[00:00:00] Announcer: Secrets and Spies presents Espresso Martini with Chris Carr and Matt Fulton.

[00:00:27] Chris Carr: Hello, everybody. And welcome to Espresso Martini. Matt, how are you?

[00:00:32] Matt Fulton: I'm okay. It's been an interesting week. How are, how are you doing? Are you, are you feeling better?

[00:00:36] Chris: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I dunno. In percentage terms about 87% better. I still got this little bit of my cold left, which may or may not, um, reveal itself during the episode.

[00:00:47] Matt: Mm-hmm.

[00:00:47] Chris: Uh, I still have the odd coughing fit, but generally I'm all right. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Um, feeling a lot better than last week Because I was just feeling really exhausted last week, so

[00:00:55] Matt: Yes. Last week was tough.

[00:00:57] Chris: Yeah.

[00:00:57] Matt: Yeah, definitely, definitely feeling better than last week.

[00:01:00] Chris: Yeah, no, last week except was a tough one. Um, and thank you everybody to, uh, to everybody who's reached out, you know?

[00:01:06] Matt: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:07] Chris: I've had messages on Bluesky, Instagram. Um, we've had text messages from friends and things. And so, no, I'm really pleased that the episode was well received. Because it was, I, I, you know, it was a difficult one to record. I know I wasn't, from a technical perspective, overly happy with my performance last week, so I was quite run down and felt, um, overly emotional about things, but that was just me and my thinking. But I actually thought it was a good episode, so I thought we did all right.

[00:01:32] Matt: Yeah. I, we were, uh, I don't know. Yeah. We were, we were both pretty anxious about, you know, doing that and trying to, you know, okay, how do we sort of thread this argument? You know, how do we, how do we make this land in a way that is appealing to people or something? And, you know, that that was a big, that that was a worry of mine.

[00:01:50] Chris: Yeah.

[00:01:50] Matt: Going into it. And I was definitely anxious to see how it, how it would be received. But, um, yeah, no, the, the, I've been, I got, um, listeners have, have reached out to me in a bunch of different platforms over the last week and, um, the, their reaction universally, at least as far as I've seen, um, really, really positive. A lot of just touching comments in general. So I, I certainly, um, thank listeners for that.

[00:02:13] Chris: Yes, indeed. No, thank you. Thank you everybody for listening, and thank you for reaching out.

On that note, um, next week is our episode where we're going to be taking listener questions. So please do contact us either via email, which is Secrets and Spies Podcast at gmail dot com or DM us on your social media channel of choice. You know, we're on, uh, what are we on now? Bluesky, Instagram, um, Threads, uh, Spoutible. Those are the main ones we're on. I think Bluesky is the one I spend most of my time on.

[00:02:45] Matt: Bluesky I think is definitely, if you, I mean, yeah, if you reach us on one of those other ones, we'll probably, we'll, we'll definitely probably see it.

[00:02:52] Chris: Yeah.

[00:02:52] Matt: But Bluesky is the one that IRL we spend the most time on and probably the most, um, responsive to, but yeah.

[00:02:59] Chris: Yeah, I agree. So yeah, if anybody's going to message us with a question or topic suggestion, please can you make sure you do it by Wednesday, the 19th of March. Um, and in your message, you know, include the question or topic, and if it's a topic, please also give us a relevant link to where you sort of found the, or read about the topic. Could you also tell us how you'd like your name read out and your location, just so we know how to credit you on air, because obviously it's always nice to be able to credit people properly. Um, and I don't wanna obviously reveal anything you don't want revealed. So, um, so yeah, so please drop us an email. So Secrets and Spies Podcast at gmail dot com or just DM us on your social media app of choice. Uh, Bluesky and Instagram are probably the safest bets, but Threads and, um, Spoutible we will see it as well. But just make sure you get in by the 19th.

One other bit of housekeeping. So, um, the episode that's coming out on the 22nd of March will be our last Espresso Martini for a week. We're taking a week off. Um, so the 29th of March, there'll be an interview in place of Espresso Martini, just because we're taking a week off to recharge our batteries, but then we'll be back on the 5th of April. Um, and we'll be running through until the Easter weekend and we'll probably take that weekend off and then return. Um, so we will let you know what we're doing for Easter. Um, you know, we might be able to squeeze in an episode that will go out over Easter, but I need to have a look at the dates and work that out with my chocolate schedule. Um, you know, because chocolate's very important.

[00:04:32] Matt: Yes.

[00:04:34] Chris: So there we go. So, um, yeah. So is there anything else you'd like to share on any of that?

[00:04:38] Matt: Get those questions in, folks. Happy to, um, happy to take a look at them and, and, and answer ones that we can.

[00:04:43] Chris: Yeah, thank you.

Well, let's move into the episode itself. So today we've got quite an interesting and jam-packed episode full of a Russian spy ring that's been found guilty in the UK. So that's an interesting one. We've got updates on the Ukraine peace plan. We have a new drone ship in the US, and we ask, has Putin won?

So I will kick off with the Bulgarian spies. Now I do apologize in advance, I'm probably going to butcher a few names here or there. I do apologize. I've done my best to find the appropriate pronunciations, uh, but with one or two names, there's still even speculation about how you should pronounce them. So I apologize in advance with a bit of dyslexia as well. But, uh, I'll do my best. And this actually quite, this will be a bit of a long summary, because I was trying to whittle it down, but quite a few interesting details. So I, I'm, this will be a bit long, so forgive me. So we're taking notes from the Crown Prosecution Service and an article by Dan Sabbagh in The Guardian. And this is summary of the key details about the spy ring. So six members of a Russian spy ring, all Bulgarian nationals, have been convicted of espionage in the UK. Three were found guilty after a trial and three pled guilty. They were tasked with gathering information on prominent individuals in locations for the Russian state. Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, Tihomir Ivanchev, 39 were found guilty of conspiracy to spy at the Central Criminal Court following a trial. Three further members of the spy ring, Orlin Roussev, who's 47, Biser Dzhambazov, 43, and Ivan Stoyanov, 32, previously pled guilty to spying offenses. And I find it interesting that they actually pled guilty, but that's a whole other topic that we may or may not discuss.

The team, who were all Bulgarian nationals, worked under the direction of Orlin Roussev and were tasked with gathering information about prominent individuals and significant locations that were of interest to the Russian state. This group of Russian spies were accused of conducting six main operations involving surveillance, potential kidnapping, and disruptive activities targeting individuals and institutions deemed threats or, or of interest to Russia. So they targeted investigative journalists. So they surveyed Christo Grozev, a Bellingcat investigator, across multiple countries, gathering information on his movements and considering a honey trap plot. They also surveilled Roman Dobrokhotov, I hope I got his name right there. And he's the founder of The Insider, and they were including flight surveillance via Swiss Air, and they also had discussions of a kidnap plot.

They also planned disruptive activities, so they planned to disrupt the Kazak embassy in London by spraying fake pig's blood and staging a fake protest to increase the standing of their Russian clients. But the most serious plot in of all of this was a plus involving surveilling the US Patch Barracks in Stuttgart. And they were to, they were trying to gather intelligence on Ukrainian soldiers who were training on Patriot missile systems. So the spy ring planned to use a sophisticated £120,000 surveillance device called the Razor 2 IMSI capture, which basically detects mobile phones and gets all the mobile phone data. It kind of acts as a, a fake mobile phone tower. And then it can get like everybody's information from their phone number to their IMEI number, et cetera, which is all useful information so then you can track that phone. And what they planned to do was to hide that device in a, in a car, so they could capture the, the soldiers' mobile phone data. And then this data could be used to locate Patriot missile batteries in Ukraine because those soldiers might have their phone on them. So this plan was luckily foiled by the arrests before it could be executed. So as far as we know at the moment, those Ukrainian soldiers who were training that at that base have not had their data taken.

The prosecution's case relied on Telegram messages, travel and financial records, and technical items seized during the arrest. The evidence showed the group had acted for Russia as indicated by their targets and internal communications. Telegram messages that were exchanged between the members of a group included the facilitation of obtaining military equipment on behalf of Russia, the provisions of espionage tools, data, digital services and software, the arranging of physical surveillance and hostile activity against targets of the Russian state. And then frequent references were also made to the FSB, the GRU, and President Putin. And then obviously due to this spy ring's activities, one of their targets, Christo Grozev, now lives in New York, away from his family because he no longer feels safe in Europe.

So it's quite a, a big case, this one, and I really urge you to have a look at the Crown Prosecution Service link that we'll put in our show notes. Because it really goes into great detail about the things that I'm skimming over a little bit, just so we don't spend like four hours talking about this. But Matt, what are your, your thoughts on all of this?

[00:09:54] Matt: Yeah, my, my main takeaway on this was, you know, what we're, I thought what we're sort of seeing in this case, um, it's not so much, Russia's most elite intelligence operatives, it's their C- or their D-Team, you know? The, the, the "Slow Horses" of Russian espionage, um.

[00:10:11] Chris: That's being generous, I think.

[00:10:12] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. But so it's is a, this was it, it didn't, it just wasn't spelled out explicitly in this article or the Crown Prosecution Service, the stuff that they put out. But this, this seems like a sub-agent network, um, below Jan Marsalek in, in, in Moscow, I believe. But I mean, so yeah, the, the GRU and the SVR are still, of course, running highly professional, dangerous operations across Europe. But this, uh, is a cutout network run through this fugitive financier, um, a handful of low-rent operatives and some pretty amateurish trade crafts. Um, you know, the, the, these guys got caught because they were careless. But that doesn't mean that, you know, Russia's top-tier spies are making the same mistakes. They're still out there, um, operating under the radar. One other thing here that was really just interesting to me as just like, I dunno, a character study, I thought he was sort of interesting, his, his role is, uh, yeah, uh, Jan Marsalek. So,

[00:11:14] Chris: Yeah. Uh, he's one I've zeroed in on a bit as well. He's fascinating.

[00:11:17] Matt: Yeah. Fraudster-turned-spymaster who has one foot in the intelligence world, the other in the criminal underground. Um, this seems like a uniquely, uh, Russian kind of, uh, I guess way of doing business, I guess you could say. I mean, Western intelligence agencies don't often recruit major financial criminals to run spy networks on their behalf. I'm thinking just in the past with, um, the Russian case, you know, there was Victor Bout, the, um, arms dealer who was, uh, freed in a, in a prisoner swap, um, a few years ago for Brittney Griner. Um, uh, there was Semion Mogilevich, famous Russian mobster, you know, who had, who had links to Russian intelligence, who's now back, um, in, in, in Moscow. Um, but you know, Russia has repeatedly outsourced intelligence operations to, um, oligarchs, mercenaries, professional crim, uh, professional criminals, um, such as this guy. So my question there is, was, sort of reading some of the, you know, text messages back and forth that were included here, was Marsalek taking direct orders from Moscow or from the GRU or the SVR? Again, the, this reporting here doesn't say which, which agency was, was running this. Um,

[00:12:35] Chris: Yeah, he's reportedly works for the GRU and FSB, so it is unclear exactly which agency he potentially was working for.

[00:12:43] Matt: Right. So, or, or was he running this network at, at arm's length from them, gathering scraps of intel to try and impress the Kremlin? You know, in, in the Russian system where, uh, oligarchs and exiled intelligence figures are, are constantly trying to prove their usefulness, um, to Moscow, it's, I don't know, I wonder if it's possible that Marsalek was freelancing to an extent, trying to stay relevant in Russian security circles. I mean, what, what better prize to curry favor than possibly delivering Christo Grozev?

[00:13:16] Chris: Yeah, who apparently Putin dislikes personally.

[00:13:19] Matt: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:20] Chris: Um, and it just shows Bellingcat's really getting under the skin of Putin as one of the things that came out here.

[00:13:25] Matt: Yeah. You know, and another interesting, um, aspect to, to this, it struck me as sort of a, a pattern, at least in some of the cases that, that we've seen bubbling up over recent years, you know? Um, this case isn't so much a classic government-versus-government intelligence operation, you know, like spies spying on other spies, right? It's, it's a government, it's a government intelligence operation targeted at journalists, dissidents, activists in exile. Um, Russian espionage,

[00:13:54] Chris: Which is ethically dodgy as fuck, basically.

[00:13:57] Matt: Right. So, I mean, and Russian intelligence operations still of course focus on governments, militaries, rival intelligence services. But increasingly it's, it's like, it seems like it's, its biggest targets are, you know, journalist, investigative researchers, opposition figures abroad, or, you know, at least these are the people that elicit particular ire from Putin, which is, is telling to me. Um, you know, uh, and, and I think it's also perhaps true to state, you know, the GRU and the SVR, FSB, they still run high-level operations that don't make headlines, you know? They aren't getting rolled up every few months. But what we're seeing here is a sloppier, riskier effort, um, that happened to get caught, but it's, it's part of a much larger enterprise, you know? So, um, I don't know. I mean, we're aware of this one instance, this one surveillance operation against a figure like Christo Grozev. Are there others? That doesn't mean there aren't other parallel operations out there that are run by like the A-Team.

[00:15:01] Chris: Yeah. Well this is it. I think one of the dangers of recruiting, like untrained individuals or unprofessional individuals, if we put it that way. What was worrying in this case is how the threats of kidnap and murder were always very real, not far from the minds of the people involved. Even at a lower level. They would joke about it a little bit. There was talk of like kidnapping, Grozev, drugging him and then, um, I, I think they were going to torture him or something in, in um, what was the reference? Was it the Bat Cave or Indiana Jones? Oh, there was some weird reference to some, like it was cave or something.

[00:15:34] Matt: It was this Indiana Jones. Yeah, it was, it was an Indiana Jones thing. It was like this warehouse, where they had all this like technical equipment and it was, it was, no, it was, it was like a garage or a storage locker or something that carried all this technical equipment he called his, like Indiana Jones lair. Yeah.

[00:15:46] Chris: Yeah. And I think the danger of that is somebody who's trying to impress someone might just go and cross the line

[00:15:52] Matt: Right.

[00:15:52] Chris: And do something really stupid.

[00:15:54] Matt: Yeah.

[00:15:54] Chris: That actually maybe nobody wanted, you know, because um, one of the other key things, the, the, the Russians were claiming that, um, uh, Grozev and, and Bellingcat were working for MI6 and so they were trying to gather surveillance to prove this and obviously didn't. Um, and so, you know, it was just a surveillance mission and then these people decide, Hey, let's take it one step further and murder someone. This is why you don't use civilians. Um, and amateurs who probably their only reference is spy fiction, like what we've talked about.

[00:16:25] Matt: Right. Or, or it could be an instance where, yeah, you, you go and you try to kidnap a target, you try to pull 'em off the street and it, and it, and it escalates and there's a struggle and someone accidentally gets killed.

[00:16:37] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. It can happen. And it has happened in the past. You know, I think the Israelis have been involved in all sorts of stuff in the past, in the seventies that's led to the wrong person getting killed and things and, you know, so it's a, yeah.

[00:16:48] Matt: Do you have anything else that you wanted to?

[00:16:50] Chris: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, one other interesting thing as well, like Dzhambazov used a fake Interpol ID and claimed he worked for Interpol, both to the women and men he used to carry out his part of the operation. And on top of that, obviously there was this messy and manipulative relationship with the two women as well, Ivanova and Gaberova. Um, and they both claimed in court that they had been manipulated. Um, and obviously there's some debate about what level they were willing participants and what level they were manipulated. I'll leave you to decide how you feel on that. Um, and the other thing as well, using civilians does sort of reveal a slight, um, desperation on the Russians' part. And I couldn't quite figure out whether this, again, like you were saying earlier, was it a, a freelance operation run by, uh, Marsalek or, or is this a sign of, um, that when all these diplomats were expelled after the Skripal poisoning that Russian spy networks have been so much disrupted that they're now getting more and more desperate and having to recruit kind of, um, yeah, individuals.

[00:17:54] Matt: Great point. There was over a hundred Russian diplomats that were expelled, um, presumably Russian intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover, um, that were expelled, uh, in the aftermath of the Skripal poisoning.

[00:18:06] Chris: Yeah, indeed.

[00:18:06] Matt: So that's, I mean, yeah, that would, that would cripple, um, a a any country's intelligence-gathering efforts in the UK.

[00:18:12] Chris: Yeah. Another, the other standout for me, um, the sleepy town of Great Yarmouth, which is this resort town on the east coast of England, was basically where the ring leader, Orlin Roussev, was basically running the operation. And so it just shows you anywhere in England, no matter how small could end up being used.

[00:18:30] Matt: Yeah.

[00:18:31] Chris: And I was intrigued by a coastal town too, Because it's on the, um, Great Yarmouth does have, you can see the North Sea from there. And I, and I dunno whether, you know, he was there for some other reason as well, or whether he was just there because he liked it or it was a bit low key. So I thought the Great Yarmouth thing was interesting.

And as you've already mentioned, Marsalek himself, the man who was the mastermind and running all this from Moscow is a fascinating guy. So, um, The Insider went as far to say he defected to Russia after the Wirecard scandal. So he went on the run in 2020 and the, uh, German authorities wanted to get him for his part of this Wirecard scandal. Wirecard was kinda like the German equivalent of PayPal, and um, it was a massive fraud scandal that is considered the most significant fraud, financial fraud case in German history. And he was at the heart of it and allegedly, um, Marsalek had been working for the Russians since 2014. Apparently he was recruited by a GRU officer named Stanislav Petlinsky. Um, and they met on his, on a yacht for his girlfriend's birthday party in Nice in France. This is based on reporting by the Daily Mail. Also, the Daily Mail claimed that Marsalek may have also been a one-time source for Britain's MI6 and America's CIA. What's interesting is Germans, uh, the German minister, German minister Bernd Schmidbauer, I hope I got that right, who previously ran its intelligence services claimed Marsalek boasted to him in one meeting that he had the security services of the world in his pocket, and he'd been talking to him for years now. Now it's believed, Western intelligence was keen to have Marsalek as a source because of his connection to Wirecard, so they could closely monitor certain money laundering operations and organized crimes. So the whole Marsalek, um, being a source for MI6 and CIA is kind of interesting. Um, and you know, I, I don't know how long he was a source or whether people sort of, um, sussed him out or not, but certainly he became of interest to the GRU from 2014. Um, and allegedly he's a grandson of a Soviet spy, um, which is also interesting. Obviously, he's Austrian born, not Russian born. So Marsalek's this fascinating character who I'm sure would make a, um, a brilliant, uh, uh, you know, protagonist of a novel one day.

[00:20:51] Matt: Yeah. Maybe not a protagonist, but an antagonist. Antagonist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very kind of a le Carré-esque, esque character. Especially also that, that, that Great Yarmouth, um, setting. I can sort of, I can sort of see, see the, see the scene, um, in my head.

Um, yeah. You know, uh, last, last thing for me on this. I think, you know, this case is just another reminder that Russian intelligence and organized crime are deeply, um, intertwined. Uh, the, you know, they sort of use these criminal, these Russian criminal syndicates to sort of reach out into Europe and North America, to their target countries. Marsalek is an obvious example of this, but the pattern goes all the way up the chain. You know, whether it's, um, the Wagner Group, you know, he was, um, he was tied into all sorts of shady stuff. Um, state-backed, uh, uh, hackers, troll farms, you know, that aren't sort of directly, explicitly governed by an intelligence agency but are sort of basically like a subcontractor, or these, um, human trafficking rings operating as cutouts for Russian intelligence. Um, so this blending of state and criminal enterprises gives Russia a, I guess you could call it a strategic advantage in a way, you know, as a, as a forced multiplier. They can deny involvement while still getting results they hope through their network of, um, unofficial operatives. Just a sort of different, a, a, a, a different dynamic that you don't really see, um, mimicked in, in Western intelligence agencies.

[00:22:19] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I was, do you remember we were talking about the Art Loss Register a few weeks ago? Um, just something popped into my mind when I was talking to the founder of that, he was telling me about how the USSR used to use organized crime and the black market to raise money.

[00:22:33] Matt: Yeah.

[00:22:34] Chris: So that's another way for the Russian government to kind of raise money, is using organized crime. Um, and I remember talking about even Edward Lucas about that intersection of organized crime when it comes to the sort of state murders, the state-backed murders that have gone on, usually the people carry it out, do have connections to organized crime. Um, it, it, you know, because it gives you that one step removed from the Russian government, so they do get caught, you can kind of just say it was a criminal enterprise rather than a state-backed one. So yeah, there is something very sketchy there the way the Russian government work with organized crime.

The other thing for me, um, is back to that plot at the military base and using this Razor 2 IMSI catchers to trace mobile phones of Ukrainian soldiers. It's quite, it's quite genius actually. You know, because a lot of people, um, do have their personal device with them and if they're on a friendly base, they might lower their guard a little bit and unknown to them, somebody on the outskirts of the base is actually scooping up all their digital information. So I think I, I, I would urge if there's any soldier out there or anybody in Ukraine listening to this, do practice good digital hygiene when deployed. You know, even at friendly locations, make sure you don't use your personal phone either on the battlefield or adjacent to the battlefield or on basis where you're being trained. Use a secondary phone or something, you know?

[00:23:47] Matt: Yeah. Um, and another sort of interesting point there. Patch Barracks is definitely one of the biggest foreign intelligence targets in, in, in Europe. It's, um, is headquarters for US European Command. And you know, with that, there's also a large footprint from probably every US intelligence agency there that's attached to, um, European Command's, J2 or their, uh, Intelligence Directorate. So there's a, there's a lot of, um, Patch Barracks is a, is a target-rich, uh, environment for the, for the Russians. I'm sure you know, um, the Army Counterintelligence, um, the Special Security Office within European Command's, J2 directorate, I mean, they, they know that they're a target and I'm sure there are, um, all sorts of countermeasures both seen and unseen around, around Patch Barracks. And I would, I would hope that, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, stationed, if you're assigned to a staff position at European Command, that you would get some sort of, um, counterintelligence, digital hygiene training, you know, but that's, that's a, that's a, a recurring issue here and there. I mean, there was that years ago there was that whole issue with the, the Strava app on people's phones. Like the, the running app.

[00:25:00] Chris: Yeah. Special forces.

[00:25:01] Matt: Yeah.

[00:25:01] Chris: People, yeah. Were running around the American bases. Yeah.

[00:25:03] Matt: Yeah. In Syria, yeah. Yeah. You could see where they went for their runs.

[00:25:06] Chris: Mm. No, fascinating. So yeah, digital hygiene is, uh, something to definitely be thinking about. So, um, I don't think there's anything else I wanna cover. Is there anything else you wanna cover there?

[00:25:15] Matt: No. Interesting story, but, uh, yeah.

[00:25:17] Chris: Yeah. Well, I'm glad they were caught and it was disrupted. You know, there were some people, um, on Bluesky just sort of, um, yeah, expressing a degree of outrage and I just had to remind people that, look, they caught these guys and it just shows that counterintelligence is working hard.

[00:25:31] Matt: Yeah.

[00:25:31] Chris: So hats off to MI5 and the London Met for, you know, getting these people before they actually did real damage.

[00:25:37] Matt: Right. I'm not sure what the outrage is. I mean, spies are going to spy. I mean, it's not like they, they again, it was disrupted. They did not succeed in, you know, kidnapping someone off the streets of Europe or something. But yeah, as spies are going to spy, uh, we're going to try to catch them. Um, luckily in this case, we, we did.

[00:25:58] Chris: Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. So just be, be wary of those, if you're, you know, if you're a journalist, et cetera, be careful of, uh, new acquaintances, I guess, you know? Um, especially if they are attractive to you.

[00:26:11] Matt: Yeah.

[00:26:12] Chris: You know, you've gotta be really careful about that. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. I've heard many, uh, many interesting story from various people we've interviewed over the years. Um, there was one person, um, it was when we were talking about The Spy in Moscow Station, where it was described that a US intelligence officer went to his bedroom at night in a hotel. 10 minutes later, you get a knock on the door. This beautiful woman appears and he, he declines her offer and then another 20 minutes go by another beautiful woman, but a uh, of a different sort of, um, ethnicity turns up and then a man turns up and so on. And he spent most of his night just turning down people. So, uh, you know, beware.

[00:26:51] Matt: Yeah.

[00:26:51] Chris: It does happen. Yeah, indeed it does happen. Well, on that note, let's take a break and we'll be right back.

Well, welcome back, everybody. So our next story, we're going to be looking at developments with the Ukraine peace plan, or should we say ceasefire. So Matt, um, you talked to us about this.

[00:27:22] Matt: Yeah, so just before we get into this, just sort of a disclaimer as we're recording this, it's almost, um, half past one in the afternoon on, uh, Thursday, March 13th on the East Coast. Half past one on the East Coast. So by the time this airs on Saturday or whenever you're hearing it, things could be different, but here's where things stand as of right when we're recording.

[00:27:43] Chris: You're telling me we could be in a position of peace by Saturday? Is that what you're telling me?

[00:27:48] Matt: I don't know, I don't know that I would, I would call it that. I would, I would guess it would probably be something much kind of dumber and infuriating and unnecessary than that, but also define peace. But yeah, anyway. so here's, here's sort of what we know.

So Kyiv has agreed to a US-proposed ceasefire, one that would pause hostilities for 30 days, but only if Russia agrees to the same terms. The deal emerged after eight hours of talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, involving Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukraine's top negotiator, Andriy Yermak. President Zelenskyy has called it a positive step, emphasizing that the ceasefire would completely halt missile, drone and bomb attacks, not just on the front lines, but across the Black Sea in all contested territory. Now, the real question is whether Putin will play ball, and at this point the answer suggests that it could be a firm no, but we'll see. I'll explain some more of that in a second here.

So, um, this morning, as, as we're recording here, uh, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov dismissed the proposal, saying that a ceasefire would be nothing more than temporary, uh, reprieve for Europe to regroup. Um, that tracks with longstanding US intelligence assessments that Putin still believes that time is on his side. Um, he sees no reason to stop now giving Russia's, um, momentum on the battlefield, trying to dislodge, uh, Ukrainian forces from parts of the pockets of, of Kursk that they've, um, that captured, um, steady military, steady military support from North Korea and Iran, and with an as-yet unclear role as well from China. Um, at the same time, Ushakov claimed Russia is pursuing a, quote, long-term peace settlement, unquote, um, that accounts for Moscow's interests, which is just Kremlin's shorthand for territorial concessions and a rewritten European security order on Putin's terms. Um, he also described Russia's ongoing dialogue with the US as calm, which could mean anything from diplomatic posturing to quiet back channel negotiations between Washington and Moscow.

[00:29:50] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:51] Matt: Strategically, the ceasefire marked a notable shift after weeks of crisis between Kyiv, Washington, and European capitals. The Trump administration froze military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, raising serious concerns about America's long-term commitment. Now, with the US quietly resuming some of those intelligence support and security assistance after Ukraine accepted the ceasefire, uh, proposal. Um, I think it's a welcome and necessary step, uh, but one that doesn't erase anxiety over the White House's, broader posture toward Russia. Um, so this is just a, a, a truce, not, not, a peace deal. Um, and it doesn't come with US security guarantees, something Trump has signaled he has little interest in providing. Um, that leaves Europe scrambling to step up, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron trying to assemble a coalition of peacekeepers. Whether they can come up with a force that reassures Ukraine while also keeping Putin at the table is the next big diplomatic test.

Um, and finally, one, uh, notable absence from this deal, um, any discussion of Kyiv of giving up territory, um, that's been a big red flag for the, uh, Ukrainians. I guess, you know, the Russians want those, sort of, four provinces in Ukraine's eastern part of the country rather than just the, the territory that they currently occupy, which is only a fraction of that. Um, so we'll see, uh, how this sort of moves forward. If there's more sort of back channeling between the US and, and Russia to sort of bring the Russians around to the table, um, we will see. But if this cease, if, if this ceasefire somehow does morph into real negotiations. Um, uh, yeah, we'll see. But I dunno about you, Chris. I would, I would see this as a, I would rather be here where we are than when you and I were talking last week.

[00:31:41] Chris: Yeah. I still have my reservations.

[00:31:43] Matt: Sure.

[00:31:43] Chris: Um, which are expressed. But, um, so I mean, first of all, I suppose my first, I had reservations about Marco Rubio based on his lack of reactions to that disastrous meeting that occurred at the White House. But to be fair to, to Secretary Rubio, if he hadn't praised and fawned over Trump after that meeting, he likely wouldn't have a job. So my first reaction to this meeting in Saudi Arabia was, thank God the adults in the room are talking and President Trump is far from this conversation.

[00:32:10] Matt: Yep.

[00:32:10] Chris: Um, that was my first initial thing. I think the US pushing for a 30-day ceasefire, on the one hand, this is a positive, but it doesn't guarantee that Russia will not exploit the time it gives them to sort of regroup or violate those terms of the ceasefire. I kinda see the ceasefire as very symbolic for Trump. Um, I think he'd almost be happy to have achieved a ceasefire and then if it all falls apart, he might better sort of wash his hands of it and say, well, look, I've tried. Um, so I'm a bit, I'm a bit sort of dubious about this sort of ceasefire because for, for America at the moment, it seems to be incredibly important to push this. But as the Ukrainians have been warning, until the White House blowup, that this ceasefire lacks a few practical things that will actually guarantee peace. Um, so you could have 30 days of peace or we could have many years of peace, and I think in a moment it's more interesting in 30 days than the bigger picture. Um, now obviously Ukraine's accepted the terms of ceasefire, um, and it does now leave the ball in Russia's court, which is a good thing. Um, you know, Russia have been very aggressive, sorry, Russia have been very aggressive in their missile attacks over the last few weeks, and they've been maximizing any advantage they have with dwindling US support for Ukraine.

I'm also happy to see that Ukrainian children who have been taken by the Russians have not been forgotten and that there are demands for their return. I really dread to think what they've had to endure and what level of Russian indoctrination they may have been subjected to. Um, I'm pleased to see that US sharing of intelligence is happening again. Um, I believe they should never have been stopped. I thought it was irresponsible for the US to do that, but there we go. Some argue this may have helped Russia make gains in the Kursk region. I'm sure further reporting will shed light on whether that is the case. Um, Ukraine and many Western officials are skeptical as to whether Putin actually wants peace and if he accepts and even if he will accept a 30 day ceasefire. And, and if he does and continues fighting, I'm concerned as to how, you know, as I was saying earlier, how the Trump administration will react because I, I feel like for Trump at the moment, the symbolic nature of this 30 day ceasefire is more important than anything else. Um, and I'm concerned that if it all falls apart, which I think it will, I'll bet Russia will be the ones who make it fall apart, that somehow it will be blamed on Ukraine and that there's a potential that Trump will continue blocking military aid to Ukraine. Um, and Trump will just say, well, we tried and then blame it on President Zelenskyy. And as I said last week, I think both Putin and Trump, while looking for ways to push Zelenskyy out of office, and if this 30-day ceasefire fails, I think Zelenskyy would be the one getting the blame, not Putin. But time will tell on that one.

Um, now it's good to see Trump has invited Zelenskyy back to the White House. I hope President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer will go with him, as I think Zelenskyy could benefit from their support in front of Trump. And I hope Vice President Vance is sent off on a trip to inspect algae in Alaska or something fitting of his personality and qualifications. I don't think he should be in that meeting at all. Um, and also what annoys me is there's still no security guarantees from the US, which frankly is the card that they should be playing if they're serious about peace. Because if Putin feels he is threatened and that he saw that there's a prospect of real force could be used against him, I only think then he will start to play ball. And the fact that the Trump administration have taken that off the table before negotiations really started, to me, just strikes me as deeply irresponsible. Um, and at the moment, Russia have military support from weapons from Iran, North Korea, and unspecified aid from China. So unless that is cut off, I think Putin sees himself in a very good position and he's going to attempt to achieve his objective. And then just to quote, Philip, Dr. Phillips O'Brien from his newsletter on the ceasefire, he's, he notes that unlike Ukraine, which was punished by an actual draconian aid and intelligence cutoff, Russia has received aid by Trump to this point. Russia has seen the US damage its enemy, Ukraine, has seen US officials actually go to great lengths to improve relations with Russia, and is in regular contact with the White House. It is Russia that sees the US asking for concrete concessions from Ukraine and nothing specific from it. As you can see, Russia has gained a great deal, is what Phillips O'Brien says.

So I'm not popping any champagne corks yet, and I won't be skipping through any sunflower fields or doing any Snoopy happy dances right now. I feel very deeply cynical about all of this, and I just hope that, um, that something positive can come from this. And on a side note, I am pleased to see our prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, really step up to the occasion and work closely of our European allies. And I can only hope this is the beginning of closer ties with Europe in a time when there are strategic gaps now caused by dwindling US support for Europe. I really hope that, um, Europe can step up and sort of fill that gap. Um, but only time will tell. But it seems to me that this is the worst time for Europe to be in a situation where they might not be able to count on the US. So those are my 10 pennies worth on all this.

[00:37:17] Matt: Yeah, I think this, uh, I think the, this ceasefire development is a real testament to Zelenskyy's diplomatic prowess and sheer, uh, resilience, qualities that have served him well since day one of this war, and no doubt are exactly why Putin wants him gone, I'm, I'm sure. Um, Zelenskyy walked into that Oval Office meeting at the end of last month and got bullied and humiliated by Trump and JD Vance who, despite their personal insecurities, somehow expected him to apologize to them. Um, and yet Zelenskyy didn't take the bait. He didn't cave to performative outrage or get dragged into Trump's fragile ego trip. Um, instead he kept his focus on Ukraine's survival, navigating the fallout like an adult, um, while Trump and Vance behaved like petulant children. And what's the result? Um, the US has resumed military and intelligence support. Those sort of negotiating tactics, as we said last week, these are negotiating tactics. It's wrong to use them as negotiating tactics, but to, to the Trump people, that's what they were. And Ukraine has managed to flip the script, uh, putting Russia in the position of either accepting a ceasefire or exposing itself as the real obstacle to peace.

Um, and, you know, Zelenskyy should have never had to bend over backwards to placate Trump, but if there's some movement here, since we record, that, that causes it to be, causes a ceasefire proposal to be accepted by the Russians, um, I think even, even, I think just the optics of Trump demanding this ceasefire proposal, Zelenskyy saying, Okay, fine, and the Russians saying, no, I, I, I think that is a fundamentally positive step to, to see that. As to who's the real obstacle to peace here, not just for Ukraine, but the entire Western alliance. Um, in just over a week, we've gone from a five-alarm diplomatic crisis to Ukraine sitting in Jeddah with US officials hammering out a ceasefire that puts the ball squarely in Putin's court. Um, and, you know, frankly, as you said, with the adults in the room, in your comments, um, if there's any, if there were any two people on Trump's national security team that I would want handling this away from JD Vance's obnoxious face, far away from his obnoxious face, um, it's Marco Rubio and, and Mike Waltz, who area sort of traditional, national security hawk conservatives in that, you know, regular kind of bent that most people know, um, and find acceptable to a degree.

[00:39:52] Chris: Yeah. And I think you could see from Marco Rubio's face during that White House thing that he clearly was not comfortable, he knows what's going on and, and you know, it's easy for me to criticize him for not stepping up.

[00:40:03] Matt: Yeah.

[00:40:03] Chris: But if he did step up and go against Trump, he would be out of, be out of a job and then who knows who'd be negotiating this.

[00:40:08] Matt: They, at least from Mike Waltz, from his past positions and stuff in, in Congress, and, you know, Rubio's whole career, they at least seemed to understand Ukraine's importance to the US and NATO. Um, they seem to, in this instance, have been given the space to actually do their jobs. Um, the next test that I'm looking for is how Trump reacts if it's a firm, solid no, um, from the Russians. And I don't know, I mean, there was that comment from that Kremlin aide this morning, I don't know if that's

[00:40:38] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:39] Matt: Him just sort of casting doubt on it, or if that comes. It didn't come from someone like Sergei Lavrov or Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, or something. So I, I potentially room for more movement there in the future. And again, maybe by the time this episode's released, we'll have that. But, um, you know, make no mistake though, US intelligence estimates have long indicated that Putin isn't looking to wind down the war. Um, he still thinks he's winning. Um, everything from the, the military support he's getting, the Western schism, it's all reinforcing his belief that time is on his side. So if Russia rejects the ceasefire or violates it once it's in place, will Trump respond with the same performative outrage and maximum-pressure tactics that he throws at Ukraine? Or will he move the goalposts again, never uttering a critical word of Putin while finding new ways to blame Zelenskyy? Um, that'll be telling, because despite this positive movement, Trump's broader posture towards Russia still hasn't changed.

[00:41:39] Chris: Yeah. If Putin does violate the, um, 30 day ceasefire, which I think is highly likely, the interesting other thing will be obviously the reaction of European leaders to it. And Trump will be in a situation where if he is still, um, you know, uh, being Putin's number one fan, running the Vladimir Putin fan club as he seems to be, um, he will find himself a bit isolated a little bit. Um, he will not be singing from the same hymn sheet as the European allies, and that will create a very interesting situation as well. Um, whether Trump gives a monkeys about that, I don't know. Um, because I think, you know, because Trump originally promised he'd end this in a day, and obviously that's not happened. It's a bit like Putin thought he was going to end this war in three days, and that didn't happen either. The Ukraine conflict, um, there's a lot of people with bold ideas and it all kind of falls apart. Um, and you know, there are a lot of egos involved in this in regards to Putin. His entire political future seems to be based on a successful outcome in Ukraine. Trump has made the war about him now and about him bringing, being the peacemaker because then he could be better than President Biden, as he likes to call him. Uh, he wants to, you know, I mean, I, I think Ukraine probably, if they want, they should, um, to increase their chance of Trump support is they should start naming things after Donald Trump and, I dunno, rename Kyiv, the Donald Trump Center for Peace and Reconciliation or something. You know what I mean? It's like,

[00:43:03] Matt: Yeah. You know, I, I I've said to you offline in the past, you know, like over the last two weeks when shit was looking really bad, I said to you at a moment of, of frustration, you know, Putin can manipulate the shit out of him. Why can't, why can't the Europeans, you know? Yeah. You shouldn't have to play his game. It's incredibly frustrating. It's incredibly annoying. Trust me, I know it's annoying. I've been stuck in here for a decade.

[00:43:27] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:27] Matt: But he is able to be manipulated. Um, and I, I, I don't know, I think while all eyes are understandably on this immediate moment, and this, you know, relates back to stuff we were talking about last week, I hope Europe is thinking beyond just the next four years. Um, so far Starmer and Macron seem to get that. I think, um, these last couple weeks have been Britain's best moment on the global stage since Brexit. Really incredible how the, how, how he's stepped up.

[00:43:56] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:56] Matt: Um, so there, Europe's working towards long-term security guarantees and a, and a strategic posture that isn't dependent on the shifting whims of American politics. And that's crucial because even if this ceasefire comes to be, you know, a, a real negotiation that leads to some sort of peace agreement, Ukraine's security and, and Europe's security cannot be tied to our election cycles. Um, but at the same time, both European leaders and their people shouldn't succumb to the doomerism that a traditional, transatlantic-friendly US president will never again occupy the White House. That kind of despair, I think, um, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And more importantly, it's exactly what both Putin and MAGA diehards want. They want you to feel that America is lost, that NATO is dead, that resistance is pointless. Doing so, I think is absolutely a form of obeying in advance. For now, though, Ukraine is in a stronger position than it was a week ago, Zelenskyy is still standing, um, and that alone is a victory. And these days, I'll take it.

[00:45:02] Chris: Yeah, yeah, indeed. Yeah. Uh, any forward progress is something. So, uh, we will keep an eye on this and, uh, as more developments come in, hopefully positive ones, um, we will, we'll keep you abreast. Well, I think let's take another break and we'll be right back.

So, welcome back, everybody. So for our next story, we're going to be looking at new information on this quite cool looking new drone ship. And Matt, I'll hand this over to you.

[00:45:41] Matt: Yeah. So just, uh, spotted off the coast of Washington state, a mysterious naval vessel has raised plenty of eyebrows and for good reason. Um, the 180-foot, 240-metric ton Defiant has now been confirmed as the latest creation under DARPA's No Manning Required Ship, or NOMARS, I believe you call it, a program. What makes her different, uh, is, is she's designed to operate indefinitely with zero human presence aboard. So that means no crew quarters, no galley, nothing that would typically make a ship habitable. Um, this is the US military's vision for the future of naval warfare, a fully autonomous, uncrewed warship capable of long-duration missions at sea without ever needing a human to step foot on deck.

Um, built by Serco as a testbed, Defiant is part of a larger push to integrate more uncrewed surface vessels, or USVs, into the Navy's fleet. Her design prioritizes efficiency, modularity, and something DARPA calls graceful degradation, the idea that as individual systems inevitably fail over time, the vessel, uh, still maintains core functions. Uh, she features open deck space to accommodate modular payloads, everything from sensors and cargo to potential missile launchers. Um, future versions of the class could carry an array of weapons, including the Adaptable Deck Launching System, which can fire the same missiles used as the Mark 41 Vertical Launch System found on US and allied warships. Um, this means we're potentially looking at autonomous missile boats, a massive shift in naval warfare strategy. A whole bunch of implications for the Pacific there.

Um, but beyond the technical specs, Defiant speaks to a larger issue, America's struggle to scale up its naval fleet and shipbuilding capacity while keeping pace with China's rapid military expansion. So the US, the, the US Navy has faced, um, major shipbuilding challenges with limited yard capacity, slowing production and maintenance. A platform like Defiant, which can be built outside traditional shipyards, even in rail works, uh, offers a potential way around this bottleneck and also aligns with Navy's recent shift towards smaller, simpler, and more scalable uncrewed systems rather than overly complex, expensive designs.

Um, now DARPA is preparing Defiant for extensive sea trials this spring, where she will demonstrate whether a vessel with zero human oversight can truly operate at the level required for human, for, for modern naval combat. Um, is if, if successful, this ship could mark, could mark a major step toward a future where robotic warships, patrol the oceans, raising strategic opportunities and serious questions about autonomy, security, and the ethics of AI-driven warfare. Chris, what'd you think about this one?

[00:48:28] Chris: Yeah. Multiple things. Um, first of all, I have a question, was the name Defiant meant to be a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine reference?

[00:48:36] Matt: I don't know.

[00:48:37] Chris: Because, uh,

[00:48:37] Matt: I don't know.

[00:48:38] Chris: That was the name of the little ship that protected Deep Space Nine, wasn't it?

[00:48:41] Matt: I don't know. Maybe, maybe there are, I, I'd imagine there are a few, more than a few Trekkies at, at at, at DARPA.

[00:48:47] Chris: Yeah.

[00:48:48] Matt: Um, I don't know.

[00:48:49] Chris: Yeah, yeah. Bit interesting to find that out. So if anybody at DARPA is listening and feel free to message us to confirm or deny that.

But, uh, yeah, so no, off the bat, looks very impressive. Um, yeah, this is an impressive development for unmanned naval vessels, which had their pros and cons as you've sort of been alluding to there. So, um, obviously we've seen from the war in Ukraine how effective small unmanned sea drones have been. The Ukrainians have devastated Russian naval forces in the Black Sea, and it's been of little cost to them in manpower terms. Um, the downside of drone ships though, I think will be how countermeasures may develop and be, you know, created to block signals to send to those ships because obviously an autonomous ship is still going to have to receive signals to kind of know what its mission is, et cetera. Um, and worse could these ships get hacked by your enemy and turned against you? You know, I'm sure if we are in a, um, a conflict with a, a near-peer competitor like China or Russia, they're going to work out ways to block those signals or to hack those ships, which I'm sure DARPA will be looking very hard at preventing. But time has shown again and again, if something is hackable, it will eventually get hacked. So I hope the US Navy will be cautious with this and how it goes forward with its use of drones, because I think, um, the, uh, obviously you're saying the benefits, long-term deployments, they'll be able to kind of go on, um, you know, on these sort of missions without having to worry so much about looking after the crew. If they were to go down the road of creating like unmanned frigates, they could use that to bolster the capability of manned ships. I think, I think the ultimate way to use a drone ship is actually to pair it with a manned ship. So there's always a manned and a drone ship. Um, so then if it all goes haywire, at least you've still got some capability out there. Um, so I think like using them on defensive missions, like the Red Sea, you know, last year when NATO forces, or NATO ships, have been deployed to protect shipping from Houthi rebel attacks, this is where those autonomous ships with a manned ship could be really useful because you can kind of double the firepower.

Um, so yeah, I, I think there's a lot of pros and cons here. I think this, you know, again, you talk about the ethics of autonomous ships. It, it, it, yeah, if you send a ship out, um, that's supposed to have its own initiative, it could make all sorts of weird decisions. And we've seen 2001 and HAL 9000, et cetera. Um, uh, and I think there's a genuine issue to be debate, because I think we are slowly shipping, um, sorry, we're slowly slipping into using more and more drones because the benefits of not putting your people in danger are pushed as the key thing. But I think you still need a human in the equation at all times in conflict because humans, um, you know, they kind of see the gray and understand the gray and can make kind of better decisions than I think a computer that only sees in, in black and white. So that's, that's my opinion on it.

[00:51:38] Matt: Right. Yeah, this is, it, it's really interesting. It, it seems like almost a naval version of what the Air Force is rolling out right now with their CCAs, that are Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which are like those, um, drone, AI-powered drone, like Loyal Wingmen.

[00:51:55] Chris: Yeah. Which is, which is a great concept, yeah.

[00:51:57] Matt: Right. That would accompany the, the sort of, the thought is that would, so a, a sixth-generation fighter, like the NGAD, or I believe, um, F-35s are going to be upgraded to, to be able to use these as well. But, um, so like, uh, an NGAD fighter would, that's, that, that's piloted by a human, right? Would have two, three, maybe four of these CCAs or, or, or Loyal Wingman drones that, um, they would sort of operate as one sort of networked, um, unit. And in, in, in a, you know, a battlefield, potentially like the Indo-Pacific when you're dealing with, um, vast distances,

[00:52:39] Chris: mm-hmm.

[00:52:39] Matt: Issues around refueling, around effective range of, um, air-to-air or anti-ship missiles, um, you know, China being able to really push out the, the extent of denied or contested airspace far into the Western Pacific in a way that, at least in, certainly in our lifetimes, has just not been a concern for the US military. Um, it, it, it kind of, you know, enables, rather than sending the manned fighter into this sort of contested airspace, they stay farther back and the CCAs, these, you know, drones go in. And, um, they're kind of designed to be almost expendable, you know? They're not meant to have the same sort of service life as a, you know, regular F-22 or an F-35 would. Um, this sort of seems to be like a, a similar concept, at least, you know, for the, um, for the Navy.

There, there's all kinds of, um, potential, uh, use cases here, you know? Um, so their, China's submarine force is a big, um, asymmetric, uh, it's a big, uh, asymmetric threat. Um, so the Defiant, or a future version of it could control, could patrol contested waters with advanced sonar and torpedoes, hunting for Chinese subs without risking, without risking, um, a manned crew. The Pacific, as I've said, you know, is also an absolute nightmare for, uh, logistics. A lot of times you'll hear the term, the tyranny of distance bandied about in, like, think tank papers and stuff. Um, so if the US does go to war with China, keeping the fleet fueled and armed will be one of the hardest challenges. Um, future versions of Defiant could serve as, uh, autonomous supply ships, ferrying weapons, fuel, and parts across vast distances of the Pacific without human risk or manpower strains. Um, you know, and then, you know, there's the issue around our, our shipbuilding constraints that we have right now, which is a serious issue that we have to get on top of like yesterday. Um, you know, the other, you mentioned the, the, the cybersecurity concerns about, you know, disabling or, or disrupting it, or something. I was looking at pictures of this and I'm just like thinking to myself like, what would stop a Chinese naval special forces team from boarding it and disabling it, or just, you know, stealing it or something? And that's something that I'm sure I'm, I, I'm sure DARPA has also asked themself that question and is, and is on and is on top of that. But, um, it's a very new, very cool platform.

We have a lot of these things coming online right now. You know, I mentioned the, the, the CCA drones. Um, two of those variants, um, that are sort of still undergoing testing right now, um, one from General Atomics and the other from, um, Anduril, we just got, uh, um, like designations for them and they have a new, um, FQ or Fighter Drone designation, which is, which is brand new for the Air Force. Very cool. It's one of those things, you see stuff like this and you're like, oh wow, we are in the future. For better or for worse. I don't know. We could all be screwed, you know?

[00:55:42] Chris: Yeah.

[00:55:42] Matt: Our new AI overlords, I don't know, but,

[00:55:45] Chris: Just be polite to ChatGPT.

[00:55:47] Matt: I always say please and thank you.

[00:55:48] Chris: Yeah, I, I try to. At times I forget, but, uh, 90% of the time, I, I say thank you very much for your help there, ChatGPT. Or, uh, is it Google Gemini I actually quite like, except for when, soon as you mentioned a politician's name, I cannot talk about politics, so, uh, yeah. Yeah, good. That always makes me chuckle, but, uh, there we go. Excellent. Well, thank you for pointing that one out, because I think that's a really interesting piece and I think it's always a good idea to keep an eye on sort of, um, technological advancements for good and bad, you know? I think it's some really interesting stuff that's, uh, we're on the verge of seeing like the sixth-gen fighters and things like that, so, uh, yeah.

[00:56:23] Matt: Definitely.

[00:56:24] Chris: So our final piece might, our final piece, might be a bit of a downer and I apologize. Um, so this is an article, uh, titled Putin Has Won by Franklin Foer for The Atlantic. Um, so the key points are over the past 25 years, Vladimir Putin has reshaped global politics by undermining democracy, destabilizing Western alliances, and expanding Russia's influence through a mix of aggression and subversion. The US, once a major obstacle to Putin's ambitions, has become an enabler under Trump, who has weakened efforts to counter Russian influence, dismantle protections against foreign kleptocracy, and sought to reintegrate Putin into the global order. Using tactics from his KGB past, Putin has in, uh, interfered in elections, cultivated far-right allies in the West, and weaponize social media to weaken democratic institutions, all while promoting an anti-woke counternarrative. Ukraine has been central to resisting Putin's ambitions, but US support has waned under Trump, and with aid and intelligence sharing previously cut off significantly weakening Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russian aggression. Putin has, has succeeded by exploiting the weaknesses of Western democracies, betting on their short attention spans and internal divisions whilst using autocracy's advantages, which are control, patience, and ruthlessness to outmaneuver his democratic adversaries. So Matt, what are your thoughts? Do you think Putin has won or is winning?

[00:57:57] Matt: Yeah, I, I, I, I get what, what Foer is trying to do here. He's not just saying that Putin has won on the battlefield or that Ukraine is lost. He's making a much bigger existential argument that we're in a new era, an Age of Putin, you might say, where democracy is in retreat, authoritarianism is ascendant. And I get why people feel that way, why you would look at it objectively and think that. You know, when you look at the past decade, whether it's Brexit, Trump, Orban, Le Pen, election interference, disinformation, Ukraine under assault, the transatlantic alliance under strain, um, it, it's easy to feel that we've lost control of the forward trajectory of, of history.

[00:58:42] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:42] Matt: Here's where I depart from that argument, because I don't think history works like that. Um, Foer is periodizing the present moment as if it's already finished and, and as if the outcome is set. Uh, it, it's not. Um, we don't know how this ends because we're still living through it. Um, the arc of history isn't something we just observe, it's, it's something we shape through choices, actions, and resistance.

And let's be real, if Putin had won already, then why is he still fighting? Why isn't he in Kyiv right now? Why does he still need mass repression at home? Why has he led a million Russian sons to slaughter over three years into a war he assured would be over in three days? Why is he still begging North Korea for artillery shells and extra cannon fodder who don't even know which country they're fighting in, or that they're even in a war? Um, this is not the position of a man who has decisively won the 21st century, it's the position of a dictator desperately trying to hold together his imperial project.

Now, where, where I think he has a point, and where his argument is useful, is in recognizing just how much ground has been lost. I think he is right that Putin didn't just react to events, he shaped them. His vision, authoritarian capitalism, oligarchy, revanchism has gained traction. And yes, Trump's return to power as a massive victory for him. There's no way to sugarcoat that. It signals that, for now, the US president is no longer a counterweight to autocracy, but in some cases even an enabler of it.

Um, but I don't think that's the end of the story, thankfully. And, and this is where I get frustrated with how I think this can lend itself to fatalism. Despair is not a strategy. Um, the more people believe the game is lost, the less they'll fight it. That's exactly the kind of learned helplessness that authoritarians weaponize and thrive upon. They don't want just, to just win, they want their enemies to give up. Um, and that's why Putin and MAGA nationalists constantly scream about how the West is dying, how America's a shithole country, how liberalism is finished. They want you to internalize that defeat before it even happens, to accept their inherent nihilism as your own. Because if you stop believing that victory is possible, that there's still something worth fighting for, you won't try to fight.

So yes, let's take this warning seriously, but not perhaps in, in the way. Let's do it in a, in a, in a productive, healthy way. If you don't want this to be the Age of Putin, then what does the alternative look like? What does resistance to that vision require? Because history is not a spectator of sport, kind of a cliche, but we're, we're shaping it right now with every action we take. And the worst thing we can do, the most self-destructive thing we can do is act as, is act as though the fight is already lost. So, take that for, for what it's worth.

[01:01:47] Chris: Yeah. I don't think Putin's won. I think he's actually on the ropes. But I think he has, but I will say, I think we need to acknowledge that Putin, in my opinion, has been the most effective leader on the world stage of this century so far.

[01:01:59] Matt: Yeah.

[01:01:59] Chris: Obviously we're only 25 years in, but he's murdered and manipulated his way to a situation where even the number, his number one strategic foe, the United States, now has a president in charge who is his number one fan, and the US population are too busy, and should we say the Western population, a lot of us are too busy fighting amongst ourselves over disinformation and conspiracy theories, which a lot of them have their roots from Russia, um, through Russian bot factories, et cetera. And obviously you can't blame all conspiracy theories and injustice on, on Putin. But what the Russians do very well is they find little kernels of truth and they use those kernels for their disinformation efforts and they exploit injustices and corruption and exaggerate them to the point where no one knows which way is up from down. And I think that's kind of the world we're in right now. I think Putin's an awful lot of damage. Um, you know, maybe it's a bit like Star Trek 2, the Enterprise has been hit really badly by Khan, um, and we're in a desperate situation and we need to get engines restored again and get this ship out of danger. Because I think that's where we're at with democracy right now.

I think we are at a point where this could be Putin's winning or it might not be. And I just, I'm not convinced currently with the current administration that we have the right people in place to not let Putin win, uh, with regards to America. Now, Europe is stepping up to the challenge a little bit, but um, but there, but Europe cannot do this alone. Um, you know, right now it's a bit like, remember we talked about the other week about the imperfections of DEI? Um, you, you don't wanna throw the baby out with the bath water with it, because DEI, yes, it has its imperfections, but this is not the way to then fix DEI by just getting rid of it and banning words, et cetera. And I think this is a bit like with, with Trump and, and European security. If you're going to pull the rug from Europe and expect them just to fill the void just like that, it's not going to happen, especially when there's an active war going on. So, I think we're in a very dangerous place, I think there's always room for optimism, I think there's always room for hope, but I think we've gotta be really careful that we don't let blind optimism blind us from Putin's effectiveness and the damage that that man has done.

[01:04:12] Matt: Yes. I would think, you know, as Europe is absolutely stepping up right now, as we've talked about in the last episode and some of, and some of in, in, in this episode, and you know, I think part of that is absolutely driven by our current, hopefully temporary, insanity, um, but it would've been necessary also even without that, you know, as we've said several times,

[01:04:34] Chris: Yes.

[01:04:34] Matt: Even if Kamala Harris had won, it would still be necessary. Um, but you know, it's, I, I think the question of whether or not this is going to be the Age of Putin, okay, you can say perhaps this is the Age of Putin right now, will it continue indefinitely? Will it be the Century of Putin, is perhaps still the question.

[01:04:54] Chris: He's going to be dead possibly in the next 10 to 20 years, either through natural causes or something else.

[01:05:00] Matt: Who knows whos, right? And after that, you know, yeah, he has never, he has his, his, his arrogance, his, his ego, which insists upon itself and has for, you know, over 20 years, has also, has not allowed himself to anoint a successor. He has no sons, right? So what happens after him is really anybody's guess.

[01:05:21] Chris: Death of Stalin, that's what it is.

[01:05:23] Matt: Right. You know, but, you know, as, as, as part of that, as I think as we ask our, as we ask ourselves, you know, is this the Age of Putin? Will this be the Century of Putin? You know, are we going to accept that? What are we going to do about that? It's, it's also a question for Europe as well. I mean, um, let's not ignore the fact that far-right, pro-Russian populism, um, is also, isn't just a problem for, for, for the US. It's also alive and well in Europe. In France, the National Rally has been creeping ever closer to the Élysée for a decade. In Germany, AfD is now the second-largest party in the Bundestag. The transatlantic alliance isn't just about keeping Trump and Vance in check and Putin at bay, um, it's also about making sure Europe itself doesn't fall into the same trap. The threat of far-right, NATO-skeptical forces gaining power on both sides of the Atlantic is real, and any European defense planning that doesn't take that into account is dangerously shortsighted. Does Europe, does Europe want to seek shelter under Marine Le Pen's nuclear umbrella?

[01:06:29] Chris: Yeah.

[01:06:29] Matt: Would be my question.

[01:06:30] Chris: No.

[01:06:31] Matt: As Macron will not be around forever.

[01:06:33] Chris: No, exactly. And, and, um, yeah, and I think it is an interesting place where we're at politically at the moment because, um, you know, groups of either extreme seems are getting more and more popular because they're, I guess they're promising things in a, in a language, you know, that's not political-speak. You know, politicians and political-speak tend to be very cautious about making hard promises because most politicians know that anything can happen and hard promises are very hard to keep. And I'm always distrustful of anybody who says, oh, I could do this, that and the other. And, and interesting though, Trump's use of executive power, as far as I know, that's one of the weakest way to create legislation, isn't it? Because it can all be shot down in court eventually.

[01:07:14] Matt: Yeah, yeah. Well it can, it can, it can all be shot down in court. So, okay, so if you, let's say, USAID, right? If you wanted to get rid of USAID, um, you can, like, go in the building and just fire everybody and close out all the accounts and everything and do it illegally. And if you don't have a Congress that is willing to step up and say, no, you can't do that, you can do it to an extent, but that's all through executive orders and just because you just went in the building and just burned it down and fired everybody, right? But it makes it much easier in the future for another administration, hopefully, to just undo it because it's not done under the law, right? So if, if, if Congress passed a bill, passed a law that said USAID is disbanded, it is no more, you would need 60 votes in the Senate to, to reinstate it, to put it back. But all the stuff that's done with executive orders, and this frequently happens in any changeover between administrations, there's a whole slew of executive orders that, you know, cancel stuff that the other guy did before and vice versa. It, it goes back and forth, right? And there are some, uh, some very kind of different obscure rules and regulations that like every single time, uh, the White House has changed hands between parties, stuff gets like, turned on and off, right?

[01:08:34] Chris: Yeah.

[01:08:34] Matt: So, yes, part of this strategy, the Muskian, DOGE strategy of move fast and break things, right? Taking that Silicon Valley mindset to the federal government of the most powerful country on Earth, right? Which A, doesn't work, but part of that, of moving fast and breaking things is you're not, you're doing it in a way that makes it much easier to undo, whereas if you had done it the right and legal and constitutional way through Congress.

[01:09:06] Chris: Well, the most effective politics is slow, isn't it? Because it's all about negotiations, about getting people on side. Things get watered down a little bit to make appeasement, et cetera, but then you get solid legislation that's very difficult to undo, whilst if you use just the powers of executive office and you're making yourself very vulnerable. Even though you appear like you're making a lot of difference, um, is all a bit performative in many respects.

[01:09:29] Matt: It's surface deep.

[01:09:30] Chris: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, just as a warning to people really is just to, um, I mean, in some ways that's hopeful and in some ways that's something to be careful of because, um, you've gotta be careful about politicians who come up with easy answers to complex situations, because we do live in a complex world. Nothing's ever perfect. It's probably is kin to herding cats or something, trying to sort things out. Um, and I'm a cat lover, um, you know, but cats can be a pain and they've got, um, attitudes of their own and their own opinions of things, you know, so it's, it's, it's hard. So, um, yeah, so I think we just, all of us are gotta be, be doubly careful about not being swayed by these kind of politicians who do seem to be, um, in vogue at the moment, these sort of with authoritarian tendencies. And I think also, you know, there's a whole interesting legislative question as well about groups, you know, you've gotta be careful not to slip into McCarthyism with this, but, um, you know how to deal with groups that are trying to use democracy to subvert it and damage democracy. And I think there's some long, hard question about that that requires smarter people than me to come up with a solution to it. But there, there is a question there that definitely needs to find a way to be dealt with where, but where it doesn't turn into McCarthyism, so.

[01:10:51] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. That's a tough, that's a tough, um, tough chart, tough path to walk.

[01:10:57] Chris: Tough path. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, uh, yeah, so is there anything else you'd to add there, Matt, or?

[01:11:02] Matt: No, I mean, I think, uh, I've sort of said how I, how, how I feel about it. Um, this is not just a problem for, for the US, it's a problem for the entire sort of Western liberal democratic world. Um, and it, it, it continues to be so, and you know, if you just sort of accept, this is the Age of Putin now, you know, that's like accepting in 1942 that this is the Age of Adolf Hitler.

[01:11:31] Chris: Mm, yeah. Yeah.

[01:11:32] Matt: Only one way that's going to go for you if you accept that then.

[01:11:34] Chris: Yeah, so we've gotta fight them on the beaches, et cetera. I can't remember Churchill's full speech, but look it up, I'm sure it's got some rousing bits in the there. Um, but yeah, it mustn't let the, the bastard win.

[01:11:45] Matt: Yeah.

[01:11:46] Chris: Well, I think that is us done for today. Um, so thank you very much for listening. Just a reminder, as I was saying at the beginning of the episode, please do send in your questions either via email, which is Secrets and Spies Podcast at gmail dot com or DM us on Instagram, Bluesky, et cetera. And I can't remember the others at the moment, um,

[01:12:06] Matt: They're all in the show notes. There's links to everything in the show notes.

[01:12:08] Chris: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Goes to show notes is all in there. Um, also, if you enjoy this podcast, you can go ad-free on Patreon. Just go to Patreon dot com forward slash Secrets and Spies. We do have a merchandise store at Redbubble. If you go into the show notes, you can go there and you can buy yourself cups, t-shirts, water bottles, even tote bags. And there's one tote bag in the Middle East out there right now. Um, so yeah. Um, and then we also have a YouTube page. You can watch us on YouTube. Hello there. Um, you can watch us on YouTube. So just click on, well just type in Secrets and Spies Podcast. It'll come up, but we're also in the show notes there.

So Matt, uh, any exciting plans for the weekend? You're up to anything nice?

[01:12:48] Matt: Uh, I'm recording three episodes next week, back to back, so I gotta, I gotta, I gotta prep for that. I gotta work on that. Homework.

[01:12:55] Chris: Yeah. Yeah, me too. I've got quite a few things next week.

[01:12:57] Matt: The grind don't stop.

[01:12:59] Chris: Yeah, I know. It's gone crazy isn't it, at the moment, but we're building up a lot of interesting interviews that are coming out over the next few weeks. It's just, uh, we're trying to now schedule them all properly so they don't all kind of land on top of each other. Um, so, uh, we'll, we'll figure that out and going forward. Um, and then, yeah, just as a reminder, everybody, so next week's our last episode of March and then we'll be returning with Espresso Martini on the 3rd of April because we're taking the last week of, uh, sorry, the last week of March off. Um, so yeah, it should be nice. Um, so on the 29th of March, whilst Matt and I are away, I dunno, sitting on a beach somewhere earning 20% like Hans Gruber, uh, I wish, uh, we will be, we will have an episode coming out with, uh, former FBI, special agent Eric O'Neill, who brought down Robert Hanssen, the big traitor within the FBI. So we got a really interesting interview coming up about that and about cybersecurity, which is the area Eric O'Neill's now an expert in. So that will be a really exciting episode.

[01:14:01] Matt: I'm excited to hear that one.

[01:14:02] Chris: Yeah, yeah. Eric was really interesting and there's some really good tips in there about cybersecurity and some interesting insight on, on Robert's habits himself and, uh, even potentially his favorite James Bond movie, so, uh,

[01:14:14] Matt: He was a weird guy.

[01:14:15] Chris: He was, if anybody's ever seen the film Breach, he's played by Chris Cooper. Um, and yeah, he is a very, edgy character, is a very bizarre character, man of many contradictions. Deeply religious, yet at the same time selling videos of his wife naked or having sex on the internet. Very weird man. Very weird man. How he ever got security clearance, I don't know. But apparently, apparently to his peers, he was a lovely guy. So it's uh, yeah, fascinating. Um, so human psychology is always surprising. So, uh, yeah. So I hope that interview sheds some light on all of that. Um, so yeah, I'm really pleased with that one. So that'll be coming out on the 29th, which is the weekend we're away.

So thank you very much, everybody, for listening. And if you enjoy this episode, please share away. Thank you so much for all the kind comments about last week and, um, you know, thank you for all the interaction. We're really enjoying it. You know, please, um, keep, feel free keeping this dialogue going. It's really nice to sort of hear from everybody.

[01:15:10] Matt: For sure.

[01:15:11] Chris: And get to know people out there who are listening to us. So, thank you very much. So, um, on that note. Take care and have a great weekend and we'll catch you next week. Goodbye for now.

[01:15:20] Matt: See ya.

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