Evidence since the podcast (27 Sep 2024) broadly matches both parts of the prediction:

1. Ukraine’s military position deteriorated toward potential collapse.

   • By November 2024, major outlets were explicitly warning that parts of the Ukrainian frontline were at risk of collapse as Russian forces advanced “village after village” amid severe Ukrainian manpower and equipment shortages.(news.sky.com)
   • Analyses in 2024–25 repeatedly noted that delays in Western aid and ammunition put Ukrainian lines "at risk of collapse" and highlighted Ukraine’s serious manpower problems.(hudson.org)(en.wikipedia.org)
   • In 2025 Russia mounted a large spring and then summer offensive, capturing places such as Kurakhove (announced by Russia in January 2025) and pushing toward key hubs like Dobropillia and Pokrovsk, with Ukrainian officers describing the situation as "very difficult."(en.wikipedia.org)(en.wikipedia.org)(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Russia also opened a new front in Sumy Oblast, seizing Kostiantynivka in June 2025 and bringing Russian forces within 20–25 km of Sumy city, further straining Ukraine’s defenses.(en.wikipedia.org)
     Collectively, this supports the claim that Ukraine’s military situation continued to worsen and was widely discussed in terms of possible local or broader front-line collapse.

2. Western political/strategic pressure to intervene more directly increased as the situation worsened.

   • Even before the podcast, France’s President Emmanuel Macron had broken a taboo in February 2024 by saying that sending Western ground troops to Ukraine could not be ruled out, explicitly arguing that “nothing should be excluded” to prevent a Russian victory.(reuters.com)(kyivpost.com)
   • As Russian advances and Ukrainian shortages mounted, this debate evolved into concrete planning for Western troop deployments inside Ukraine (even if framed as non-frontline). In 2025 the UK and France began leading a “Coalition of the Willing” to prepare a multinational reassurance force to be deployed in Ukraine after a ceasefire, with around 30 countries involved in operational talks about troop contributions.(en.wikipedia.org)(euronews.com)
   • European and UK leaders repeatedly discussed this force as part of security guarantees needed because of ongoing Russian offensives and Ukraine’s vulnerability, and Zelensky himself urged coalition members to establish a framework for deploying such a reassurance force under a U.S.-backed peace plan.(reuters.com)(theguardian.com)
   • At the same time, there was strong resistance from many NATO members to full-scale combat deployments, and official positions continued to rule out NATO combat troops. But the fact that serious planning for multinational troops in Ukraine became a live issue at all – after being unthinkable early in the war – shows that political and strategic pressure to consider more direct involvement did increase as Ukraine’s position worsened.(theguardian.com)(globalsecurity.org-www.globalsecurity.org)

Because (a) Ukraine’s military position clearly deteriorated and was widely described as being at risk of collapse in parts of the front, and (b) Western leaders moved from flat rejection of any troops toward openly debating and planning for deployments of multinational forces on Ukrainian soil (even if limited and post‑ceasefire), the core directional claim of the prediction is borne out. The prediction did not say that the West would actually send combat forces, only that the temptation and pressure to intervene directly would grow as Ukraine approached collapse, which has happened in a qualified but real way.