Welcome to The World in 10.
In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security.
Today with me, Alex Dibble and Tom Noonan.
The clock is ticking towards Donald Trump's 50-day deadline on Ukraine.
If Vladimir Putin doesn't come to the table to agree peace before the start of September,
the president has threatened to rain down tariffs on Russia and its trading partners.
Chief among those partners is China.
China is an increasingly important trading partner.
It buys Russian oil and it sells in return cars,
phones and access to international banking for Russia.
Russia even appears to be using Chinese weapons.
So maybe the man Vladimir Putin will listen to most isn't Donald Trump.
but Xi Jinping.
And Xi has much to gain from the latest standoff.
Our guest today is Mark Galeotti,
a Russia specialist who runs the Mayak Intelligence Consultancy and is a senior fellow at RUSI.
Mark,
you've written in the Times that Russian officials think Donald Trump's talk about secondary tariffs on the likes of China and India is an empty threat.
Why do they think that?
I think it's because, first of all, there's no way that even if they wanted to,