It is nearly 150 days since Donald Trump took office for the second time, promising peace in the Middle East and Ukraine.
For the latter, the war grinds on, with reports last week that Russia passed the grim milestone of one million deaths.
Ukraine continues to be bombarded, with Russia launching its biggest drone attack against the country since the start of the war. Most likely in retaliation for Ukraine’s audacious Operation ‘Spider’s Web’ at the beginning of the month, which saw remote-controlled drones launched deep into Russia, blowing up billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment.
Russia saw this as a significant escalation, as Moscow’s ambassador to the UK told me in a sit-down interview last week.
Ukraine war latest: Moscow launches deadly strikes
Peace feels a long way off right now.
But does President Trump have a plan?
Ex-CIA director John Brennan does not think so.
On this week’s The World podcast, he called Trump’s understanding of both Ukraine and Vladimir Putin “naive” and “unsophisticated”.
I asked him what he thinks the president may do and, in no uncertain terms, he told me: “I think that Donald Trump doesn’t know what he will do.”
It is no secret that the former director holds a low estimation of the president. For what it’s worth, the feeling is mutual.
In January, Trump revoked the director’s security clearance, and during his first term called him the “worst” CIA chief in history.
But, Brennan knows Ukraine.
Some reports say that it was during his time as director that the CIA began training Ukrainian spies.
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When he first visited the country in 2014, he recounts how the forces “were still riddled with a lot of the Russian services”, but a decade later, what is his assessment of the country’s military?
“Pound for pound, [it] punches above the weight of virtually every other military on the globe, I would say including the United States, given the tremendous experience that they’ve gained on the battlefield”.
So, does the director really believe Ukraine’s allies had no prior warning of Ukraine’s drone attack?
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
A career spook, he trod carefully around the questions, but admitted: “I don’t doubt for a moment that they were given some additional assistance from Western intelligence and military authorities and capabilities.
“The Ukrainians have done a lot on their own, but I think a lot of this is initially enabled by some ideas that come from their Western allies.”
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As the battlefields of Ukraine dry out to face another summer of war, this conflict continues to prove it is the “laboratory of the future”, as my co-host Richard Engel described it. The drone war intensifies, as does the battle of words between the two countries.
As a war of attrition continues in Ukraine, will Donald Trump, now preoccupied with protests in Los Angeles and unleashing thousands more troops on demonstrators, walk away from Ukraine and abandon it?
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