 Education, and it is our pleasure on behalf of the library, the Department of Political Science and International Education to kick off education. We would our speaker, I'll let Dr. Lawrence introduce. I'm sorry. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our care compliment for your national education week. This is Dr. who is our full bright star in residence of the Department of Political Science for the 2023-2024 academic year. He is visiting us from the National Defense University of Crane, and as you can see is on the end of the 20th century. Will the 21st century ever start? So I will hand things over to Dr. Lawrence. Thank you very much. I think you can hear me right. No need for this always sophisticated technique also. So if to be more precise historically, before I came here I was a visit in the research of the University of Texas at Austin and previously at the Academy of Staff of Bundeswehr in Germany and Hamburg, and only previously I was a I was a leading researcher at the University of Defense of Ukraine. I'm here only for one reason. I was rejected from the active duty in March 2022 because I spent all my eyes on books. I never thought that it could work in this way and I guess I would choose another career in my life knowing that. But I'm a bad soldier. I cannot shoot for 20 meters precisely so I was just kicked off it was my second rejection. My first rejection was 2014 when this was actually started and I was rejected. It was for the first time I was sent home. I was sent home. The second time I thought I should do something more essential just sitting home and waiting for the Russian rocket to the right. So this is the only one reason. I was a civilian, I was a civilian researcher at the Defense University and that's why everyone hated me because I was working with military. They never read anything and here I am and with my agenda I was visiting a researcher of six universities including Cambridge, Helsinki, York, London, Bursburg, Germany and just I can't remember really. They were so surprised. Military strategy has its own theory and 300 of writers started in the 8th century before Christ. They never thought it. They never knew about it. So it was tough time. Today we will talk about the contemporary challenges. How to think about them and how to deal with them if you couldn't understand it. I really hope you have a chance to talk with them. So the endless 20th century in history it's a very interesting thing. Not everything is measured with numbers and centuries are not always just exact 100 years. In history there are a lot of prolonged stuff that do not really fit all the mathematics. Mathematics it's really crazy about history because it's absolutely from parallel dimensions. So the first thing is the 100 years war. It lasted not 100 years. It's another tricky question. And let me congratulate you with the Saint Crispin's Day, 25th of October. It's my favorite holiday. It just happened recently. It's my favorite thing about it. It's Henry the 5th. A little band of brothers, every surgeon of the speaking world knows by heart the speech of Henry the 5th. And I insisted. I was a lecturer for three years for the middle and top rank Ukrainian officers. I insisted you have to read that because we are the same. We are outnumbered. We are outgunned. No one believes in our victory, even ourselves. Listen to the dude and he can teach you something because battle of Asian courts by the end of the day. I am taking the most pro-British numbers. 102 British were killed and 10,000 French were killed. It's of course I'm taking the extreme numbers because I studied in London and I really love Great Britain. My family is not the refugees in Britain. So I have to sympathize. So we have to listen to that because we are the same. We are in the same position. We have this crowd of enemies and we have all the chances to be killed off and just totally destroyed. And we have to learn how to deal with outnumbering enemies and how to deal with history, by the way. So 100 years war, it's four generations, three generations. My son was born in the beginning of 2014. He lives simultaneously with this war and this war started just a couple of months before his birth. And I just can't imagine how to live with that. How just to live and it's always war. It's hundreds, dozens of years war. My son lives the same way he was born in 2014. He lives with just a long sign of this war. It's not the best destiny. I could choose for him. But in 2013, no one knew about that. It was a big surprise when we were thinking about some children and maybe we were thinking in a different way if you knew that. But you know, the last 500, not 500, 400 years, Ukraine was always in war in Russia. It's nothing new for us. Everyone always wanted to kill us. Just all of our history. Everyone hated us. We're like Californians. All the neighbors wanted to destroy our state who just erased us from the maybe something wrong with us who knows. Now I'm not sure really because 400 years and the last hundreds of years we are in war with Russia because they always wanted to kill us just entirely. So eight years war. The war for Dutch independence. Eight years war, goodness, two generations. It wasn't unstoppable. The 100 years war wasn't unstoppable. They just stopped to get some more resources, army and so on and so on. This wasn't, but you know, 80 years, goodness, you can be born when this war was and live your life with this war and your life during this war and maybe with this war. I think that's not the best way for living for a mankind. But what happens? So 80 years is permanent war, goodness. And finally, 19th century. People say that some historians, I totally agree with them. I always agree with historians because I work in metahistorical level and really value their prices work because if they wouldn't do the work I would have to do all those huge archival library, documentary work at the nightmare really. I'm so happy to use history. People done a lot of stuff that I don't have to do really. I really have. So I am totally agree with historians. So the 19th century started of course with French evolution. One of the French revolutions. And it ended with the first shots of the First World War. And this weekend we had the memory day that in some places turned to something different from memory day. It's reality of contemporary times but yeah it's still here. In every British city town or village you can see the monuments for the fall during the Great War and little just scripture and the Second World War. It's so convenient that you have the stadium. You can just add the tables that's just stating that it was another war and it was another victims. Only two villages in Great Britain do not have the, as far as I know, they do not have these statues because everyone returned alive. And it was very long century. It started with French evolution, Napoleonic wars, counter revolutions, another revolutions, another wars, post-Napoleonic wars, Russia failed in Crimea of course. How it's possible to fail the war against amphibious troops but yeah. So it was a really long century and I'm really sorry to tell you that this century can be longer and it's much worse. No matter how civilized you are, no matter how developed you are and no matter how educated you are it doesn't work really. So the 12th century started with the first shots of the First World War. It's August 1914. And it still goes. And we have a lot of really violent and cruel stuff during the second part, especially the second part of the 12th century. And of course it's a cold war. It's Brezhnev cases, another random guy. I think it was someone from Eastern Germany. Does it remind you of something, just Putin and Merkel, something in history? That doesn't change a lot really. It's Russia and Germany. You know Russia, in some year they totally, they're a dynasty of so-called Romanos. It was substituted by Germans totally and they have this this sympathy towards still for Germans. It's a long story. So the Cold War officially started in 1947 and officially ended in 1991. But as we can see, we can write another date here. It's just returned. We returned to these times. But I really miss in the Cold War. It was really good times. Because the world was stable. It was a stability, a political military stability. The great powers, they didn't want to deal with each other directly. They always were just proxy wars. Some were just somewhere else like Vietnam, like Middle East, like Africa and so on. But it wasn't a direct clash. It was a nuclear balance. And so everyone just realized that any step forward, it will be just mutual destruction and nothing else. It was just a fail-fail situation. But by the way, and this opposition, it was the ideological opposition. They could read communist manifestos, Marx and we know our goodness. You really believe in that. Common wives, maybe someone wants that, but not everyone, I think. No private possessions, common kids. And everyone works like in prison. Yeah, Soviet Union just fits some house, this manifesto. But you could read the Soviet constitution. You could see the emblem, the state's emblem of Soviet Union. It's a globe. Who remembers that? Yeah, it was a globe on the center, right? It was a dream about global revolution. They wanted to... It's not about just the country. I'm so happy to see the Stonehenge in the place of Russia. Just ancient rubles and that's it. It's not colored at all. It's even better than my presentation, really. So it was a dream about global revolution. And you can see the ideology. Those guys, they want to have all the planets under their rule. And it was quite obvious. You can see this from the emblem. No one just hides anything. You can read the Soviet constitution. Numerous Soviet constitution. Four, I think. And you can read, just you can understand what they want. Who knows now what Putin wants. Ideology just disappears. No one knows what Putin wants. Even Russians, they... I saw a lot of interviews. They were asked on the streets, what's the aim of the war? They were just very, very told to wage war and not to ask any other questions. We just... We fight because we fight. And this is the one reason. There's no ideology in that. It's not... We cannot read. We cannot read the ideas. What do you fight for? Which ideas? And that's way more complicated. And this word is not balanced because... Nuclear threats. There is a website on the internet registering every official, semi-official, non-official nuclear threat of Russia against the United States of America. It's a huge list because every day it happens. I tell all my students that, yeah, just from Atlanta, from 100 miles, you could see this with your eyes, the first moments, what will happen when these strange people will launch their if they will fly ever. But who knows? It's still under risk. But there is no balance. There is no ideology. And everything is so chaotic. It's so unpredictable. Ideology is a great thing because you have some tools for prediction of the behavior of your enemy. You have something to understand. No, it's not nothing to understand. Every day they shift their rhetorics, their agenda every day and there's no chance to understand the enemy. And it's how to deal with it. It's a big challenge. So why it happens? Why did the 20th century happen? Still happens. It still goes. And it was a big illusion started from Francis Fukuyama that he's resented and we're in liberal heaven. And finally our enemy just disappeared. Finally we can live our lives. We can consume. And we don't have to struggle. No, it's not. He was totally wrong. I read a book about the history of CIA and one of the officer describing the situation and central intelligence agency here in the United States. He was writing that in the middle of the 90s they started to receive highly educated, highly very sophisticated, very smart, intelligent people with diplomas from the top Ivy League American universities with so strange illusions started with Fukuyama because it was the basic, the main text they had to read. They passed exams about Fukuyama. They had to read that and they were taught to think in this way. And he writes literally, I have this, when I have a class for intelligence officers, I just, I quote this totally, that we had to re-educate, fresh graduates with new diplomas. We had to re-educate them. We had to explain that it's absolutely different. The reality is absolutely different. No matter how deeply you believe to Fukuyama, it's not correct. It's not living. It's still not living. Any type of heaven, especially Hebrew. So it was a problem in 90s already, but now we can see this obviously. We can see what's, now we can see what was growing in the late 90s, early 2000s. Now we can see what was prepared the last 30 years of the collapse of Soviet Union. It's just, it's just the second phase. The first phase was hidden from the intellectuals, from the, I was a visiting researcher at the Kremlin Center at the UT Austin, but I was connected to the department of Central and Eastern European Studies. It's kind of, it's a lot of Russia studies. And I always was surprised why you're a specialist in Soviet Union in Russia. Why didn't you predict that? And it was obvious for us because we were still connected and we could see this from within, but you're a specialist. Why shouldn't you just warn other people? It was a big failure for academia just not to be aware about what was going on and that's what we can see now. It's not just accidents, it was quite logical, it was quite historical. So now we can see the one, another 100 year war. I call this second 100 year war of Russia against, against the West. The first, of course, it was the first World War. For Russia it ended in 1917. Russia failed, Germany failed and only Russia can fail the war to the country that failed the war. Yes, logic doesn't work. It's, it's about, it's about Hegel. It's, if you learn Hegel, everything is possible and except Aristotelian logic. And since it's totally Russia, it's, you can see everything except normal logic. So yeah, Russia failed the First World War to Germany that failed the First World War. It's quite unprecedented in history. Russia wasn't threatened by Germans. Kaiser Wilhelm and Nicholas II, they were relatives, very close relatives. And Russia wasn't threatened because it was a, it was a conflict between France, Great Britain and Germany for the colonists like historians say. But Russia, they were just absolutely, you know, not the first, first object of the German attack. But Russia was involved. They, they wanted to participate and they failed. It was the first attack in the century. After that Ukraine, Ukraine failed our war against, against Russian communists. It was very long war. It was very complicated because Ukraine, it was established just, just as a state. We didn't have our administration. We didn't have any army. We didn't have anything that any normal army, any normal country would have. And yeah, we failed it and we were defeated. Not only politically. We were defeated on the battlefield. And it was the biggest, one of our biggest tragedies in the 20th century, but not the last tragedy. Poland. Poland was attacked by communist Russia and things that Russian army, it wasn't established, communist army, it wasn't established well. They, it wasn't professional. And Polish, they were so happy that finally they can leave independently from Russia. They, yes, they managed to defeat other themselves with the help of Ukrainian troops that were, that moved Poland after the defeat. Yeah, we helped. Now Poland helped us. It's, they call karma or something like that. Finland. I studied in Finland, it was my master's degree, never completed, but anyway, they managed to defend ourselves. Yes, they failed the war, but Stalin didn't occupy Helsinki. And in the center of Helsinki, you could see the huge statue of Manorheim, Russian Swedish general that could never speak Finnish. No one can speak Finnish except your Finnish. I can guarantee you because my first education is linguistic and don't even try it, it's really impossible. I don't know how they, how did they do this. It's a miracle. It's linguistic miracle, I think. And he managed to defend themselves. They managed to organize the Finnish society, Finnish army, economy, and so on. And Helsinki wasn't occupied in 1940, 1940. After this war, after 1945, Stalin received the list, there were three tribunals after the Second World War in Japan, in Germany, and in Finland. One international international, it was Japan and Finland. And Stalin received the list of the war crimes. And the first war was Carl Gustaf von Manorheim, and he just took his pencil and he just, he written that he is not a criminal and he will not be accused in anything. It's unprecedented, I think. He's through 20th century, it's full of a lot of unprecedented things. But they managed to defend themselves. After the outbreak of the full invasion against Ukraine, Finland was the first country who reacted extremely fast, efficient, and effective. Because all the time, since 1939, they were preparing for all that stuff. They expected on their borders, but they happened in Ukraine, but they were prepared. And they reacted so fast. They started to accept our refugees. They started to receive weapons, ammunition, financial aid, and so on from the first day of invasion. Because all the time, since 1939, they were preparing for that. And they felt so lucky that this happened, not with them. Not with us. And they're not happy that it happened with us, but they were preparing for our war all those years, since 1939. Maybe from 1918, when Manorheim wanted to capture St. Petersburg and kill all the communists. Maybe from that time, who knows. I should reread the memoirs of Manorheim. I can't remember this precisely. So, Finland, they were, this was the first, the only one country that was prepared for our war, really. It's paradox, but it's life, it's full of paradox. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, they were occupied in 1940. That's why they so easily restored their statehood in the beginning of the 90s. Because they were illegally violently occupied with Russian Soviet troops. Poland, again, 1939, the Second World War, started together with the Allied attack of Hitler and Stalin, yes, they were allies, against Poland in September 1939. And Poland this time, it was totally defeated, because it was really impossible just to wage war against two superpowers simultaneously. And last in Europe, Soviet troops crossed the Soviet border official pre-war, Soviet border in 1944. And Central Europe was occupied by Soviet troops till the collapse of Soviet Union. Except Austria. Soviet troops were withdrawn from Austria in after death of Stalin in 1955, I think. It was the first and maybe the last example of history when occupied forces were just withdrawn peacefully from this territory. It was a big surprise for everyone who knows what Russia is and what Soviet Union is. Eastern Germany, the uprising in Eastern Germany and Eastern Berlin was aggressively and violently destroyed by Soviet troops. Polish uprising, 1956, you see the numbers. It was after the death of Stalin when people started to build their illusions of something changed, no, nothing changed. Poland had the same destiny. Their uprising was just destroyed. Hungary, 1956, after this uprising, about 10,000 of people were killed. If you visit Budapest, you will see the traces of machine guns. They preserve those traces on the walls of their houses, especially on the center, because it's their history. They want people to remember what happened there. By the way, it was the root of Afghanistan War because the Soviet leader that convinced, one of the leaders that convinced to start Afghanistan War, it was the same guy who just made a bloodbath in Hungary in 1956. KGB officers, they cannot wage war. All they can do is just make a total massacre and nothing else. We can say the same now. I always am interested in how it works in history. Sometimes you can predict something. Caribbean crisis. After this crisis, Khrushchev was removed from his chair because all those generals who survived the Second World War, they were so unhappy about the idea that they kept participating in the next war. They were so angry because they were so experienced and they just kicked off from his chair. It was a huge thing for the older world because they just removed this crazy guy with the nuclear bomb, just threatening all the planets. Soviet military could be proud because they were the biggest peacemakers in this situation. Soviet colonel of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, he was ordered to leak the documents about Soviet rockets. This destroyed the Khrushchev's blackmail. After that, of course, he was executed. Some people say he was buried alive for his treason. But I think it's really great destiny for a person who alone could save all the planets. Sometimes people do not swear all that stuff from Marvel movies that save the world. Sometimes they could be more quite different in their lives. Just another officer. Czechoslovakia. This is the example when the KGB officers were not involved in the planning and execution of the operation. And it was more or less smooth. But it was another destroying of another uprising. Czechs are very not happy to live in the Soviet camp and they were punished for that. After that, Transnistria. It's a pre-collapse conflict. It still exists. We still have this quite weird territory that's about a half of Ukrainians, by the way, live. It's not just on the locals. It's our people. And this conflict still exists. They're not recognized by anyone. And they have the biggest stock of ammunition in Europe, by the way. And if it were blown up, it would be another ecological catastrophe, really. Because all those Soviet ammunition warehouses, they're incredible. They're just huge. And Lithuania. Gorbachev. Nobel Peace Prize laureate. When he knew that Baltic states will go out from the Soviet Union, his decision was, of course, his Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Of course, he ordered to Soviet tanks to enter Vilnius. It's normal for Nobel Peace Prize laureates, I think, decision. And people died because they wanted to defend their identity, their state, their country. But it ended quite well for the locals. They escaped Soviet Union, Soviet Union Redemption. And they joined European Union and they joined NATO. I really doubt about the effectiveness of NATO if they would ever attack, but being attacked. But they were quite lucky to do that so fast and so effectively. And they still are the biggest and the closest helpers. They just, we are receiving a lot of help from them. They host our refugees. They help us with ammunition, with arms, money, just political support and just any support that any country could offer. They're just Finland and Baltic states. They're just, because they're the closest neighbors from Russia. And, of course, they realize that now we fight not only for ourselves only. And Ukraine, it's 2014th and still goes. It was a kind of, since 2014th till February 2012, it was a kind of proxy warfare. No one knows what it is. It was a low-intensity conflict. We were losing about the last years. We were losing about 30 soldiers killed a month. It could seem like it was rather painful to be informed about all those guys who were killed. But those numbers are not comparable with numbers that we can see now. We are losing three people an hour. That's not comparable at all. Now I have something absolutely different. And no one knows when it ends, if it ever ends, and how it will end. Because history offers a lot of ways to think about it. Sometimes outnumbered people can receive their victory. Sometimes not. Only little countries manage to defeat Soviet Union, like Finland, Afghanistan. Maybe we are little enough to do that. I really hope to do it. Because our population decreased drastically. Now we have about maybe 25 million millions of people. Previously we had about 40 millions. Now just young mothers, children just escape because it's really, it's not safe everywhere under the Ukrainian territory because the rockets they cover just every corner of Ukrainian territory. And no one knows what will happen next, really. Maybe they will kill us all and everyone will forget about us. Who knows. I just googled the Putin's photo and it was the finest, I think. Because we are not afraid. We were in war with Russia for the last 400 years. We know their enemy. We are not scared. Because we know that they died. It's really possible to defeat them. My friends that talked with Italian officers, they were sure, you know, if they invade us, we will surrender the first day. How did they just, you know, started wars, you know, with superpower, nuclear superpower just totally outnumbering you with just three or two or three times. So naturally that's just you waited for that. How is it possible? Just a lot of, still a lot of European officers. They do not understand because they know for sure that they will just surrender because it's how Russia, we destroyed now, we destroyed more Russian tanks that all NATO countries have in Europe in some. And for every normal conventional strategist or military theorist, it's really not, it's easy to understand. But we don't have any other option. It's the only one way to understand. So Putin, please don't be surprised because we had two dates. Because he is a KGB officer. He is really psychopathic about his secrecy and especially astrology, I think. Because it's the only one explanation why to hide the real date of birth. But if you search Stalin in the Wikipedia and go to the Russian version of this article, you will see two dates as well. Because in English version, I just check this. In English version, there's only one date. No, there's two dates. Two official dates. Yeah, everyone is scared about astrology, especially in Russia. Even much more than Germans in their Anenarba, I think. So we don't know when he was born really. No one knows. And still we don't know when he died. And it's a very enigmatic start and the same enigmatic end. It's an international man of mystery. So why this 20th century still goes? Because this guy was born for sure when Stalin was alive. Some people say that Stalin's political ideal for this person. And he tries to repeat all the way that Stalin did in his political career. And that's why this century still goes. Because this person links us with the middle of the 20th century with the 50s. When Stalin planned to attack, we know this for sure, we have some documents, Stalin wanted to attack Western Europe again after the Second World War. And he was killed only because of this. I really hope that he was killed. Because there is not much exclusive history when this dictator would just die peacefully for national reasons. It's not fair, really. It's not karma. Where is karma? When it's so needed. It always goes when it's no one welcomes. But I really hope that historians have the very interest in versions that it was made by purpose. And I really hope that it was. So this person still doesn't allow us young fellows to dive entirely into the 21st century. He still holds us. He still wants to return us to the 50s. But not in the 50s or the 21st century. It's pretty close, by the way. But the 50s or 20th century. Because the mindset he received in the KGB school in the Soviet society and so on, this is the 50s. And it would be just a problem if for his country, but it's not just a problem for Russia only. It's our problem. They are still in the 50s. But not in the 50s. And the best sense of this was when it was a rock and roll. Every guy just very cute. And with tie and the head. I'm always watching those films of 50s. How it's possible. But it's the worst 50s. It's Soviet 50s, not Western 50s. And no 60s predicted after that. So it's another guy. It's only one Russian dictator who was filmed smartphone. Putin doesn't use smartphones. He doesn't know what internet is. He doesn't have any type of email address, anything. He's all the photos that you can see, all the analog telephones on his table. And this is the only guy, one guy that appeared accidentally not for a long time and just disappeared. He's not happy with that, I think. Talking from his face. He's under the rain. Dictators are always unhappy with nature because nature is something they do not control. Time, rains, gravity. They think they control everything, but nature comes and just reminds, hey, yeah, you can control your people, but gravity rains, not. So all the, they're not happy. Persian king just, he wasn't happy with the sea. He was just punished sea. It's always the fight between the dictators and the nature. But it was the only one guy that was filmed holding the iPhone. When he was presented iPhone with, by Steve Jobs, here, during his visit, he was the happiest guy ever because just a legend to the dream. But it didn't last long. This is one of the top Russian officials, and he sees with the magnifying lens, Internet for the first time. And he's, I think he's so surprised because he was never taught this with KGB school. Internet, well. So I had several photographs, I chose this one. And a young guy tries to show at least something, but you know, those, those guys who were born when Stalin was alive, they rule now. They rule their mindsets. They hate us young fellows because we are young. We can survive them. We can outlive them. And they hate us for that. They want us to bring to horrible past, not our horrible past, but they are horrible past. It's really horrible. And that's why we are under the risk, never get, get old. Like, like people who died during this First World War. How people remember them. Those young folks, they died, they never got old. We can repeat that. We can, we can be returned to the older times, not getting old. It's not natural at all. So they rule now. They're hostile towards any novelties, any, all those funny, crazy, stupid things that young people can do. They really hate, not only us, but our kids, our prospective possible grandkids, because they, they understand, they, they will not sleep in our times. And they want us to breathe in their times. And they're quite effective in that. This, because of that, because of the, all those, for instance, we still have to live in 20th century, not the best century ever. And we have, we have to adjust our lives to the, to this historical, historical circumstances, historical situation. And it doesn't make humanity happy. So just for comparison, Hiroshima Nagasaki, death toll, the minimum death toll from the both, both cities, it is 130 killed, it's a minimum death toll. Mariupol, minimum death toll, 120. We survived literally nuclear strike. My friends, they were, they were defenders of Pazov style. The March 2022, I had to join them as an educational mission, just deployment for national guards. And I just couldn't break through because this city was besieged so quickly. And my friends, they, they were defenders of Pazov style and they were taken as a prisoners of war. And I would say that when I saw my friends alive and released, it was my second birthday, really. And I do believe that those numbers, 22,000 of killed people, civilians killed people, they just recognized, they identified about 100 of thousands of people, their buried not being identified. That's why Russia erases this city totally. They try to build some new buildings on the crime scene. And this is, this happens now. Hiroshima at Nagasaki, you know, we always used to think that it was the Second World War. It was quite far away from us temporarily, you know, it was another time, another period of history. We live in a different period of history, yet it's a huge distance between us. No. It happened last year. They destroyed all this city. They just, just executed all this city. About 120,000 civilians dead. It happens last, last year in the center of Europe. It is what people always thought never forget and never again. It was forgotten and it happened again. We are as a mankind, you know, as a human kind, we do not develop much, I think, looking at those numbers, really. So I don't know if I convinced you that the 20th century still goes on, but I have some reasons for that. I try to represent them. It's just up to you to decide how to think about it. And I think, yes, the 20th century still exists because we still have the dictators who were born 20th century, who did the same thing that happened in the 20th century. And all those things still exist and nothing changed in the global affairs since then. We still have the old, bad old political style that still exists. And what will happen next? Will this century ever begin, the 21st century? It's quite a tricky question. I have much less to tell about that than the actual situation. You know, it's Gelsenkirchen, it's Germany. It's 2020. They erected the state of Lenin. Gelsenkirchen, it's western Germany. They've never been eastern Germany. They've never been other than Soviet occupation. It's capitalist western Germany. They bought this statue from Czech Republic because they destroyed all the statues of Lenin, as we did by the way we had this decommunization process when we destroyed all these communist statues. And they just bought this from Czech Republic and they just transferred this to Gelsenkirchen. It's western Germany. And they just erected 2020. After all those genocides, massacres, hunger, wars, that Lenin personally was responsible to. We have all the orders just signed by Lenin. It's not just isolated political leader. He knew everything and he started all those bloody centuries, one of those people. He did that. The person who started the 20th century, he's still alive in the hearts of some western capitalist German citizens. He's still alive. He's just been giving birth from these bloody stuff. It's quite symbolic. It's surrounded by blood. It's not just about birth. It's about his political career. It's just bloodbath. And it's 2020. It's not the 80s. It's not eastern Germany. It could be understood because Stasi, because communist control, because just everything is understandable. But West, what's wrong with you? So I have very bad predictions. The 20th century, with all its disadvantages, will exist till all those people will belong to this narrative, to this agenda, the 20th century giving birth to them. And they will still be in the 20th century because all those, not because of Lenin. He died in 1924, I think. He was killed by Stalin. Karma. This time. He died for unnatural reasons, but we know how he did that, without medical treatment, without... He survived some assassination attempts. Now we just have some areas who arranged all those attempts, but yes, he was killed by Stalin. No, any other options. All the revolutionaries are the same. They just kill each other first, the first place. So it's not the problem of Lenin. He died. He was killed. It's not the problem of Stalin. He was killed, I really hope so. It's a problem of people who still believe that all those tyrants were right. And this is our mission as educators, as good young fellows that dream to live finally the 21st century. Just to stop that, just to to let all the things of the 20th century in the 20th century. This is our aim and our responsibility. We are responsible for that. We have to explain that terrorism is bad. Killing people is no good. Don't do that. Do not agree with people who will call you that this is good. It's our mankind. We have to live our lives. We have to survive. It's our evolution. It's not our invention. We have to be humans. Yes, humans have to be humans. It's our task. It's our profession. And I would wish great luck with that business, because if the 21st century will never end, the part of responsibility of that will be ours. And it's not the best thing that I will wish for everyone. Let's try. It's our task. It's our responsibility. It's our profession finally to end this century. So this will end if you'll be effective. If you'll claim the humanistic values, critical thinking methods, values, at least universities are being built for that, very built for that, main principle mission. So and the answer for this question, will it ever start? We will answer for this question. It's everything just on our responsibility. It's our profession. And I wish for the big luck to answer this question positively, because you don't have any other option. Thank you very much. Any questions? If I have some time, because I have no idea How many times? Almost precisely. It's 15 years of lecturing. I thought that was a fascinating constellation of conflicts and wars that you had listed for us. And thank you so much for your time to talk to us today. Thank you for your presence. What I was curious about, what is it about the present war and situation maybe breaks that mold and breaks that pattern that is not recognizable from the sequence that you're seeing? Could it be the impact of technology? Could it be an interconnectedness of world economies? Technology makes a huge shift, because we started from the very beginning from the mistakes that were done during the First World War. Just remember the armies of Samsonov and Roninkov. They were just surrounded and destroyed by Germans. Why? Because Russians used the open channels for communication. We killed six Russian generals because they used the cell phones. It's the First World War, literally. It's 100 years, but the same mistake. I was really waiting for some technological advances from Russians. The first year didn't happen. Now it's a war of drones. When Ukrainian soldiers, they go for training abroad to American military bases in Germany or to Great Britain, they talk with American officers. And Americans were really shocked because they were not taught to deal with that. They do not have this kind of drones, quantity and quality of drones. And this is the huge challenge, not for us, because we have to respond to this drone war. You can see, I'm subscribed to all those channels. I can see how, for example, Ukrainian drone pilots just chase one person, Russian infantry, just one with a drone. And we can see this live, just how it explodes. Sorry, but it's not all for me. But it's very unusual for any Western observer because these previous years, Western world spent a lot of time, a lot of money to wage war against outdated armies, outperforming armies, and out-technological armies. And the Pentagon was so happy to deal with all those people with Kalashnikovs and their heads, and that's all. But now it's absolutely different. So this year shows that this is the competition of technologies, this competition of the high-end technologies. And it's always unexpected. It's always, any technological shift, it can change everything. This stopped the huge crowds of Russian infantry only with American cluster shells. It is a game changer. It was a game changer, and it helped us really a lot. But we stopped all the Russian logistics on the battlefront with the drones. Up to 20 kilometers, 15 miles, you can control the front of your enemy with FPV drones, with Kamikaz drones, with a camera, RPG shell, and you can burn whatever you want. Tanks, just strongholds, supply carriers and so on. We got used to that. It's so natural for us to do that. And the Ukrainian society, because it's not funded really by the Ukrainian state. The crowd front, our army, yes, we collect managers to buy more drones, to buy more technological things like anti-drones tools and so on. So like any shift in technology, it can be fundamental and unexpected. Now we can see these more or less predictable things. But no one knows what will happen next, because since we received the middle-range ballistic rockets from the United States, the first thing that we've done, we just, we destroyed two airfields for one night. Nine attack helicopters, they just disappeared. It's a huge change. Absolutely, it's a huge change. It's outdated rockets. It's 30 years. They just, they were, in Pentagon, people just forget and forgot about the way to use them. But we use them as extremely effective. We could end this war with tomahawks. Just give us 20 tomahawks and this war will end. Give us weapons, please. Don't stop giving us weapons. We received 230 tanks. It's not that much to deal with 5,000 Russian tanks, really. It's not comparable. We need artillery, because artillery is very loud, because if you shoot hundreds of shells, of course, it just degrades and just destroys. We need aircrafts. F-16s in Texas, National Guard Air Base, Ukrainian pilots, they make, they nearly completion their the course of the X-16s. With obsolete, very old-fashioned American weapons, we can kill everyone. Not inventing the spacecraft technologies. Just give us the basics, your obsolete things that you forgot about that in 90s. We will use them and we will stop this war and we will build this war. And nothing bad will happen with NATO. We will defend them for you. So it's quite basic. It still can be one with absolutely basic things for American taxpayer. Yeah. Thank you for your presentation. I'm thinking, okay, so there's a handful of people keeping us from moving away from the 20th century into the 21st century. That's your premise. And these people are holding on because they view the past as something that they want to prolong. My question is, is that what about the future? I mean, you would only want to stay in the past if you don't see that the future is any better. If the future is not as good, then you keep where you are because the change is not good. And some of them have a following. We like what we know. We don't like what we are not sure of, which might be the future. So I'm just curious to see what you think about why the future is why they're so afraid of that. And part of it you already mentioned that they're not part of the future because they don't understand the technology. They're not part of this. But how about the other people? Because you already mentioned that, you know, to make this change involves embracing humanitarian things and all of this. Just visit TikTok website. It will be afraid of the future as well. It's quite scary. Not all those people who stop us from embracing the 21st century. It's not that only those people, old people. I was speaking about those people who live now and support them. It's another big reason. And you know, you said that if you want future, you can get the future. But you forgot all those people who can force you not to do that. It's quite violent thing and you have to struggle against them. It's not just a matter of your choice. Of course, we would live in the 21st century only because if you wanted to, it would be the happiest people ever. But we have a lot of reasons, objective reasons. Another violent will of other people. Their support with a huge crowd of other people. And they prevent us to do that. It's not only our choice not to enter the 21st century. We would like to do that. But we have a lot of obstacles to do it. And we cannot influence them. We can change very little in that. Because education is a cultural tool. It's not just a barrel of the gun just near your head that forces you to do something. It's a cultural. It's very gradual. It's very implicit. It's quite fundamental. But it's not that powerful than any political order or military invasion could be. So that's why I was talking about those who support all those crazy people who try us not to get in the 21st century. Just go to Twitter or no matter how it's being called now. You can see a lot of people with the hammer and the sickle and their nicknames. How numerous they are. I really, I try to believe that there are bots that are not real persons. But when I see young people in the streets of western cities with red flags, Soviet flags, hammer and sickles. I was born when the Brezhnev was still alive. I spent 11 years in the Soviet Union. I can still remember some things really. Because when people, at that age, they remember so brightly everything. It's not that you have to, it's not, it's all those things. It's not the things you're expected to promote. Because communism, it's a nightmare. It's a concentration camp. The dream to expand this concentration camp all over the globe. It's nothing good over there. But how it's possible when some people still believe that it was right things and those people are the most, the biggest obstacle. Because all those dictators, they will die someday. I really hope for that. Karma, right, is when it's so needed. But I afraid of the people who support their ideas. And this is what we have to deal with as educators. So it was two factors. The source of 20th century and the facilitator of the 20th century. And they're so numerous. People do not want to think. They do not want to study. They want to believe something. That's quite a religion. So I totally agree with you. Because we have people that will make others believe. They only see one side, right? They promote the good side. And not the horrible stuff. But they've got people believing. And you're right. I believe in critical thinking and all that. And so you've got a following of people that are, in a sense, not thinking on their own. When I hear about the free health service in Soviet Union, I had four surgeries when I was a child because of the false diagnosis. Because of so-called free medical service. And I still remember how you can walk into the grocery store and see empty shelves. I remember that. I still remember how my mom was sending me to the queue to the bread store to get into the queue and to stand in the queue for half of an hour. And after that she comes and buys bread because I was really close for the buying points. I still remember that. I remember my neighbors who were collecting money for 20, 30 years to buy a car. Of course, we can hear a lot of millennials and generations that people who are complaining that it's not affordable. I cannot pay for it and so on. I just can't remember how people were not able to buy everything. And yeah, I can remember that the most basic, very bad quality Soviet car you had to collect money for 20, 30 years. In average, 30 because you were underpain. Because for all those stuff, they were not free. It's nothing free in this world. It means that you are paying with your salary and getting something. It's not free. It was being deducted previously. And I remember this life. It's horrible. Even when you had the economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union, because of the jobless and in my city, when I was born, there were two secret factories that were producing the electronics for Soviet ballistic rockets. They were just, they were closed and people lost their jobs. That times were better than Soviet times because even if you have it in the Soviet Union, if you have a job, if you're paying some money for that, you're still in poverty. You can't afford you anything. And I cannot realize, I can't understand people who say that this is a true life and this is our ideal of our future. How is this possible? And I know the way of their thinking. It's just right. Even if like that. It was really awful. And this is our task, you know, to enforce the critical thinking skills, to familiarize people with history, you know, with some absolutely basic things that we had to live with. We had to survive. We had to live through and contemporary, contemporary young people, they're just quite distant from that. And they're not familiar with that. And they think that if something they didn't live through, it's, it could be something good, not necessarily. And we had to change something because if not, we will see something really awful in the future. And it would be the just eternal 20th century. It's our task. It's extremely hard to do. I can realize that. But we don't have any other option. Like Ukrainians, we don't have any other options. We have only one option to win. And we as educators, we don't have any other option. We have to force young people, young generation to get familiar with all that crazy stuff, to get them think in the most objective way, non-biased, objective way, common sense, where it is when it's so needed. And this is our task. And it's the 21st century dependent on us because we're the only one force that can change something. Sorry for that. It's a huge responsibility. It's a huge task. I realize how it's important, how hard to do, but we don't have any other options. We don't have any other planets. We don't have any other history. We can't have other future. It's the only one thing that we can change. It's our task. Sorry for this. It's not any other options. Thank you, everyone. And do take advantage of our refreshments because they will disappear if they're done soon.