 The European Union has been praised since February 24th as has Mokdan Klitsch once again reiterated here on stage that it has presented a unified front, that it has been able to act swiftly. Give us a sense of the discussions as much as you can from behind the doors, of course, to bring 27 nations together at a time like this and speak with one voice, cannot be easy, it could not have been easy. I know you're working at that front very diligently together with the high representative. Is the unified front of substance or do we see cracks in it already? No, I think that the level of consensus in Europe is extraordinarily high, extraordinarily high. And just to give you an example, it took two months, only two months, to set up the military mission to Ukraine. Whereas usually when we send missions to Africa, it takes one year or 18 months. But if you allow me, if I would like to make a certain comments regarding the meaning of this conflict, because if we don't concentrate and analyze the meaning of this conflict, I'm afraid that we're not going to be able to think about the question we raise, which is the way out. So if you allow me, I will make a few remarks. First, in terms of global meaning, this war, fundamentally, fundamentally marks the second death of the Soviet Union. This is for me the most important provisional conclusion. So in terms of meaning, this war, and we have to recall it, is a war of aggression conducted by a permanent member of the Security Council against an independent and sovereign state, which Russia was supposed to guarantee the security, the integrity, including Crimea through the Budabest memorandum of 1994, which carried a risk for Ukraine, because in exchange of this, it relinquished its nuclear equipment. So the cost for Ukraine was extremely high. And since we are in a Arab country in the Gulf, the best comparison is the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in 1991. Now second, the rationale of the war. Why put in wage that war? You need to read what Putin said. And he wrote a very interesting piece written in July 2021, which actually other Russians could have written, for example, Solzhenitsyn, of course, with much more talent, which means that the Ukrainian problem is not simply a Putin problem, to be a deep mistake. It's a Russian problem. And what Putin said is extremely clear. He said that Ukraine should not exist because Russia, Ukraine, Belarus belong to the same ensemble. They are the same nation. And as you know, the Russians call the Ukrainian the little Russians, and they call the Belarus people the white Russians. So in his mind, they are part of the same nation because this is part of an imperial vision of the Russian world. Now the question you could raise is, why did he wait 2022 to wage this terrible war, which fortunately went miserably for the Russian army? The date, the chronology of the war, it had been launched on February 24th. And the day before the invasion, he made a declaration in which he said that Russia will support, recognize and support militarily the two puppet governments of the east of Ukraine. And I am amazed to see that nobody knows why he made this statement on the 23rd of February. And I raise the question to all audience here, could you tell me why this declaration had been made on the 23rd of February? So I'm going to give you the answer because even the ministers of foreign affairs, Europeans were not aware of this coincidence. And it gives you an idea of the meaning of the war. The 23rd of February refers to the eighth anniversary of the fall of the pro-Russian regime in Ukraine. The day Yukushenko left Ukraine, Yanukovych, and the day after it was the beginning of the democratic process. So the question is often raised, okay, they didn't accept the independence of Ukraine, but what did they wait 2022? Here again, the explanation is quite simple. As long as the political trajectory of Ukraine was compatible with the nature of the Russian regime, it was possible for Russia to manage the situation as they manage the situation in Belarus, okay? But since 2014, the political trajectory of Ukraine became very different, far from the Russian evolution, and then started the danger to which Russia answered through the annexation of Crimea and launched the famous Green Man in the east of Ukraine. So that is the reason why he launched this war. So on our side, on our side, did we make mistakes? Yes, we made a lot of mistakes. And let me mention those mistakes, sorry to give this background, but without this background, we cannot have a serious discussion on Ukraine. The first is, and in my view, and by the way, I'm expressing here myself on a personal basis, not reflecting the views of the HIVP, so please do not quote me in a way or another. So first, we didn't have, we never had a Ukrainian policy. Our Ukrainian policy was a byproduct of our Russian policy. And it led to a certain number of uncertainty, to a certain number of mistake, hesitations, including the question of NATO, I mean, to which personally I'm not favorable in the case of Ukraine. But we didn't give right and clear, precise indication. The second and big mistake is that we didn't react to the occupation of Crimea, which I remind is part of Ukraine. Because even after during the referendum of independence, 54% of the population of Crimea voted for the independence. Of course, the figure was much, much slower than the other regions of Russia, of Ukraine, but still the majority was favorable. So we didn't react, and the worst is that the sanction against Russia after Crimea did come after the occupation of Crimea, but after the shutting down of the plane. Third, I will be brief on this, the terrible mistake we made was to increase our dependency on energy on Russia after Crimea, after Crimea. And of course, we can fully understand the reasoning of Mr. Putin, who says that those Europeans are not reacting swiftly. And I think that one of, I mean, he virtually made after that all the mistakes possible, but he underestimated the role of the United States. But just, and I will just finish on this, and I hope that we will be able to come on the way out. The commitment of the EU is dramatically underestimated. I am virtually sure that the majority here of the attendants believe that the American support is more important than the European one. It's false. The last figure, published by the Kiel Institute at the end, come to the point and said that the commitments of the European Union on the economic side and the military side are superior to the commitment of the United States. Sorry. Well, thank you so much. I mean, obviously this was the background, the historical background that you provided, certainly key here. And the last point about the Europeans actually stepping up to the plates and their aid having at least equal weight as far as Washington's contribution is concerned is taken as well noted here. We have 45 minutes left in this discussion, certainly. I do want to go through one more round and take some questions from the audience members.