 Welcome to the Scottish Parliament. I am Jen Stout. I'm a journalist from Shetland. Welcome to the 2023 Festival of Politics. This year's event is the 19th year of the festival, provoking and inspiring and informing people of all ages and from every walk of life to engage in three days of hopefully spirited debate. I'm really looking forward to this discussion, hearing everyone's thoughts. It's good if everyone is given the opportunity to contribute, even if there might be differences of opinion. So good if we treat each other respectfully at all times. We're delighted you can join us today on this panel on Ukraine. Later, I will invite you to get involved with questions and comments. If you're keen to make your thoughts known online, you can do so using the channel, it's at visit scottparl. Or you can do it on Instagram and the event is being live streamed on the Parliament's SPTV channel. I'm very, very happy to be joined today by Dr Hussein Aliyev, Professor Vladislav Zubok, who will shortly appear on the screen, since he's joining us online, and Dr Danette Murray. Dr Hussein Aliyev is a lecturer in Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow. A lot of his research focuses on violent mobilisation and individual participation in armed conflict. Professor Vladislav Zubok, not quite here yet, is the Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has expertise on the Cold War, the Soviet Union, Stalinism and Russia's intellectual history in the 20th century. Dr Danette Murray is here speaking in a personal capacity as an academic analyst. She is an author and practitioner with expertise in international security and strategic analysis. Has worked on stabilisation and institutional reform in Afghanistan and Kosovo and delivered conflict management training in South America, the Balkans and the Middle East. So thank you for joining us. Are we getting Professor Zubok, I hope? Yeah, okay, good. So yeah, there will be a chance, a good long period of Q&A coming up, but I'll start with asking a few questions of my own. Perhaps we can start just by summarising where we are in your opinion with the war in Ukraine today. Thank you, Jen. I think we are currently at a very critical transitional period where Ukraine is trying to conduct this massive counter-offensive and it's trying to retake the territories which have been overtaken by Russia since last year. And we are yet to see where this counter-offensive leads Ukraine and we are yet to see whether Ukraine succeeds in achieving its initial objectives, which they had at the start of this military campaign earlier this year. So we are watching with excitement as to the outcome of this campaign. I would agree and perhaps add that I think in conflicts many points are actually very pivotal and with this particular one we're probably longer into a conflict than many people anticipated. And of course each phase has its own challenges and I think with Ukraine we are, as my colleague has just said, we're watching very carefully to see where the balance of power is and what potentially might be what you could describe as an off-ramp or an on-ramp in terms of actually some kind of resolution. I've been thinking back to, it seems quite a long time ago now, February 2022, to the initial response of Europe as a whole. That response of course within Europe was quite varied. How would you describe that and how would you describe how that has changed as the war has gone on? I think one of the most striking things about what we are seeing is the extent to which we have had a whole series of reactions from a number of international organisations. The European Union in the passage of sanctions legislation for instance and coming together in order to try and create a momentum to respond to the illegal invasion. NATO has itself been very much, I think, stimulated by what has happened in Ukraine and as I think will probably come on to later, you have a process of expansion because there are those on the margins who have responded a particular way feeling that they are insecure as a result of this invasion. So there has been, if not a rewiring complete of the security apparatus in Europe, there certainly has been a significant transformation. Any thoughts particularly on NATO and how NATO has changed? I think that's something we're probably going to come back to. I would absolutely agree. I think NATO in particular is far more unified now in terms of its response to the Ukrainian crisis than it used to be when the conflict has started and we are seeing a complete transformation of the levels of military aid. For example, supplies to Ukraine of such weapons as a main battle tanks or fighter jets were absolutely out of question about a year ago, but now we are seeing both of these items as being supplied or being under discussion to get supplies. So we are seeing more willingness among NATO member states to contribute to the war effort and to make sure that Ukraine wins this conflict as soon as possible, which is obviously very much in the interest of NATO. I think we're joined by Professor Zubuck. Can he hear us? That's correct. I'm here. Excellent. We're glad you're here. We've only just started, so I'll put this question to you as well. We're talking about the initial response of Europe, of various countries within Europe to the war and how that has changed over the past year and a half. How would you characterise that? Well, the war is a very curious thing. First came the shock, although of course we now know that the American intelligence was quite well informed and prepared some European politicians for that. But for the public opinion, it was a huge shock. As the war proceeded, the nature of the war, the goals of the war, I think kept changing. That produced a different reaction. At first, as we know, everyone expected that Zelensky and Ukraine would lose the war quickly given the CIA estimates of the balance of power. Then it changed to some optimism after the European Union and the United States unveiled unprecedented scope of sanctions against Russia with a clear goal of basically ruining Russian finances and Russian economy in a short period of time. That didn't work out. It was like back and forth, a little bit like American rollercoaster or Russian rollercoaster, depending on that. Currently, we are reaching the stage where more and more comments begin to appear that this is a stalemate where both sides have no military means to overwhelm the opposite side. So that's where we are, but it's a huge question. I only touched on the main points along the way. Thank you. Can everyone hear that well enough? It's difficult to hear. We have microphones on. Yes. Can it go up a bit possibly? Is this a bit louder now? How's this? If you can't hear, do say. Please don't just sit and think, oh, this is really annoying. OK, good. I shall try and speak loudly as well. Is it part of that process that happened was arguably Ukraine, because the general consensus at the time of the full scale invasion was that Ukraine would fall very quickly. There was no way it could withstand the might of the great Russian army, and they really surprised everyone, didn't they? Yes, I think one of the reasons why there was this misconception that Ukraine wouldn't be able to stand out to Russian invasion is because of probably misunderstanding of the Ukrainian potential for mobilisation, for civic mobilisation, for popular mobilisation. And this is what Ukrainians did, for example, at the beginning of the first conflict with Russia in 2014 and 2015 when they've raised thousands and thousands of volunteers and they've raised millions and millions of dollars to support the military effort at that time. When the state was not able to provide either the financial support for the war effort or to mobilise sufficient numbers of people, so Ukraine does have this amazing potential for civil and volunteering mobilisation. I think we'll come back to that topic because I know it's something that you've done a lot of research on and it's a very key part of this story. Danette, can we talk about some of the beyond Europe, the global implications of this conflict? I think it's probably worth pointing out that we see states and people experiencing the conflict and repercussions of the conflict in lots of different ways. In the West, for instance, we looked at the implications in terms of rising energy costs and the impact that that had on the cost of living crisis. We also opened our homes to Ukrainian refugees, so we actually processed some of what was happening in Ukraine in quite a personal way with sympathy and empathy as much as we could. But it's also important, I think, to point out that what has happened in Ukraine has led to a significant disruption of global supply chains. So there are people and have been people in Somalia, in Sudan, in Yemen, in other parts of the world who have not been able to eat because of the rising cost of food. And the reverberating effects that we're describing are therefore quite multifaceted in the sense that they will impact lots of people in lots of different ways. And there is a temporal dimension to this as well. So we've got immediate reaction and responses and a hike in energy prices and so on. But the medium and longer term implications, some of these are known and we can anticipate and some of them will be slower burners. And all that to say that how this affects people around the world has to be, I think, viewed in a longer term context rather than the immediate what we see on our TV screens. Of course, one of the countries for which this is extremely significant and will cause a lot of changes is Russia. Perhaps Professor Zubock, you can talk about that. As I started to say, the initial idea in the West was to impose such crushing sanctions on Russia that it would lead to the meltdown, the run on the banks, maybe hyperinflation, the exit of Western investments and the freeze on financial transactions. And that didn't happen. That didn't happen, which contributed to the whole idea of the stalemate later on. Why it didn't happen is still being studied by economists. But we live through one of the greatest experiments in modern history in a sense when the liberal order led by the United States imposed the maximum amount of sanctions short of war, short of total blockade and war on a meat-sized country that is a nuclear superpower, a nuclear state. And that did not lead to a visible deterioration of economy. It didn't lead to inflation of any size. Well, recently, after more than a year, you begin to see the weakening of the rule now. The Russian economy, instead of sagging considerably, only went back by 2%. And in this third quarter of this year, even less so, just to remind the audience, in the early 90s, the Soviet Russian economy sagged by 44%. And during the financial crisis of 2008, it declined by 7.8%. So we seem quite insignificant and disappointing result of all these 16.500 sanctions imposed by the West. And again, it shows that even with the liberal global order united against the aggression, the rest of the world, the rest of the global market is not supporting these sanctions. It takes time. Definitely, I'm not denying that these sanctions keep working, but they keep working in a longer term. And we may see some unexpected things next year, next summer, next fall, but not yet. Yeah, can I ask you? I mean, the economic effects, as you described, not as severe as it was thought or perhaps hoped. And there is a recurrent theme of people predicting the imminent collapse of Russia for quite a long time, and in particular over the last year. But politically, can Putin's government survive when many more people are being killed? How will that play out, do you think? Well, when we read the Western press, we live in a little bit of a schizophrenic world. On one hand, we read that Putin may fall, the pregosion mutiny happened, that we can Putin and all that. On the other hand, we read how ruthless is Putin's regime that he can impose whatever hardships on the Russians. So we have to choose where's the truth in between these two kind of viewpoints. I tend to think that given the nature of war that is still a hybrid war for the Russians, the Russians in their majority expect to stay away from this war. Every time when there are rumors of some kind of crisis, some kind of mobilisation, there's a wave of panic throughout the society. And indeed, this panic is a threat to the Putin regime because the idea of Putin's compact, if there's ever had been any compact between people and the Russian society, there will be no more major crisis, no more major war and war is a crisis, of course. So we may see at some point when people, more and more Russian people realise that this is not a light war. This is definitely no longer a short and victorious war to be sure. But that's something like a descent into economic and financial abyss. Then we may see a certain political crisis in Russia. But it's still difficult to see how this crisis will play out, how it will develop. Because one feature of the Russian society is enormous gap, enormous chasm, I would say, between Putin's entourage, the Russian elite and the rest of the Russian people. And Putin certainly plays on this factor as sort of a new czar that willy-nilly remains the only guarantor of the fact that Russia would remain intact, that the Russian state would remain stable. So even those who, I don't know, dislike him, love him, hate him, have to take this into account that he is the guarantor of stability. Without him as a linchpin, if you pull out this linchpin, then indeed something terrible may happen to Russian state. And many people are not prepared even to imagine such eventuality. Dr Murray, thinking about the causes of this conflict, and I'm aware that word could mean many things. Let's just think about it from the full-scale invasion from February 2022. Do you think that more could have been done? Was it preventable? I think the person who says yes or no with certainty is probably selling you something that you should distrust. This is an incredibly, has been an incredibly complicated and difficult relationship that involves a range of states and individuals and challenges and agendas and expectations. And there will be a number of truths depending on whose perspective you are interested in and actually listen to most closely. I think from the perspective of many in the West, there were multiple opportunities and a significant amount of effort made to not only reassure but also to communicate the consequences of an illegal invasion, particularly after the annexation of Crimea. So it's an interesting question but a very difficult one to answer because it will be entirely, I think, contingent upon an individual perspective. A lot of Ukrainians, I'm sure that we both know, have a lot of frustration over their perception that they weren't listened to for quite a long time. You might hear this in the Baltic states as well, that they were saying Russia is a threat, that no one did anything about Crimea. How fair is that? Well, it is very fair and there is quite a degree of complacency in the West for ignoring the Ukrainian conflict since 2014 when all of the problems in Crimea and in the bus started and when Ukraine was basically trying to highlight this issue and trying to bring this issue to the front of discussion. There were a number of efforts in the West to force Ukraine to accept to make some concessions or at least to leave with the current situation and eventually that certainly contributed to the Russian invasion in 2022. So there were certainly lots of voices in Ukraine to prevent the war and to make the rest of the world understand that there is a certain red lines which Ukraine and Ukrainian success if Ukrainian governments are not able to cross under certain concessions that they simply cannot make. And there was no government in Ukraine that could make any concessions on Crimean question as well as on the bus question. So much of the peace talks that have been taking place since 2014, they were in a way doomed because there were lines which neither of the Ukrainian governments could cross without threatening their own position and their own stance. And in terms of the causes of this conflict, it's often described to me as oh it's so confusing and I think that's a bit of a cop out but it is messy. Could you pinpoint some as you perceive it some of the causes perhaps going back quite a long time? Yes, certainly. There's quite a number of causes. Quite a lot of them are closely interrelated and they probably come down to a broader issue such as Russian imperialism and attempts specifically by Putin's administration to impose Russian control over Ukraine which take us back to the Maidan Revolution in 2014 and the overthrow of nominally pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych which eventually has led to annexation of Crimea and the problems in Donbass and essentially the creation of these de facto independent pro-Russian republics in Donbass. So the efforts by Russian Federation to have closer control of Ukraine to keep Ukraine within its fear influence are very typical for the post-Soviet region. We have seen the same things happening for example in the Republic of Georgia where Russia has continuously tried to struggle with pro-Western administrations and where it has similarly created de facto independent states and this is basically a blueprint that Russia has used later on in Ukraine. It's interesting you mentioned Russian imperialism. I think there are people who seem to only be able to see US hegemony, US imperialism, blinding them perhaps to the fact that Russian imperialism in the form of the Tsarist state, in the form of the Soviet Union that has been a pattern for a long time and that this behaviour is part of that pattern. Yes absolutely and there are certainly different facets and different levels to Russian imperialism which is a complex phenomenon but most and first of all Russia attempts to control the former Soviet states to a certain extent the Baltic states as well which used to be the Soviet states but more specifically non-EU former Soviet states in its vicinity which it sees as its own sphere of influence and where it doesn't want to see any other actors being involved and it doesn't really want the states moving either towards European integration or towards military integration with NATO and so on. So Russia was prepared to stand up to its own interests in this immediate post-Soviet neighbourhood and we've seen quite a lot of examples of that happening since the time Vladimir Putin became president in 2000. Professor Zubok, what's your thoughts on that? Is this just a continuation of imperialism of that pattern of behaviour or something different, something new? Well today, and in general it's impossible to deny that Russia was a country with very strong imperialist patterns and traditions of behaviour. I just don't want that even under the influence of this ongoing tragedy we would simplify it and reduce it, you know, that view Russia through the lenses of imperialism only. Don't forget that Russia went twice through the collapse of the state in 1917-20 and then in 1991-92 and it was not given at any point that there would be an automatic resurgence of the old imperialist chauvinistic patterns. You know, after the revolution of 1917 we had an anti-imperialism or some would say imperialism in the new communist form at least and after Putin we had many, I mean after 1991, after Gorbachev and his anti-imperialistic rhetoric we had all kinds of possibilities. I would say maybe they were fleeting possibilities but possibilities nevertheless that should not be denied. And even looking at that 2011, that interregnum of Medvedev, yes that coincided with that war in Georgia, we had very different rhetoric in the Kremlin. If you accept even the fact that yes, a Russian leadership, Yaldsen, Putin, Medvedev kept talking about Russia as being the centre of the post-imperial or new imperial space around it. There are different approaches and some people would even say in the Russian elites and Russian oligarchs, listen, we had all those economic levers in Ukraine, why to invade it and crush everything that we had. We had enormous financial and economic leverage over Ukraine before the open aggression started. So those people may be viewed as new imperialists, they may be viewed as economic cultural imperialists, but certainly those people would not have moved divisions and hundreds and thousands of tanks into the neighbouring state as Putin did. So for me it does zero in on the question of Putin and his entourage and the personality of Putin. So I don't want Putin to be exonerated of the exceptional responsibility for what happened and just this responsibility should not be spread evenly on Russia or whatever it is. Yeah, this is actually a burning question I've thought about for a long time, is how on earth could he have made such a stupid mistake? I mean there was a very interesting piece in the Washington Post a few months ago based on long, long reporting and it seems because of course the Russian security services had long infiltrated Ukrainian society for various purposes but partly to understand what was going on. So were they not able to tell Putin that instead of troops being met with flowers and tears, they would be met with Molotov cocktails? Did he not understand that and if not, how could that have happened? Well it's not the first time in Russian and Soviet history when all secret services, what they do, they try to cater to the leader's whims and imagination. I'm old enough to remember the end of the 70s when Leonid Brezhnev was getting old and the KGB was reporting to him, hey the entire Africa, Latin America and Asia going socialist, communist and of course it was not true but the aging general secretary liked that story. So we have Putin and aging autocrats in self-isolation, imagining that he could do a strange combination I would say of Americans in Iraq in 1991 or 2003 sort of shock and awe, quick replacement of the Kievan regime with some kind of a puppet state that would be pro-Kremlin and simultaneously in Anschluss. When people would meet the Russian troops with flowers, otherwise it's very hard to understand the first face of this war when all these columns of Russian tanks and equipment have been moving into Ukraine without being prepared for an actual battle which resulted tragically and ironically and happily for Ukraine I should say in serious mourning, serious destruction of the Khadri army of Russia, that is irreplaceable as military experts tell us. This is all the result of Putin's immense self-delusion and secret services just catering to his self-delusion. Doctor Murray, can we talk about NATO? It's a very, very big part of this story and often the most controversial one when things are debated. I mean earlier this year Finland became the 31st member of NATO, Sweden is now applying for membership depending on Turkey. Can you describe some of the effects of this war on NATO as an organisation, as an institution and its goals? I think we have touched on this already in terms of identifying the fact that, A, this was a spectacular misjudgment on Putin's part for reasons that we've just outlined and also because of the extent to which the command and control mechanisms in the Russian state really prevented anybody from calling out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. The implications that that had for reacting to what was coming from the centre and then actually offering a challenge function. I say that as a little bit of context because I think what we have seen with NATO is a very conscious attempt to understand the nature of the threat and to make a determination about how the organisation should evolve in order to meet that threat and what the requirements are in order to protect existing members but also how to respond to the calls for support that came very, very rapidly from outside of the organisation. So we've mentioned for instance Georgia, Moldova, Kosovo talking about the need to be on the inside where they felt or would feel more protected as opposed to being on the outside as Ukraine was and is where there is a perception of vulnerability. And therefore the rewiring, the reimagining of the security architecture in Europe that I mentioned at the very beginning, we have seen that in terms of a growing membership of NATO and with Turkey's assent Sweden will obviously be the next one to join. That is part of an ongoing attempt to protect NATO's flank and to really bring to life what is at the heart of the Alliance which is Article 5 and an attack on one is an attack on all. The Alliance formed in 49 has been successful not least because A it is still kicking and screaming and operating and training and so on together. It is a force and it is an evolving force. And as the most recent NATO summit demonstrated and as we have mentioned already there is a sense of unity and purpose that I think has been rekindled as a result of the tragic events in Ukraine. Do you think there has been more cohesion between European parties, European states and perhaps institutions as well as a result of this or more division? The debates taking place in Germany have sounded very different to those perhaps in the Baltic states over how to help Ukraine or if to help Ukraine. The fact that you have an organisation of 30, 31, 32 and so it continues member states who come together, who agree a common denominator, who plan and write and develop and implement policy together, who exercise together. The very fact that you can have that and you can keep that together for decades I think is really powerful because will you have disagreements? Of course you will. Do you have mechanisms for overcoming disagreements? Yes, we have seen that with NATO and I think there is a really interesting and strong contrast that you can draw between that alliance and a single state noting that Russia has Belarus and a number of other supporters but you have a very, very different type of organisation. And that contrast is, as I say, I think particularly powerful. Doctor Aliyev, can we talk about the prospects currently facing Ukrainians? Those abroad still, those many who have returned and those still living under daily threat of bombardment? Well, the economic situation and obviously the overall human security in Ukraine are very serious issues and that's why we have this millions of refugees who have left Ukraine and there is a likelihood that many of them will return to Ukraine when Ukraine becomes a safer place and when there are opportunities to live and work in Ukraine without the threat of constant Russian missile attacks and bombardments. But as things stand there is likely to be a further outflow of civilian population from Ukraine as last winter, this winter we have experienced this massive Russian missile campaign, the missile attack campaign on Ukrainian energy infrastructure essentially forcing thousands and thousands of Ukrainians to leave their homes because they were left without hitting. They were left without homes and they were left without jobs. We might expect a similar attempt by Russia to do something like that in the coming winter so we might expect further waves of migrants leaving Ukraine because of overall insecurity and economic and human insecurity and instability. It's very interesting how in my experience in Ukraine people, and this is true of people all over the world, but people are extraordinarily adaptable and resourceful so what seems like a completely impossible situation like staying in a city of millions of people when there's no power and no heat, there would be these ingenious solutions often involving lots and lots of generators and so on. So it's extraordinary what people can actually withstand and not leave the country and then many return to a situation that you'd think would be impossible to return to but it's still preferable to being a refugee for an indefinite period of time. Yes, I would absolutely agree. Ukrainians just like most other post-Soviet nations are quite adapted to hardships especially during the post-Soviet period in the 1990s when there were lots of blackouts all over the former Soviet Union. In Ukraine in particular lots of shortages of running water, gas and electricity so in the way Ukrainians have coping mechanisms to deal with these daily problems but when these daily problems become overwhelming because of the Russian invasion it obviously becomes unbearable and it forces a lot of people who would otherwise not leave their households and not leave their towns and villages to migrate elsewhere and possibly quite a lot of them are willing to return as soon as the conditions are right. Welcome to audience questions in about five minutes. I just want to ask each panelist how you see the next six months going in this conflict. Professor Zubok. I'll start with short term predictions that are impossible to make because August is the month of surprises in Russian history. In 1991 there was a coup and all of a sudden a few months later the Soviet Union was no more so we have to wait until the end of this August. But in terms of medium term and longer term predictions I'm afraid things are moving into the stalemate stage and for obvious reasons very few people want to discuss what will happen to Ukraine if this forecast of the stalemate realises itself and in six months in one year and six months will be pretty much in the same situation with the same kind of huge front line and both sides lobbying missiles across it into each other's territory. That of course raises the main question what will happen to economies and finances on both sides and Putin clearly bets on greater resilience and greater resources. Of Russia and Ukraine bets on its own ingenuity as we discussed and also on the help of the West. So both sides for a while are prepared to go into this longer stretch without any concessions and any negotiations. I would agree with my colleagues that we should probably be preparing for a protracted conflict where both sides are clearly prepared to continue this conflict for as long as it necessary. And just judging by the previous six months period there were no significant dramatic changes in how this conflict evolved so we probably should be prepared for something like that of course hoping for this conflict to develop for the best for Ukrainian victory. Doctor Murray do you see any surprises on the horizon possibly or agreeing with that? I think broadly we'd be wise to actually view this as quite difficult to predict. There are things we can track so for instance we can look at the appetite for continuing support. I mean you mentioned some of the challenges in Germany and differences of opinions. That will absolutely continue to feature to a greater or lesser extent so tracking the commitment. The United Kingdom has been incredibly committed to supporting Ukraine in lots of different ways. I think it's also useful to keep an eye on what's happening internationally so we've had a number of different attempts to convene some kind of peace negotiations or discussions about how the conflict might be resolved. And connect it with that significant actors who have been perhaps on the fence in a reminiscent of the non-aligned era but China and India for instance are just too. It's interesting to watch how they continue to view the situation and that will be to an extent as is true of all states part of the decision making that they will do in terms of working out what's best for them both nationally and internationally. Thank you. We're going to come to audience questions. If you keep your hand up please until the roving mic reaches you and you had your hand up first sir. And aim for brevity so that everybody gets a question in please. Peter Cooper Ukraine Solidarity Committee campaign Scotland. Yes it's a colonial war. We have to be absolutely clear about that. That Putin's project is to rebuild the Tsarist Empire specifically rejecting the Soviet Union model. And also he doesn't he denies the existence of Ukraine as a nation. It's as if England invaded Ireland again and said I will you speak English and therefore you don't exist as a separate nation. It's as simple as that and we have to support Ukraine in this fight. The second point is that there is a broader aspect which hasn't really been touched on this discussion which is that this is also a fight for democracy which is that all the dictatorships around the world from Xi Jinping. The authoritarian regime Modi or ban all these people are either neutral or explicitly backing Russia because that's the model that they aspire to. And this is a battle for democracy to retain that margin that we have in our societies for actually freedom of expression for organization to gain social progress and not simply to be simply to have it imposed on us by an authoritarian regime. The last question last point is that it's also first and foremost a fight for self-determination. An issue which should be dear to many people in Scotland which is that this is about the right of a nation to rule itself. If that's what it wants it's the highest democratic issue of all because if you don't have self-determination you can't have elections you can't have anything else. Just like you didn't in the British Empire the only people who had the vote were the people who had to live within the bounds of the UK. So if we don't win this fight then it will be a blow against democracy on a world scale because the strong men and they all are men will say this is the model this is what this is the future. And it will strengthen the right and the fascist forces within western societies. And that's why we have to win the last point. I'll wrap you up please because other people want to ask questions. Yes maybe at the moment it is a bit of a steal and maybe why is that is because NATO is providing arms to Ukraine through an eyedropper. 15 Sherman tanks, 15 Challenger tanks and so on and so forth. Peter we're going to stop now. But that's the reason why and the reason why needn't be a stalemate if we provided Ukraine with the arms that they need. Thank you. I think we just go to another question. Yes there's a gentleman at the front here. Thank you. I want to begin by saying that in case my later remarks might be misunderstood that and I think that what Putin has done is completely indepensible. However I take a rather pessimistic view about the eventual outcome of this conflict. I agree that we've reached a sage of stalemate. I also agree that the western material support to Ukraine is stronger now than it was a year ago. But I mean I fear that a longer war will actually suit Russia and the Russian people like the Ukrainian people have been accustomed to hardship. I think professors you have made the point that back in the 1990s there was a 44% decrease in the economy. Now admittedly that's 30 years ago now but the memory remains Russians are used to hardship. There is no obvious sign that public support for the so-called special military operation is declining in Russia. The prospects if Putin were deposed seem to be much more likely that he would be replaced by somebody not anti-war but who thought that Putin had not been progressing the war as he should have done. The Russians are accustomed to a long war in which eventually their superiority in numbers prevails. So I'm afraid I take a rather pessimistic view of what may happen and I would like to ask the members of the panel if they can give me reasons to be a bit more optimistic. Thank you. Dr Murray. To the point about the triumph of liberalism and what really matters about your commitment to liberalism and what you get from that. You get protections, you get a space within which differences are tolerated and that goes to the heart of liberalism. I think my reason for optimism and I acknowledge the tremendous hardship and also the unpredictability of both a short term conflict and a long term. Both can be and as this war has demonstrated already horrendously disruptive and catastrophic for the 8 million refugees, the 7 million IDPs, the destruction that runs into the billions, that's what we've had so far and that is incredibly tragic and appalling. But I think if we are standing up for those people and we are attempting to defend liberalism which we are doing and certainly with allies and partners, then that gives a weight that at least allows me to look at what's happening with a more optimistic mindset because I think people can do extraordinary things when they actually commit to the protection of others. And if I may just add one piece, I think what Ukraine has brought home very viscerally is the human dimension to conflict and how people, individuals are affected and doctrine and training and so on and commitments made by very many governments in connection with protection of civilians for instance, the support to the humanitarian community. These are all part of our reaction to Ukraine and I think even in terms of just highlighting protection issues, protecting sexual violence and conflict issues, raising those kinds of questions about how we do this, how we protect people, how we train people to protect people. These are corollaries, they are not good in and of themselves but they are corollaries of a conflict and for me that's something at least to be optimistic about. Professor Zilok, is a lengthy war in Russia's favour? No, I think it's in everyone's disfavor. I actually published a piece in Foreign Affairs in December 2022 when I argued that the longer war is against the interests of everyone including Europe, including the rest of the world because the longer this war, and I would call it a big European regional war but it has enormous, enormous global implications, the longer it lasts, the more we have negative, whatever position we take, and I heard both speakers with great interest, whatever position you take, the longer this war lasts, the worse we are off because the war is an absolute evil and it leaves scars, it leaves disruption and global economy and so on and so forth. But there's reason why we have all these different estimates even from the audience today because they're different readings of this war even under the surface of NATO unity, even under the surface of western agreement, moral high ground on this question. Because in those countries that used to be behind the iron curtain, they were part of the Soviet empire, there's a natural narrative of fighting back for democracy against the new enslavement against a new colonialism and so on and so forth. But as you go further westward, this narrative is not understood and not shared and Germany is going through a huge agony of trying to find a new foreign policy identity for itself if you like. And when you continue and I bypass the United Kingdom, I don't want to discuss the UK position here, it's for the experts, but if we move to Washington, then we have a fear of escalation in Washington that is based on Washington's global commitments and on the experience of the entire Cold War. And the fact is that from the start of this war, the Biden administration treated very carefully and didn't want to cross any imaginary red lines with Putin. Since then we see the administration crossing many red lines, but very carefully, very gradually, it's sort of the escalatory domination of the old Cold War times. So the Washington war and the Washington reading war is much more how to say burdened with the responsibilities and experience of the past and that prevents Washington, I guess, to go all gung ho and just dump all the weaponry, whatever it has to the Ukrainians and see a Ukrainian victory. At least this is my reading of how how these differences play out. Thank you. I think there is a space for optimism. Just talking about the military type of things, military dimension of this conflict, I can see Ukraine becoming stronger every month and I can see Russia becoming weaker every month. Russia has lost its elite units. It has lost a lot of highly professional experience at military personnel which has spent decades to prepare. It has lost a lot of weapons and it has lost a lot of ammunition. It's struggling with the war effort and we certainly experience a certain level of stalemate on the battlefield, but we can still see Ukraine slowly pushing forward, breaching through, chewing through the Russian defences and most likely will be achieving some progress on the battle. We don't know whether Ukrainians will achieve the objectives which is moving to the Crimean Peninsula and liberating larger territories in Donbass, but we are certainly seeing Ukraine becoming stronger militarily. It's becoming also stronger as a democracy in terms of processes that happen in terms of the fight against corruption, institutional reforms and institutional building also becoming potentially closer to EU membership and possibly NATO membership. So there is a hope for Ukraine. In terms of societal processes, Russians are certainly used to hardships. There is no denial. But in terms of the level of societal involvement, we can see Ukrainians crowdsourcing a lot of the war effort, much of this military drones which Ukraine has and now it's producing thousands of them. They crowd sourced. So Ukrainians, regular Ukrainians, all of the world they contribute to this effort continuously, although it's been over a year now, but the levels of funding that regular Ukrainians are providing into this war effort are quite formidable. It's not the same in Russia, although there were some efforts at crowdsourcing and helping the Russian military machine at purchasing equipment for the Russian units which they lack, but it has been done on such a small scale. So there might be levels of support for Putin. There might be levels of support for the so-called special operation, but there's very little ground level grassroots initiative among the Russian public, broadly speaking, unlike the Ukrainian public. So Ukrainian public is far more committed to succeeding in this conflict, returning their lands and winning this war overall. Let me take another question, please. I haven't seen you. It's very bright behind you. Yes, sure. Thank you. Beth Cross, I'm a researcher in children's rights. I was uncomfortable with some of the framing as Russia as the victim or maybe an unsuccessful victim. Russia also had an economic policy. It was going to freeze Europe to submission along with Ukraine and that failed. But my main thing and my question I would like to ask is why have we not used the word genocide yet? How can we even talk about this war without talking about this? Tens of thousands of children have been abducted. They are forced to speak only Russia. I witness accounts of the few who have been returned narrate that children who refuse to believe are disappeared. Tens of thousands. There is a Ukrainian effort to try to document this. Where is the international community? When the dam broke, local NGOs were going in under fire and the UN refused. They said, oh, we can't because how can that be? The international Red Cross is actually complicit within the abductions. There is concern that they actually participated in some of this abduction by Russians of Ukrainian children. So this is my question. Ukraine, not NATO, will the UN survive as a credible organization given these failures? Dr Muddy. The United Nations is 193 states. That's a big common denominator that you often have to find when the organization seeks to get things done. At its heart is a security council that operates in a particular way because when it came into being, the only way that you could essentially get that organization up and running was to acknowledge that there were powerful actors and there were actors who lacked power. That has created a system that is hard to describe as perfect and one that is easy to criticise and I absolutely acknowledge the significant concerns that have been raised historically and more recently about the functionality of the only organization that we have of the United Nations type. To go into specifics, you would have to spend a wee bit of time, I think, looking at the International Criminal Court and the indictments and the processes connected with that. You would need to talk a little bit about how the International Court of Justice functions. You would need to talk about the principle of universal jurisdiction and some of the challenges I think that you have acknowledged in documenting and the experiences of those on the ground in terms of being able to bring together information that may not be used or usable right now but in several years down the line might actually be the difference between horrendous mass atrocity crimes being successfully prosecuted or not. I'm grateful for your question. I don't think we framed Russia as a victim or I certainly haven't intended to and I would add that this question about genocide, about human rights is one that I feel very deeply and I've been involved in as a journalist documenting the disappearances of people from Harkiv region and I've also been involved in some very difficult and emotional discussions between Ukrainians and, say, Western lawyers who they operate within very specific legal terms. And so when they were saying it doesn't quite constitute genocide or we're not quite sure that it would get you there over the line in the International Criminal Court, that's obviously very difficult for Ukrainians to hear. So it is a very, very live topic and a really interesting and crucial one. Do you have any thoughts on this, on the issues of whether it's genocide? Is that a useful word to use? The only thing I would add that is extremely challenging to conduct investigations in an ongoing armed conflict because investigators will simply have no access to some of the areas, especially Russian controlled areas. And it's quite possible that we will learn and we will know much more about atrocities that are being committed on those Russian controlled areas of Donbass. For example, after the war is over and after investigators have actually access to witnesses and they have access to evidence, so we probably only know a tiny fraction of what's being done in those territories. Professor Zubok, would you like to come in on any of this? I'm reading a book that is very sobering by Samuel Moyn. It's called Humane about how Europeans and just people in the West in general and also in Russia like Count Leo Tolstoy created the pacifist movement or debated what to do about the war, how to make the war humane, how to prevent wars. The outcome, as we see today, is very unsatisfactory, very frustrating. And the UN was created in 1945 by great powers, for great powers, including the Soviet Union, of course, but also the United States voted for the system of the Security Council at the time, including blatant isolationists like an internationalist, because of the system of veto. Because the United States, after 1945, had never allowed itself to be called an aggressor, never allowed itself to be called an infringement of the rights of war and the rules of war, even after Korea, even after Vietnam and so on and so forth. I'm not building any moral equivalency, God forbid, but all I'm saying that this is a system we have, that's the only system, it's hugely imperfect. And yes, even at the time in 1945-46, human right defenders and people like Lemkin were tearing their hairs out basically saying this is the system for great powers, not for real observation of human rights. Thank you. Next question. Yes, yourself there with the glasses, yeah. Thank you. So with a few exceptions in Dr Aleve, for which I'm very grateful, I want to ask why do you think we're able to have this conversation today as if Ukraine was not there? And I'm saying this as a Ukrainian person today. Why are we talking about the effects on the global supply chains? We're talking about the effects on the energy markets. We're talking about the effects on European politics, supposedly global economy, we're even talking about the effects on Russia. And why in the event that is called Ukraine, we're normalising this damage by not even acknowledging the deaths, the genocide for which I'm grateful for you to bring that in. The ecocide that is happening, the harm that we are not explicitly referring to. While we are having this discussion today, just now there has been an air alert in Ukraine, which means Russian bomb can fall anytime, anywhere and bring more harm and more deaths. And it breaks my heart to hear both sides of the story, multiple sides of the story, the complexity of the story. And I can see how that position renders you supposed neutrality and objectivity that is only possible from the position of privilege and safety that you are speaking today. And on a more practical level, because I suppose that's maybe a more rhetorical question, I would like to hear how are you working with existing on the ground initiatives here in Scotland, because we're having this conversation here today to support Ukrainian victory. Thank you. This has been and continues to be a breathtakingly brutal conflict that has, or at least I think, we have tried to acknowledge and perhaps not acknowledged sufficiently clearly, that has first and foremost had an incredibly difficult impact on the people of Ukraine. I don't think there's any doubt about that. We're in a position today, I think, where we can't say with any degree of authority how many people have died, the injuries, the longer term impacts on individuals, on communities, on families, the separations, the longer term impacts. I don't think anybody would want to in any way suggest that that is not at the heart of what we're discussing here. And I think that to take a second and acknowledge that is entirely appropriate. And then if we can use that to say we think the impact on people is so horrendous that we want to stop it and we want to try and ameliorate that as much as we possibly can. And to move to that conversation I think necessarily puts us into a conversation about politics, about organisations, about mechanisms for achieving that aim. And we do so and we highlight that point. Acknowledging that there are so many different actors involved in this, the terrain is multifaceted. You have military, you have civilian, you have third sector, you have private corporations, you have so many people who have some role in this conflict. OK, thank you. Yes, I will add that the topic of Ukrainian conflict is really multifaceted. There's just so many dimensions to this conflict and currently it's conflict that involves much of the world. That's where the implications are really far, far going in terms of the economic implications but also in terms of political implications. So many various organisations that are involved in these processes but absolutely share the sentiments of the commenter and this is a conflict that has personally affected so many million people and definitely have been involved in quite a lot of ground level projects and have family in Ukraine myself who live in Chernigov region, pretty much on the front lines and who goes through all these daily alarms, all these air rate alarms. So I absolutely share the sentiments. Professor Zbuk. Well, I should say this is an epic tragedy for the Ukrainian people and when I say this may be the stalemate that will last for another year, I say it with tremendously heavy heart because I know it translates into tens of thousands of killed, wounded, maimed orphans and so on and so forth. The human dimension is all about the war. It's not the battle of machines, it's the battle of humans. So the Russian government launched that tragedy, no doubt about it. And back to my previous attempt to say that European thinking revolves around three ideas how to end this war. One, and the least practical idea is pacifism to outlaw this war and so on and so forth. It's evil. Let's stop fighting. Some people in Rome may have thought so and this is totally dismissible, of course. The second idea is humanisation of war to make it more human, stop abducting children, stop targeting civilians, stop doing this, stop doing that. We see that it's not happening, right? And the final idea is sort of the most popular idea today to end this war through quick victory of some sort. But unfortunately we're not seeing this scenario being effectrated as well. There was a brief hope returning to my previous argument to force Russia to end this invasion by crushing its economy and crushing its finances and it didn't work out. So right now we're looking at the battlefield trying every day to see any signs of what is going on. And unfortunately we're not seeing any decisive changes. So we are going back to square one, unfortunately. And those people who compare the current campaign to World War One increasingly has a point, I'm afraid. Can I thank you for your question and your point and I agree we should hear from more Ukrainians and I know there's a lot of hands up still and if there's anyone from Ukraine who wants to ask a question please let me know. I'll give you the yes. I'm just wondering what the panel think of the possibility if the war does continue for another year. Could you ever see a position where there could be an imposed settlement perhaps through the UN where Russia gets to keep certain parts of territory but in exchange for a secure Ukraine which is a member of NATO and a member of the European Union? Is that possible or would Russia just never accept that? Briefly. I don't think Russia is ready to make any concessions especially of that type. So maybe we would see some significant changes in a year's time but that's definitely not the current state of things. I'm going to move to another question if that's all right. Has anyone had their hand up a long time and I've just not seen you? I'll go to yourself. Wait for the mic. Thank you very much. I'm Colin Fox from the Scottish Socialist Party. It's a delight to be back here in the Parliament 20 years after I was elected. I wonder if I could ask three brief but it seems to me central questions that have come out of the questions that you asked here. One is isn't it possible to interpret what we're facing with the war in Ukraine? We draw on the conclusion that this isn't in fact a conflict that began in February 2022. That in fact it's a conflict that's been ongoing within Ukraine for more than two decades. Principally concerned with Ukraine's membership of NATO and Ukraine's membership of the European Union. Which has been promised to the people of Ukraine for that period of time. That's the first question because to me that's been missed so far in the presentations that have been raised. In other words that this isn't a conflict that began in February 2022 is much longer. 2014 of course. Well there you are so 10 years ago. In other words there's been an internal conflict within Ukraine itself for at least a decade or more. And it's important to understand the history otherwise you won't understand the present. The second thing is chair is that you said in your answer you asked the question 8. Isn't it a fact the question that Ukraine hasn't been listened to? And couldn't it be interpreted that in fact there has been voices within Ukraine arguing for EU membership and NATO membership within the country for that period of time that are delusional mistaken. And we're sitting here today isn't it the case that both membership of the EU and membership of NATO is a long long way off for Ukraine even at the present time. And the third question chair is I was struck by question 9. You seem to be incredulous to how on earth Putin could have made such a mistake as he did in 2022. And it seems to me surely it's not as difficult as the three panellists have suggested. Because Putin and the Russian regime have made it clear that they see Ukraine's membership of NATO to represent an existential threat to Russia. And therefore that is perfectly clear what their motivation is that these talks have failed for a long time. And my final point in reference to that is the panel and the discussion over an hour. Talk very much about Russian imperialism rightly condemned it but made no reference to NATO imperialism, Western imperialism. The EU's imperialism which surely also has a part to play in this conflict and its understanding of the way forward. Okay there are several questions in that. I do want to give other people a chance to speak. Professor Zubot, can I come to you with perhaps that last question that Colin made there? That's a hugely contested issue of what was the impact, if ever, of the NATO enlargement and the promise by George Bush Jr in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members of NATO. If you talk to American experts they say, oh we didn't mean it, Ukraine was as far from NATO as it is until 2022. But we keep searing in on Putin and in Putin's head that was probably the red line crossed by the US president whom by the way Putin considered his partner. After the war on terror started after 9-11 Putin called Bush and hoped to work with him as a partner. So without going too much into psychology and personal psychology of Mr Putin I think that was a factor however I would not ascribe too much to the NATO enlargement. There were many other things and I think the crucial thing was really that Putin associated himself with a marginal rather marginal and bizarre view among Russian nationalists that Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are part of one superethness. That was very popular among marginal Russian imperialists and nationalists and suddenly Putin adopted this view and it became basically the driver for his actions. That's the most surprising thing about history that historians find very hard to explain when and how this cliques in the mind of the authoritarian leader. But the consequences of this are very clear, very clear. Not only Putin regarded NATO enlargement into Ukraine as an existential threat and he said it as a spokesman from the audience reminded us but he also viewed Ukraine as essentially part of Russian realm, our part of land. And I remember his speech before invasion, they think that we're invading. No, we're taking back what is ours. So this factor I think was much more important than NATO enlargement and geopolitical tension that it caused. Doctor Moray, perhaps there's other bits of this you want to come back to but I'll ask you the question about, we're listening too much to what Colin referred to as delusional voices in Ukraine arguing for EU membership. The EU like NATO as you will know as well as I require and expect as part of membership that states who join are committed to a number of things including liberal democracy and are able to ensure that their economies are going to be able to function and align with and so on. And I think Ukraine's aspiration, Georgia's aspiration, Moldova's aspiration to join the EU is motivated by a desire to be part of an organisation, a club if you will, that gives access to the largest market. There will be attendant benefits and so on. I don't need to repeat those to this audience. So there is a mechanism for joining and when that alignment is supported and facilitated, Ukraine will join and I think the European Commission, the EU has been pretty consistent in saying you absolutely will be a welcome member and this is a process. And a process that will be I think faster than if and when it materialises meaningfully because of course we're in the middle of a conflict than would have been the case prior to the conflict. A NATO is a similar with those hopes that you jump through in order to get into the organisation without going into what was promised and not in zero aid and absolutely there is a question mark in many people's minds about the clarity of the offer back then. We've just had a summit in Vilnius where again I think NATO has been absolutely clear. There is a mechanism for joining, it's the members of action plan. NATO is so cognisant of the protections that are valued by those who have joined since the organisation was created, which have incidentally resulted in the expansion that we've been talking about. The Warsaw Pact, former Warsaw Pact states who are now members of NATO wanted to join and expand at the organisation because they wanted those protections and that is the protection that Ukraine also wants. So whilst there is a question mark over when and the exact shaping associated with joining both of those organisations, I think pretty much everybody associated with that conversation acknowledges both the desire that Ukraine has and the reasons why it wishes to be and will be supported in meeting the objectives required. Anything you'd like to comment on? I would probably comment on internal conflicts within Ukraine which was one of the questions. I would agree that Ukraine had always had quite a diverse political scene with various political forces and sometimes radically disagreeing among themselves. We've had elements of pro-Russian separatism in Crimea and in Donbass in the 1990s. None of these elements developed into an armed conflict because none of these forces within Ukraine was willing or interested in taking up arms and starting a civil war essentially until 2014 when both the annexation of Crimea and the pro-Russian separatism in Donbass started because of an interference in both cases these were the armed personal, military personal which crossed the border from Russia and started each of these conflicts so within Ukraine certainly there are different political forces, different opinions as you would expect in a lot of other countries in Europe and in the world but there was certainly no appetite for starting an armed conflict from within Ukraine at that time. We have time for one brief question. Yes. Mike, Mike, Mike. Thank you. Yes. I'd like to ask about economic issues. The sanctions imposed on Russia, yes, but the UK and other countries are buying cheap goods from India and China. Increasingly electric vehicles and so forth used with subsidised Russian gas and oil. The search for the rare earth metals for the green technology, Russia has a great number. Ukraine has great reserves too, particularly the Donbass area. China, of course, and India. I'm looking to the future. China and India are benefiting economically and the indigenous people of the world are suffering. There are reserves in the Congo, there are reserves in South America and in Brazil and what not. So we have to kind of look, the biggest battle perhaps is to save the planet, to save life on earth and how is the conflict in Ukraine helping when so much, so many petrochemical industry and arms, all the traditional carbon producing companies are benefitting in some way or other, particularly western companies, they're thriving. So just a mixture of economic issues. Thank you. Okay, would you like to come back to that? I'll probably catch up later. Yeah, okay. Dr Money, any thoughts on that? I mean, if I'm understanding your question, it's that we should be focusing on something else or because my question always with this is what do you think the alternative is? Isn't there a person, I've got to interject. I've got the purpose here. I think there's a challenge there in Ukraine. Thank you. And that probably leads us to my question is there's a challenge in Ukraine of, I think there is, you're alluding to like a resource grab. And I think as the environment becomes more challenging and growth of food, et cetera, becomes worse, you'll see more nations looking at metals for, you know, metals for phones. You look at China and Taiwan, you look at Russia and you look at Ukraine, which is like seen as the red basket of Europe. You know, it's always seen as a, and I do wonder why nothing happened in when Crimea was annexed, why there was so little news reaction. You know, obviously I was around at that time. I don't remember seeing a huge wave of information. I remember seeing something on the news about something happening somewhere in Europe, but there wasn't the reaction. And I do, I would love to understand why there was such a lack of reaction then and how much that's contributed to where we are now. Okay, we have time for just one person to respond. Perhaps I can ask you, Professor Zubock. Yes. No doubt the weak reaction after the annexation of Crimea created a certain narrative that's involved in Putin. We all know it. At the same time, you know, why that reaction was weak, you know, it's tempting to look at Obama, the Obama presidency as being sort of reticent and tired of the two long wars the United States were having at the time in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to be forgotten, that ended shortly before the before Putin's war. But I think, and it may be just my imagination, but you know, the United States is is the leader of the global liberal order and looking from Washington at the world, everything is so entangled, including oil and gas markets, energy markets, including such a chain supply, and everything. And you know, it was just Washington was not ready that such a challenge, such a bold stroke against this world order could have been could be delivered from Moscow, and was reluctant to approach this question. But indeed, we seem today with the second year of the war coming to the end rapidly that how many things already have changed in the world and changing the fundamental way. The military warfare was revolutionized by the war in Ukraine. Aside from fears of China's imminent invasion of Taiwan, we're now thinking of automated and robotic drones used on massive scale. And this should send all the generals of all armies to redraw their contingency plans right now. In economic sphere, the war has shaped the global energy and food markets. Europe stopped buying Russian gas and so on and so forth. India and China are beneficiaries of this. The coordination of global climate policies appears in jeopardy. The rivalry over the Arctic intensified. The earth orbit became again a field of global competition and potential conflict. We live in a new world and it is just a regional European war. Not a global war that we're having. So we have to face it with sobriety and responsibility, I guess. Thank you. I'll take that as your final thoughts and I'll just ask the other panellists to just have one minute roughly to anything you want to add, anything you don't feel that we managed to touch on. Yes, I think just to round up, certainly the conflict is in its really complex stage at the moment. But we are likely to see some developments, maybe not over the next six months, but possibly over the next year. And we don't know whether this will be something that will be encouraged by events on the battlefield or events in the broader world on the economic sphere. But there are likely to be some changes in the direction, so I'll wait for them. Final thoughts from yourself. This has been a global shock. We, I think, see with Ukraine that war is not passé, nor is it far away. We see that alliances matter. We see the horrendous impact of conflict on individuals. We see that traditional threats remain, that hard power is still incredibly important and the ability to protect yourself remains critical. And that security is multifaceted. So to the last point about all of the different vectors and nodes, these things relate to each other. You can't just look at one thing. You can't just look at a dimension of security, economic or environmental or societal alone. You need to understand them as being connected because if you don't, you're not going to be able to correctly and usefully and accurately determine how you can make things better. A couple of brief points before I let you go. You can fill in the survey about the festival and give feedback. You can do that automatically if you booked on Eventbrite. You'll get an email or there are paper copies of the survey at the back with little pencils. And yes, they'd appreciate your thoughts on how to improve the festival. There are many more events taking place over today and tomorrow and Friday. There's a discussion on 25 years of devolution in the UK at six o'clock today. And there's an in-conversation discussion with Michael Portillo at 1pm tomorrow and many others. So I hope you can join us. I'd like to thank you for your insightful and thoughtful questions and debate. And I'd like to thank our panellists, Professor Zuwbok and Dr Alef and Dr Murray. Thank you very much.