Luke Harding
speaker
461 appearances
6 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 24 Aug
Luke Harding’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 2.
Appearances
Today in Focus · Is the tide turning for Ukraine in war with Russia? – The Latest · 23 Apr 2026
podcast
And meanwhile, what we've seen is really some incredible diplomacy by Zelensky.
I mean, he's toured the Gulf states.
He's signed long-range defense and production agreements with Saudi Arabia, with the UAE, and with others, basically offering to provide them with interceptor drones made by Ukraine, which can shoot down Iranian Shaheed missiles, the same missiles, by the way, that have been falling on this place, on Kiev, really since late 2022.
So what's interesting is the kind of paradigm
the idea that at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was basically holding out a sort of begging bowl for Western systems.
And now it's really the only state capable of shooting down Shahids, which are kind of 21st century menace.
And I think it's a bit of a supreme geopolitical irony because actually one of the countries that's been asking Ukraine for help is America.
And I don't know if you had that on your bingo card, Lucy, when Zelensky was dressed down last year in the Oval Office by Trump, who said, you've got no cards, you've got no cards.
Turns out Ukraine has got some cards.
I mean, what is vital to understand is that there is no meaningful process.
I think the grammar of news, we go on about talks and resolution and negotiations as if there's some sort of teleology that we get to an agreed destination.
And the reality is that Putin doesn't want to stop
this war.
He thinks he can win.
He thinks he can win either on the battlefield, but through military might and attrition, or actually a quicker route goes through the White House and Donald Trump's office with the Americans browbeating Zelensky pressuring Kiev to give up territory, in particular the eastern Donbass region, which Russia wants and Trump seems to think that Russia should have.
So, you know, there is no meaningful diplomatic track at the moment.
And what I find quite astonishing is that Trump's two emissaries, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his real estate friend, Steve Wyckoff, have made multiple trips to Moscow.
They're planning another one and as of yet have not been to Kiev at all.
I mean, it's sort of, it's kind of pseudo diplomacy.
It's faux diplomacy.
Showing 321–340 of 461 · page 17 of 24
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