if the United States were to relax its restrictions on what Ukraine can do with the weapons supplied to it that would fit the passing of previous US Behavior where there's dogged resistance to allowing Ukraine to do something or to supplying the weapon system in the first place and then that is eventually finally overcome there's also the added dimension of course on the Block on the UK and France using their own longrange missiles or rather Ukraine using the ones supplied by the UK and France where it may be that the media suggestions we're seeing that the UK is asking for permission for these to be used is accurate and that may be an outcome of this conversation that we've seen in keev this week between blinken Lamy and zilinsky there's one reliable response from the Kremlin every time something happens which takes them by surprise or upsets them and that is to attempt to increase the amount of death and destruction that's delivered against Ukraine's most vulnerable citizens stepping up the missile and drone strikes against hospitals against shopping centers against the people who cannot defend themselves that is almost a given whenever anything happens that the Kremlin doesn't like but in terms of the more serious escalation the kind of repercussions that the United States is most concerned about again and again we've seen that that does not act actually come to pass there's no suggestion at the moment that the relaxation of these restrictions would be the final straw that leads the Kremlin to do something suicidal after so many different supposed red lines have already been crossed the threats of nuclear escalation are the ones which figure most prominently in these concerns about escalation and yes there's no reason to think that Russia would trade a problem which is unpleasant but survivable for something which could actually be existential and lead to the the suicide of the state like launching nuar weapon but of course there are other ways in which Russia can escalate one of them is the repercussions for Ukraine itself where Russia steps up its strikes in response to unpleasant developments that it doesn't like uh visited on itself the other of course is the ongoing campaigns of sabotage and reconnaissance across Europe and in the UK as well apparently preparing for conflict directly with NATO itself there are different ways in which Russia can attempt to make life unpleasant for the countries it sees as its adversaries and no all of them necessarily tied up with nuclear escalation we've seen already a spike in the number of sabotage attacks that have been carried out across Europe now those of course are pin Pricks when compared to the scale of the conflict in Ukraine or what Russia could do if it tried to unleash its forces against Europe as a whole nevertheless they do impose costs they do make life difficult they consume a vast amount of the energy of European security Counter Intelligence law enforcement agencies and of course most importantly for Russia they so fear uncertainty and doubt so we shouldn't be surprised if that uptick in activity by Russia this covert action that they're carrying out by recruiting proxies across the continent and in the UK shouldn't continue we've seen a wide range of different types of activity against European countries some of it is direct attacks like for example the Arsen attacks that are carried out against sometimes seemingly random targets like a warehouse in east London and Ikea in Eastern Europe other times it's reconnaissance it's looking for how Russia could do damage in the future it's mapping out energy infrastructure looking at critical National infrastructure looking at emergency preparedness across all of these countries but most of all it's looking at Logistics links across Europe particularly in Central and Eastern Europe like Poland and the Czech Republic the rail links that would be essential for bringing reinforcements to the Eastern front in the event of a broader conflict in Eastern Europe have been a particular Target for Russia's security and intelligence Services it's very unlikely that Russia is going to be a tall surpr urised if there is a relaxation on the restrictions of use of longrange missiles after all this move has been telegraphed for so very long and we've today had the Kremlin spokesman saying that the decision has already been taken so it would be astonishing if Russia were not preparing for this to be the case now some of the downsides supposedly of allowing Ukraine to do this actually sound like positiv if you look at them from a Ukrainian point of view the United States has said that uh there's no point in allowing Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia because Russia will just move those assets that Ukraine wants to strike out further away but that in itself sounds like a positive outcome for doing this if unpleasant things happen to one or another of the Coalition in response to them doing something for which repercussions have been threatened then that is something for them to consider the next time they're considering doing something escalatory as opposed to uh the the current situation where they plainly haven't been deterred from doing this by the threats of consequences from the West it's a consistent challenge for the current US Administration doing whatever they can for Ukraine and men ing that in place so that if possible it can't be reversed by the next Administration to come in which may be more inclined to try to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia but of course if we do have a trump presidency after November it's not just Ukraine that's in trouble it's all of us given his clearly signaled reluctance to meet American commitments when it comes to the defense of Europe the US legislature has passed a law to prevent the US president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO but he doesn't have to in order to neutralize that NATO does to protect its eastern most members all you need to do if you are the head of state of one of the countries within NATO is simply instruct your Armed Forces not to cooperate and withdraw your cooperation from the headquarters and you are effectively withdrawing even if it's not on paper Ukraine depends not just on oneoff deliveries of of us aid but on the enormous quantity that is an ongoing flow from the United States to to keep Ukraine a flat if that flow is interrupted if the US steps on the hose and makees sure that it does not arrive at the front line where it's needed in Ukraine we've already seen the consequences of that in the early part of this year where ammunition starvation and the interruption of vital supplies led to lives and territory being lost in Ukraine if that goes on for a longer period with more determination from a US Administration to cut off that Aid then Ukraine is in serious trouble but then so are the rest of us because that's the point at which Russia starts looking around for its next Target we can't tell what Putin's State of Mind is because we don't know precisely what information is reaching him there are consistent indications that the news that is reaching him is filtered and it's only the good bits that get through that is extremely dangerous because it gives him a completely misinformed appreciation of what the real situation is exactly the same as we saw in February 2022 when Russia launched this assault on Ukraine expecting a completely different outcome from what they found there the danger is that Putin could once again convince himself that the time is right to launch another attack only this time against the NATO Nation throughout the whole of this conflict Ukraine has looked for ways to limit the damage that is being inflicted on it from safe zones in Russian territory we've seen that over and over again and now Ukraine needs to extend the area that it can actually interdict Russian operations in so that it cannot launch not only military offensives but also these ongoing campaigns against Ukrainian civilians and against to National infrastructure [Applause] [Music] spee for spe