Speaker 1: I'm a fan ish, I don't ever really think about it,
Speaker 1: but of the woman Elizabeth. But I am so not
Speaker 1: a fan of the monarchy. It's it's it's an evil
Speaker 1: idea that's time passed hundreds of years ago, and why
Speaker 1: does everybody still act like it's a thing. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't want to get off on the discussion since we
Speaker 1: have a gift waiting, but perhaps we'll involve Felix Light
Speaker 1: in the discussion. He as a reporter in London for
Speaker 1: the CBS Radio News in the Moscow Times. Felix, it's
Speaker 1: always a pleasure. How are you, I'm well, thank you
Speaker 1: very well. So just so you know what you're stepping
Speaker 1: into if I have no idea what the coverage is
Speaker 1: like over there in England, but here in the United States,
Speaker 1: it's NonStop, wall the wall on the cable news channels,
Speaker 1: like they haven't taken a breath in twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: And it's all reverence for not only just the woman,
Speaker 1: which is fine, although the coverage is too much, um,
Speaker 1: but reverence for the whole idea of the monarchy and
Speaker 1: everything like that, which just like I can't wrap my
Speaker 1: hand around and I don't have a set I've never
Speaker 1: had a sense of what the average britt thinks about
Speaker 1: the monarchy. Do you have an idea of that? Having
Speaker 1: hung out there in Great Britain a lot more than
Speaker 1: I have, Yeah, sure, Well, being a breat so to speak,
Speaker 1: you know, I think people would sort of think of
Speaker 1: the monarchy as as almost a sort of you know,
Speaker 1: a national united You know, you can sort of have
Speaker 1: your problems with the idea of monarchy, but you know,
Speaker 1: our monarchy is not not any way sort of powerful.
Speaker 1: It has no political role, uh, and it's just a
Speaker 1: sort of I guess it's a shared institution that you know,
Speaker 1: in principle and not everyone, but certainly I think the
Speaker 1: vast bulk of people are in the country can kind
Speaker 1: of subscribe to. You know, it's it's sort of, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's kind of the the essence of the
Speaker 1: democratic system in a way, right. You know, the queen
Speaker 1: appoints the government, but she must appoint the government or
Speaker 1: the king. Now I'm a point the government, but he
Speaker 1: must appoint a government that you know is um kind
Speaker 1: of responsible to parliament, right and represents the all of
Speaker 1: the people in that way. So I think it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's part of a democratic constitution, even though it's obviously
Speaker 1: a very old and you know, aristocratic and some might
Speaker 1: say outdated idea. We've been discussing this throughout the day
Speaker 1: and I wish this had occurred to me earlier. But
Speaker 1: there are quite a number of nations that have a
Speaker 1: political leader than a ceremonial leader, whether it's Japan or
Speaker 1: um Israel. Uh, they have a president who's essentially just
Speaker 1: a ribbon cutter and a national symbol, and then they
Speaker 1: got a guy who does the nitty gritty and I
Speaker 1: suppose it's did something like that exactly. You know, there's
Speaker 1: no sort of political power invested in the monarchy. It's
Speaker 1: or you know, they're there are sort of very strict
Speaker 1: rules for what the monarch sort of has to do,
Speaker 1: you know, and they even though you know in theory
Speaker 1: they're the sort of the top of the top of
Speaker 1: the hierarchy. You know, they have to defer to the
Speaker 1: prime minister and everything. So you know, it's so sort
Speaker 1: of a little more democratic than you might think looking
Speaker 1: out on the out from the outside, I think, do
Speaker 1: you think it will keep on having the luster that
Speaker 1: it's had now that the queen is gone, because there
Speaker 1: were some stories a while back that Prince Charles had
Speaker 1: been talking about opening up um Buckingham Palace is a
Speaker 1: museum and living somewhere else. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: those rumors were true or not. And there are Australian
Speaker 1: Jamaica making noises about Okay, now that she's gone, we
Speaker 1: need to become you know, our own thing. What do
Speaker 1: you think is going to happen there? Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: think certainly, you know, there's a difference between the institution
Speaker 1: of the monarchy, which I think is is still pretty
Speaker 1: popular in the UK at least, and you know, the
Speaker 1: queen who sort of popularity ratings I think in the
Speaker 1: UK and probably you know in the world in the
Speaker 1: sort of the the countries that have her as their monarch.
Speaker 1: You know, it's fairly sort of stratosterically popular really, you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there are obviously going to be problems once
Speaker 1: sort of you know, there's a kind of a post
Speaker 1: queen monarchy if you like. You know, certainly, I think
Speaker 1: some of the other countries, you know, Australia and New
Speaker 1: Zealand are certainly some of the Caribbean countries might sort
Speaker 1: of abolish the monarchy. But you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: fairly safe in the British context. You know, they're always
Speaker 1: going to be people who don't like it as much
Speaker 1: as other people, but I think that you know, generally,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a pretty firm part of the
Speaker 1: national identity. You know, it's almost like I don't know
Speaker 1: the constitution in America right like it's it's it's part
Speaker 1: of you know, what the country is, you know, and
Speaker 1: what it's founded around. I guess interesting, Felix, like CBS
Speaker 1: Radio News on the Moscow Times from London, Felix, if
Speaker 1: we could switch topics to the situation in Ukraine for
Speaker 1: a moment. There is a fair amount of reporting that
Speaker 1: Ukraine's counter offensive, their utilization as some of the weapons
Speaker 1: systems the US has guten them, has been pretty effective.
Speaker 1: I'm always a little cautious about over exuberance. Um, what's
Speaker 1: your sense of the situation there in the momentum? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a pretty dramatic counter offensives that's been
Speaker 1: sort of undertaken by Crane these last of days. You know,
Speaker 1: we've seen probably about fifty mile advances, you know, in
Speaker 1: this very very strategic part of the front in sort
Speaker 1: of East Ukraine. You know, Russian troops really falling back
Speaker 1: quite considerably, and what you know, what's really important here,
Speaker 1: I think is that you have a very real risk
Speaker 1: that you know, a very large part of the Russian
Speaker 1: force and a couple of key towns and are very
Speaker 1: very important and sort of logistical hubs are going to
Speaker 1: fall into include encirclement, right so they are going to
Speaker 1: be unable to escape and they'll have sort of Ukrainian
Speaker 1: forces bearing down on them from all sides. So I
Speaker 1: think this could be a really you know, a really
Speaker 1: important strategic moment in the conflict. You know, we don't
Speaker 1: know what will happen, but certainly, you know, the Russian media,
Speaker 1: which usually keeps a pretty sort of aggressively sort of
Speaker 1: program and you know, everything is fine, narrative on everything
Speaker 1: is not sort of um, it's not very optimistic right now.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of I think acknowledgement online
Speaker 1: on Russian TV then that there is a serious situation
Speaker 1: developing in this part of Harkiev region. So you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's one of the most sort
Speaker 1: of dramatic times I think for this conflict in March
Speaker 1: or April. Yeah, so what caused the change is that
Speaker 1: the super cool weapons they've been waiting for they finally
Speaker 1: got or what what led to this? Well, yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: I think you know, the US supplied weapons, especially these
Speaker 1: Hyma systems, which are basically sort of long range rocket systems,
Speaker 1: have been absolutely crucial. You know, they're letting the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: take out of the bridges, take out AMMO dumps, you know,
Speaker 1: long way behind the lines, and really sort of cutting
Speaker 1: the Russian supply lines the pieces there. But you know,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you know, a lot of it's
Speaker 1: just because the Russians that you know, the Russians have
Speaker 1: lost a lot of men and of course of this conflict,
Speaker 1: you know, whereas Ukraine has basically called that their entire
Speaker 1: bail population to fight, you know, Russia is almost still
Speaker 1: trying to fight this like it's a small war and
Speaker 1: a sort of land far away, you know, and relying
Speaker 1: on its sort of professional volunteer army. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a little bit of an imbalanced there.
Speaker 1: You know, Ukraine has just got the numbers that Russia
Speaker 1: doesn't at the moment, and I think, you know, Ukraine
Speaker 1: just kept probing and eventually they found a part of
Speaker 1: the front that was lightly defended and they just surged through.
Speaker 1: And you've got this pretty extraordinary advance over the course
Speaker 1: of a couple of days. So you're a huge, huge
Speaker 1: win for them, I think at this stage. Felix Light
Speaker 1: of CBS Radio News and the Moscow Times. Felix again,
Speaker 1: it's always great to talk to you. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for sharing your insights. Well, thank you Armstrong and Jetty