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But we'll be back next week for another instalment, so start thinking of any questions you want to get in for Michael Clarke.

In the meantime, you may catch up on today's episode in the video above or by scrolling for a breakdown of some of the key points below.

See you again next week and switch to our Ukraine live page for the latest on the war. Just tap below.

Russia is on its third army, Clarke explains, after its first army, used in the initial invasion, of 190,000 soldiers was "effectively dismantled" and its second army, made up of conscripts from 2022 and 2023, was also sent to the front.

He says the third army is "a mishmash of forces" from different parts of the world, featuring new mercenary forces, old elite units from the initial invasion army and elements of the mobilised second army.

"They get no real proper training. They get a bit of basic training and are sent straight to the front."

How Russia's army fights

Clarke says the Russian third army falls into the "old Soviet pattern" of fighting and isn't very successful.

"It's sort of human wave attacks," he explains. "They use the newest, cheapest soldiers or the foreign soldiers in the frontline. 

"They make them go ahead so they can mark the firing points of the Ukrainians, and then they attack the firing points. They buy with their lives knowledge of where the Ukrainians are."

Despite this, Clarke says that Russia can still carry on for the rest of 2025 as they have more people coming through, but it won't stretch into 2026.

"Can we see a new, really vigorous Russian army appearing in the spring this time next year? I can't see it either in equipment terms or in terms of really well-trained, reorganised manpower."

Michael Clarke says he does not think the restrictions on Ukraine's ability to strike back will be removed. 

He says Western Europe will always want to avoid the idea that it is taking on Russia directly.

"We will defend ourselves against Russia if they go to war with us, which it increasingly looks like they have a mind to do," he says.

"But we don't want to get into a war with Russia. We've got no interest in trying to destroy Russia, despite what Putin says. 

"Nor could we, even if we wanted to."

Clarke says Ukrainians simply wants to defend themselves against Russia and convince it that conquering Ukraine is not worth it. 

"The West doesn't need Ukraine," Clarke says definitively. 

"The West feels a responsibility to Ukraine, both because, like most of the post-Soviet states, it has leant towards the West, certainly initially, and wanted to join the sort of family of free trading liberal democracies," he says. 

"But we absolutely don't need Ukraine," he adds, noting that Kyiv joining something like the EU would actually create a lot of problems given its size and agricultural prowess. 

The same goes for NATO - what was once a nimble and slim alliance is now bloated and at risk of organisational chaos, he says. 

Clarke says air power is what Ukrainians most lack for operations on the ground and that if they could create some air superiority over their own territory, it would make a "big difference".

"They need more of their own aircraft and trained pilots to use them. F-16s are fine, but they need others as well."

Clarke adds that, if Europe was prepared to do it, a no-fly zone over Ukraine could make a difference "that the Russians would find very difficult".

They would then be able to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles coming in from Russia, he says.

"If the Europeans were part of the defensive war that Ukraine were fighting, Ukrainians could use all of their air power for their offensive operations. That might make a difference on the ground in a way that the Russians would find very difficult."

What single weapon could help?

Clarke says Germany's Taurus missile could make a difference for Ukraine.

"Taurus is a better range, heavier warhead, generally, and a better warhead," he says.

"Taurus is really good at blowing up things like bridges and fixed installations. It really does a lot of damage to key installations in exactly the way you would want it to.

"It's not the sort of thing you would use against civilians, of course, but actually it's very good against military and infrastructure installations."

For context: Taurus is a powerful cruise missile system that can strike targets deep inside Russian territory, making it a potential game changer for Ukrainian forces if it could use them.

The UK and France already provide Ukraine with their own long-range missile support in the form of UK Storm Shadows and French Scalps.

Friedrich Merz, the incoming German chancellor, has proposed providing Kyiv with its Taurus missiles, something his predecessor Olaf Scholz refused to do, fearing it could drag Berlin into direct war with Moscow.

The American objective is to create a rapprochement with Russia, Michael Clarke says.

"They want a new relationship with Russia for all sorts of economic reasons," he says.

He says economically the US thinks there's so much good trade to be done with Russia by getting rid of sanctions and their geopolitical motive is to pull Russia away from China.

"Trump doesn't really care what happens to Ukraine. He just wants to get it out of the way. He just wants it off the table. And that suits Putin," he says.

"If Trump moves on, Putin continues with the war and  he just keeps pushing steadily for more and more control of Ukraine.

"The Americans will have given up on it and Putin can still pursue a rapprochement with America, which brings him back from the cold. 

"He's been a pariah since 2014 and a complete pariah since 2022.

"Now Trump is offering him the chance to come back into the world fold as one of the three big dictators -Trump,  Putin and Xi Jinping."

Clarke says you never know what the motivations are behind Trump's decisions.

He adds: "All the great dictators say they're victims. And secondly, they say they're setting right to historical injustice.

"So I'm the victim, you know, Donald Trump. I've been subjected like Vladimir Putin to the most outrageous slurs, etc, and I'm setting right a historic injustice to the way America has been treated by the rest of the world."

Watch below: Back in March, Sky News' Trump 100 podcast looked at the similarities between Trump and Putin. Take a look below...

The chances are "very low," Clarke says.

"The Ukrainians can hold on, they can keep 'avoiding losing', but they're not going to take any more ground from the Russians unless they can build up the military hardware again," he says.

He says Europe would need to step up and fill the gap that the US will almost inevitably leave should Trump continue his current trajectory.

"That's not impossible - but it isn't going to happen this year, if they keep on fighting this year."

In a quick fire section of the Q&A, Clarke says Ukraine can continue fighting as it's "not a small state", but there are two key questions that depend on its success:

1. Can Ukraine keep going if the US withdraws its intelligence?
2. Does the US turn off Starlink?

Clarke says the answer to the first question is "yes, but not so well".

However, if the US were to withdraw Starlink, the Elon Musk-supplied internet service connecting much of Ukraine's frontline together, then Ukraine "will certainly lose territory because the Europeans can't compensate for that".

"Kaliningrad is already being squeezed by sanctions imposed at the start of the war and the Russians do feel it," Michael Clarke says of the exclave. 

But more could be done, given how much travels there by sea unchallenged, he says. 

Especially when one considers its geographical position. 

"Many people view it as an outpost of Russian aggression against NATO - but I think it's the other way around," he says.

"Kaliningrad is an outpost of vulnerability because it's surrounded by NATO."

He says as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine, more nearby countries have joined NATO, like Finland and Sweden. 

He says now, Kaliningrad is basically sat in a "NATO lake". 

Donald Trump is under pressure to do a deal within his first 100 days in office, Clarke says, but believes the US president will indeed walk away from negotiations soon if a deal can't be done.

"The US might stay in it a bit longer if they thought they could get something out of it," he explains. "But I don't think they can get anything out of it. I think that Trump will walk away in a couple of weeks."

He adds: "I think it could get kicked into the long grass and [Trump] will focus on other stuff."

Clarke says there's a "parting of the ways" coming between the US and Europe which could show itself at the NATO summit in the Netherlands at the end of June.

"That looks like it could be a humdinger."

Watch below: Trump's VP JD Vance suggested today that the US could walk away if its current peace proposal isn't accepted by both sides.