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Security and defence analyst Michael Clarke has just finished answering your Ukraine war questions - thanks to everyone who followed along and took part.

Scroll down through this live page to catch up, or check out the key points.

You can also watch it back at the top of the page.

Here's a summary of what Clarke covered:

• China's Xi Jinping visiting Vladimir Putin's Victory Day parade in Moscow today amounts to an official "coming off the fence" when it comes to the Ukraine war, Clarke said;
• Donald Trump's plan to peel Russia away from China is unlikely to succeed. Michael Clarke explained why;
• China's economy will inevitably overtake America's but the US could still maintain a lead through cooperation and alliances, he reckons;
• Clarke was asked if a respected general is right that there's only one way to stop Putin - on the battlefield. He explained why he thinks success there will now be limited;
• He also touched on growing threats to the UK and an increased focus on drone warfare in the future.

Michael Clarke says the drones we have are "pretty big" and the army has "a lot of very small drones which can swarm" an area.

"The thing about drones is... they're cheap to produce, and you can produce them at all sizes," he says.

"The issue is - how do you control them? 

"Can you control them by AI? And we are on the verge of a revolution now, where drones can be run in their thousands, not in the dozens, but in their thousands, and organised really well. 

"We're pretty good on that technology. 

"And then the second question is, what do they carry?"

He says Britain is "investing heavily" on this.

Michael Clarke says "it's no secret that the government thinks that we need to do a lot more about resilience". 

"And it's no secret that we have started to worry about attacks on UK bases, such as Cyprus," he says.

"It's no secret that we think that we may need to develop some sort of ballistic missile defence because it's possible that ballistic missiles, presumably carrying conventional warheads, could be sent against ships in British waters.

"We would never have taken that particularly seriously until recently but now we're taking it more seriously."

He says the threat level in the UK "has much increased".

Clarke says when the defence review appears, he thinks "we'll get a sense of how much the government thinks it needs to reorientate ourselves to internal resilience and defence".

John asks if General Sir Richard Sherriff is correct in his comments that the only way to stop the war in Ukraine for Russia to be defeated on the battlefield.

Clarke says Sir Richard is a "distinguished general and a very clever man" who will have observed the buildup of Russian military power.

"I'm sure he knows we're not really talking about defeat of Russia (so much as) the failure of this operation, the failure of the special military operation.

"Russia has got to be, in his view, put in a position where this has failed to achieve its objectives and at inordinate cost."

Clarke says the situation is "a long way from that now".

He adds: "We thought we might be getting close to it in 2023, but we're not. Things have turned around, and it looks as if the opinion of the world, particularly in the global South, will be Russia has succeeded and the cost is very high."

The Ukrainians know they can't retake Crimea any time soon, says military analyst Michael Clarke.

"But they also know they don't have to give up their claim," he says. "Why would they? Why should they?"

He references Japan and Russia after the Second World War, where Russia was given southern Sakhalin and a string of islands.

"Now the Japanese cannot take those three islands back, and they've never made any attempt to try, because that would be foolish.

"But they have never given up their claim to it. They say the southern three Kuril Islands are Japanese territory, and they will maintain that claim for 100 years, 200 years. 

"And if there is a big turn of the geopolitical wheel sometime in the next century, their claim will still be there on the table, and they'll say, 'oh, you know, these three islands that we think are ours. Well, the time has come to rethink the status of them'."

He says it is a slippery slope to agree to the transfer of territory by force.

"Once you legitimise that, you legitimise that everywhere."

Michael Clarke says if there was official recognition of Crimea in the world as a whole that would be a "really important principle".

"That's recognising and legitimising the change of borders by force," he says.

He says Crimea was seized by the Russians in 2014 illegally and  if we now said we regard that as a legal transfer of territory, then that "opens the door" to "crude naked aggression and imperialism".

"What the Americans seem to have been saying is that 'we the US might recognise Crimea'. But I can promise the Europeans won't," he says.

"And I don't think the UN will."

What the Americans seem to be offering Russia is a "partial recognition", Clarke says.

He adds: "The Ukrainians don't have the power to retake Crimea but that doesn't mean they can't maintain their legal claim."

Asked if China is now the global superpower due to the splinters in Western alliances caused by Donald Trump, Clarke says it's not.

"No, it isn't. But it is gaining in power all the time," he says.

"In crude terms, if you look at projections for the global economy, by the year 2050, China and the United States will probably be about equal in terms of the world economy."

China hasn't overtaken the US yet "but it will happen on the current trajectory," Clarke says.

Russia, he adds, is "almost irrelevant" in this discussion due to its dependence on energy, gas and oil.

"In superpower terms, the United States has the wherewithal to remain the world's most important superpower, particularly if it finds a better way of integrating or of working with the economies of Canada and Mexico. 

"Canada, Mexico and the United States between them are a real economic powerhouse of about $25trn worth of combined GDP a year, which is bigger than the European Union, bigger than China, bigger than anything."

Watch below: Xi Jinping has been cosying up to Putin this week...

Military analyst Michael Clarke says this is called Donald Trump's strategy the Nixon Doctrine in reverse.

"In 1972, Nixon opened to China in what was then a successful attempt to peel China away from Russia, when Russia was much the stronger power between the two," he says.

"Some have said what Trump is trying to do by getting up close to Russia with a strategic partnership is peel Russia away from China. 

"Now that's not clever policy, and it's not even good history to be honest."

He says the chances of peeling Russia and China apart "are not that great". 

"The fact is, the Russians need the Chinese; they are not going to peel away towards the Americans because Putin is a client of Xi Jinping, no question about it," he says.

The longer the war goes on, he adds, the more Moscow will need Beijing. 

Military analyst Michael Clarke says it's a big "plus" for Vladimir Putin to get Xi Jinping in Moscow.

"They've met many times, but this is only Xi Jinping's second visit into the country," he says.

"And to go for the victory parade is a very big symbolic moment."

He notes that Xi Jinping has said from the beginning of this war that he's "neutral".

"Nobody in the rest of the world has really believed that, and now he's making it pretty clear," he adds.

Clarke says if China really wanted the Russians to stop fighting this year, they would not have sent them so much dual-use technology.

"In a way, Xi Jinping has sort of come off the fence officially now," he adds.

Watch below: Putin at today's Victory Day parade in Moscow.

Michael Clarke is here and ready to start answering your questions.

Lots of you have been in touch, and we will aim to get through as many of your questions as we can.

We'll be sharing updates here, and you can watch along in the live stream at the top of this page.