positions affected the meeting in any way? >> it's interesting, yes, they're both in relatively weaker positions than they were, say, a year or two ago but make no mistake russia is definitely the junior partner here. you know, china can do very, very well without really having much to do at all with russia. it could probably use some of russia's oils and other natural resources but china is the rising power in charge here and the relationship between china and russia has always been fraught with insecurities on the russian side, primarily. so, you know, yeah, they're both a little weaker but putin is in a much weaker position than xi is at this point? we've seen russia ramping up attacks on ukraine over the last few days. where is this headed? what do you make of that? >> well, that's the big question, where is it headed and how long will it take to get there? right now we're in a phase, the winter phase where the russians