 We've got Ukraine. A big news out of Ukraine this morning is that Zelensky, President Zelensky, basically has replaced the commander-in-chief of the military, the commander-in-chief of the military, who has been responsible for the military since the Russian invasion. And by all accounts, at least in the first year and a half, did a phenomenal job of both preventing the Russians from winning in those first few weeks and then taking back significant territory from Russia in the fall of 2022. Unfortunately, as we all know, the counter-effects offensive in 2023 failed. It failed for many reasons, but I don't think the Ukrainian military took into account the full scope of the defensive preparations or the defensive alignment of the Russian military. And as a consequence, they got bogged down and not much happened. In the meantime, Russian offensive is going on across the entire front. Ukraine is primarily in defensive mode, not a good situation for them to be in. And the Russians are making small, fairly insignificant, but small progress in certain regions, particularly in the east and the Donbass. One of the advantages it seems like the Russians now have over the Ukrainians is Ukrainians early on in the war did a phenomenal job using drones to attack the Russians and disable Russian defensives and reach deep into behind Russian lines. They also used American-guided Hymars and other systems that used GPS in order to reach their target and destroy their target. And Ukraine made a lot of progress using those weapons and did phenomenally well. The Russians have developed electronic warfare techniques, and we'll get back to electronic warfare at the end of the segment to talk about China. But electronic warfare that basically disrupts the ability of these missiles and these drones to use GPS coordinates, to use GPS satellites. And that has proven incredibly successful. So what the Russians have done, developed since the beginning of the war, but mainly in the last six months, I'd say seven months, is this capacity to completely disrupt the advanced weapon systems that the Ukrainians are getting from the U.S., which I hope the U.S. is paying attention and will adjust, basically by disrupting their GPS capabilities, the GPS abilities. Ukraine as a consequence is developing their own drones, they're building factories and they're trying to build large numbers of drones that are immune from, that don't use GPS, and therefore immune for some of these electronic interferences, right, that the Russians engaged in. Russia has its own drones, those drones the Ukrainians are having a hard time dealing with. Anyway, so all of that is background why the war is kind of hunkered down and why Ukraine is under defensive and why, if anything, Russia is pushing forward. Of course, Ukraine is also being denied from the West. Weapon systems, it's being denied from the West, the ability to fight with the best weapon systems. The United States is holding back. We know that, we'll talk about that in a minute, that the United States is holding a military aid back from Ukraine and the European Union is delayed because of obon. Now they've got to approve, but that has been delayed. And of course, if you go back two years, the Biden administration has been delaying and delaying and delaying, we won't give them tanks, then we give them tanks. We won't give them F-16s, then we give them F-16s. F-16s still haven't arrived yet, or the training hasn't finished yet, but they will enter the region soon. What else do I want to say about Ukraine? Yes, the general replacing the fire general, the new general that is stepping in his place, is a Russian born in Russia. His family is originally from Ukraine, but of Russian speaking family. So it is interesting, right, Putin in much of his propaganda argues that this whole war is about liberating the ethnic Russians in Ukraine who don't want to be under Ukraine and bringing them under Mother Russia. Well, here is a Russian-Ukrainian ethnic Russian in Ukraine, educated in Russia, speaks fluent Russian. Born in Russia is now the supreme commander of Ukrainian forces fighting Russia. Yeah, so there you go, so much Putin's rationalizations, which you will hear many, much more of tonight when Tekko Carlson breaks the internet with his interview of Vladimir Putin. Instead of watching that, you should all be right here on the Iran book show, where I will be interviewing somebody a hundred times more interesting. Well, no, that's an insult. A million times more interesting than Vladimir Putin, and that's Jason Rines, will be talking about the rise and fall of civilizations. He is a Greek philosophy expert, but he's also taught a class on Emmanuel Kant. He is generally an expert in intellectual history, in philosophy. He knows, he's an expert on a lot of different things. We'll be talking about that. I'm sure some of his other expertise will come out. But Jason is a lot of fun and really is a great guy. So hopefully you'll tune in 7 p.m. East Coast time to my interview with him tonight on the rise and fall of civilizations, which has been a topic of our discussions here on the Iran book show for many, many months, where we discuss Christianity and the Enlightenment, and we'll discuss a lot of that tonight, starting with Greece, starting with Greece. Jason will be on at 7 p.m. East Coast time, 7 p.m. East Coast time. We will talk about Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson. We'll talk about that tomorrow. I will watch it. I'll hold my nose, close my eyes, have a bag to throw up in next to me, but I will watch the Putin interview, so you don't have to. And whether I will use clips on that interview and comment, or just comment broadly on the interview, we will see, depending on how colorful the interview lands up being.