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00:00 International Affairs commentator Douglas Herbert has joined me on set for more.
00:04 Hi Doug on this story.
00:06 Rollercoaster.
00:07 Let's start with the good news.
00:09 There is some good news.
00:10 The good news is that the EU has agreed to start ascension talks for Ukraine, a first
00:16 for a country at war.
00:18 Absolutely.
00:19 And these days we have to cherry pick our glimmers of hope where we can find them because
00:22 you're absolutely right.
00:23 Look, Volodymyr Zelensky is in dire straits right now.
00:26 He's in a very tight crunch.
00:28 He's just gotten back from shuttle diplomacy in Washington, across Europe, came back empty
00:34 handed in terms of cash.
00:36 He's in a battlefield stalemate with his forces at a time when Putin's just given his end
00:41 of year press conference in confident posture, strutting his stuff, basically, you know,
00:46 doing nanana to the West.
00:48 We're winning essentially.
00:49 Thumbing his nose.
00:50 Yeah, thumbing his nose, watching Russia's army ramp up its production and really build
00:57 back up after, you know, yes, it's such setbacks last year that we widely reported on.
01:02 And we have that plus all of the infighting politically in Congress in Washington, which
01:06 is not helping matters for Zelensky.
01:08 So the fact that they got this nod on EU accession talks beginning means that, yeah, it's something
01:14 that you can sort of hold on to in the here and now.
01:17 So when he says it's symbolic victory, it's also a morale lift for a lot of Ukrainians
01:21 who who've been looking on.
01:23 But I will say they're not out of the woods.
01:25 Obviously, Hungary can still do a lot of obstruction and meddling and damage and prevention of
01:30 these talks going forward.
01:31 There's going to be more votes in the months ahead to make sure that these talks actually
01:35 begin.
01:36 So they're not out of the woods.
01:37 It's a good first step.
01:39 And it is good for symbolic purposes to give them that morale lift at a time when they
01:43 really need it in Kiev.
01:45 Important to note, though, that that first step only happened because they got Viktor
01:48 Orban to leave the room.
01:50 Yeah, it was it was I mean, it was a man physically was not.
01:53 It was a diplomatic sleight of hand, if you will, a little bit of a magic trick.
01:57 It was reportedly Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor's idea.
02:02 He said, well, wait, what if you just conveniently sort of not be present when we move to that
02:07 vote?
02:08 So, yes, by moving out of the room, by stepping out of that of that chamber where they were
02:12 all meeting, the twenty six other members were able to present a front, a united front
02:17 of consensus and to to to green light those accession talks.
02:20 But like I said, that's not going to work all the time and we can see Orban is digging