Hello and welcome to another video about the Ukraine-Russian war. Now we have to say war, not conflict anymore, unfortunately. As usual, I welcome Professor Mangott, political scientist of the University of Innsbruck, expert on Russia and Eastern Europe. Good morning. Good morning. And my colleague, Alexander Stipsic, who is still residing in the Czech Republic. Good morning. Good morning. At the moment, we can see history happening by the hour. Last time we spoke, we discussed about a possible war. Now, unfortunately, it happened. And there have been so many reactions and developments that it's quite hard to keep track about all the sanctions and re-sanctions from Russia. So maybe in the beginning, Professor Margot, bring us up to speed. What, let's say, happened in the last 10 days? Well to a certain extent I was surprised that the Russian government decided to escalate this conflict with Ukraine at the highest level of possible escalation. I had expected that a ground invasion, a full ground invasion of Ukraine by Russia would not happen very likely. So I was wrong. I had this expectation because the costs of such an operation have been very high, higher than probably expected. And I had expected the Russian government not to launch this war because of the high costs. So according to my information, the Russian side, the Russian leadership was fully aware of what sanctions might come. Of course, not all of them. by Western governments, say particularly the German government's decision to stop Nord Stream 2 and to invest heavily in the rearmament of the German army. Of course, not everything was expected. It could not have been expected by the Russian side. But the main sanctions that have been imposed, meanwhile, were expected according to the information I have based on contacts in Russia. So the leadership was aware about the consequences of these sanctions, the impact on Russia's economy, its financial sector, and finally the social situation in the country. And despite this, the Russian government decided to launch this invasion. Also, I was surprised that they do that because what can they gain in Ukraine, which does not come at a very high cost also domestically, even if the Russian government will be able to defeat the Ukrainian armed forces and bring down the government in Kiev, which they call a Nazi government and the objective of Russia officially is the denazification of Ukraine. So even if they manage to topple the government and install a puppet government, which is Russia friendly and accepts the conditions that Russia has raised for an end to its war effort, they cannot keep that government in office without occupying the country for a very, very long time. And occupying a country means that the Russians will have to face a counterinsurgency by soldiers a counterinsurgency by soldiers and civilians and they will face civil disobedience by most of the Ukrainians. So a commitment to Ukraine in terms of an occupation will cost Russia dearly and it's not even true that by this they will be able to keep the public government in power. So yes, I was surprised that they decided to launch this invasion. I had expected lower level escalation to increase the pressure on Western countries to make concessions to Russia as far as the demanded security guarantees were concerned. But obviously, even if you deal with a country for 36 years as I did, you can always get surprised. Can I ask a quick question before I ask a little bit of a larger question? I've discussed with a Ukrainian acquaintance yesterday evening a few angles that are not in the public's eye as far as I am following is there chance that Putin actually has a medical problem and I I don't want to you know I don't want to be sly here but by watching the way he conducts himself even within the inner circle and the way of course he looks if you look closely at the way the eyes are the faces and this truly erratic behavior which we now see in the reaction also of many Russians and by the way I I hope the Russian people will help solve this, but is there a chance that Vladimir Putin actually has a problem mental or otherwise? Because so much is not logical here, and as you said, will cost Russia far beyond this generation. Well, there is speculation that the mental state of health of Vladimir Putin is not very good. Some call him a crazy man, a crazy autocrat. I can tell, of course, because I'm not his doctor, but we can say that probably what we consider irrationality is perfectly fine with Putin's rationality. We need to take into account that he has been isolated for two years. He has only a few advisors he's talking to, particularly from the military security establishment. from the military security establishment, then we can assume that probably he doesn't get all the information that would be necessary to make such a tough decision to launch a war. Maybe he gets just selective information. He's fed by people who have their own special interests and maybe given his authoritarian character character there's no one in the surrounding of Vladimir Putin who dares to object to what Putin argues or what Putin does. So we can argue maybe there's a special kind of information space he is living in that based on this information deficit might have taken this decision. If he's physically ill, it's also hard to tell but I agree with you, the way he looks, the way he acts, he doesn't really look very fit and we have these rumors in Russia and abroad that Putin is facing death in the not too distant future, and actually is now doing everything he can to shape how he is covered in Russian history books. That speculation, we had that speculation for many, many years. I can't tell, but I can agree and do agree that he doesn't look perfectly healthy. Well, let's hope he doesn't decide to go down as one of the mad czars. I would like to continue with the following question. Yesterday, the Ukraine made the move to sign officially the application to become a European Union member. Now, I understand that and why they are doing that. But that, of course, takes all options off the table, apart maybe from neutrality. Anyway, that Vladimir Putin could agree with, in my humble opinion. So a statement was made and it also draws now Europe in even closer than it is anyway. So I want to ask you this. Give us an overview. What is the European defensive situation, given the mess that Europe is in internally vis-a-vis the Russian army? So with the Russians obviously willing to escalate even the mess that Europe is in internally vis-a-vis the Russian army. So with the Russians obviously willing to escalate and the Europeans without the US, because the US has made it quite clear no soldiers on the ground as it stands, can Europe really defend itself? Is there a chance? Is it even prepared logistically to coordinate itself? Is there a chance? Is it even prepared logistically to coordinate itself? Well, first to the issue of Ukrainian membership in the European Union. It's not surprising, and I agree with you, it's perfectly understandable that the current Ukrainian government is asking for membership negotiations with the European Union. It is surprising that Commission President von der Leyen has said we want them in, they are like us. But I think that's a bit weird, actually, to follow these statements, because there's no special procedure for Ukraine to enter immediately, as Zelensky has asked for. And actually, I do not think for the further deepening of European integration, it would be wise to take in Ukraine for many, many reasons, economic reasons, societal reasons, reasons regarding the rule of law and democratic institutions. So this is a bit emotional. And I think it's not in the interest of the European Union to give Ukraine the status of an accession country. But that's another story. I do not think that the Russians will escalate this conflict beyond the borders of Ukraine. of Ukraine. So I do not see a threat to the European nations at the eastern front of both the European Union and NATO. However, you're absolutely right to say that the European armies, let's say with the exception of the UK and France, are not prepared to defend against Russia in a conventional war, if that were to happen, without the security guarantees, the military engagement of the United States. Europe, for various reasons, has decided over the past 30 years, maybe even before, that they rather rely on U.S. protection and U.S. military security guarantees than to establish their own base for effective defense. This might well change now and we have heard the speech by German Chancellor Scholz in the Bundestag announcing heavy investment in the rearmament of the German Bundeswehr. And we have seen statements like this in several other European countries. However, this will take time. This cannot be changed overnight. But I would have preferred that the European Union would establish its own defense capability to make sovereign and autonomous decisions but what we will see is that European NATO States will contribute more to defense they will invest more in armament research and development but as members of NATO and of course the United States is the leading power in NATO so what we will see is if Europe finally decides to be serious about its military capabilities, it will be just a strengthening of the transatlantic alliance, but not the strengthening of the European Union. So you think there will be no European army as like, for example, the neo's in Austria talking about? No, I don't think so. Of course, we all have to talk by Emmanuel Macron about European sovereignty and strategic autonomy. However, inside the European Union, there are so many different differing and contradictory views. For instance, Eastern Europeans have no interest in establishing a separate EU military capability. They do not rely on the European Union, but they do rely on NATO, or like Poland, the Baltics, they actually do not rely on European NATO members, but on the bilateral security ties with the United States. So these countries in the European Union have no interest in establishing a separate European capacity. If they support, of course, reinvestment in defense by European countries, they consider it as strengthening the European pillar inside of NATO militarily, but this would not necessarily strengthen the European pillar in NATO politically. Do you want to go or I have another one? Thank you very much. Let's look, let's do a reflective investigation. One of the things that in this current situation has been so astounding and revealing and somehow to me also in an odd way positive is that when a line like that gets drawn it becomes very clear where nations and especially individuals stand and we call them the Putin Versteher. So those forces in Europe that surprisingly have come out in defense of Putin. And when I look at Austria, you know, there is a special group that seems to be rather fond of the men and the system. Hungary, obvious reasons because they basically live off Russia and how how large do you see that group that is surrounded by these really to me partly insane conspiracies of the reset and all of those things that you've heard which we thought were just crazy but obviously putin is fanning those flames so so how how many in terms of percentage i would say in austria it's around 15 to maybe even 20 to 25 percent but but what would you say how much sympathy um does does russia and the putin have for its moves well i think there's still support on the fringes of the political spectrum, on the right-wing end of the spectrum, but also on the very left. And it's particularly surprising that the left is still siding with Putin's Russia, as Putin, of course, is no leftist. He's a conservative. He is leading an authoritarian power. He's leading a state capitalist country. He lives with oligarchs who have taken the wealth from the Russian people. So he's not a leftist at all. Maybe the leftist supporters are fed by anti-Americanism and are fond of the idea that Putin is opposing the United States and the West. He's standing up to the West. For the right-wingers, I think they do have sympathy for the authoritarian nature of Vladimir Putin's Russia. They are also fed by their traditional anti-Americanism and also, like the leftists, agree with or support and sympathize with the anti-Western stance of Russia under Vladimir Putin. They also share his conservative values, family values, traditional values against cosmopolitanism and the like. They also are, of course, fond of Putin's opposition to deeper European integration and his efforts to undermine European integration and European Union member countries. So there are some reasons why we still have those supporters. But actually, there's no rational basis for siding with Russia. This is a war of aggression. It is not justified by anything. And Russia bears the sole responsibility for this military escalation. Still, I'd say from an academic point of view, and maybe it's not the time now to reflect on that, this war has not come over us like a miracle. We need to contextualize it historically. It has a history. we need to contextualize it historically, it has a history and we need to find out who at what time decided to take policy decisions regarding Russia and who at what time in Russia decided to shape the Russian position vis-a-vis the West which probably has led us into the current situation. So what we need is sort of an introspection also on the Western side. What we on the contrary now see is that all those who have argued for a very long time that Putin is an evil person, aggressive by definition, that Russia has always been expansionist in its history, whether it was the Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, or now the current Russia, that these people don't see any contribution, negative contribution by the West over the past 30 years to the escalating aggressive military posture of the Russian Federation. Once again, this does not mean there's any justification for Putin's decision to launch war. But what we need is really a further introspection on the Western side. I am afraid, however, that room for doing that is shrinking, that the pressure on having a solid this solid position on russia is is to blame for what has happened over the past 20 years that there is no room for alternative views and for dissenting views even in the academic field let alone in the political arena Well, maybe coming back to the start of the war, as you already mentioned, that one of the two reasons or the three reasons maybe Putin gave to start the war was to denazify the Ukraine. Two days ago, I saw an interview or a discussion on Austrian TV with Anna Rose. Maybe you know her. She's a former Russia Today journalist, now changed sides. In 2014 she was quite a big supporter of Vladimir Putin. Now she's the opposite. And she explained that Nazi in Russian language doesn't mean the same like in Austria. It's not only anti-Semitic racist people, but it's all people that interfere with Russian interests. She explained that this is the meaning in Russian for Nazi. Is this true? And if so, are there people like this? I mean, obviously, our Nazis are in every country, but do they have any support or are they part of any part of the army or of the government? Or is this just fiction like most of us think? Well, of course, there are right-wing paramilitary groups. Some of them have been integrated in the official Ukrainian army. And they do have a political influence. They do want to shape the political discourse in Ukraine and put some limits on probable rapprochement with the Russian side. Now speaking about the time before the war was launched. However, the Russian government's designation of the current government of Ukraine and the previous governments of Ukraine since 2014 as illegitimate and fascist or Nazi are absurd. This is something which is used by the Russian leadership to influence the domestic narrative about this conflict and about this war. Putin in his speech at the dawn of February the 24th mentioned that Ukraine is a security threat to Russia, that actually Russia is the victim and Ukraine is the aggressor also arguing that the Ukrainian government is a puppet government of the West which is willing to make as he called it Ukraine and anti-Russia a launchpad for aggression against the Russian Federation and the argument that Russia needs to protect its citizens. And there are a lot of Russian citizens now in the separatist entities in eastern Ukraine, about 800,000. Russia needs to protect these Russian comrades against what he calls genocide and Nazi action, aggressive action against the Russian speakers and the ethnic Russians in Ukraine. All that, of course, is meant for domestic consumption, but it has no basis in what actually happens in Ukraine. But it does ask for denazification. In a telephone conversation with Emmanuel Macron yesterday, he confirmed that denazification is one of the remaining strategic objectives of Russia, which of course can be translated that the Russian leadership is seeking regime change in Kyiv to bring down the current government as an illegitimate government in Russia's eyes. He has also, of course, stated again that Russia wants the demilitarization of Ukraine, and he wants to force Ukraine to accept the status of a neutral country. These demands by Russia are still on the table. The Russian demands are also that Ukraine accepts Crimea as a part of the Russian Federation. And Russia also demands that a future Ukrainian government recognizes the independence of the so-called People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, not in the borders they currently control, but along the lines of the historical borders of the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk. So that would be a much wider territorial area. So this is the Russian position of what they are seeking for in this war, what their objectives are. And denazification, as I've tried to outline, is primarily used for domestic consumption, the domestic narrative let me get in there dear colleague if i may and let's look a little bit at solutions uh the lines are drawn we've seen that again um with the demands of putin and we've seen it uh with the behavior um or wishes towards the european union of zielinski so we cannot, I would be very surprised if suddenly peace negotiations would occur that lead anywhere. I hopefully maybe a ceasefire or something, but I do not see peace to happen very soon. How could it happen? Well, what is the situation within Russia? I remember I had a really enlightening conversation with you a couple of years back where you told me that actually within Russia, it's not such that there is not some free media. It has declined again in the last couple of years, but there was, as you laid out. The Russian people, some of them, a few thousands, we don't even know, it may be a lot more, are actually on the street. And a lot of prominent Russians in foreign lands and in Russia are very openly declaring their displeasure with Putin and the situation. Do you see a chance that the Russian people will be able to basically halt their own army, especially when we consider that, as we just said, the damage that is being done, especially to the Russian people, is enormous. And we'll talk a little bit about that maybe afterwards. But right now, I would like to ask you, is there a chance that the Russians themselves say, we don't want this and it will be halted? Well, according to most recent opinion polls that are available, it's about 60% of the Russians who blame the West for the current crisis. And only a few of them blame the Russian government itself. So in terms of crisis perception, obviously the Kremlin controls the domestic narrative, but we also know that the war against Ukraine is unpopular and it will get even more unpopular the more Russian soldiers get killed and the more severe the consequences of Western sanctions on the everyday life of ordinary Russians will be. So yes, there will be growing discontent and dissatisfaction. However, we need to be aware that based on the repressions we have seen in Russia, particularly last year and in the year 2020, Putin maybe already in preparation for the current situation has done everything to weaken the opposition and institutional structures of the opposition. Opposition politicians are jailed. They are forced into exile. Some of them got killed or should get killed by Russian authorities. Independent media are weakened. Some of them have been forbidden. Others are under enormous pressure. NGOs, of course, in the Russian Federation are under pressure. Just think of what happened to Memorial International. So the wave of repression has actually weakened Russian civil society and opposition. Still, thousands are going out to the streets, which is a very brave behavior because these people risk a lot. A lot of them got arrested, of course. A lot of them will spend at least two weeks in arrest. They will have to pay fines. But what is also important, they will have disadvantages at their workplace or students at their universities and school kids at their schools. So they actually risk a lot, but it's not a sufficient number, of course. And it's hard to tell how much this opposition will grow. Let's hope that there is growing opposition among the Russian population. And let's hope that the Russian leadership will take it into account. population, and let's hope that the Russian leadership will take it into account. However, I'm not very confident that in the immediate future we will see a robust, massive anti-war movement in Russia, and I don't see that the Russian leadership would actually, well, take the decision to retreat in face of Russian domestic opposition. So I don't think we can count on the domestic protests as a means to end this conflict. Yes, please. No, no, no, no. That makes me feel very unhappy. Maybe it's coming from the top. I read today that several oligarchs are already very unhappy with Russia. Then we had, I think, a very popular anchorman even of the Russian state TV who came out against Putin. We have several sports people like the new number one in tennis and I think two of the national soccer team, two players of the national soccer team, who openly came out against Putin. So maybe it's coming from another direction this time. Well, they also have protests or anti-war statements by prominent Russian scientists, intellectuals, artists, writers. So indeed, there is opposition in Russia, and it's visible, maybe not on the state media, but it's recognizable for everyone who watches Russia. But there has been speculation indeed that there might be a sort of a palace coup or a revolt in the Russian Kremlin against Vladimir Putin. Well, of course, the oligarchs are decisively unhappy with what happens to their wealth, to their fortunes, to their assets in the West, and they never have been fond of this military escalation. They also had not actually supported what happened in 2014. However, their influence on Vladimir Putin is very limited, so people like Deripaska, or Roman Abramovich, or Mikhail Friedman, who came out to oppose the Russian aggression, they don't have much of an impact on the way Putin sees or views things and how he decides. And as far as Putin's core support group, the military and security establishment is concerned, we till today at least have, with a great maturity, the support for current Russian action. It's not unanimity. We have seen that in that bizarre meeting of the Russian Security Council when everyone in the Security Council had to publicly state whether he supports actually aggressive action or not. They have seen the humiliation of the chief of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Naryshkin. So not all of them agree. agree and particularly of course the the russian government is opposed to this the finance minister the economy minister the prime minister the head of russia's central bank they all of course realize what damage to russia's economy is now unfolding but these people do not have real political impact so if there is a palace, it can only start with the military and security establishment. I don't rule this out, but we need to take into account that Putin has very, very close relations, personal relations with a lot of the leading people of that establishment, say with the Secretary of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, with Defense Minister Sergei Zhaigu, or with Domestic Intelligence Director Alexander Bortnikov. So there are personal ties, strong ties, ties that have been established over the past decades. Some of them are classmates of Vladimir Putin when he entered the KGB in 1975. So this is a solid group, which for the time being, I do not see likely to see cleavages inside. I can't rule it out, but the hope that Putin will be dismissed, sacked, ousted, whatever, by his own people in the political elite, I don't see as particularly high. Well, again, you make me very unhappy. So, OK, not only me. Then let's go a step further as our time is slowly drawing to a close. Switzerland has made an interesting move in its history, a historic move indeed, by deciding that it was not opposed to its very, very solid neutrality to freeze accounts. The swift measures that we discussed in our last meeting have today, or yeah, today they are being imposed. That will, of course, hurt quite tremendously. But from all that we are saying and all that you are saying specifically we don't see in the nearest future a way that this conflict will end now it will it's very hard to speculate where it's going but already we have got the nuclear option put in Putin put his nuclear forces in alarm. Now, we are talking here like really now the serious stuff. At what point will it be inevitable that the U.S. gets involved? And do we dare look at the scenario of a further escalation? Or what is the exit strategy here? I mean, personally, I do hope that neutrality of the Ukraine somehow negotiated may be the one thing that I can see and allows Putin to save face. But that would mean, of course, that they never get into NATO and the European Union option is done. So I'm honestly, this is with the, he's with the back against the wall. And that's hardly a good position to be in with a rather volatile dictator. So do you see an out? Give us hope. Well, I try to be uh hopeful by myself but actually at the moment i do not see any exit option for vladimir putin retreating now with his stated goals unfulfilled by the ukrainian side would be a massive foreign policy disaster it would be a massive defeat by Vladimir Putin. I see him now in the position of only moving forward to increase military pressure, to increase the military brutality, including against civilians. So he will push forward. He needs to win this war as he sees it. So I don't see an exit option at the moment if he sticks with all the demands that we have spoken about before. As regards to neutral status, I have argued in the past, and I was very much criticized for it, would it not have been better for the Ukrainian people to impose neutrality on Ukraine? My argument is the Western countries obviously were convinced that Russia will launch a war against Ukraine. ruling out any military activity or military support of Ukraine by the soldiers of NATO member countries. And everybody expected that Ukraine will finally not be able to withstand the military pressure by the Russian side. So given the fact that everybody expected that Ukraine will face this war and will lose this war and will not be supported by foreign troops to help defend against the Russians. Why was it necessary to keep up or to stick to this principle of an open door that NATO policy is in every country, which fulfills the criteria is allowed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Why did they stick on this idea of the freedom of choice for every country as regards its security dispositive, so meaning its alliances, if the obvious result of that position would be the obvious result of that position would be Ukrainian suffering. Of course, Ukraine has and still does object to a neutral status, and neutrality would have to be imposed on Ukraine. But actually, from a verantwortungsethic point of view, wouldn't it have been better for Ukraine to accept this imposed neutrality than to face the atrocities of war. So this is a criticism I do have regarding the Western negotiation position in the past two months. As regards an escalation,, what we see at the moment is indeed, maybe we should not use the term war, but what we see is a clear confrontation between the West and Russia with these sanctions imposed, with the strengthening of NATO's military presence in Eastern Europe, with arms shipments to Ukraine by the United States and many European countries now, including even Germany, with financial support, economic support, political and diplomatic support. So there's, so to speak, an all-out aggressive interaction between Russia and the West. The only thing that has not happened yet is that the West contributes its own military forces to help defend Ukraine. And I don't think that this will happen. I almost completely ruled it out. But actually, there is something like a war between the West and Russia. It has been unfolding over the past days in a manner which surprised me to a certain extent. So I don't see that there are any substantial forces in the West who would want to help Russia to find a way out, to find an exit option in this military confrontation. But most of the European and transatlantic leaders are willing to confront Russia to the greatest extent possible and actually punish Russia to an extent that they expect Russia can no longer bear. We don't want to end it here. I don't want to end it here. So let me summarize that what you said basically uh putin is going to take the ukraine and we're going to have a certain standoff again between the west and the east for however long it takes until this regime falls and then the west hopes that it can renegotiate and and then change the situation afterwards that's what i would predict right now then let me quickly ask um i personally do not currently see an escalation on the world stage although that uh asp it's in the air uh the chinese have so far abstained uh I think they're making a calculation how much of their stuff they'd rather sell in Europe and America vis-à-vis Russia. But the Taiwan situation is so similar in so many ways. So personally, do you see currently the danger of this front in the southern Chinese sea opening? And by saying that, we are saying, will Putin, will China, is there a chance we risk what people are writing on the walls, a possible World War III? I don't want to be alarmist, but in my lifetime, it's never been that iffy if i may say so and to which extent will will will china support russia because russia will need any help they can get right without help the financial the economic help yeah how much how far is china willing to go well there's a strong personal relationship between xi and putin and of course these countries share a lot of common interests. And it's not an alliance, but a very strong alignment between these two nations. However, if the Russian leadership expected China to actually outweigh all the negative consequences of Western sanctions by support vis-a-vis Russia, financial and economic support, I think they are wrong because Chinese companies do not want to get sanctioned by the West, particularly by the United States, if they engage in trade or financing of Russia. of Russia. What we can see will be some limited support by small state-owned Chinese banks, which do not have a very strong presence on the international financial market. So there will be some sort of financial aid. There will be, of course, an expansion of trade to the extent possible, but China is not in the position, and most importantly, it doesn't want to help Russia out of the current crisis and the sanctions impact on the Russian economy and the financial sector. China might decide to go militarily against Taiwan. I don't expect it for now, however. I think Xi is waiting for the decision in the fall of this year about re-electing him as the president of China. I don't think he does want to whip up tensions before that has happened. But a Chinese aggression against Taiwan is always possible. With regard to Ukraine, China has become public and stated that the sovereignty and independence of every country should be accepted, obviously, of course, referring to Russia's actions against Ukraine. And the Chinese leadership has also indicated that it favors a negotiated solution between the two countries. However, I don't think these public statements actually are messages to the Russians, because Russians know about this Chinese position and vis-a-vis Russia, the Chinese would communicate it in a non-official manner, non-public manner. But I think these statements by China are a signal to the West to reassure the West that China will not actually support Russia to the extent that the Russians are expecting it or requesting it. And China does not want to support Russia in this conflict in a way that would further harm its ties with the West, with the United States, with the European Union. At the end of the day, however, we might say that China, despite the fact that they are economically integrated with both Russia and Ukraine, profit from the current conflict. First of all, Russia gets more and more dependent on China. So Russia will become more and more a junior partner of China in this alignment, in this entente between Russia and China. that the United States has to remain in Europe as the key security provider and the key security guarantor in Europe, which means additional military presence, financial commitment, political commitment. And actually, the United States had wanted to do just the opposite, to focus almost exclusively on China as the true strategic competitor and rival to the United States. That's no longer possible. The U.S. cannot leave the European theater. Europeans are not capable of defending themselves. So the U.S. needs to remain engaged in Europe, which, of course, means they cannot focus exclusively on their conflict, their confrontation with China. And in this respect, China is going to profit from the current developments. Then, I don't know, where is the ray of sunlight? As I project myself forward into the future of my very little children, could it be that, or what could we do? Maybe let me phrase this like that. Europe, we should talk about this again. Europe has over half a billion people. The U.S. has only 320,000. Russia, much less, 120,000, 130,000, I think. Million. What? Sorry? Million. Million, sorry, sorry, pardon. The declining, so Russian declining, Europe also declining. But you said Europe is incapable of doing that. What can we do to change it? Because that would indeed change the whole equation. I would free up the Americans from the responsibility for Europe if Europe could sort itself out basically and it would certainly allow us to put Russia in its place because all together by the sheer weight of population we could handle that. Where do we start that could this not be a positive outcome in 10-15 years that this situation now makes clear in the world that this kind of loose dictatorship is really not acceptable number one globally not acceptable because it's simply bad for business and number two don't you see any hope that europe wakes up finally and puts those really partly in stupid historical disagreements aside is there any chance well I don't think that European Nations will increase their military capabilities they will do so in the framework of NATO but in order to be capable of defending uh Europe against an aggression by the Russian Federation this will take 10 15 maybe 20 years so there's no immediate solution to the European dependence on the United States as the security provider for Europe. What has been remarkable is the unity of the European Union, at least towards the outside world, on actions to be taken against this aggressive Russia. Whether this will lead to further political integration, I don't know. I do hope it will have an impact on the readiness and willingness of European Union countries to deepen integration in various respects. I'm not sure about it and everyone who is talking about now about further expansion including Ukraine which is a very weird idea as I've stated actually weakens this drive towards deeper political integration in the European Union because the EU would take so many problems on board it would be even less cohesive, it would have new very strong commitments to take towards a country like Ukraine. So I hope that this maybe emotionally based support now for Ukraine becoming a member of the European Union not now but not in the two distant future that this more emotional reaction will actually disappear and we will return to reality and realize that what the European Union needs now is not enlargement but deepening of integration and any third enlargement would actually weaken a deeper political integration, which will be difficult anyways because of the different ideas, particularly Eastern European unions have about the finality of European integration. But let's hope that Europe has now realized that it needs to take care of its security. I would have preferred to see a European Union defence capability, which would have allowed the European Union to act autonomous, to act sovereign. What we will have instead is not a European Union army or EU military capability, but it will all be within NATO, which also means that the European nations will remain tied in many respects to the United States and the dominance of the US in the Western Military Alliance. Thank you. Well, I think we'll wrap this conversation up for today but I'm quite sure we will be back soon and hopefully still with open windows and not in some bunker somewhere I hope that too and I actually do hope that I'm completely wrong in my negative expectations I hope it for all of us yes absolutely thank you for today for the analysis and we will be back soon thank you good night and good luck