The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - We're Back -- Season Four of The Bridge Is Here!

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

We kick off our latest season with Brian Stewart and his regular Tuesday take on where things stand in Ukraine.  Lots to catch up on from Putin to Pregozin. And my thoughts on the summer of 23 from wildfires to Lioness.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. We're back. Season 4 of The Bridge is about to begin. And hello there. Your summer was a good one, I hope. My summer was kind of an odd one. July was great. July was a great summer for me. I turned 75. I was very active. I was quite excited by it all. Then on July 31st, the last day of July, I was playing golf with my son, Will.

And I don't know, something snapped. Something happened. I didn't even realize it at the time. But somehow, on that day, golfing, I tore some ligaments in my ankle. And that made August, well, let's say, a hobbly month. I spent a lot of time with a cane. I felt like I was the way you're supposed to feel, I guess, or at least they tell you you should feel when you're 75, a little vulnerable.

I was hobbling around. And as a result, you know, I wasn't able to get the kind of exercise that I'm used to throughout August. But it's September now, and that's all kind of behind me. There's still a little tenderness in the ankle, but I'm working on it. I've taken physio and I'm feeling better. Okay? But other than that, just to want to talk about me, the summer was, well, you know, I guess the main headline was wildfires. And my gosh, some of the communities and what they've been through and what some are still going through is, well, it's incredible

when you see what's happened. You know, we've made a name for ourselves around the world because of wildfires and because of the smoke that's collected in the skies and moved across the country and outside of the country. So those wildfires have been a challenge for so many people. There's been flooding in parts of the country, which sounds odd. You know, wildfires and flooding doesn't seem to go together, but nevertheless, that's what's happened.

So those challenges have been faced by literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians throughout the summer of 23. But there have been other things as well. The debate around climate change has come up once again. The deniers kind of made a bit of a comeback through the summer. Not quite sure how that happened. I mean, I have no time for deniers, but that's my position. And we're not going to get into that right here, right now.

But just to say that the climate change discussion and what falls out of it, the branches of it, including carbon tax, have all been part of the debate this summer. The political debate goes on. The Conservatives have a huge lead at the moment, but it debate this summer. The political debate goes on. The Conservatives have a huge lead at the moment, but it's the summer. And how reflective of that are these numbers? Are these the real numbers? And if they are, then the Liberals have every reason

to be absolutely terrified about what may happen to them. If it's summer and a summer of no election and taking polling numbers, well, then you sort of say, well, can we wait till we're actually back in the season and let's see what happens? All those things are at play on politics, as they often are. The housing issue, interest rates, inflation, the fact we don't have enough houses for the current population, let alone the expected increase in population of half a million a year

with the new immigration totals, is a dominant factor. I know the ranter is working on his first rant of the new season coming up on Thursday. I think he's planning to do something on housing. So all those issues at play as a result of this summer, and there are others, and I know some of you will write in and say, what about this or what about that? I hear you.

There's one other thing, though, that in some ways I found it the summer of. I found it the summer of the woman. So many stories we talked about through the summer, some were like legitimate front page stories, others were front page of perhaps the sports section or the entertainment section. But they gave new momentum to the whole issue of women's place in our society. I mean, can you imagine 10 years ago, the women's World Soccer Championships,

World Cup of Soccer for Women, being a dominant story. It was a dominant story, not just here, but in different parts of the world. And some of the women's players became national figures beyond the obvious ones that we've witnessed in the last few years. But women's soccer was a huge story and continues to be as a result of,

you know the story of the head of the Spanish Soccer Federation kissing full on on the lips one of the Spanish Women's Cup players, and how that has taken hold and become a fairly important issue for a lot of people. Not so important for others, but it is the clash of ideas around the movement of this story. But it was more than World Cup soccer. It was something as what seems to be rather simple, a concert tour going on across the United States and eventually in different parts of the world,

including Canada, by Taylor Swift, who has become this mega performer. And you look at the crowds crowds and you can't ignore it if you follow instagram or what have you it's just like full of clips from these concerts where there's 60 70 80 000 people packed in the overwhelming majority are women many young women, and it's reminiscent of the screaming crowds that used to follow the Beatles, except here you can actually understand the words that are being sung by this crowd of 20, 30, 50, 60, 70,000 people. As opposed to those early Beatles concerts, the first ones to be held

in stadiums, like I think it was the Shea Stadium concert in New York City whenever that was, 65 or something like that, where you couldn't understand a word. Even the Beatles themselves said they couldn't hear themselves singing. They were just screaming. That's not what happens at a Taylor Swift concert and all the songs many of the songs are related to issues for women

could be about a date, could be about society could be about any number of different things but that Taylor Swift concert tour is quite something. It's coming to Canada, six concerts. They're sold out, and the tickets are selling for, you know, multiple times more than their value or their cost. And these concerts in Toronto, the six nights in a row,

are not even until November. Not this November. Next November. And there are many concerts happening before that. Here's the last one I find particularly of interest to add to this issue of the year of the woman or the summer of the woman. I don't know what you've been watching on television this summer. One of the things I watched was called Special Ops Lioness. It's a special operations show, right?

Commandos, in the dead of night, doing their thing. Now, we've all heard about Commandos. Canada has its own special operations command. JTF2 is the sort of pointed end of that. I know a little bit about that because I'm the honorary colonel of that command. And when I say I know a little about it, I emphasize the word little. I know a little. There's only so much they can tell me in my honorary role.

But it was one of them who told me when I was up at Petawawa the other day, talking with some of the troops, it was one of them who told me, you know, you should really watch this show. It's for real. And I sort of said, come on, it's Hollywood. What are they? He said, no, no, no, it's for real. It's really well done.

So I watched it and I did find it quite good. But one of the things that is dominant about it is the key roles in this commando unit, if you want to call it that, are all women. The lead operative is a woman. The leader of the unit is a woman. The deputy head of the CIA is a woman who controls this unit. It's quite something to watch that and to realize not only was that the way it was done, it was the most popular cable show of the summer by far. They're trying to decide now whether to give it a second season.

I'm sure they will. One of the problems, obviously, is the writers striking when they can get around to shooting things. Anyway, there are my little rants, opening rants about the summer. But this is Tuesday of week one of season four of The Bridge. And what happens on Tuesday? What happens is we bring Brian Stewart in. Brian, longtime friend, longtime colleague, longtime foreign correspondent, war correspondent,

has been our resource on trying to tell the story of Ukraine. And what's been going on there for, well, we're coming up soon, another couple of months on the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. Brian has been our sort of kind our guiding light on what to believe, what not to believe, where things stand, how's this war playing out. He draws on his vast experience uncovering issues like this, and we're awfully lucky to have him. So, going to take a quick break. When we come back, Brian Stewart on the Ukraine war.

And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. We're happier joining us. The week ahead starts tomorrow. Bruce Anderson will be by with Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth.

Thursday is your turn, so if you have thoughts that you'd like to share with us, send them in now, whether it's on some of my opening remarks or whether it's on some of my opening remarks or whether it's on what Brian has to say coming up here on the bridge. The Random Ranter will be by as well, and as I think I hinted at earlier, I think he's going to talk about housing, so that's important.

All right, enough of me. Let's get to Brian Stewart and his opening thoughts on Season 4 of The Bridge on the war in Ukraine. So, Brian, clearly you have been missed. If you just read my mail, every week there have been letters coming into The Bridge saying, where's Brian Stewart? I need my Ukraine fix. I don't trust anything else that's out there, which is a very nice compliment to you.

Did you have a good break? Did you have a good summer? Yeah, it's been very good. Yeah, I've been doing a lot of writing, but apart from that, it's been a really good summer. For those who are wondering and have been asking, was Brian ever going to write a book? He is writing a book.

Can't say any more than that, other than he's writing a book. Can't say any more than that, other than he's writing a book. So if, and I've known this guy for nearly half a century, and I know how well he writes, so it's, I know it's going to be a good book. All right, let's get at it. The subject at hand, of course, is the war in Ukraine, and a summer where we have been, we had been waiting throughout this year for the Ukrainian offensive to take back land they'd lost to Russia in the previous time ever since the invasion. So why don't we start in a general way of what's the state of the war as we enter the fall of 2023, and how has that changed since the last time we talked? Well, the state of the war is that we have had now

almost three brutal months of the Ukrainian counteroffensive undergoing. There have been advances, but not as many advances as was hoped. But the key thing right now is both sides have reached a kind of state of attritional war. The Ukrainians are trying to attrit the Russian forces, cause as many casualties as possible, wear them down. The Russians, of course, on defense are trying exactly the same thing on the Ukrainians, wearing them down. And like two battlers in a slugfest, both sides have taken enormous casualties. Both sides have been weakened by the casualties. And we have to wonder

at this stage how strong the will is. It comes down to a question of, on one hand, will, which side has the most will to win? And the second one is, how are the reserves? Because without reserves, neither side's going to be able to stay in this slugfest much longer. And there's doubts and worries about the reserves on both sides. There's a feeling they're really starting to get to the bottom of each one's barrel in terms of coming up with new units to go into the fight.

And not just units, I guess, but weapons and ammunition as well. Because weren't we worried about that in the spring, especially on the Ukrainian side, that they were going to run out of arms? Exactly. And, you know, one has to say one can't blame this on Western indifference or Western because when I say blame this, I mean, trying to explain the lack of more territory taken. But it has been faulty in many ways. It's been jerky, hard to rely upon.

I think the Western allies, Canada included, but certainly the United States, failed to realize how much advanced planning they had to put into this. Orders that should have gone out a year and a half ago only went out six months ago, that kind of thing. You know, when Biden said famously, I think in the fall, the Ukrainians don't need F-16s. Well, now they do need F-16s, but it's going to take well into next year, probably, before they can actually fly them over Ukraine. So that kind of slow-moving, jerky response from the West has been partially responsible, but other things have probably been more responsible. Well, let's get to those. To try and understand the kind of limited gains that Ukraine has made so far.

How would you explain that? Yeah, I would like to put the rider down that Ukraine has been advancing. There's no question. It is winning back more territory. It's got a bit more momentum going now, so it's starting to take back more territory at a time. It just hasn't had the great breakthrough that a lot of people probably way over optimistically expected. I put it in perspective. I made the point well back,

I think in May, that it would come down to two questions. Would the Russians be as bad on on defense as they were in offense. And would the Ukrainians be as good on offense as they were on defense? It turns out that, in fact, the Russians are much better at defense than they were at offense. And the Ukrainians aren't quite as good at offense as they were at defense. Now, to explain this better, what the Ukrainians have run into is a phenomenal, a formidable, powerful series of Russian defensive lines, three main ones. The second one is the key to break through, but three lines of defense. They've had a year in many

places to dig in, dig them well, put thousands of mines out in front of each position, move up artillery, pre-position the artillery. No Western army could do any better than the Ukrainians have been doing without air superiority, which the West would count on. But the Ukrainians haven't had air superiority or anything like it. So they've had to fight an enormously difficult battle against Russian defenses, which are very, very good, very dogged in many areas. The Russians are holding in, digging in and holding lines much better than many anticipated. And it's been very intelligently laid out, a lot of the defense.

So it's trying to do that without the critical thing that we would demand, which was air superiority. But the Ukrainians have replied to this dilemma, is using their artillery to massively pound the Russians behind the lines, to almost take the place of the air superiority that we would want. And that is meant to attrit the Russians, wear them down. But they've had to make attacks partially out of their own doctrine, but partially out of necessity with very small units. We said, I think almost a year ago, that in this war, it was going to be very, very difficult

to mass armor, to create great masses of armor together for a big punch of the World War II variety we all were used to in newsreels and films and cinema, what have you. That's very difficult now because the Russians have satellites too. They have all sorts of listening devices. They have artillery, not as accurate as the Ukrainian, but accurate enough to take out masses of armor if they mask. So what the Ukrainians have been doing is fighting small units, company size, maybe even less. We're talking fighting on a front with 20, 30, maybe, maybe up to 100 soldiers on a front that we wouldn't normally employ hundreds, even thousands, and taking this bit by bit by bit step, trying to wear down the Russians. And that is obviously

called for a very slow process. The other element that has slowed them down is training. We thought that giving Ukrainian brigades a lot, you know, three months of solid training to be a fighting brigade might be enough. It's not even close to be enough. I mean, the brigade, which is 5,000 troops, is made up of incredibly complex units of artillery, of armor, of intelligence, of supply, of logistics, of various fighting units working together. It's incredibly complex. It can take up to a year or more to actually work effectively. And the Ukrainians simply haven't had the time to do that properly. So they're falling back on their old skill, which is maneuver by smaller units. And that

they'd be really quite successful in several areas. I just remind people, you know, when the Canadian Army, remember, went overseas in September 1939, this month of 1939, the Canadian troops were really not in action for well over a year and a half. It was two years, Diap, 1942, August 1942. So all that time was spent training in England. Well, what if they had had just three months of training and then were thrown into action? You can imagine how difficult it was. Some of those English towns where they were training would wish the Canadians had been heading off a little sooner. Yeah, I lived there one leatherhead for four years, so I used to get the feed.

I just want to be clear on this, because you made the point a few moments ago that Ukraine is, in fact, advancing. It may be much slower than some people had thought and slower than they thought, but they have been advancing. So it would be wrong, would it not, to describe things as being at a stalemate at the moment? Yes, it's not really a stalemate at all. I mean, every day, if you watch the bulletins come out, the Ukrainians have taken another hundred, you know, another kilometer here, a kilometer there. The other thing to remember is, you know, when you advance and start a bit of a breakthrough in one area, you don't just go

straight ahead like General Patton or some kind of, you know, crazy General Custer, you know, charging it through down deep into enemy lines. Because once you get through a certain enemy position, you have to start expanding your flanks as well. Otherwise, you're going to find yourself surrounded and trapped. So when the Ukrainians do make an advance, they then have to turn around and start expanding their sides. And that doesn't make big headlines that there were some gains on the east and the west of the advance underway. But the territory is being recaptured. And there's evidence that they've already crossed the first line of defense, which is very important. That is a line that was heavily fronted by mines and defensive elements of every kind.

Now they're approaching, in some areas, the second line of defense. So things are going to get progressively interesting, probably over the next three to four weeks. There's a lot of anticipation now that the Ukrainians will start picking up the pace. They'll be confronting the second line of defense. If they break through that, then there's some real chance that they'll start moving at a faster, much deeper pace. However, that said, and I hope I'm not jumping ahead here, it's very, very unlikely they're going to meet the targets they had set earlier in the year of reaching the, you know, breaking the Russian front, the occupation in half by reaching the sea and then cutting off supply from south and north and what have you.

That's probably not going to be achieved this year. It sounds to me like you're thinking we're in for a really long haul on this conflict. Yes, I think barring the quite unexpected, and gosh knows we've seen a few unexpected things in this war, so we say that term, underline it, barring the unexpected. Really, I would anticipate it goes well into 2024, and I would not be at all surprised if the war is not going on in 2025. I am more and more a military analyst in our concluding. That's going to be the case, which of course raises a whole bunch of questions. Again, of national will, Russian will, Ukrainian will, and the will of Western allies and friends, which is going to be absolutely critical to Ukraine. Will that will hold up over a long-term war?

But very few people now are thinking this war could be wrapped up this year or even by next spring or even next summer. I mean, it's just too much, much territory to go, too much fighting yet to be seen. You know, every few weeks or every month or so, we hear, you know, rumblings of, well, there are these talks going on in this city or by these leaders. Is there any more movement on this, the idea of a negotiated settlement? There's a lot more talk about it, but I don't see any movement really at all. And the problem is it falls into the bear pit

when you start analyzing what would be needed to get talks underway. It is said by many in the diplomatic area, if Ukraine was to make a breakthrough, a big breakthrough, and start heading towards the sea and start cutting the Russian occupation in half, it wouldn't want to negotiate. It would want to go on and win the whole bit. Why would it then negotiate when it's on the winning side? If, on the other hand, Ukraine is not able to break

through and cut the Russians in half and make really spectacular advances, why would Moscow choose to negotiate? It would hold on in hopes that Western will will cave, probably after the American election, they might think, but it would not be in Russia's interest to negotiate. So at the moment, it looks like neither side is in a position to be ready to negotiate, and it will take very major movement or failure of movement to get one side or the other to say, okay, let's call this war to an end. The will, of course, wars, the longer they go on, the harder they are to end. We've seen this from World War I to Vietnam, you name it, that the more the one side loses troops and has a cost put to the war, the less likely it is to call the war off and say, okay, we'll call it quits at this level because the public will say, what? We lost all those men. I lost my relatives. I lost family members to get this. This is all we can get.

We've got to give us a victory after this horrible toll in blood the war has taken. So it gets harder all the time. We'll let it end too. Any, just before we move on to one of our favorite topics of the last year, which is the Wagner Group and Prokosian. Let me raise this one question in terms of the art of warfare. Are there any things, any recent changes in what we've witnessed on the battlefield that are worth noting? Well, I think the Russians certainly have been very adaptive in changing their tactics.

They're showing much more intelligence in the way they hold lines. They're not giving up lines excessively fast, but they're not tied to holding them at all costs. We've seen them pull out of certain lines. So the Russians definitely have adapted more that way. The Ukrainians are still experimenting, but they're adopting new efforts in unconventional war, we may call it, that are very interesting. I'd be noting the strikes deeper and deeper into Russia. Not only that Ukraine is firing at Moscow and then military bases and the rest of it, but they seem to have commando, the Ukrainians will be going into inside Russia, what they might do to try and break civilian morale in Moscow,

where it's so important. That's a little island under itself, a big island under itself, we should say. So this is certainly a third theater of war that is now taking place. Okay. Let's talk Prokofiev for a moment. First of all, you know, a little bit of history. Whenever, you know, we've talked about the enemies of Putin within Russia. The story usually ends in some terms the same way.

Something bad happens to this person. He ends up in prison for the rest of his life, or more likely he ends up getting killed, dying in some fashion. There was even the story of the one Putin opponent who was in fact confined to a wheelchair in his apartment at the top of the apartment building he was living in, who went out a window in his wheelchair and was killed, obviously, when he hit the ground. Now we have Prokosian, the leader of the Wagner group, who ran the aborted coup. In fact, he waited until you and I were on all days. It was like the day after we left on all days before that happened. But anyway, he ran this coup.

It didn't work. He gave up, and it looked like he was going to somehow survive, although most people were saying, boy, if I was him, I wouldn't get on an airplane. Well, he got on an airplane, his own airplane, with a bunch of his colleagues from the Wagner Group. And the next thing you know, the plane is hurtling down to the ground, crashes, and everybody on board is killed. Now, is there any doubt in your mind what happened here? Well, only in the sense that I think it's overwhelming chances. Our likelihood is that it was Putin's hand behind it all. But a part of me wonders if it wasn't the military leadership, which so detested Krivozian.

And he attacked them all the time as incompetence, criminals, the rest of it. And their fury was just, I think, uncontainable at the end. And who knows if this was a bomb placed on the plane, just like, you know, the plots against Hitler almost. There are many elements within the military who may have thought this guy's got the backing of Putin, we'll never be able to get rid of him unless we get rid of him ourselves, maybe with the help of our good friends, the intelligence service, which also detested Progozhin. So there were other enemies that may have brought him down. But I think it was likely Putin. And I think it was what he felt he had to do after the international humiliation of indescribable force that he faced when the symposium began in March on Moscow. recover from something like that. The whole world's talking about it. Putin seems weakened. How long is he before he gets shoved out? He can't control Unis under his very hand.

I think this was probably not only the get-even attempt by Putin, but Putin's attempt to say to the world, you think for a second I'm weak? Look what happens to my enemies. And I think one of the great things that all dictators and Russia have always sought through in history is to have a fear factor, to be really feared. It's not just being Mr. Nice Guy, not just being good with crowds and the rest of it. That's of no use to them usually. But they must be feared, feared within the military, feared within the intelligence services,

and feared within the largest country on earth. Remember how hard it is, basically, to run a nation that is one and a half size larger still in Canada, with not that great a population. You have so many different units and elements of ethnic groups and what have you. Fear is a factor that he will be, I think, applauded for in the right-wing national circles where he is very dependent on.

He needs their support, probably their support more than any other. Is Putin safe now with Prokhorin gone? He needs their support, probably their support more than any other. Is Putin safe now with Prokofiev gone? I wouldn't say his term is safe. I don't think he's going to be bumped off. I think he might be persuaded to take a health leave, something like that, something a little more genteel. You know, like Yeltsin or Gorbachev or something. However, he has an election in March. That's something to keep our eye on.

Putin seems determined he's going to win that election. Once he wins it, he's going to probably have term limits to his 150 or something. In any case, I think he is safe. I think he's got just enough strength. And I think a lot of people in Russia, not to mention a lot of people in the outside world, frankly, would rather have Putin than the unknown. I mean, not many people right now are saying, let's bring in some new leader, maybe from the right-wing extreme nationalist group, to be leader of Russia or from the military. Maybe it's better just to have him than to go with the unknown. But I don't know.

There are some people, some very thoughtful analysts, who think the West made a really big mistake when we took away from Putin the threat of regime change. When we said we made it very clear, oh, no, no, no, no, forget what Biden has to say with a slip of the tongue. We're not out to change Putin's rule in Russia at all. That took away one of the leverage points, I should say, against the Kremlin. And whether that was smart or not, I don't know. I haven't got a strong opinion on that. But I think he feels confident. I think he feels he's going to win the election in March.

And I think he thinks long term, maybe a good buddy in the United States of his will come to power. And all this will get settled, which will make it look make russia look good again however bottom line let's not forget one critical thing however this war turns out russia has already lost you know what they've lost of national prestige international prestige what they've lost in terms of their military prowess what they've lost in terms of self-confidence what they've lost in terms of their military prowess, what they've lost in terms of self-confidence, what they've lost in terms of a stronger NATO and a more united West. All of that figures in the loss column for Russia.

So there won't be a victory out here for Russia. Unfortunately, there could still be a defeat for Ukraine. Last quick point. When we kind of left these discussions in the late spring and the early part of the summer, one of the things you were telling us about was that the voices, the anti-Putin voices, had more of an audience and were able to put out their message in various forms in a way they'd never done before. I'm wondering in the post-Purgosian period whether that's changed at all. Well, there's a noticeable, somewhat more caution, but most of the outspokenness now,

and there's still a lot of it on these military blogs, military bloggers, is aimed at the military. I mean, they don't take on Putin. They say, you know, the conduct of this war is really shocking. We're not getting enough ammo in. We're not getting reserves in. We need more people. Our generals are slack.

They're not winning. They're fools, what have you. That's still going out over the air. I mean, it's hard to imagine. I can't think of another dictatorship of a Russian scale where that kind of voice has been allowed to hammer away at, you know, one of the main fists of the regime, which is the military. It's just quite an extraordinary event. But I think Putin wants, again, to ram home the message,

there's lots to blame in this war, but don't look at me. I'm not to blame. You know, from everything I hear, it's all of my generals. You know, they seem to be a hopeless loud, but some of them are disappearing too after all. Well, speaking of voices that like to be listened to and like to be heard, yours has been one that many of our listeners have talked about this summer, saying, where's Brian? Want to hear what he has to say? Well, today was a great snapshot of where we stand on the Ukraine-Russia war. And we thank you for it, Brian. We'll talk to you again another week.

Okay, Peter. Thanks very much. Brian Stewart launching us into the fall of 2023 and his latest thoughts on the situation in Ukraine. A couple of footnotes out of that conversation. First of all, when Brian uses the term an election, Putin running for election, a re-election. He uses that term loosely. I mean, elections in Russia are not quite like the elections that we see here in Canada. You can kind of predict what the result's going to be, even down to percentage terms, before anybody casts a vote.

So it's all very interesting in that sense. There's no fear of Putin losing an election. Let's put it that way. And the second footnote is actually an end bit. And regular listeners of The Bridge know what end bits are. They're those extra little pieces of information that I collect during the week and use on occasion during the bridge as something additional to think about, consider. This one's actually directly related to the Ukraine story. And it's out of the New York Times just over the weekend.

Valeria Safranova wrote this piece. And I'll read from it here. As Russian high school students return to classes after the summer break, just as they are here in Canada, right? On this day and earlier last week for some students, but nevertheless. In Russia, as high school students returned to classes, they were expected to receive a heavily revised history textbook that claims that Ukraine is an ultra-nationalist state where opposition is forbidden and that the United States is the main beneficiary of the Ukrainian conflict. The rewritten version of the History of Russia, 1945 to the beginning of the

21st century, is a textbook for 16 and 17 year old students. It was first unveiled at the beginning of August. The book follows a singular and standardized version of history approved by the highest echelons of power in Russia, and it appears to be the latest push in the Kremlin's youth-targeted propaganda campaign to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Well, there you go we're seeing how the school system is being fiddled with in a number of different places around the world

including in some parts of Canada but that's the way it's being fiddled with in Russia right now trying to get young people on side with Putin's reasons for invading Ukraine and thrusting that country into what has been a prolonged war with extreme casualties on both sides. But him having to explain why all these young Russians are coming home dead. The lucky ones come home. Most are left on the battlefield.

All right. Enough on all that. Time to wrap it up. And with a reminder, the week ahead starts tomorrow with Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. Bruce will be by. Thursday is your turn on the Random Ranter. Get your cards and letters in.

The email is themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Happy to hear from you. Friday is Good Talk with Chantel and Bruce. Lots to talk about there is the Conservatives meeting convention this weekend. And just a quick look ahead to next week on Monday, the latest of the Butts-Moore conversations, or the Moore-Butts conversations, as some call it.

And we've got a great topic for next Monday with the two of them. The former Liberal top advisor to Justin Trudeau, and one of the former top advisors and cabinet ministers to Stephen Harper, James Moore. So Gerald Butts, James Moore. Their conversation next Monday. All right, that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

So great to be back with you. Hope you enjoyed the opening shot for this fourth season of The Bridge. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.