Patrick Bury

Many in Crimea themselves might prefer to be Russian, but that's an argument for another day.

But then we had the invasion of 2022 and people wondering how a country under that kind of pressure from a mighty neighbour can gear up so quickly.

But, I mean, Ukraine was a sophisticated industrial manufacturing country, was it not?

Yeah, and it had a good part of the old Soviet defense industrial base, too.

So, yes, it's not coming from a completely standing start on this.

But I think what's amazing is the nature of it.

And you hear this from people, even who are training Ukrainian soldiers, for example, Pat, that the way they problem-solve off the hoof, rather than just going for the kind of doctrinal...

training answer, you know, even if the tactical solution is they use their heads more so than even potentially, you know, other NATO soldiers or NATO soldiers would given the same tactical problem.

So they're thinking because they're the weaker of the two countries, it's immediately to the where is the adaptation, where is the innovation?

And that's what's been most impressive.

Well, the war is still ongoing and, of course, efforts to create some sort of a peace process have faltered, given the concentration now on the Middle East.