 Good afternoon to everyone. I mean, I'm a president of Eurasia Group. I am not surprised that this room is completely packed, despite the fact that there are no Russians attending. Everyone else at the forum is deeply interested in what they are up to. And we all, the panel, recognize a lot of you here. We have 45 minutes for a very lively conversation on what's next for Russia and the implications for the rest of the world. Let me start by introducing my esteemed panelist, Alex Stubb, who is director of the School of Transnational Governance, the European University Institute. Of course, also former prime minister of Finland. Karen von Hippel, the director general of Russi, and then Samir Saran, who's the president of the Observer Research Foundation, three serious global thinkers to talk about a very serious global issue. So let me start, which is, if we want to talk about the future of Russia, and we don't have any Russians here to discuss it with, I need to, I'm stuck with you, on what you think the Russians think. I've heard so many people say that, well, we can't move to a negotiated settlement because the Ukrainians think they're gonna win and the Russians think they're gonna win. You can't, you never get a peacefire, ceasefire when that happens. Do the Russians really think they're gonna win at this point? Do you believe that? And if they don't, what are the implications of that for how Russia is likely to behave in the coming months? Let's make it easier. Let's not talk long-term. Alex, start with you. I guess I'm the natural start because Finland gave Russia its independence in 1917. Absolutely. So, and that says, you know, we're very close to it. I don't know what the end game of this is going to be. I think in Georgia, the case was much easier. I mediated the ceasefire there with Bernard Kushner as foreign minister. It was five days and two frozen conflicts. But this one is too difficult to define because Zelensky can't give up. We saw his speech a little bit earlier and it's much easier to defend your country and your identity than to attack. Russian military is actually quite weak, surprisingly weak. And it's very difficult for Putin to define a victory. I think it has to be a territorial definition. So therefore, for Putin, it's only Donetsk, perhaps a little bit more, and Crimea, whereas for Zelensky, he could never approve that. That's why I'm thinking we're in day 88 of the war. The Finnish winter war was 105 days. This is going to go way beyond that. Much longer. I don't have an answer for where this is going to end. Because there's no stable equilibrium in the near future from your perspective, Alex. Truly. There's no stable equilibrium whatsoever. The only thing that we can hope for, I guess, is regime change. But even in that case, I don't know that we'll get a softer leader for Russia. And you know that in Russia, all leaders are supreme. They get their prerogatives either from God or the class. So, Karen, thank you for opening. Do you think the Russians see an outcome that they can announce as a victory, both in Ukraine, as well as what it means for their relationship more broadly with NATO? So thank you, Ian, and thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be with all of you today, even though all of you are sitting in the dark. It's hard to see who's in the room. I guess, first, I know this is an obvious point, but I would distinguish between Russians and Putin because it's really Putin's war, and we don't want to vilify the Russian people. Even Russian soldiers who were getting killed, they didn't know what they were getting into at the start. So I do think this is Putin's war. And what does Putin think? I don't think any of us know. Everyone's been trying to second guess what he thinks. Does he even watch Western television? I have no idea if he even knows what others are saying about him. And people who I ask who follow this very closely, they also don't know. And so it's hard to say, are people telling him the truth? Does he know what's going on? And what are his red lines? It's hard to say right now. The distinction between offensive and defensive weapons has evaporated. Those coming from the West, we weren't sure if we provided offensive weapons. That might be a red line. We just don't know yet with him. And so there's a lot of, there's too many unknowns out there. Does it worry you that things that were clearly red lines for a lot of countries in the West two months ago, literally over weeks vanished, whether it's the type of weapons that are provided or the real-time intelligence that's being provided or the level of sanctions is gonna be provided. I mean, literally on every one of those issues, things that a couple months ago, after the Russians had already invaded, you said, no, that's too far. Now they're not. What does that say to you? I think it actually says that the Russians are overwhelmed by what's happening. They might be red lines and they might have been red lines, but I'm not sure they're capable of responding in the way that they would have done if they had actually spent money on modernizing their military, right? They're in a very different place than everybody thought they would be. Samir, do you think red lines for the Russians have been crossed at this point and what do you think the outcome is likely to be? No, I would agree with Karen. I think even if they have been, I don't think there's too much coming by way of any fresh response. Pretty much everything that was in the toolkit has been deployed, other than, of course, something that none of us would want. And I think that's something that should worry us. At what point are you cornered enough to think about? Let's be honest here. Let me even go back to your conversation with Alex. I think the difference with Karen, in fact, with Russia and Putin, I think you came out with two distinctions, Russia, Russians and Putin. I think one of the trends we need to watch as we look ahead is will that distance increase or will that now start converging? And if it starts converging, then we are in for a terrible decade in Europe because we know a Russian society which unites against some sense of assault is resilient. And we could be in for a long haul. So I think that is a good trend to watch, the distinction between Russians and Putin. And the second is the equilibrium you mentioned earlier, Ian. I don't think the two equilibrium that work are desirable for both. One is, of course, a certain annexation of a certain territory and we create a new line in the map and everyone lives happily ever after. That's not going to happen now. So that equilibrium is not on the table and it's not certainly going to lead to peace. The second is a complete Russian retreat and basically go back to the pre-Kryma times and literally make peace and begin new. That the Russians are not going to agree to. And I agree with Alex that even if you were to think about regime change, I fear that the next person who comes in will not come here to undo what Putin did but to complete what Putin wants to do. And I think that is also a risk we should be considering as we think about it. So I think we are in for a tough period ahead. It's difficult to predict. Now, Karen, how much of a Russian retreat should the West want? In other words, I mean, you hear the NATO allies that are saying, oh, we could take them out of Crimea potentially. I mean, clearly the interest in all the territory that was taken post-February 24th but what about that that was informally occupied? What about the attacks that are on Belgrade? What about the degradation of the Russian military? I mean, different Western leaders have said different things about what the desired outcome is. What do you think the West should be looking for as an outcome here? The West is saying it's up to the Ukrainians, obviously, to decide when they want to compromise and how. I think the Russians, they're pulling back to a degree, but as Samir is saying, it's just so hard to know what they can go back home and describe as a victory. So, you know, sorry, I'm creeping my eyes. It's hard to know, I'm sorry, I'm distracted a bit. Ian, could you start over with a question? No, sure. The question was, what do you think the Western interest should be? Right, and at the moment we're seeing divisions starting to appear even amongst NATO allies, I think the French and the Germans want more of a compromise. The Americans in particular are now saying, you know, that victory is possible. NATO Secretary General has even said, Ukraine could win this, whereas before... And the Germans and the French privately are saying, we should not be saying that the Ukrainians can win this. So I'm asking, where do you come down on that a lot? Yeah, look, it really depends on how long this goes on for because I think, you know, Russia could just go for broke. It's hard to see any of us living with Putin after this. I think we'll probably talk about this a bit later, but assuming that they win this somehow, I don't see how any Western country can shake his hand in the future. He is already an international pariah. So, in a sense, there's no going back to where we were with Putin. Some countries may, but many Western countries won't. And then, what does that mean for him? Is he going to feel so much against the wall that he may do something really scary, which many of us are worrying about, something like a nuclear weapon or tactical nukes? Or will he just declare victory and try to rearm and prepare to go back again? But while he is alive, while he is a president of Russia, I don't think he's ever going to give up on this vision that Ukraine is part of Russia. Alex, of course I have to go to Finland. You told me a couple of months ago that Finland was going to join NATO. You were a little bit ahead of the country, but not by much. They clearly are moving in that direction very fast. The Russians initially said, you know, there would be military consequences. There was some nuclear-saber rattling. It feels, at least in the last few days, they've walked that back a little bit. Is that an accurate read? How do you see the Russian reaction to what is almost certainly, or certainly likely, to be an expansion of NATO to involve a very significant piece of the Russian border? Yeah. I mean, I guess we should go back. I mean, I've been an advocate of Finnish NATO members for the better part of 30 years, very much in a minority. But things in Finland changed overnight on the 24th of February. We used to be 50% against, 20% in favor. Overnight, it was the other way around. Now the latest opinion poll is roughly 80% in favor. So it's a bit North Korea at the time I was in the parliament, voted 188 in favor and 8 against. First time I've heard you compete with those two countries. Yeah, I know. It's a tough one. It's a tough one. So basically, you know, it was something driven by rational fear. And the whole idea was that Finnish security policy has been based on a combination of idealism and realism. Idealism in the sense that we wanted Bonafideh to cooperate with Russia. When you have 1,340 kilometers of border with Russia, you want them to be more like Sweden than, you know, like what they are, right? But then at the same time, we have one of the largest standing militaries in Europe with 900 reserves, myself and Björklund included. We have 280,000 that we can mobilize in wartime. We have 62 F18s. We just bought 64 F35s. And we didn't buy them because of Stockholm, right? So this was the sort of balance. Now the Russian reaction has actually been very moderate. I mean, when Putin and Lavrov say that Finnish and Swedish NATO membership is not a threat to Russian security, then you know that we're OK. So it's been very moderate. We expect some cyber attacks, you know, homepages going down, perhaps the banking system attacked, a lot of information stuff, but conventionally no. But what's your theory for why they've backed down publicly the way they have? Well, two reasons. One is that they will see Finnish and Swedish NATO membership as a Nordic model of the alliance. So that means that you've had Norway, Iceland and Denmark as members since the foundation in 1949. And they haven't seen them as threats. So in that sense, they don't see our enlargement as an aggressive one. I think it was pretty cool, actually, that my president said when he was asked in a press conference with Boris Johnson that who should be blamed for this was he said, I think Putin should look himself in the mirror. That, you know, this is Putin's enlargement. And in that sense, it's not an aggressive one. And I think they'll be quite calm about it in the future. The second reason is, you know, I think the Russian military, I'm not an expert, but it is struggling in Ukraine right now. And you can't multitask. You can't go onto two fronts and they want to keep the eye on the ball in Ukraine at the moment because this war is as much as I'd like to say that, you know, mixing Putin. This is Putin's war. It's about his legacy. He wants to see himself next to the Russian greats, Stalin, Peter the Great. He wants to see a historic Russia with one language, one religion and one leader. He's not going to give up this. So in that sense, he's focused on that. And that's why he doesn't have time that much for Finnish and Swedish NATO membership. Looks like Turkey has more time for that at the moment. Samir, you heard Karen say that Russia is now an international pariah. Of course, Russia is not a global pariah. Russia is not a pariah for the world's democracies. And I'm not just talking about India. I'm talking about Brazil and South Africa and Mexico and a whole bunch of countries. Tell me how you look at the West, saying Putin is a war criminal. They need to be cut off. No Russian attendees at the Weff, Wimbledon, the Olympics. I mean, you know, whether you're talking culture or economics or... High Foki World Championships, that's the key. For example, how do you relate to that? And not just from an Indian perspective? Actually, I don't relate to it. I think they've gone bonkers. That's my response when you shut down a musical performance or a ballet performance or prevent folks from participating in sports events. I think a continent has gone mad. That's my response to it. I don't relate to it at all. It's alien. I mean, it's like me saying that Americans are not permitted in India because they threw the Afghanis under the truck. Right? Or they decided to invade Iraq and bomb them to the Stone Age. You know, the fact is that terrible things happen and we must condone them. We must oppose them. We must resist them. We must do everything under our powers to prevent them from happening again. But this Manitian binary choices is an old European obsession and God bless you for it. But I'm not going to be part of your binary decision-making. Russians, like the Karen rightly indicated, is more than Putin. And I think the test for the relationship that Russia has with the rest of the world, and I think that's your question, is going to be whether the Russian proposition, post what's happened now, is attractive and compelling and offers some benefits to the rest of the world. And I suspect, and this is now, so listen, I like the Europeans. I'm married to one. So don't get me wrong. But I think the challenge for Russia is going to be that there will be very few takers for Russia generally. And that's what I was discussing with Alex, that it's not whether India needs to make a choice about Russia. If Russia does not get its act together at $5 trillion, Russia has no stake in the Indian future. They have counted themselves out. It's not, if we don't have to do anything, they're doing it themselves, it's a IKEA store. So for me, I think the question is, does Russia have anything to offer to the world? And Russia, in its current state, is struggling to provide any sense of partnership, benefits and offerings. And how much has your view changed on that issue as a consequence of the invasion of Ukraine? Okay, now, on a side note, I'm not a military expert like Alex again, but if you were to look at Armenia and then Ukraine, we should really be rethinking our defense planning in many parts of the world. I think that weaponry is not doing too well. That's one take. So India should not be having such a strong defense. Like I said, I'm not a defense expert, but I suspect that many, many experts around the world would be watching these conflicts quite closely to think about their own armies and planning purposes for defense and security. Apparatuses. But as a consequence of this, I think fundamentally something has changed. Let me give you an example of the pricks. Now, there was a statement by our foreign minister a few days ago that I read, it says that there are three out of the five countries who have never violated sovereignty of anyone else and territorial integrity. That's something big coming from within a grouping conversation. So I think it is going to have consequences. The idea that it's not going to affect brand Russia going ahead is absolutely rubbish. Russia has been impacted terribly. Don't, just because people are not joining the performative chorus of Europe and condemning them and giving a screen to the man to come and make a speech doesn't mean that we like the Russians. I think there is a false assumption here that just because you're not shouting it out loud means that you have any affinity to the actions of Russia. I think there's a difference between the two. Russia has a, the Russian proposition has very few takers anywhere in the world, but condemning them and sending them to Saturn to live their life. Alex wants to jump in, but can we at least say that buying a lot more oil from the Russians doesn't mean that you are that bothered by them? So, you know, I was telling someone else in the morning, I had in the maths class, first thing that we learned was four into zero is still zero. So even if I was to buy four times more oil than Russian, it's so negligible that Germany would chew that up in the afternoon like my foreign minister mentioned. So it doesn't really matter. Me buying oil from Russia and not a factor here rather than selling a financial times, struggling newspaper somewhere. It doesn't really matter to me. I guess the basic message here is that we are in the West are misreading. I think we're looking at this crisis for understandable reasons from a very Eurocentric perspective. So for instance, we took a lot of joy in seeing the UN vote, 141 condemning Russia, 35 abstaining and four being in favor of Russia. But those 141 votes were actually quite soft. They were scrambled in basically last minute and the 35 votes that abstain, they were over half of the world's population. So basically the rest of the world, Asia, India, Africa, which is often non-aligned, China, even Latin America are telling us a story. They're saying that, listen, this is your war. It's once again a European war. Yes, it's about your territorial integrity. We understand where you're coming from, but listen, it has ramifications on us, on inflation, on food prices, on energy prices, and therefore sort out your own mess. And in that sense, I don't wanna draw too big of a conclusion from this, but there is this element of a 1989 moment in the sense that we believe then that this is the end of history, everyone is gonna go to liberal democracy, social market, economy, and globalization. And that didn't really happen. And in that sense, the West needs to re-figure that are we looking at a value-based world order, which we've been pushing either through war or otherwise, or are we looking at a rules-based world order? So one thing that I think that you two agree on, and maybe Karen as well, we just haven't gotten to you yet, is that Biden's statement of this is about democracies versus autocracies, you would say that was a mistake. Well, I'm not saying it's a mistake, because to be honest, I think this administration has done a great job. I'm an avid transatlanticist, and I'm really excited that Finland is going to the NATO and thanks Joe Biden and the rest of it. But I think it's too simplistic to say that we're moving towards some kind of a new cold war with a liberal world order and an authoritarian world order. I think the alliances are going to be much more flexible than what we are used to. I also don't think that we're going towards an air which is a lot of the talk here at the WEF of de-globalization. I think we'll have more regionalization of globalization, but it's not going to go away. And that's why I saw one really interesting one. I don't remember which minister it was, who said that, yeah, all of you Westerners are talking about de-globalization. But if we look at it here in our part of the world, Asia, it's never been stronger. It's just that it's not an American or European globalization. I think these are kinds of things which feel uncomfortable for us, but we need to have a conversation about them. So I'm going to go to Samir, and then I'm going to ask Karen about China. But before I do, I just want to let the WEF know that I don't know what the time is. And so if someone can put a timer. I have a Finnish watch called Sudento, a little product placement, a great sports watch, 1337. Yes, just so I know when we need to go to questions, if you can show me, because we are going to go to questions. I want you to stand up when I call on you, say who you are, and I'll make sure that we get to a bunch of people. But please, Samir. So autocracies versus democracies is Americanism. It's the bumper sticker view of the world. And Americans love the bumper sticker. So that's a global politic explain in a bumper sticker. So let's leave that aside. But I think the question here is that how long before will the world start blaming the West for the inflations that they are experiencing at home? Food security issues, energy crisis, economies tumbling down. And when will a larger chunk of the global 141 countries who voted for going to change their mind? And they're going to start beginning to realize that the weaponization of the financial system, swift energy, food, is not just a Russian action. It is also the response to the Russian action that is causing it. And I fear that may be another factor in the days ahead as the world realigns itself around this particular. So let me ask you, from your perspective, which of these geopolitical gaps is more structural and significant? The gap between Russia and the G7 or NATO? Or the gap between the developed world and the development world? The latter. Because? You don't get us, and we don't get you. I think this... Well, Russia and NATO don't get each other either. Listen, that's a European problem. Let's solve it. Our problem is that globalization meant coming out of Europe, right? So I think the gap, the symmetry, or the asymmetry, in our understanding of many of the positions you have taken more recently as a group, as a continent, as a bunch of nations, seems to resonate less in many other parts of the world. And I think it could be a comms issue. And maybe we need to rework on how we communicate with each other. But it could also be that we are different. And that's why we have different sovereignities and constitutions. I mean, if I was American, I would have taken the American constitution. We didn't, right? We built our own constitution, so we don't necessarily agree with how the world needs to be shaped. So I think there is a political realism that needs to also be injected into how we assess each other. We were meant to be different people. That's why we chose our own ways of managing ourselves. We decided to engage in trade and be good to each other and communicate and travel. And we need to continue to strengthen that. But to somehow assume that because we signed on to the WTO, we all agree to how the world must look like in the future. The homogeneity is not going to be there. It's going to elude us. So, Karen, you look like you want to get in on that. I'll let you do that before I ask you about China. Yeah, just two quick points. I mean, it's interesting, Samir. You didn't mention, you didn't blame China for the pandemic in many ways. And that sort of... I did. I wrote, like, six papers on it. Okay, look, just now... But no one retweeted it, so I stopped mentioning it. Okay, no, it's just that... There's a lot of blame that can go around, right? All over the world. I mean, it's not just... And China hasn't taken any responsibility for potentially turning an endemic into a pandemic. But... But, I mean, epidemic, sorry. But, you know, the... And the Indians are on record as generally not liking the Chinese at this point. The Quad is kind of based on that, right? So we have that. The West versus the rest, it's more... There's Russia and China, and I think China is sort of second-guessing some of its, you know, close embrace right now of Russia. Then there's the West. And then there's the former non-aligned movement in a way that is probably going to act in a similarly non-aligned way that it used to and not necessarily sign up for everything. And so what we may end up with, which is kind of an interesting return to political science theory, for those of you who studied David Mitrani, is a form of functionalism where different countries and groupings come together for a common purpose, and then when that purpose is over, that it ends. I mean, I don't think many people think that the UN can solve any of these problems anymore, right? So people talk about global governance. You know, the UN has not just failed in this particular case, but it has failed over the last few decades in so many ways. I am a former UN employee. I'm a fan of the UN, but I, you know, deeply disappointed in the fact that it's not able to provide the global leadership that we need in a time like this. Even the Secretary General today has been doing an amazing job trying to get people out of Mariupol, but more of the time than not, he admires the problem rather than tries to lead and provide that kind of good offices. Alexis, you want to jump in? Yeah, I guess one of the problems is that the multilateral system, which was created in a bipolar cold war with the Soviets and the Americans, were created sort of in the image of the victors of World War II. I mean, you can post the question about why is France, why is the UK sitting in the US Security Council, right? I mean, you can post the question legitimately now, 70 plus years later. And if you want to have a rules-based system, you need to have the bigger players have some kind of role as well. I know this is a little bit paradoxical and some people push back on this, but I think we need to start thinking about that a little bit. A couple of additional points on China. You know, I don't think, you know, I met Xi Jinping a couple of times when he was vice president and I think I was foreign minister. I think he's, he doesn't, he wasn't very happy that this took place because he wanted to focus on domestic things, two things actually, zero COVID policy, which is going to fail totally because you can't contain a virus. And then the party congress in October, November. Now, does he want Putin to lose? No, but I think Russia will become, if I may, a bit of a vassal state to China. China is not gonna, and a lot of people say it's gonna pivot to Russia. No, it's not. It's gonna oscillate between the two, the West and Russia, because it wants to avoid secondary sanctions because the business stock in Europe is 800 billion per annum, whereas in Russia it's under 80 billion. What it will do is the normal Chinese thing. In other words, create past dependencies inside Russia. So when we go out because of sanctions and power vacuums emerge, boom, the Chinese will go in and do the investment. So that's what I'm saying. There's a lot of interesting shifts going on in this whole package. And so Karen, do you see the Chinese on balance as having more opportunities that come out of this crisis or is it much more of a challenge for them? It's a great question. I actually think China could have an incredible opportunity. I think President Xi is one of the only people that Putin listens to or is even afraid of. And if China were able to put pressure on Putin to end this war somehow, not only would China emerge in the global leadership position that many think it has come to, being now a superpower, playing a positive role, but it would also go a long way to repair its relationship with the United States. So it could be a fundamental shift if China can play that role. Now at the moment, I don't see China interested in playing that role. And it hasn't indicated that it would, if anything, you watch Chinese media and they just repeat a lot of the Russia propaganda. So they're not there yet, but it doesn't mean they can't be there. Now I want to turn to the audience. Can you please raise your hands and I'll call on you. Last question for me, quick one before we go. And I'll start there, which is President Zelensky, who I've not actually mentioned, and I really should before we go to Q&A, right? He comes out of the last three months stronger, an international hero, vastly more support, more well-armed military. Alex, do you think that Putin is remotely willing or capable to live with that reality? Or are we sort of destined for another Russian and bite at the apple if they're capable of doing it at some point in the future? The answer is no, he's not capable to live with this because obviously, not only in the West, but in general, we are still seeing a grand aggressor attacking a small aggressor. And then we see a villain in Putin and a hero in Zelensky. But may I just sort of lift a slight warning finger and just sitting and listening to Zelensky's speech today and looking at the general mood, not only here in Davos, but I think in the West, I think we're approaching the moment of what I call war fatigue, which means that we are into day 88 or 89 of the war and we lose a little bit of that, how would I say, intensity and emotion that we've had with it. I mean, a lot of us on Twitter, of course, we follow it every day and we try to sort out and try to understand, but this solidarity, outpour of solidarity and unity and actually effective decision-making that I've never seen coming out of the European Union or this sort of New Chance Atlantic Alliance or even Finland and Sweden going into NATO, this is gonna start turning when summer comes in. And what happens is that instead of looking at the solidarity aspects of, you know, we feel for the Ukrainians, a lot of people are gonna start looking at their own situation. And we are in a situation where we're gonna see an economic downturn which is gonna be combined with inflation, which is gonna be a stagflation, which can be higher energy prices, higher food prices. And on top of that, we have over 5.5 million refugees in Europe now. So what I'm trying to say is that to keep up the public support here for the war, whether you're Zelensky or whoever, is gonna be extremely difficult. And that's why we're starting to see a little bit of cracks in the European Union. One word answer, who gets fatigued faster? The Americans that are farther away and don't care as much than the Europeans that have a lot more to sacrifice and lose. Probably Europeans. Question to you, sir. Hi, Bill Browder. I'm the head of the Magnitsky Global Justice Campaign. This question for Samir. One of the big, the huge elephant in the room is the Putin weaponizing the price of food by restricting the export of grains from Ukraine is having an effect on, as we just said, on food prices and fatiguing people. But it's particularly fatiguing the developing countries of the world, the less well-off countries of the world, countries like India, and countries like most of those countries that said this has nothing to do with us. And so I'm trying to reconcile, and you don't have to answer on behalf of the entire non-Western world, but since you made the point, I'm trying to reconcile this attitude that this is a problem of the Western world. Nothing to do with us. You guys fight it out yourself. We're gonna abstain with the fact that you're probably gonna bear a bigger price and more political instability and potentially starvation for not getting involved. Samir, thank you, Bill. It's calm. So I think it's like, sorry, can I reply or are you gonna collect some? No, no, you go. So I think it sounded a bit like I've heard others tell me in this very room that you guys are going to burn because of climate change. Why don't you stop burning coal? It sounded a bit like that, that somehow a European conflict becomes my burden to bear. Now, of course, we understand that. We understand that conflict causes hardships. And I did mention that the question that the politics is going to respond to is that who does the non-Western world blame for that hardship? That's the point I was trying to raise. I'm not going into the physics of it. And you said it's a comms question. Yeah, and I said, the point I was not trying to, at all, obviate the very importance of what you've just asked me, Bill. My question is, who do you blame for it? I think if we were to do a poll, today you might get a certain answer in three months, it might be very different. And that's the point I'm trying to make, that are we going to start seeing the weaponization of everything that has happened in this particular conflict, from the Swift system to taking away people's reserves to bank accounts, we've seen a weaponization of everything. In fact, when I, sorry, I'm going to take 30 seconds, because it's important. When we were designing the Ricina Dialogue last month, and I went to a very senior finance ministry official and asked them that what should we be discussing about the pandemic response, recovery, economy? No, we should be talking about the weaponization of supply chains, the weaponization of the financial supply chains. Everything that we were told was a given is no longer true. And many countries in the world are worried and they depend on dollars, and when they depend on certain kind of Western institutions for their survival. So yes, the food is a very important question, and we are all going to have to find a way to manage it. So what I'm hearing is that, you just don't like big power unilateralism. Correct. Which manifests in different ways, please. Because it's a business audience here as well. I mean, the way in which I want to think about things is that we've now had this sort of 30-year age of relative peace, right? But we think in geopolitics in old terms, we think it's sort of military and tanks and arms and things like that. But if we live in this world of, or age of unpeace, I think Mark Leonard's called it, where everything can be weaponized, that's where business comes in. Because the things that we're supposed to bring us together, right? Trade, information, technology, the internet, they're actually tearing us apart at the moment and in a very effective way. So because you can use sanctions as a weapon, you can certainly use currency as a weapon, you can use energy as a weapon, you can use human beings in terms of migratory flows as a weapon, you can use information as a weapon. And then we get into this sort of Hobbesian world a little bit where you can really play the power game beyond. And that's why I keep on saying that all of these people who are trying to create some kind of a construct of a new world order, where you have these poles and superpower, I don't believe in that. We live in a transnational world which is actually quite messy. And I'm quite comfortable with that actually. I don't want to be dominated by anyone. But that's the reality that I think we live in. Politics is getting less and less important and actually business is getting more and more important. Can I just... I'm gonna push back on politics being less and less important, but not today, not right now. I want Karen, go ahead, jump in. But then the questions have to be quick because I want to get two or three of them. Briefly, on the business point, I mean, don't forget, a lot of big businesses are voluntarily pulling out of Russia too, right? So they're playing that exact same card too. We've never seen it at that level before. It was famously said that the most powerful generals America had in the 20th century were General Ford, General Motors, General Atomic, General Electric. And now you have the four big tech companies cancel a whole continent or a whole country. Now that should worry a lot of countries around the world. Based on a political decision by a set of actors, you have cancelled the communication capabilities of a country. I would be worried if I was the communication minister in my country. So in another panel, we're gonna ask some American government or American corporations are the larger evil, but not right now. We have a question right here, please. Hi, I'm Jay Galla. I'm chairman of the Amarajya Group in India, also a member of the Indian Parliament. I've been listening to all of you talk about the impact on the expansion of NATO that this crisis has brought about. But nobody's speaking about non-proliferation, what's going to be the impact on non-proliferation because of this crisis. I'm sure the Ukrainians are regretting the day that they gave up their necks. Who wants to take that? Kara? I mean, we've already seen a number of other countries in East Asia, Japan, and Korea talking about getting nuclear weapons. A lot of nuclear energy is being, lots of conversations about reinvesting in nuclear energy. So, yeah, if you're an anti-nuclear energy or a nuclear weapons person, certainly this isn't a good sign and certainly a good lesson, just like Libya did the same thing, they give up their nuclear weapons and then that was the end of it. So, yeah. I'm going to try to get to two. John, you're first. Two points. John Shipman. John Shipman, double eyes, double eyes. My view, Putin is hypersensitive to perceived provocation, but also hyperresponsive to perceived license. And the mistake that many in the West made in the first 30 or 40 days in the war is that we said what we would not do and left too ambiguous what we couldn't and would do. We lost all of our NATO muscle memory of flexible response, intra-war deterrence, strategic ambiguity and gave them too much license. I would test Samir's second proposition. His second proposition was that Russia would not accept the requirement for a full withdrawal. If the Ukrainians are willing to fight for it and were able to enable it, that's a proposition that should be test. If we cannot assure a free and open black sea, how can we talk in Europe and in North America about a free and open Indo-Pacific? My argument would be that the Western Indo-Pacific tilt is dependent on some success in maintaining the European security order. On communication and messages, I would say to the Chinese and to Asians the European security order is a core interest of the West. We only invite you to respect that. I kind of want Samir to answer that because I think it'll be interesting. No, I like that Europe has core interests. I like that. But their behavior in the last 10 years hasn't reflected that. And we were told that you're empire of norms. I think that was a term that was used for EU, not empire that would have military and security interests. But I'm glad there is a military and security muscle emerging. And I hope, and by the way, we will be cheering for you, if your core interests are protected, especially against the insidious and sometimes creeping onslaught from the Chinese. And that is the test. Bullying a $1.5 trillion economy with sanctions is not bravery. But taking on a $15 trillion economy and bringing them to Keel, it would be defending core interests. And I don't think I'm seeing that sitting in issue. Alex, jump in. Just quickly, Europe used to be called a regulatory superpower. But I actually think it's become an actor in the past 10 to 12 years, whether you like it or not. Because if we live in this new world of geopolitics, actually a lot of the instruments that the European has, competition policy on big tech or trade sanctions, for instance, they are the exclusive competence of the European Union. I think the European Union was an actor in the Euro crisis. You might have liked it or not. It was an actor in the migration crisis. It certainly was an actor in COVID. And now it's an actor in the war in Ukraine, which is kind of interesting because we always belittle what the European Union does. So you should look at it as, like somebody said, as both an actor and a regulator. It's never going to be a big state or anything like that. But it certainly has a role, which is different from what it used to be. A good argument for why politics matters more, as we just suggested. Yes, please. Gov. Zadlo from Holland. What is true about the serious rumors that Mr. Putin is seriously ill and what will be the immediately consequence, what the forum thinks about, when he will hopefully peacefully pass away? Hopefully, it doesn't take too long that he hurts his health too much. What is the immediately consequence that you expect from this fact? Alex, you're geographically closest to him, so clearly you have the most insight. I can see you from your house. First observation is, I never liked this sort of psychoanalysis that a lot of Western media was doing about, you know, the state of the mind of Putin and the size of his tables and COVID isolation. I think it's a rather irrelevant argument. I met him quite a few times, and I think Bill probably as well. I mean, he's very intelligent. He's well-prepared. He's shrewd. He's cold. He's calculative. Now we're getting into sort of this physical analysis of, you know, is he eating cortisol and what's that? It's not the point. You have to understand that in Russia, ever since the 1600s, there has been a stable, strong leader with the Romanovs that came in after the age of unrest. There's only been one period where the leader hasn't reigned supreme, and that was Yeltsin from 1991 to 2000. Everyone else, there's a clear hierarchy and a full dependency on both the oligarch side and the governance side and the princess. So they can always be a rather easy transition to a new leader within the Russian system, but it's always exactly the same. So in that sense, it's almost irrelevant whether Putin is leading the show or not. What happened in 1991 after the sort of pushing away of Gorbachev, there was a yunta that came in, which was much more hardcore until then Yeltsin stood up on the tank. We just simply don't know, but I think in the West, we need to stop this, you know, medical analysis of Putin. It doesn't get us anywhere, whether it's psychological or physical. I think the second part of your question is very important, you know, what does the world look like after Putin is gone and what should we all be doing? Whether, you know, planning in the boardrooms or planning in governments to try to mitigate the negative impact if we do end up with another like-minded or a nevolny type. We just don't know, but certainly there are things we can be thinking about now and it's important to be thinking about that now. I don't think we're talking about it enough. Simira, go ahead. You know, I think I just want to pick up on Alex's point and something that you mentioned again. Listen, I think we all have to realize and especially those who believe in largely free open societies and fair business arrangements that the Indo-Pacific, the US interests, Indian interests are not independent of each other. And in some sense, I think the big project we all need to look forward towards is making the multilateral world, multilateralism work with the multipolar world. I think like Alex mentioned, it was shaped by two big powers and the winners shaped many of the ethics to their preferences. We are a very different world and I think the multilateralism is not fit for purpose anymore. It's not serving any of us. And by the way, on John's point, I think you're absolutely right. I think the Indo-Pacific and European security are linked, you know, are joined at the hips in some sense and it is impossible for the continental play to not be shaped in a certain way unless Europe stands up and Europe is standing up. And like I said, I applaud that. Many of us are going to be cheering for a strong European security presence in many of the debates of the future. Perhaps it could moderate some of the idiosyncrasies of the US, by the way, who also needs to, who's beginning to also realign many of their recent positions. So I think we need to work together and I'm hopeful that we will. I promised you lively, informative, and on time. Would you please join me in thanking.