time, meaning all the money, funds, ammunition, weapons, they've proposed? And I guess raise the budget for is that can actually make it to Ukraine in the next door? I don't know, several months. I mean, it's interesting, because we haven't heard anything about an artillery famine for some time. And there has been firstly the Czech initiative to whistle up 55 millimeter artillery from around the world. But also after a slow start, it did seem that the European procurement and production of artillery did eventually get into gear. And I guess there's always going to be a gap between what politicians promise in terms of timeline and what is realistic, especially if you're having to dust a fault factor, as if you've been building production lines from scratch, as well as source the components and molecules of whatever they're required for these. But I do get the impression that they eventually did start supplying at scale. And we haven't heard stories of artillery famine. So I'm kind of hopeful that maybe the timeline will not be as adventurous as some politicians state. But at the same time, the majority of the majority of casualties being inflicted on Russians are inflicted by drones. And the majority of those drones are manufactured in Ukraine by Ukrainians. So I don't think it's quite where we were two years ago, where Ukraine was entirely saying some ways dependent on its Soviet stocks of stuff that was dwindling and on European support. They've now realized that if they need to survive, they have to primarily take responsibility for themselves. We're also saying many Ukrainian manufacturers of drones cutting China out of its supply chains and starting to source its own components, including the electric motors and some of the more complex parts. I spoke to one charity where they said, you know, the component that was the most difficult to swap out was the cameras, because what they're really as high resolution cameras, which only China produces at a reasonable cost per unit. What Ukraine is now starting to produce high-res cameras for drones so they can finally get that out of this supply chain as well. They just started just a few days ago about Ukraine signing a big deal with Germany to make drones. Yes. And I think those co-productions are critical. We got two backs. So it's the first few minutes. Let's just have a few minutes left before we get to the point. The question was, is Europe going to put its money where its mouth is? They've come up with a lot of funds in the last few days and the meetings funds, money ammunition, all this good stuff that they intend to give to Ukraine. And audio again. I don't know if he can hear us. If you can hear us, are they going to fulfill those promises in time? Where do your audio problems resolve in the next few months? I guess not. Okay. Sounds like a great sci-fi movie actually. It sounds like someone is trying to hack his feet there. That's the class ability. Yes. Hello. I can't hear you, which is unfortunate. I feel you all. Can you say a few last words? Last few words Tim, while we have you sort of. If you can hear us. Maybe not. Maybe not. No, I think that's it. I'm going to have to wrap up there. Yes. I might end on a slightly more optimistic. Please. Yes, things are terrible. Drump is terrible. How Ukraine's been treated as terrible. Allies aren't stepping up in the ways they need. And they're not, you know, we need themselves off Russian LNG and so on. And they're not putting enough pressure on all of our others to weed themselves off. And so what more needs to happen, but at the same time, Ukrainians are taking that responsibility. In the realization that really, no one is going to save them if they don't save themselves. And in there, I would say, you know, classic Ukrainian start. They're innovating. They're being creative. They're getting around all the problems of their internal system. And they're coming up with solutions. They're inflicting huge casualties on Russia. There are some reasons to be optimistic and winter will not last forever. Tim. Tim, last word goes to you before we wrap up. Yes, I can hear you now and I can see you. Okay. You get the last word before we wrap up. Will Europe step up? Because it's clear the US is not going to be providing anything to Ukraine. Likely this year. Yeah, look at more optimistic there. I think that, you know, JD Vansk gave us all. Orments of the munitions. Then he read the riot. Actually, he did his paper. I think, you know, I think it was clear that you were being leadership. The US and Europe don't really say on the ballot that I guess you and. It doesn't share the same interests and values with some of the major administration. And it's kind of my son's phone. And obviously with the Greenland scenario, etc. The US and the many respects is a threat to Europe. You know, that was game changing in terms of response that we saw from, you know, continental Europe, particularly Germany. I think the winning election, I mean, the big messaging has been kind of crystal clear. The Germany is stepping up in terms of spending, take some time, I guess, to get the military in just a little complex object. But it is happening, you know, obviously the laggard in Europe, sort of in Europe, particularly, I guess, doesn't see the threat in Russia. As seriously because obviously there are some far distance from the front lines. But, you know, I think the scandys, the poles, the Germans, the Dutch, the Brits. And we all get it actually in the individual countries now in different problems. You pay for example France, you know, obviously you have a week of commoners, public finances in the great shape. And that constrains what we can do. But I think there's a clear understanding. And particularly in Germany, I mean, I mean, like a sea change from two to three years ago in terms of the risk perception from Russia. And the understanding the Americans not then, they've got to step up. So, you know, it is happening, spending is increasing, it takes time to get military in just a complex into gear. Populations, I think these to be education campaign, you know, obviously our populations don't particularly want to join the army and fight on the front lines, right? I mean, you know, the threat is perhaps not as existential as it is to Ukraine. But, you know, we need to message to our populations that the scale of this threat presented by Russia. We need to do more. And, you know, I think for me, as you know, I was campaigning last year on the immobilized Russian asset issue. And, you know, we failed in the end in that European council meeting in December to get it over the line. But the encouraging thing was that we did get the 90 billion, 90 billion euros. And this, you know, a loan, a likely loan to fund you in over the next two years. So the funding is there. It just happens that it's not immobilized Russian assets, although that money is still there and we still have to campaign in ultimately. You know, I think there's motivated people who will make sure that Russia pays ultimately. But, you know, the funding is there. It's the challenge for Europe is simply we've wasted time, right? I mean, we've wasted four years of this war to get our arms industries up to speed to help Ukraine defend itself, help help Ukraine defend us and defend ourselves. And, you know, we're in this terrible situation where unfortunately we are dependent on the American stuff. particularly as the patriots, ed defense systems, and intelligence, all that kind of stuff. But ultimately, we'll get there. But Europe's defense depends on the Ukrainians holding out long enough that we do get our act together. And against that indictment of our leaders that we've wasted four years, well, we wasted the first three years of this war. Sit on our hands when we should have been in, we should have been moving forward a pace at ensuring that changes in our defensive posture and revamping our economies to sustain a larger industrial complex and sustain our defenses. - I think that we have, on Europe, my last words, has finally started at least to come out of the shock of Trump and losing the majority of the support of the United States. And I think we're seeing that reaction to coming out of the shock. I'm optimistic that 2026 is going to be very, well, not very, but positive. And that Europe is going to take action, is going to do the right thing, is going to allow Ukraine to hang on to the point of either being victorious in the long run or at least getting what they need out of the, whatever negotiations finally take place. And I'll have to leave it at that. - Yeah, my final word on this is we're just starting to confront and only just as confront the so-called kinetic threat that Russia represents. And we are still very behind the curve on drones and EW. But we're getting started. The trouble is we know that Russia, if it meets a barrier in one direction, it probes in other directions. So I think we need to watch out for cognitive and informational warfare, which is going to step up massively this year as they try to destabilize our societies. That's my word there. That's a watch out for future episodes that we're going to cover. I think we should try and get some experts on this so-called cognitive warfare onto our discussions, because it's a serious problem. - Absolutely. Apologize, of course, for the technical glitches, but that's just something that happens. Hopefully it won't happen again, but you never know. But I want to thank everyone for watching this both on Silicon Curtain, on protecting your public, on our YouTube channels. For those of you that made comments, thank you very, very much. Subscribe to Silicon Curtain. Subscribe to No Delusion Zone. It helps both of us carry on and make these live streams as well as our other podcasts and other presentations. So again, thank you very much. We'll be back here next week, Friday, at the same time, as this with another episode of the Dictators. So again, thank all of you and Jonathan. We'll talk soon. - It took a good look.