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Global 2023.

1:13

The

1:21

US could run out of money to pay its bills by

1:23

the 1st

1:23

of June,

1:27

unless

1:41

Congress agrees to raise the debt limit. Paid

1:51

its bills on time, and

1:53

it must continue to do so.

1:57

The

2:00

default on our debt would trigger an

2:02

economic and financial catastrophe.

2:05

We discuss the implications for the US and

2:07

the world if the debt ceiling isn't raised

2:10

in time.

2:10

And then we turn to Moscow, where video

2:12

footage released on Wednesday purports to show an attempted

2:15

drone strike on the Kremlin. We don't

2:17

attack Putin

2:20

or Moscow. We

2:23

fight on our territory. We

2:26

are defending our villages and cities.

2:29

We discuss Russia's claims that it was a Ukraine-backed

2:31

assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin. Thank

2:34

you for joining us. Let's begin.

2:42

The US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen

2:45

warned this week that the US could run out of

2:47

money to pay its bills as early as

2:49

the 1st of June if Congress does not agree

2:52

to raise the debt ceiling.

2:53

House Republicans passed legislation last

2:55

week that would raise the debt ceiling, but

2:58

in return for significant spending cuts and

3:00

a rollback of some of President Joe Biden's

3:02

legislative achievements. Biden has

3:04

said that he will not negotiate over raising the

3:06

debt ceiling, but he has scheduled a meeting

3:09

with congressional leaders next week.

3:11

Katie, I wondered if you could start

3:14

by just briefly laying out first

3:16

what the debt ceiling is and how

3:18

this moment of brinkmanship is

3:20

different from the semi-regular

3:23

stories of US government shutdown that

3:26

we outside of the US are accustomed

3:28

to hearing about.

3:29

Yes, I appreciate from our team

3:31

meetings this week that the perception from

3:33

abroad of the US is that we are in this

3:36

perpetual cycle of crises

3:38

and brinkmanship and near disaster.

3:41

And while that is to some extent true, this

3:43

is a more serious crisis. So

3:46

you have a sort of almost now

3:48

an annual event of threatened and

3:50

sometimes actual government shutdowns, which is

3:52

to do with the mechanism by which the government

3:54

is funded and whether Congress has

3:57

or has not appropriated the funds in time.

4:00

That's essentially the US's problem.

4:03

It's the US government and federal workers

4:05

who suffer when that doesn't happen. This

4:08

is the debt ceiling, which is the

4:10

amount of money the US can borrow

4:13

to cover its obligations, which

4:15

at the moment is 31 trillion dollars.

4:18

That money is to cover things that have

4:20

already been agreed. So this is not a

4:22

sort of new amount of spending that

4:25

the White House suddenly wants Congress

4:27

to fund. This is about having the

4:29

money to cover existing spending commitments

4:32

and existing interest payments,

4:34

existing debt obligations, including

4:36

international debt. The US has already

4:38

hit that limit, but it hit it in January.

4:41

And since then, the Treasury has been

4:43

using what it calls extraordinary measures,

4:45

which are essentially accounting workarounds

4:48

that enable it to eke out enough

4:51

money to pay its bills for

4:53

some more months to give Congress

4:55

time to raise the debt limit. But the Treasury is

4:58

now warning that their ability to do that

5:00

is running out, and they could in

5:02

fact run out of money to cover those

5:04

obligations as soon as June the 1st,

5:07

which is somewhat earlier than

5:09

some had initially expected. There

5:11

was some talk even as recently as a couple of weeks

5:13

ago that in fact this could continue

5:16

as long as into the autumn, but

5:18

because they didn't get as much income

5:21

from the April tax collection

5:23

as they were perhaps expecting, there

5:25

was less money in the pot than people had predicted

5:27

that there would be by now. So we

5:29

are now into what could be the final

5:31

weeks of coming up with

5:34

the money. This is something that has regularly

5:37

happened. The debt ceiling has repeatedly

5:39

been raised by Congress, but the last

5:41

time we were really in this series

5:43

of a predicament was back during

5:45

the Obama administration in 2011, and also to some

5:47

extent in 2013. So 2011, this actually came down to within 72 hours

5:54

of the US defaulting on its obligations,

5:57

which in itself resulted in

5:59

US US credit being downgraded and

6:02

stock markets plunging, real volatility

6:05

in the financial markets and real concerns

6:08

about how such a default would rebound

6:10

beyond the US. So with 72 hours

6:13

to go, they came to a deal then.

6:16

Biden was part of those negotiations. He

6:18

was deputed by Obama to meet with Congress.

6:20

It was a similar dynamic as is the case

6:23

now, where you had a Democratic president,

6:25

a Republican controlled Congress. But

6:27

the lesson that he and Obama are

6:29

said to have taken from that was that you

6:32

just can't negotiate over this. That

6:34

essentially makes you a hostage to

6:36

a Republican controlled Congress. And

6:38

that results in exactly what happened that time where

6:40

the nation came right to the brink of a very

6:43

serious financial crisis, both for the US

6:45

and for the global economy. So in 2013, when there

6:48

was another round of brinkmanship, the White House

6:50

refused to negotiate. And that time

6:52

it was Congress that conceded. And so

6:55

that time within 24 hours of defaulting

6:57

Congress passed legislation and the debt

6:59

ceiling was raised. The question

7:01

this time is whether this

7:04

Congress will blink first. So

7:06

Biden is saying he doesn't intend

7:08

to negotiate over this, that America

7:10

is quote, not a deadbeat nation. We

7:13

quote, pay our bills and that they shouldn't enter

7:15

into negotiations over this. This is just a basic

7:17

function of the government. Congress should

7:19

fund it. And that should be the end of the story. The

7:21

question is whether he's going to be able to hold that

7:24

position as we get closer and closer

7:26

to this date and whether the current

7:29

makeup of Congress where the House Speaker

7:31

is now Kevin McCarthy, who was elected by

7:34

a very narrow minority in

7:36

January, or which one of them is basically

7:39

prepared to blink first. And the

7:41

stakes for that will involve all of this. This

7:43

is not just about the US economy.

7:45

If they get this wrong, this really

7:47

has consequences far beyond the US. We'll

7:50

come to the consequences in just a second.

7:52

I just wanted to ask for Republicans

7:55

beyond this being a negotiating

7:58

tactic, is there some kind of ideological

7:59

opposition to just agreeing

8:02

with the Democrats and with Biden on raising the debt

8:04

ceiling? Yes, absolutely. So there

8:07

are both real principles, and

8:09

then there is also a lot of politics.

8:11

In the principles, a lot of the current Republican

8:14

Congress people believe that

8:16

government debt needs to be reduced,

8:19

government spending needs to be

8:21

radically overhauled, radically cut back, and

8:24

that the country cannot simply keep incurring

8:26

more and more debt to pay for

8:29

its bills. The White House position on

8:31

that is, fair enough, let's talk

8:33

about that in the budget negotiations.

8:36

You can't hold the nation hostage

8:38

over the debt ceiling, which as I said is for spending

8:40

that has already been agreed and

8:43

bills that have already been passed. So

8:45

you're holding the country

8:47

over this barrel because of these

8:49

principles, but this is not the theater to

8:51

do it in. And so that's what he's saying

8:53

about he is now going to meet with congressional leaders

8:56

next week, but he's saying that is not going

8:58

to be to negotiate the debt ceiling. That

9:00

is going to be to propose, well, look, let's

9:02

talk about fiscal responsibility. Let's talk

9:05

about plans to balance the budget, but let's

9:07

do that in a responsible way

9:10

as part of budget negotiations

9:12

rather than threatening to tank the

9:15

US economy by refusing to lift the debt

9:17

ceiling. So let's get into some of those consequences.

9:20

What are the implications for

9:22

the US economy if a deal

9:24

isn't reached? So first, we don't know

9:26

exactly when what's called here as X

9:29

date is going to happen. So Janet Yellen, the

9:31

US Treasury Secretary is saying that could be

9:33

as early as June 1st, but it

9:35

could be later than that. But it's not that

9:38

when you get to that date, that's it.

9:40

The US defaults and all is

9:42

lost. It's likely that there will then be staggered

9:45

measures that happen. So in the short term, that's

9:47

likely to be things like delaying social

9:50

security payments, which is a really

9:52

big deal for people who are depending on

9:54

that check arriving every week and deciding

9:56

which payments to prioritise to

9:59

try to... avoid doing things like defaulting

10:02

on the national debt. So if it lasts

10:04

for hours or days, it's

10:06

likely it will be US citizens who bear

10:09

the brunt of it. But if it goes on beyond

10:11

that, then the consequences

10:13

could be really severe. So one estimate this week

10:16

from Goldman Sachs is that just breaching

10:18

the debt ceiling, even if it's only for a couple

10:20

of days, will halt a tenth of

10:22

US economic activity. So taking 10%

10:25

out of the world's largest economy has very

10:28

significant knock-on consequences. I

10:31

have also seen people describe

10:33

this as on the scale of the collapse of Lehman

10:35

Brothers. So this would really

10:37

ricochet out beyond the US. And

10:40

even if it doesn't happen, if this is

10:42

like 2013 or 2011, when this goes down to

10:45

the final hours, that could also have

10:47

consequences. Ratings agencies have warned

10:50

that the US could be downgraded again

10:52

because this will be evidence that it's not able

10:55

to overcome this sort of domestic

10:57

dysfunction in its politics to be able to

10:59

meet basic obligations. And

11:02

so that has consequences for things like the

11:04

dollar and the way that's viewed in the rest of the

11:06

world. And it has consequences for the

11:08

US rating, which could be downgraded again.

11:11

It is ironic that after 2013, the

11:14

last deal that was reached on this, when in that case

11:16

it was that Congress agreed to suspend rather

11:18

than to raise the debt limit. Barack Obama

11:20

said after that, we must get out of the habit of governing

11:23

by crisis. But 10 years later

11:26

that lesson has not been learned. So you have

11:28

this dynamic now of this Republican

11:30

controlled Congress. It looks a little similar

11:33

to that crisis, but the people involved

11:35

and the politics of it are quite a lot more

11:38

extreme now.

11:39

I was wondering if you were happy to kind of name

11:41

some key figures who are really kind

11:43

of leading the charge on the Republican side.

11:46

I mean, I think really a very key figure here is

11:48

Kevin McCarthy, the US House Speaker,

11:51

who People may remember through an

11:53

absolute pantomime of a process in January

11:55

was finally elected Speaker after 15 rounds

11:57

of votes, the longest unprecedented.

11:59

unprecedented since the civil war has

12:02

happened, but not in a very long time. Yeah.

12:04

The deal that he made to get the

12:07

speakership, there were two sort of key

12:09

things that are relevant here. One was

12:11

he agreed not to raise the debt ceiling

12:14

without making demands for spending cuts. So

12:16

if he does agree to

12:18

Biden's position here, which is this is not something

12:20

that should be negotiated over, then he

12:23

is going directly against one of

12:25

the agreements that he made to his members

12:27

to get that job.

12:28

The second key thing and why that could

12:30

matter is he also agreed that any

12:33

single member could trigger what's

12:35

known as a motion to vacate the chair. It's basically

12:37

a no-confidence vote. So if

12:39

he goes against the very extreme

12:42

wing of his party with people like Marjorie

12:44

Taylor-Green in it, who don't want to see any

12:47

negotiations, their starting position

12:49

is also their ending position. And they say

12:51

the debt ceiling cannot be lifted without

12:54

significant spending cuts. And the spending cuts that they're

12:56

talking about are freezing the

12:59

nation's budget on last year's levels

13:01

for the next 10 years. So

13:04

that amounts to spending cuts around 14%, plus also rolling

13:07

back climate change legislation, plus

13:10

also rolling back the plan to cancel

13:12

student debt. So that is their

13:14

starting position. It's not something

13:17

that the Biden White House can currently

13:19

agree to, but if McCarthy

13:22

negotiates and gives grounds and

13:24

moves closer to Biden, the danger he faces

13:27

is that Marjorie Taylor-Green or Matt Gaetz

13:30

or anybody else who this goes against

13:32

their core principles and also plays into their

13:34

personal politics, they can trigger a vote of

13:36

no confidence in McCarthy. So he

13:38

could end up in a position where he

13:40

has to decide whether he is

13:42

going to put the country first and funding

13:45

the economy and not defaulting on the debt,

13:47

but potentially lose his job

13:49

or whether he's prepared to go all the way

13:52

for this, whether in fact this is the will

13:54

of House Republicans, this is what particularly

13:57

that extreme wing want him

13:58

to do. If he is prepared to

13:59

all the way on this and to say, no, we're not

14:02

going to blink and we are prepared to default

14:04

to make this point, then we're really in uncharted

14:07

territory. So I think that's what's giving some people pause

14:09

about this crisis and what makes

14:11

this crisis more serious and

14:14

more worrying than past crises

14:16

is the people that this comes down to

14:19

on the Republican side now

14:21

are people like Marjorie Taylor

14:23

Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, who

14:25

perhaps don't really care if the

14:28

economy drives off the cliff, if they're able

14:30

to make this point. So it's both

14:33

the politics of it and we're also, we're

14:35

not quite in an election year, but we functionally,

14:38

we are. Biden is running for re-election,

14:40

Trump is running for the presidency.

14:42

So this is all also in that context

14:45

and that also makes it harder for, for instance,

14:47

on the other side, Biden to give grind. The

14:49

things that he is running on are things

14:52

like climate change legislation, like

14:54

canceling student debt. So if he has to

14:57

roll back on that, if he has to give ground on that

14:59

to get the debt ceiling raised,

15:02

then that's politically difficult for him.

15:04

So there are principles on politics on

15:06

both sides, but all the while we're inching

15:08

closer and closer to

15:10

this, this really critical point.

15:14

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16:21

Whoa, check out that flock of birds. They're

16:23

so synchronized. I wish we

16:26

could be like that at work. Well then you should try monday.com.

16:29

It's a work management platform. Yeah, it might ruffle

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some feathers to change the way we work. That's

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the thing. monday.com lets you choose

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it keeps you and everyone else aligned

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Sounds like working together is no longer a

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I get it. Go to monday.com to

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get started for free.

17:01

Now we turn to Russia, where

17:03

on Wednesday, the country released video

17:05

footage of what it claimed was a drone

17:07

attack on the Kremlin, the seat of power

17:09

in Moscow. The video showed a small object

17:12

flying towards the Kremlin and exploding next

17:14

to a Russian flag, rather cinematically.

17:17

Russia immediately accused Ukraine of attempting

17:19

to assassinate Vladimir Putin and said

17:21

it reserves the right to retaliate how its

17:23

ease fit. So Ido, I want to come

17:25

to you on this. We're recording this episode

17:28

on Wednesday, so

17:30

actually quite shortly after the news of this

17:32

emerged. So it's a quickly developing story.

17:35

What do we know so

17:36

far? Before we stop speculating

17:38

and talking about this, it's really important to note that

17:41

we really don't know very much at this point. This

17:43

war is over a year old now. And we've seen

17:45

throughout the conflict that there can be events

17:48

which really shock the world or

17:50

grab headlines. But it's very difficult

17:52

to say anything conclusively about them

17:55

immediately after they've happened or even weeks

17:57

or months later. And that's particularly true of what happens.

18:00

in Russia just because of obviously the information

18:02

environment in Russia and obviously

18:04

the untrustworthiness of the regime and the

18:07

difficulty of independent or impossibility of

18:09

independent reporting. So with that out of the way,

18:11

as you correctly said on Wednesday

18:13

afternoon, the Kremlin released

18:16

video footage of what it said

18:18

was a drone attack by two drones

18:20

on the Kremlin. There's a particularly

18:23

spectacular video which shows

18:26

pretty small objects speeding towards the Kremlin

18:29

and then exploding next to a Russian

18:31

flag above the kind of ground Kremlin walls

18:33

above one of these ground domes. The

18:36

Kremlin immediately accused Ukraine

18:38

of attempting to assassinate Putin because

18:40

this is indeed Vladimir Putin's residence,

18:43

although quite how much time he actually spends in the Kremlin

18:46

is not known. And he often

18:48

works from a town on the outskirts of Moscow

18:50

rather than the Kremlin itself. But the

18:52

Russian authorities said they considered the incident quite

18:54

a planned terrorist attack and an assassination attempt

18:57

against the president of the Russian Federation. And

18:59

I think perhaps most kind of poignantly the video

19:01

of the attack shows or alleged attack shows

19:04

the stands where the 9th

19:06

of May Victory Day parade is going to take

19:08

place in just a few days. You've got the outside

19:10

of the Kremlin decorated with these seats

19:13

in the colors of the Russian flag and big

19:15

kind of ground monument saying 9th of May,

19:17

essentially the civic religion in modern

19:20

Russia. So yeah, it's quite symbolic obviously

19:22

because if this was indeed the Ukrainians

19:24

then to have managed to get an explosive,

19:27

potentially lethal drone to

19:29

explode right above the Kremlin is just an

19:31

incredible humiliation of the Kremlin and just

19:33

shows how Ukraine is

19:36

willing to and capable of escalating

19:39

and is not afraid of provoking Russia.

19:42

From what I understand, there's no

19:44

outside verified evidence

19:47

that Ukraine was behind this. But does

19:49

Ukraine in theory have the capacity to

19:51

carry out such an attack?

19:52

Well, I mean, look, like Ukraine is holding

19:55

out against Russia. Russia,

19:57

I think one count I saw a few days ago.

19:59

Russia has actually lost territory over

20:02

the past month or so, despite obviously throwing unbelievable

20:05

numbers of men and resources at capturing Bakhmoot

20:07

in particular in Eastern Ukraine, but it's actually,

20:09

in terms of the total land it controls, lost

20:12

land in Ukraine, according to one estimate.

20:14

If you're looking at this in terms of strict capability,

20:16

then obviously Ukraine is more than capable

20:19

of holding its own against the Russian armed forces in Ukraine.

20:22

And then, you know, we have seen a whole

20:24

bunch of attacks against

20:27

territory in Russia proper, in occupied Crimea,

20:30

we've had targeted assassinations

20:32

of figures such as a Russian military blogger

20:34

a few weeks ago, and also Daria Dugin, the

20:37

daughter of Alexander Dugin in Moscow,

20:39

I think. And like I said at the top,

20:41

it's very difficult to conclusively attribute a

20:43

responsibility for these, but it seems likely

20:46

that some of them are at least

20:48

prepared in coordination with Ukraine,

20:51

with the help of Russian opposition groups perhaps, partisan

20:53

groups, these sort of things, but you know, it seems unlikely

20:56

that every single one is completely

20:58

unrelated to Ukraine. Obviously, there's

21:00

incredible symbolic value and

21:03

significance to exploding a drone

21:05

right above the Kremlin at the seat of Russian power

21:07

dating back to the stars. The Soviet era,

21:10

it's,

21:10

I think, it's one thing to be

21:12

derailing some trains in Belgorodov

21:14

last week, but it's another to explode

21:17

a drone right above the Kremlin. And if

21:19

the Kremlin was lying, and this is a

21:21

false flag attack, what could be

21:23

the possible motivation for doing

21:25

so? I don't know. If they want, I suppose,

21:27

an excuse to escalate things,

21:30

to throwing ideas at him,

21:32

I don't know, attack Zelensky

21:34

and Kyiv, that sort of thing, then I guess

21:36

that provides the sort of excuse

21:38

to do that. My sort of gut instinct would be

21:40

that if they wanted to do something like

21:43

that and had the capabilities to,

21:45

I think they probably quite often would like to attack

21:47

Ukraine more effectively than they can, but don't

21:50

have the capacity to, I don't particularly

21:52

think they would need to go to the trouble of staging a

21:55

drone attack on the

21:57

Kremlin if they wanted to go and assassinate.

21:59

Zelensky and they had the capacity to,

22:02

are not entirely sure that they would need to

22:05

manufacture this kind of pretext. If that is the

22:07

reasoning, as I said, it's very difficult to

22:09

say anything conclusively. It's possible that

22:11

this could be a sort of false flag attempting

22:14

to give them an excuse to escalate in some way.

22:16

And what is the mood likely to be in

22:18

Moscow after this?

22:19

So if you take

22:21

the Kremlin at its word that this

22:23

was the Ukrainians, it can be true or it cannot

22:25

be true. But at least in the way the Kremlin has

22:28

decided to frame this is that it was the Ukrainians.

22:30

They immediately blamed Ukraine. They said

22:32

it was an attempted assassination by

22:34

what they call the Kiev regime, Kiev

22:36

regime as they would say. Whether it's true or not, this

22:39

is at least the version of events that the Kremlin is going

22:41

for. And it's, I think, quite difficult

22:43

to see this as anything other than pretty

22:45

sort of stark humiliation for what the

22:48

Russians still insist is non-country that

22:50

doesn't deserve to exist and it's weak. All

22:52

the kind of propaganda narratives that we've heard

22:55

too much by now that they can go

22:57

and that they can get an explosive,

23:00

potentially lethal device into the

23:02

very symbolic heart and seat of power

23:05

in Moscow is of course a massive humiliation.

23:07

And I think it's just such a reversal from

23:10

where we were a bit more than a year ago when

23:12

the Russians were saying that they would take Kiev in three days

23:14

and now they're having to say Putin has not

23:17

been injured from a drone strike on the Kremlin.

23:19

It just shows how much things have changed.

23:21

And perhaps how emboldened Ukraine

23:24

is. If this was Ukraine, it really feels like

23:26

it can conduct these definitely provocative,

23:29

potentially escalatory acts, assuming

23:31

that it can deal with the consequences.

23:33

Katie, as Ido mentioned, you've written a lot

23:35

about Victory Day and May 9 celebrations

23:38

in the past. What do you think the

23:40

consequences of this event are likely

23:43

to be on those celebrations? So we've already

23:45

seen in recent weeks, Victory

23:47

Day celebrations cancelled

23:49

preemptively in six Russian

23:52

regions due largely to security

23:54

concerns. I think the real question

23:56

and the sort of unknowable thing from our

23:59

point of view looking at this

23:59

from the outside is, this

24:02

is a ridiculously obvious thing to say, but who

24:04

was behind this? If this was

24:06

Ukraine, then I think this

24:09

has to trigger real concerns

24:11

in the Kremlin about the safety

24:14

and the wisdom of going ahead with next

24:16

week's Victory Day Parade. It's

24:18

really hard to overstate how important

24:21

this holiday is within Russia.

24:23

It's something that Putin has massively

24:26

rehabilitated since coming to power and has

24:28

really made front and center of his

24:30

rule and also a core part

24:33

of the narrative to justify

24:35

this war to domestic audiences.

24:37

And it's securing that parade, the types

24:39

of parades that you have in Moscow,

24:42

yes, but also in other major

24:44

Russian cities such as St. Petersburg, where

24:46

as Ido mentioned, we saw the bomb

24:48

attack on the military blogger Zadlan

24:51

Tatarzky last month. You're talking

24:54

not just about securing this small

24:56

amount of airspace directly over

24:58

the Kremlin, but you're talking

25:00

about a column of armor stretching

25:02

back up to a mile, traveling through large parts

25:05

of Moscow to the parade and then away

25:07

from the parade afterwards. If this

25:09

was Ukraine and Ukraine has the capacity

25:12

to get a drone this close to the Kremlin,

25:14

then there have got to be very serious concerns

25:17

about how you go about securing

25:19

that parade and all

25:21

of the thousands of spectators who will

25:23

be there. I think the other reason to

25:25

be a little skeptical about it and to say,

25:28

what if this wasn't Ukraine? I mean, number one,

25:30

that the framing of it as this was an assassination

25:32

attempt against Vladimir Putin just seems

25:34

kind of ridiculous. I mean, he doesn't sleep

25:37

in the Kremlin. Everybody knows that the

25:39

chances of him being there at the time were pretty

25:41

slim. And senior Ukrainian

25:44

officials have come out very definitively,

25:47

very quickly this time to say this wasn't

25:49

us. And we believe this is part of the

25:51

preparation for a wider attack on

25:54

Ukraine. Previously, when you've had things

25:56

like, for instance, attacks in Crimea,

25:58

you've tended to get these kind of... nudge nudge

26:00

wink wink responses from Ukrainian officials.

26:03

Not a great time to take a holiday in Crimea, is

26:05

it? Whereas this is not that at all. This

26:07

is very clear, very definitively, this

26:10

wasn't us. So that also

26:12

gives cause for concern that if this

26:15

is Russia, or I think the

26:17

other possibility is this is a faction

26:19

within Russia. You know, I think it's easy to

26:21

look at it as a sort of unitary system with Putin

26:24

at the top, but there are all sorts of actors

26:26

vying for influence below him, and

26:29

all sorts of people with

26:29

enemies and scores to settle.

26:32

So it's also possible that this is internal

26:34

Russian actors from one part

26:36

of the system going after another part of the system.

26:39

So for instance, showing your presidential guard service

26:41

is rubbish. It couldn't stop this drone from

26:44

getting this close to the Kremlin. That's why you need

26:46

to support me. That's why you need to support my guys.

26:48

So there is also a possibility that this isn't Kremlin

26:51

directed, but it's still Russian originated.

26:54

But we just don't know. And I think that

26:56

makes the build up to next week's victory

26:59

day celebrations very interesting.

27:01

I want somebody to watch

27:02

very closely. Thanks so much, Kitty.

27:04

I mean, as you said, this is one we'll be watching very

27:07

closely, not least just because of what

27:09

happens next week with the victory

27:11

day celebrations.

27:13

That's all the time we have for today. Join

27:16

us on Monday when I'll be interviewing the

27:18

author and journalist Tim Marshall on

27:20

why the next great geopolitical battleground

27:22

will be in space.