 Thank you so much. It is both an honor and for me, quite exciting to be talking right now to Northeast India to those who are tuned in. So a few preliminary remarks. My accent is a US American accent. I think we all sometimes speak English with different accents. I'm going to try to talk clear and slow. There are people here who know that for me to talk slow is an oxymoron. I always talk fast, but I'm going to try to slow down and be clear in my remarks. Because of all of us talking English, but perhaps having a slight English gap in the way we pronounce it, I'd appreciate all questions, comments, if people could write them so that I don't accidentally misunderstand questions. Feel free to write questions. For me, this is dialogue, conversation, certainly at the end of the webinar. I'd love to be able to field as many questions as possible. So right now, it is morning in Israel. We are three and a half hours behind you, if that's the word. I'm seated quite near the Mediterranean Sea in the city of Tel Aviv, second largest city in Israel, the largest city is Jerusalem. Why am I going to talk about the Russia war in the Ukraine? The Russia war in the Ukraine is not a local war. It is not a regional war. It is a world war. Yes, it's Russia that attacked Ukraine, but the setting, the framing, the interests, the reasons, impact Russia and Ukraine immediately Ukraine is under attack. Russia is attacking. But the implications of it go way beyond the area it's taking place in. What I'd like to share are thoughts, ideas, because we're in the middle of it. I'm not going to be, now I'm going to say what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to resolve it. I'm not good at resolving them. I will talk about the Israeli trying to step in and help bring about a resolution. But what won't I do? This webinar is not a description moment after moment of the last 14, 15 heading into 16 days of fighting. That's not what it's about. I'm going to be doing a zoom out to talk about the deep set interests and how they impact and where this could go to in the sense of scenarios. I view this as a world changing event, a world order changing event, similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Similar at that same time period, the terminology was the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the Soviet Union. When we went from post World War Two to Cold War, then we went into the last 30 years of a very strong United States being dominant. The last few years have been, as I like to call them, a changing world, both because of COVID and other reasons. And this attack, Russia attacking Ukraine within everything else that happens is for me a new world order. So that's what I want to try and do to do so and to keep me on subject. I am going to put up some data. It's mainly because I have a tendency to go off topic. And when I put something up in front of us, then it'll help me stay on topic. And what I'm going to be talking about is I'm going to be talking about the conflict in Ukraine. But as we said, the implications, as you can see them going on. So element number one that I want to talk about in the conflict in Ukraine. And of course now I need something to work somewhere. I'm presenting, I'm ignoring, I'm using. Yay, it's going to work, right? It has to work. I'm supposed to know how to do my technology. It worked, okay? We're going to do Russia 2022. And you're all looking and going, ah, Putin. I am going to be talking about the implications of Russia specifically under Putin. It is over 20 years of Vladimir Putin's rule. There is an aspect that has to do with the lack of democracy, but I'm going to go beyond that. He rules over a Russia that wants him to rule over Russia. Russia as a world power. This is something which is important to Russia. Their status is of world power. Their status is being equal to a United States, to a China, to a growing India, to the different world powers out there on the stage and the changes that are happening there. The aspect of Russia versus Europe, you mentioned before, both Europe, NATO, I'll dive into those aspects. This very much impacts this direct war. Russia and Syria, Syria and Russia, I promise these are the different issues that I'm going to explore in this talk. Russia and Iran, because as we speak right now, the negotiations between the international community, including Russia and Iran, over limiting Iran's nuclear capability are stuck. And they're stuck at the moment specifically because of the Russian war against Ukraine. So here it is already impacting totally other issues in the world with a direct impact. And so as I said, I'm going to step on and in. And the first thing that I want to impact is Vladimir Putin Russia. I'm not a Russia expert. I look at geopolitics in the broad way. When we talk about Russia in 2022, it is almost synonymous with Vladimir Putin. Who is Putin in that sense and the picture that I chose to put up in the in the idea here, I want to emphasize three different aspects. One is what I called Russia trying to come back from their point of view, never having left, but trying to come back to the center stage as a world power. How do you come back to the center stage of a world power? You immediately emphasize what you have and nobody else has like you. And that is the amount of nuclear capabilities that they have, the dispersion of those nuclear capabilities. And over the last two and a half weeks, Vladimir Putin has announced that nuclear forces are on alert. That has to do with the war with the Ukraine, sadly, but it overwhelmingly has to do with staking a claim with making a claim. I am a world power, I Russia, I Putin, I have and I'm reminding you all that I have nuclear weapons. But when Russia says it, it's not the same as anybody else, because they have way more nuclear weapons than anybody else enough to destroy the earth many times over. And here I dive into element number two in that sense of who Vladimir Putin in Russia is. Vladimir Putin for the last 22 years as president, as prime minister, as president, he's changed the positions is a soul decision maker. Many of you come like me from the background of policy, political science, that aspect of how decisions are made at a state level. It's fascinating to understand both in democracies and in non democracies, how decisions are made from everything that we've understood about Vladimir Putin over the last 20 some years is that he makes decisions as the top person on his own. That has a lot of implications when you view yourself as the one who makes the correct decisions, the right decisions, and you have the nuclear capabilities, and you're okay with flaunting with showing with talking about them now in a war situation. Add into it a few additional symbols of the Russian Sardim of the Russian Orthodoxy of representing Orthodox Christian Orthodox worldwide. I'll just add in on a local note that here specifically in the Holy Land in Israel in the Israeli Palestinian arena in the Jerusalem arena Putin over the last 15 years has very much been sticking in the Orthodoxy, the religious aspect of the religiosity of politics by stepping in and saying we the Russian Orthodox are the main representatives of Orthodoxy Christian Orthodoxy in the world. It is an important element that impacts all of Eastern Europe and Russia, and a lot of the Middle East. So I'm just adding that in that when we talk about Russia and we talk about Putin, and we're talking about a world power. We're talking about somebody who is looking in the mirror just each one of us do that right now. And what he's seeing is not necessarily what you would see. And what he's seeing is not just about himself. Russia supports him. His decision making arena is very limited. He doesn't discuss it. He doesn't talk about it with others. What are the most famous photographs of him. I mean, again, they're in that little picture there standing without a shirt. We've all seen that one riding on the horse. Posing with a tiger of all things, Siberian tiger, right, as opposed to a Bengali tiger says me with no understanding whatsoever of what I just said. But these ideas of showing strength capability, willingness to use all different types of capabilities including the violent one. That is that Vladimir Putin. And when you take that into a war in 2022, add into it something that Vladimir Putin as the head of Russia inherited from the Soviet Union and from Russia before it was the Soviet Union. In my military background, one of the aspects of what I did was I was very involved in the research of Syria when it was still connected to the Soviet Union and in the transition when the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia inherited the Soviet cards, the Soviet bases, the Soviet capabilities in Syria and in additional countries. When I write here the term Russian doctrine, I want to remind us political scientists, science in that sense, the art of science. There are all sorts of different types of sciences. Very clearly there is a science of war in Russian doctrine, which was developed in the 1920s and 30s. After World War One, before World War Two, heavily developed in the Cold War period with the nuclear element, Russian military doctrine is of all of the military doctrines in the world. It is very much a science. That doesn't mean that it's clean and not messy as all wars are, but it most definitely impacts the way that it's viewed. What do I mean in that sense? They started this war with cyber warfare. They started it before the war started. When we're talking about the immediacy against the Ukraine, they immediately added in, before it started, aspects of information warfare, of putting in both disinformation, misinformation, trying to control in the social media arena what all of us are talking about. These are elements of Russian doctrine. They weren't invented in the last 15 years with social media. I have been acquainted with them throughout my adult life as part of Russian doctrine, social media. I don't want to say that it made it easier. It made it more focused. It allowed it to step in in a different way. Cyber warfare is something that the Russians have done in the last 20, 25 years, both within the arena that they're in, in the Eastern European arena, and further out. It isn't something new. Add into it that Russia has an enormous cache of conventional weapons up until now with the cyber warfare, with the information warfare, the Russian battles against the Ukraine until now, stage one, stage two, have involved until now conventional weapons. All of us have been reading over the last two, three, four days. In the information warfare, Russia immediately announced that the United States or Europe or NATO are going to use biological or chemical weapons, meaning you bring the terminology into the room, you blame the other side for it up front. You're already talking about it, and everybody already knows it's out there. It may happen so that when they use it, they, the Russians, it's already been out there. It's not us. It's defense. It's going to be in response. And I say that because when it comes to adding in into that cyber warfare, information warfare, and the use already of conventional weapons, the Russians under Putin have already, threatened, not the direct use of nuclear weapons. It's more undercover than that. It's a information warfare. What did they do? They put their nuclear forces on high alert. What are you all thinking right now? Ooh, nuclear forces on high alert. I better, should I respond? Should I put my nuclear forces on high alert? Suddenly you're in a different ballgame and the conventional war becomes, oh, that's not too bad compared to what could happen with nuclear weapons. And nobody has used any nuclear weapons. All you did is you put in the seed for all of us to think of the implications of the use of nuclear weapons. For us, the people watching it to say, wow, nuclear weapons is way worse. So, you know, conventional weapons, not so bad. It is an insidious basic part of information warfare of the cyber warfare is in a different way of that Russian doctrine of how you take the warfare itself. You go out with your conventional weapons. Everybody goes, look at this, people killing, dying, artillery, a little bit of air force, not too much. Russians dying too, yes, no. But you put in the background the seed of the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. Everybody is already playing in a different game. It's a very challenging arena. Now I'm going to take that immediate arena of Russia, that Russia doctrine, Russia under Putin, and I want to dig down into some of the aspects of what this can mean in a broader sense. Putin framed this being both about NATO. I'm sure you can't see anything, but afterwards I'll send you the presentation as PDF. You can share it with everybody. I steal anything that's online and poke it into my presentations. So feel free afterwards as I steal them from BBC or Statista and lots of other places. Two different, it's just I wanted the map and just to remind myself in that sense, two to three issues that we have here. I want to remind you all, Russia sees itself as a world power. The EU, the European Union as it grew and as it grew, is an economic power horse for Russia. But the gas pipelines that link Russia to Europe, let alone in Poland, just on the other side of the Ukraine, when we talk about the Ukraine itself and via the Ukraine, the different pipes that go on and in. You know, you asked before what weather is like or I'll share with you all, you know, Israel is not exactly a cold country, but we do get pretty cold winter days. And today is one of those. It's actually snowing on the very high area up north in Israel. Have you been watching the different things that have been coming out of the Ukraine? It's kind of cold there. That's me with my cynical Israeli sense of humor, because it's very cold there. How do you eat? How do you heat Ukraine, Poland, Europe that right now in March are still in very cold days? You know, one, two, three degrees. It could be minus still. It's snowing still. It's freezing outside. You need heating. And the main heating comes from those Russian pipelines going through Ukraine and other. So in its own way, Russia can say, I have, I'm holding it. If I close off those gas pipelines, it's going to be very cold in the Ukraine and in different portions of Europe. That's one aspect. The second aspect is in the eyes of the beholder. NATO is not the European Union. The European Union is not NATO. NATO was established post World War Two. It shows here in that sense before 1997 what joined after the fall of the Soviet Union in additional countries as they joined on and in. And then Russia feels very threatened and where Ukraine is in the middle. NATO as a military force have been involved in wars, not directly against Russia, but certainly within Eastern Europe and in the arena. But the NATO pack of the North Atlantic Treaty that packed itself is one that Putin in from my perspective is going, right, you're never going to really do what's written there. It threatens him. He sees it coming closer and closer, but it threatens him in the sense that, hey, we, Russia, we're a world power and you're building a military power, which is something that I don't know what I'm going to be able to do with. I can use and balance on and out. And the focus goes to the Ukraine. The Ukraine wants to join the European Union. The Ukraine wants to join NATO. That doesn't mean that it was about to join the European Union. Turkey wanted to join the European Union for many years, did not pass the threshold. Turkey is a member of NATO. I give you that in the background because when we talk about the Russia-Ukraine war, you need to zoom out and not just look at the immediacy of the battles that are going on, the use of the forces going on, the different elements that I mentioned in brief before. It has to do with the broader sense of who is the strong person, who is willing to use force, and you, NATO, would not use force against Russia. Why the focus on the Ukraine? I don't know because I'm not an expert on that aspect. I'm very Middle Eastern based, okay? The Ukrainian war is already upping the prices of bread in the Middle East. Why? Because the wheat of Ukraine supplies Egypt, supplies Syria, supplies many different countries of the Middle East where they buy wheat for bread from the Ukraine. Ukraine is the bread basket. The Ukraine bread basket won't impact Western Europe as much as it does, for example, the Middle East, but the prices are going to go up all over. In the sanctions that have come in, in the sanctions against Russia, about gas, about oil, prices are raising already all over the place. The immediacy of these two aspects, the gas pipelines, and specifically Ukraine, both wanting to join into the EU, into NATO, are immediately impacting in wider circles out and about. Does NATO actually threaten Russia? So we're all commentators. Neither one of us, neither India nor Israel, are members neither of NATO nor of Russia. So we're looking at it from the side. What's important right now is for whatever reason, Vladimir Putin, Russia, Russia Vladimir Putin, they think that NATO threatens them. I don't think so. I think that it's a premise for strength-wise, but the attack against the Ukraine is very much the difference in the general aspect where Russia is willing to use its military force, its own doctrine to conquer another country, and I don't think that they understood how much the EU would come together, the new members would come together, how much NATO would stand up. I actually, in their own way, Russia initiated a counter-movement that they did not expect, and here we are 16 days later, they did not expect that to happen at the time. But when I go further in and I dig into the implications for the Middle East, I immediately am looking at two, for Israel, adversaries, at two players, two dominant Middle Eastern countries, that the implications of the Russia-Ukraine war are already being felt, both with the aspect of Russia, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, and with Vladimir Putin and Raisi, the president of Iran. What am I talking about now? Syria. I'll go and I'll kind of take them one at a time. Each one has different implications that right now, 16 days of fighting, Russia-Ukraine, and already we're seeing how the implications of this are building within our own arena. I'm going to start with Russia and Syria. I'm very cynical. It's a very Israeli trait. We look at things and with great British cynicism, we inherited that from the British mandate. I'm not sure if India inherited that from the British Raj. It's like me, again, with my own ignorance, but we have a very, very cynical sense of humor. Syria, so I'm going back one in that sense, the Bashar al-Assad in the left picture with Vladimir Putin. Syria deteriorated into a horrific war over the last decade. It was an all-out chaotic war from 2011, pretty much until 2018-19. Eight years of the worst war that we all knew. Over six million refugees left Syria in that time period. But this isn't about the Syrian war. It's about Russia. Because Russia inherited from the Soviet Union a military naval base on the Mediterranean Sea. I told you before, I'm seated on the Mediterranean Sea. When you look at the map on the left side, you can see the place called Tartus. The Soviets built an enormous naval Russian base in the city of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea in the early 1980s. That wasn't invented in the last two years or in the last decade of the war in Syria. It's been there from the early 1980s. The Soviet base became a Russian base. I want to be very clear. It's a base similar to U.S. or British bases throughout the Middle East, which are ex-territorial. You have U.S. bases in Qatar, and in Kuwait, and in Saudi Arabia, and they could go on in Gulf countries. The United States and the British, the British have in Cyprus. You have different bases. The Russians. I'm being nice here for a moment. That's my cynicism. They have one base. It's in Syria. It is a very significant base for them because it is their winter base. The Mediterranean Sea does not freeze during the winter. And when you think of for Russia the implications of that base, that was there when the Syrian war broke out. What Russia wanted is to be a world power. When they have the card of Syria for you to arrive at any kind of resolution, stability, equalizer inside Syria, you had to go through Russia. So Russia's base didn't have to do directly with that. But to be sure, the Bashar Assad, the dictator, stayed as the Russian crony, the Russian ally, the one that is willing to have Russian bases in this war. Russia expanded to having air force bases, an additional naval base that are Russian held, that are Russian controlled. They don't have Syrians inside. These are for Russia capabilities. They are not willing to give up. Why does it also directly connect to the Ukraine war? Again, this is my very Israeli military cynicism because Russia, ladies and gentlemen, used Syria as a military playground to try out all of the different techniques that they are using now in the Ukraine. They carpet bombed cities. They carpet bombed the cities after seeing what artillery does, what urban warfare looks like, how you can use your armored different types of troops, how you use your air troops, air defenses, what it looks like with, what it looks like without. They used it with Russian troops on the ground in the years of fighting in Syria. Right now in that sense, what they're using in the Ukraine are different techniques, ideas, I called it before, Russian doctrine, that they tried out on the Syrian playground. It is horrific. In addition to that, Syria itself is a strong ally. And as of now, Russia has talked both with Bashar Assad and additional leaders. I'll remind all of you that last week, in the vote at the United Nations, when the world voted to, I'm blanking on the word in English right now. Only Hebrew is coming to sanction or not sanction, just to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine. 141 countries voted to condemn Russia. We don't talk about the 40 some countries that abstained, but five countries voted with Russia. One was Russia. Four additional countries voted with Russia against the condemnation. And of course, Syria was one of those. Hand in hand in, they are on the Israeli border. So for us, this is of great importance. But this is an additional round of how it impacts one in the other. Second Middle Eastern arena that is directly impacted by the Russian-Ukraine war, both before and after, are the Vienna talks that you can see on the left side. The Vienna talks have been going on for over a year to try to arrive at a new nuclear deal with Iran. This isn't about my Israeli opinion of the nuclear deal. I'm talking right now about the implications of the Russia-Ukraine war and what it means in a broader sense. Because Russia is one of the six original signers on the agreement with Iran, the United States, Russia, EU, UN, it's under the auspices of the International Agency for Atomic Energy. Russia right now is not willing to sign on. If Russia doesn't sign on, meaning that it would be similar to when the United States left the former agreement that took place in 2016 after the elections in the United States. These are issues which have immediate impact. It means right now, as it's been for the last four years, there's no supervision, no international community looking at all at Iran's nuclear quest. I'm not talking about the other problems of Iran in the Middle East and beyond, and that is directly connected to the Russian-Ukraine war. Russia has supplied different weapons to Iran, and this has always been part of it. It means that right now, again, Russia as a world power, using its stance that it demands, that it wants to be acknowledged as a world power, using it both ways in the Syrian arena and in the Iranian nuclear discussions. Some facts that you may or may not know. Israel is a small country. India, largest country in the world, pretty much on par now with China. So you're 1.3 billion people. Israel is 9 million people. Okay? Big were not. I imagine that right now you live in an area that 9 million is not a big number. Here you see Prime Minister Bennett, who went to Moscow last Saturday a week ago. He flew to Moscow directly to talk to Vladimir Putin. After that, he flew to Germany to talk with the new German chancellor. He has spoken on the phone several times with Zelensky, the Ukrainian president. He has spoken several times with Vladimir Putin and with other world leaders. How in the world, of all things that happen, is Israel right now, or more correctly, the Prime Minister of Israel, one of the leading negotiators? Belarus is a place where they meet because Belarus is a Russian ally, so Russia feels comfortable there. But why Israel? Why is Vladimir Putin comfortable with Israel coming to him? Why is the international community, oh so against Russia, willing to allow the Israeli Prime Minister be, I don't know if he'll fail or not, but be right now, a prime negotiator to try to stop the immediate fighting? So I started the sentence, me who starts sentences and then doesn't finish them. I started this sentence by saying facts you don't know about Israel. Nine million people, one in six, Israeli's native tongue is Russian. We're not, I mean, in that sense, we had mass immigration from the former Soviet Union when the Soviet Union collapsed, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992. In a period of eight years, one million Russian speaking Jews or people who can come to Israel under the Jewish law of return. One million people immigrated to Israel at that time. We grew from five to six million people over a period of eight years. We grew by 20% in eight years. It's immigration that you don't have. No, but another country has done it in that way, even during wartime, not as refugees arriving as citizens to Israel. Israeli politics are impacted by Russian immigrants, by Russian speakers. Now I say Russian, they can speak Ukrainian and Russian. Ukraine has been a budding democracy for the last five, 10, 15 years coming out of the Russian influence sphere. But Israel has this odd demographic where again, I emphasize one in six Israeli's native tongue is Russian. Literally, it was a 20% growth in our population and that these Russians were coming from all of the different Russian areas with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Does that make Israel a better negotiator? I don't know. All I know right now is that Israel's position with that background where it's known for Putin that we have a strong Russian speaking population. Where it's known to Zelensky that we are a immigrant country for Russians that came from the Ukraine from Russia. But for the international community, Israel as a country, we're not a world power. We're not the US. We're not coming with that dominant aspect. Israel stood up at the United Nations, voted with the 141 countries and condemned Russia. And after that vote, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett flew to Washington. So we really have a complex issue in that sense right now because when we talk about Israel and the Ukraine, the Israeli public is on the Ukrainian side. We haven't had any demonstrations whatsoever inside Israel that have been pro-Russia. They've been pro-Ukraine. What does that mean? I'm not sure. We need to remember where Russia is. And I'll leave this up just for a moment because Russia by far is the physically largest country on earth. It has lots of borders on the side with the United States, on the side towards Europe and Northern Europe, and into all of Central and Eastern Asia. It is an enormous country. So there's India. I found a map where I could kind of show, you know, what's in between India and all the way up to where you get to Russia. But the implications of the Russia invading Ukraine are immediately already felt in Europe with the refugees, in Europe with the lack of gas. In the entire world with the raising of prices, both gas and oil and basic food. In the international political world because of the nuclear issue, which is out there right now, we're thinking about it. Decision makers have to think, what will they do? What if Russia uses it? In the information warfare, well really none of us actually know what's happening in that war again. In the immediacy of Israel having stepped in or the Prime Minister to be the negotiator in that war. So it comes into my doorstep. And into the fact that it stopped the nuclear negotiations in Vienna with Iran, which has immediate implications, not just for Iran, but also for Israel. I try to try to get to tie together an enormous different aspect of different ideas. I'm happy now if there are any questions to answer any questions. Feel free to ask on this anything that you'd like and I will try my best to be able to answer them. I'll stop sharing so that that's out of there. And please feel free to ask any questions. Thank you so much for your presence today. I'm pretty sure all the people who are present today and those who are going to watch it later on, they are going to learn a lot from it. And we really appreciate your time for enlightening us and for us to actually understand the relationships among the countries that are playing a major part in this. And that's something that often doesn't get covered that well in its entirety or substantially or in a comprehensive way in the media. So it's so nice that students and even research scholars at that college and some of the places we're going to watch it, they're going to actually learn from it and enjoy it. Thank you so much for this enlightening webinar, this lecture for us on Professor Kapo. You want to take over and ask a few questions and perhaps we'll go to the audiences. Yes, I have a question for you madam. You work in the military for many years. I like war stories sometimes. And what was your greatest challenge when you were working in the military now? Okay, so when I was in the military, I'll go through a few different things, okay. First of all, in Israel we have the draft. And remind everybody, I didn't volunteer into the military. At the end of high school in Israel, I said 9 million citizens, the bulk of the men and around half of the women at the end of high school are drafted. When I was drafted, I didn't choose to go to military intelligence. When you're drafted, you're not volunteering into a unit. You are essentially pre, they do a lot of testing, and they send you to where they think you can be the most impacting. I was drafted into military intelligence. I served there for my compulsory service, and then only then I chose to stay on. I think that for me the most impacting positions that I did were when I was the head of the Syria Research Branch in the northern arena, where I was looking at the northern threat, as I said, to learn about Syria, Syrian military meant learning about Russian and Soviet doctrine. You need to understand capabilities of militaries in its own way in an odd way. Military is a language, and it's a very similar language worldwide, because in intelligence I learned the language of the enemy's military, in this case for me, Syria. And because of that, I actually talk military with any military. I'm more at ease talking military with militaries worldwide than I am sometimes talking, you know, to people who talk on regular conversations. So for me, I'm serving. I was the G2. I was the intelligence officer of the Israeli Airborne Division. That was the most significant position that I did. We have one airborne division. And I think that from that point of view, it's looking at the whoever is the adversary, trying to step into how they're thinking, not to amplify what I see, not to look at it from my point of view, because then I am actually not giving the intelligence importance. The commanders, the decision makers need to understand what the other side is thinking and doing, and not amplifying what I think they're thinking and doing, because then I'm amplifying my own thought. So those were the main challenges over the years. As a woman, by the way, I was alone all of my military career entirely from A to Z. There were very few women who were drafted into military intelligence when I was when I went to officers course there were even less. And from the minute that literally I was a captain captain major Lieutenant Colonel Colonel I was always the only one. That's wonderful. Hello, sir. Say, honey, oh, you have any question, please. There's also a question left in the comment box by Dr. Are we ready. Yes. It's a fascinating I'll read it out loud for those who can't see it. What is your take on India abstaining from the UN vote against Russia. Here I was being nice and PC and not saying and you India abstained right okay. I want you all to think about it. This is world politics. It's taking a stand. Now it's in all sorts of things. It's not like you were alone in abstaining China abstained big country to the north of you. All a l l all of what I like to call the stand countries all of the independent republics post Soviet Union. Okay, who are to the south to the east all of them abstained and I'm like, I probably would have to if I was located where they are. Having said that some of the African countries abstain Venezuela abstain. There are all sorts of interesting abstention abstentions. It's about looking at the day after India has a relationship both with China. This is me. Okay, I don't know anything. I'm not an expert on your geopolitics, but I look at it in the following way. This is my take India is a nuclear power in its meaning in the world today in that sense when you have the five known nuclear powers and then you have India and Pakistan and after that Israel for that matter on that list and then North Korea. And by the way, North Korea voted with Russia very amusing, but India is a nuclear power. Russia is a nuclear power. China is a nuclear power. When you're voting against Russia in a war where Russia is saying I'm a dominant world power. It's just about today. It's also about in an idea of tomorrow morning of what happens the day after what kind of a relationship you want to have of keeping that door open of not making that kind of a statement. I was more surprised by the way that Israel voted against Russia and didn't abstain. And I want to say that in the sense that it perhaps is the values of Israel but I was surprised that we could afford to not abstain that was a double negative I was surprised that we abstained even though that could bring about the wrath of Russia. And I think that at the end it does mean that it left us in a place where we could negotiate. So I see India. I see the Prime Minister I mean in that sense I'm looking at India as a as a starting very much being on the world stage as a world power as a nuclear power and voting there and looking at the day after. And that's what geopolitics is about it's called real politic. I'll read out loud. Thank you so much. I'm not sure if I'll say the name correctly and I apologize. Dr. Chandra money. But the right but the right I'm not sure how to say it but the right I'm just not sure. Do you think this world will change the existing world order and bring new world order and highlight its implications on world economy. So the short answer is yes it is period. So let's do this event of Russia attacking Ukraine. And there are no good and scenarios. So it changes the world order. One, it Russia is bringing itself back into the central arena. It wasn't. Nobody looked at it that way it wasn't a country that impacted in that way and it's brought itself back in to a world power, a tact, a sovereign budding democracy. And I'm very passionate about that. We haven't actually had a war like this when Russia in that sense attacked both against Georgia 20 I mean they're different battles that went on in the post Soviet arena. They were small wars. They were on the side Ukraine Ukraine over the last 15 years was finding a Ukrainian voice and Russia says there is no such thing as a Ukrainian voice that's part of what they're saying that they speak Russian they are Russian and we're basically taking it back, but that Ukrainian voice was very much heard in the West. And the changing of the new world order is that the European arena found this united voice that they haven't had for many years. I don't see it as being about NATO I see it in continuation with your question is being much more about the economic implications. Having said all of that, I come from a military background. And Dr Chandra I say that because to me this event mainly has it has enormous economic implications, but the military aspect of it is a very sad one, because Ukraine will not be able to stop Russia. Okay, they're delaying Russia, but they won't be able to stop it's I excuse me for being such a doomsday profit. The Russian capabilities the Russian doctrine, they the Russians have not used an iota of the capabilities that they have they're doing it stage by stage by stage it's very Russian doctrinal. They're taking their time that wait until you see the urban warfare it's going to be horrible. But we already have two and a half million Ukrainians who left the Ukraine, and they all went west I mean west to Poland west to Hungary west to Romania was that they're all going west okay. That's where they can go in that sense that number will rise up. That's an economic burden. It's going to be the double thing at the end. What can happen. Putin could arrive at a compromise y'all looking at me. I don't think so. I think that's one of the big problems. I don't think Putin has put himself so high in a position of the Russia and the world power that what compromise can you arrive at that he agrees for the Ukraine to continue to be alone and only the Eastern Russian speaking districts that that's what he wanted from the beginning will be part of Russia. Can you imagine living in the Ukraine after that where you're constantly feeling Russia on your doorstep and it could happen tomorrow I think that what Russia would like to have happen. I mean you asked about the world order as I said the world order has changed. Having said that I said I was going to say something militarily. I think that not a single country, not a single country will send military troops to help the Ukraine. Not a single country. And and it means that in the world as it's evolved. I'm very worried that the new world order is those who are willing to use military force and those who are not During the 30 years of the US dominance where the United States was willing to use military force what happened to all the countries who participated in that in Afghanistan in Iraq and did not go and fight in Syria. Okay, that's where that started in that sense where Russia was willing to come into Syria, and no other country was willing to send troops I'm not talking about Air Force. I'm talking about troops on the ground. That is a world changing order it is scary. I think that the nuclear threat that sub threat, the one that scares me the one where you make a threat without that is a changing of the world order. It's not back to age old Cold War nuclear deterrence. This is a new kind of thing. I, I, I'm scared right now okay it's March 12 2022. And as somebody who has followed geopolitics my entire adult life. It's the first time I feel that there is a leader in the world who's willing to use tactical nuclear weapons. It scares me. And that's a whole new world order we always talked about nuclear deterrence. If you do the one you do the other. I think that this whole way of the threatening and to use what they'll call a tactical. It isn't the intercontinental it's going to be local. It'll only kill thousands of people at once and I'm like, Are you kidding. That's the changing of the world order. Economically, Ukraine immediately has impacts. I think that the combination of COVID. Plus, this war is going to continue the downward spiral of the world economics that we've already been in in the last two years, there were countries that were already getting out of poverty levels building decent economies that were based on different local aspects that was very broken in the two years of the closed world of COVID. And this is only going to make it worse. So that downward spiral of countries that were budding economies is going to continue in their downward spiral it's going to impact Africa, some of Asia, some of Central and South America. I'm going to read again, and I apologize again if I'm totally mispronouncing name. Guru manum melody Sharma. I love that I don't know if I said it correctly. The famous quote war causes more problems than it solves. This war may avoid Ukraine to join NATO, but how far will it push both Ukrainians and Russians into poverty as economy has been highly impacted. To what extent innocence will suffer any suggestions on what can be done individually to help the changing scenario, such a wonderful quote and idea. And again, I'm going to answer in my real politic mode, which doesn't make it correct. What it means is it's where I come from. I sadly live within a world where I think that war is part of the world. I think that war is part of human nature. And I think that there are always going to be those who are going to do war. And the fact that it causes more problems, I can agree with you. But I actually think that it's still going to continue to be part of world politics, the use of violence on a local level, regional level, world level in higher or lower weaponry and weapons run the economy of the world much more than bread. If you look at numbers just at the numbers of selling buying weapons worldwide, it's horrible. And as I say, I acknowledge it and I take it to the next state. The Ukrainians are absolutely innocent victims. They're innocent victims. And I'm looking at it right now from a zoom out. When we zoom in. How can we help both the Russian people by the way, I'm always worried in that sense are the Russian people being duped by Vladimir Putin. And I say something very controversial, very controversial, where the German people duped by Hitler. That was very controversial. Why am I saying those two things because there is a people, when they go after leaders when they follow leaders, when they listen to things when they believe to things, then they had that capacity that whatever was being said to them is something to believe and accept. So I don't know if the Russian people are being duped by Putin, and they really want to do something else. I am positive that there is diversity, both within Russia, and a bit perhaps within the Ukraine there's lots of diversity every place has diversity. And Russia is coming with these claims and crushing it all. The people at the end who who end out in the last two years of COVID and in any war and here may I say it's both COVID and war, the victims become women and children. Women lost their jobs in COVID. Children became, because they are not within educational structures, schools were closed, their world totally changed. And in war, who are the Ukrainian refugees fleeing women and children? What is this world so it isn't just the war. Okay, the pandemic did the same thing. So we have a lot of challenges in that sense within the world still today that of all things the women become victims the children become victims, just like 2000 years ago or 1000 years ago, or in World War one or two. And we're still there right now, the economic implications are immediate for the Ukraine, lesser so for Russia. Russia can be semi self sustaining, let alone if they conquer the Ukraine, then they get all of the capabilities that the Ukraine brings when it comes to that agricultural enormous land that Russia sees as its own. What can we do? We can help every country every individual in the way that we feel committed. You do so in the way that you feel can help. If it's helping out Red Cross or International Monetary Fund or the International Food Organization, it's to help people and individuals. I don't see any of us right now standing up taking weapons and going to fight together with the Ukrainians. Professor Kaffir, do you want to ask anything or any other attendance want to ask? Go ahead and ask anything else? I'll just ask a city question from my side. Sure, go ahead sir. So when we look at the average formations that Russians have sent, they have sent it from the north, from the east, from the south. Then there were some rumors that there were naval landings but then other side came and said no naval landings have taken place near Odessa or something. But when we look at these formations, how well sustainable are they? Because they are maintaining connection, they are keeping their supply chains as much as they can. So each average formation, let's say of 1000 or so, whatever the size is, how long can they sustain if they are suddenly cut off from the logistical sources? Their supply depots. Thank you so much, Gioti. It's a military aspect in that sense and I initially also spoke just a bit that there's Russian doctrine and I'm going to expand on that one a bit. Because Russian doctrine is the only one which is systematic, written out, trained and they've been training on it, not only that but from 2000 and 8, 9, 10 over the last decade. The Russian doctrine, people have been updating their doctrine on the issues that you're talking about, naval landings, aerial capabilities, how you keep open long logistic supply routes. Does that mean that they won't make mistakes? They'll make mistakes. But the doctrine in its own means that you both land from the air, land from the sea, go over land and the Russians have these enormous land lines so that they're supposed to be able to build. They have a very doctrinal idea of how you build the logistical supply lines for weapons, for food, for capabilities, for armaments to get to the front line that you're at. They have opened and again, most of us, I'll say myself, we're all following this war without having, I'll say otherwise. We feel like this war is the one that we're all seeing and we all understand because there's so much information. But there isn't. It's misinformation and disinformation. And I will go so far as to say, because I totally support Ukraine in what's happening, but the misinformation and disinformation is on both sides. So I don't know if they've done naval, aerial or otherwise. If I follow what the Russians say, what the Russians are saying is a totally different war. If I follow what the Ukrainians say and I access Google Maps and I look at whatever satellite capabilities I have to look and see, I can see the Russian doctrine taking place. I can see that they are not advancing the way they expected. Most definitely the Russians thought that they were going to advance, but they've done so in lots of different ways. They're coming at it from all sides right now. It isn't a one aim. They've come at it from the north. They've come at it from the east. They're most likely using Crimea that they already annexed and conquered in 2014 from the Ukrainians, you know, under the satellite. Most of us didn't notice. We all thought Ukraine, Crimea, and then you get to there because that gives them both a naval base and a naval standing in the south of Ukraine from the Black Sea. They gave them a naval base, but where can they supply that from? They don't have clear open military lines that they can arrive at Crimea. The forces that they have that could come from the sea actually are based in Syria in the large naval bases that I mentioned in the Mediterranean Sea. But to get to South Ukraine, I'm smiling as if this makes me happy. It's me who sees military science. In a moment, I'm just ignoring the amazing question before about the innocence dying. And I'm just talking about the military aspect for the Russian military naval forces to arrive in the Black Sea. They need to go through the Bosphorus straits into the Black Sea. That's Turkey. That's NATO. Now, under international law, Turkey, NATO are not allowed to blot. That's an international naval route. Will they won't they? Will they won't they? Are they just going to stand on the two sides of the Bosphorus and wave at the Russian capabilities going on through to Crimea, South Ukraine? I don't know. Okay. It hasn't happened yet. That's one of the aspects that until now the Russians have not tried to push the button of transferring troops through the Bosphorus, which is both sides Turkey to get into the Black Sea. I don't know if they will in the future. So all of these different aspects of naval landings of logistics, etc., are mainly coming now from North, Northwest, Northeast, and from the Black Sea to the Black Sea. They're having it tried opening up that Southern arena, which would be to come from the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea. Thank you so much for analyzing. That was enlightening. Thank you so much, madam. Is there any more questions? I think one more question. I see one more question. Would you like me to address that? Okay. Thank you. Having seen the Ukraine situation, has it become a threat for smaller countries from this part of the world, particularly like Taiwan, the US ally? What is your opinion on this? So it's kind of like the short and long question. Like I said before, yes, it most definitely threatens. Having said that, China versus Taiwan, China has used physical military force against Tibet. But China overwhelmingly has tried to use its economic force as a strong force worldwide to get its...