Transcripts For CSPAN3 Leon 20240705

Political sociology, which i feel like thats plum line running through your work because, even when you are writing biography, be like your outstanding book. Yeltsin it really is more about the culture, sociology of russia thats producing these of leaders. So with that, tell us about particular political sociology. Well, thank you very much for being here, finding the time to be here and also for all your support while i was i was writing this book. It is not only my pleasure, its my actual job. Well, its its i think each of chapters of this book could be could be a separate book. But i wanted to give the readers. A kind of a but memorable tour of the house that putin built. And and, you know, if you think of the key concepts, ideas ideas, the policies as as colorful tiles, i tried to line them up and then cohere them in in a in a in a portrait and speaking of which, there are about two dozen photos that were to show you some of the two dozen photos as we go along. The people who know about technology than i will do it. The we took we took some of those photos straight from the net and the idea here was to show a rather than tell it thats thats the theme permeates the book its entirely based on art or raw intelligence. Its russian sources and a lots of lots of horses and lots of mouths. I had to i had to listen to and look into a couple of things preliminary the book was, a written before a or other, or rather, i started writing the concept, as you remember, was around 2018 at the time the book was title a short victorious war. I knew that there was going to be a war. At that time, i was considered an outlier and a bit nuts. Nobody believed that putin would start a war but this brings me to the theme of the book and the theme of the book, how essentially one man prime and a great and large country war and and thats the tiger he settled the tiger of militarized patriotism and and i think the adjacent scholars political call it and and very difficult to get off the tiger tiger took him to ukraine i think the relevance of this book even though even though i finished it after the invasion is first because it shows he got there but it also think irrelevant because sooner or later the war will be over and the the the russia that putin forged will stay with us and and i tried show what sort of country he created and what sort of toxic mix he pumped into his people. So i realize i neglected to. Hi im corey shockey. I lead the foreign and Defense Policy Team here, the American Enterprise institute. But tacking back to the conversation. So it sounds like your judgment is that we dont just have a putin problem, but because we have had a putin problem, we now also a russia problem, according one of the things that that struck and of course, you know, if if a book you write, first of all, does not involve. Sometimes 180 degrees from from from your original idea, then its not a good youre not thinking your way through. Yeah and secondly, if youre not surprised by by by what this book tells you. Then then again, its not a particularly good one of the things that surprised miller there were several things is precisely that and that is that. Its not a new idea. But goodness, this was really exhibit a how in a in a country with a a weak tradition of civil Civil Society weak tradition of self organization. How quick early and almost painless only elites could turn around that country and the Public Opinion and if putin proved a very demagogue largely i in part because although he positioned himself as as the soviet im sorry, as the russian patriot, you know, late 99 and 2000, he is in fact, a fervent soviet patriot and. The humiliation of the fall from the superpower ship, the trauma of of the end, the exclusive or at least thats what they have considered their exclusive exalted position in the world as a counterpart. Incidentally, not just political geopolitical or military, but moral to the united states, which, of course, is the country that matters to russia. That that the democrats of the nineties and late eighties underestimated the trauma he felt it and he among other things, played up and and kind of parasitized on the humiliation that people felt and humility could be a source of a very albeit dark power. I mean hitler germany after the defeat in world war one there are other there are many examples of this so he he felt that he it up and of course in the end he told the not only will they defeat you but i will restore the the glory of the soviet union. I will recover for you the not just thats his domestic agenda political and they economic assets that were lost in the soviet collapse, but will recover for you. The geostorm assets as well. And we know from the Public Opinion polls that which i actually cite rather extensively in the book, that he was wildly successful and and you mentioned kind of the fragility of of trend of in a time of transition. What about the role of civil because i think of that this superpower of freedom a buffer in in societies in freedom is more established and especially in the rambunctious sense of this society would would a stronger Civil Society was stronger Civil Society possible . Did we miss opportunities . Did russians opportunities and do you think it would have made any difference or was there power of the storm that has unleashed in russian going to overpowered even that . I think there was a really burgeon Civil Society at the end of the eighties and in the nineties what i call the gorbachev yeltsin. Ive written theres a collection of essays russias revolution i i collected some some of pieces that i wrote it was amazing i mean they the politics burgeoning the there was an absolute freedom of the press there was a unleashed private the art the culture just boomed. But i i think it was not enough there ten years is not enough and and was you there was an actual resistance of course along the way. But putin went very cleverly about this. So if well look at it as as and it was that was many other but it was certainly it be considered part of a reaction or a restoration that follows any great revolution and and here those restorations are never sort of about the blank negations of what happened. I mean if you look at the you know, at what happened after the french revolution, british and of course the Russian Revolution revolution, whether they leave institutions of as they were certain institutions that that revolutions brought about, but they hollowed out, they corrupted them they they kind of destabilized them from within. And what putin did was he the he left the duma, the parliament, but within within the first two terms, 2000 to 2008, they became a shell. One of the things i think you discover for one that that. Money works sometimes is more effective than terror. And so and so the leaders of the parties, some of some the people i see in this in this room studied with me the what happened in the nineties. Goodness the communists of of the Russian Federation were fire breathing dragons. I mean they were after yeltsin, you know, remember yeltsin was was almost impeached twice the in the in the duma vote something that sounding outlandish. Absolutely fantastic today but but what happened what in fact i was wondering you know 2017 is of course the 100th anniversary of the great october revolution, which under different circumstances would have been sort of a as a fire or of of of firestorm of red banners, speeches and nothing, nothing Nothing Happened in 2017. That is really interesting and so there are threats out there money. There is money there are threats. There are also very real possibility that youll go to jail on some fantastic term. There was a a story recently about a an unnamed a member of, the russian parliament, the duma, the lower house who came to the Deputy Director for domestic politics, the guy the name of kirilenko. And he said, i cant take it anymore. Im resigning two days later, there was a a raid of his sons business and, his wifes business as well. And on the third day, he came back to korea and he said, sorry, i take it back and carry and carry on, because certainly russia very good. Excellent. And the and that is how putin structured that system. And and the hollowing out. And of course, you know one by one by one the formerly Russian Television including mtv air which probably was one of the worlds best most superficial made and staffed by truly talented people. I remember, i believe was very early in push in putins 2000 and 2001 when they took over the mtv, there was a at the pushkin square in moscow. Several thousand people, everybody regretted it. And thats where it ended and that that link is the distinction between manipur nation of elites and how you that dynamic taking in the Broader Society intimidating jailing a few thousand people from a protest casts a pall. What else did they what else did putin and his apparatchiks do on the broad public scale . Thats that stamp did out well you you go by example all you know you you arrest and then try twice for a very lengthy prison term the richest man in russia Mikhail Khodorkovsky you take over the largest and most modern Russian Company yukos and through a set of rigged auctions is the state becomes the owner. You have other example tells you you take like i said you take over the tab there you dont you know these days of course you you are repressed. Whats interesting is that putin now brought that that his russia to a more repressed state than was the late soviet union. I mean i dont remember the seventies the terms of 25 years in jail as is navalny is now serving or 19 years as as my dear friend of the karamurza is serving that simply didnt exist i mean those types of terms were for turn spies treasonous but you didnt need the term they just shot them so so that he he is now now its much naked display of force but before remember agree i said that that the overarching goal of of putins rule certainly two terms was to recover for state the new russia the geopolitical domestic political and economic assets that were in the soviet collapse. And so he proceeded very methodically his with what lenin called the commanding heights of the economy gas, oil, largest companies. And the message you were asking me how hes done it. The message after khodorkovsky arrest was to all the socalled oligarchs and tycoons, you dont own your businesses. You managed them on behalf of the state. Sure enough, by your chateaux in france build yachts that that have swimming pools and, hockey rinks, built palace on lake como. But remember, this is this could be away from you at any time. And afterwards, course, there were other cases less well known where those who did not toe the line went to jail. So this is this is the economic part. The Political Part i mentioned there were, you know, the out of the parties making sort of shells out of out of the parliament, the the independent media and so on, so forth and of course, the sheer toxicity, this is one of the things that really surprised me. The sheer of the propaganda that putin unleashed again, there are all kinds of very dear and familiar faces in this hall for me. And i think agree that this type of for this type of propaganda, you have to go probably to the late thirties or late forties under stalin, not not under the late union where i grew up. So it seems like there may be one parallel between putins domestic and his inner national behavior and. It occurs to me that in a lot of the extraterritorial killings that the russians state has carried out, its almost theyve wanted us to see it. They wanted us to know it. That was it either shockingly sloppy tradecraft and a serf it of people falling out of windows or it purposeful that we were supposed to know. And it sounds like from what you just described, the tradecraft also supposed to be visible domestically. Was that a fair . Definitely. Definitely. Alexander litvinenko. I mean, you dont you dont have to try. And i mean, you could you could kill, you could poison. You dont have to leave an isotope that is only produced in the soviet well, in russia, right. I mean, you you leave the trace. You tell them this is how its going to happen. Of course, it happened again in britain with the former. You with the double spy who survived, but an innocent woman was killed. And so absolutely. This is and there is a breach here, of course, to the nuclear blackmail. If you want to talk about. So so you you intimidate people inside, but you also intimidate the outside world, the socalled west, and you intimidate them by well, theyre well known quotes from putin about the end of the world means to him and how the russians are going to go to paradise while the rest of of their good will will will die or putin use the worlds doormat, which is kick the bucket without even to and asked really you would you would initiate a world wide armageddon and said what do i need the world for in there is no russia so so so this is this is all of this is all these are all instances of of nuclear blackmail and of course early this year he pulls out of start just other week he nullifies the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty. And of course as you know, i have a fairly scary last chapter of this book where where i posit that that getting out of ukraine the war that he could not win and and but also could not walk away nuclear appeared to me probably the most plausible thing he can do. Yeah i do think we are that possibility because i can see three scenarios that might make sense. Putin as russia loses its war in ukraine. One is as the Ukrainian Military picks momentum in repulsing russia out of ukrainian territory. So eventually they are going to have to mass troops and mass tanks and equipment. That becomes a more promising target than the dispersed warfare. We have mostly seen up until this point, the second scenario, nuclear scenario. I can see that might make sense to putin is. You know, their army gets driven out of. Ukraine, a strike on key that produces the regime change that putin claims to have gone. Therefore, i can see that. And then the third is the is the bring the house down as long as im losing and might lose power as a result of it what do i care about the world if there is no russia, do any of whats whats your nightmare . All right. Let and the fourth one to just have the fool declare the a scared everybody completely. So so my in in in the final of the book is this so yes hes he not he does have the wherewithal he does have the talent of his as the assassin prigozhin illustrated so well he does not have the talent his generals. He does not because theyre all picked for loyalty, not not talent. He does have even even enough of of the nuclear sorry enough of the hardware. Hardware. So so hes stuck in world war one situation. He counts three things. First that hes economy and his society will withstand whats going on and what is going on is, you know, on the surface, there is no theres no catastrophe. But you know, inflation of 7. 5 , they now spend twice as much on defense as they did before. Health care, of course, and education, all of that fall by by the wayside. 300,000 at least, of the most talented young people there is. There a there are labor shortages. And so its okay. He thinks that he could go on this. The second point he key or the second possibility he counts on is that is that eventual ukraine is demoralized that i mean how long can you bomb hospitals and schools and cafes and Nuclear Power stations and and and water and all of those things. Right. And the third, which i think he thinks is the most plausible is the ukraine fatigue in the west. So so those are the three factors that that he counts on but then what happens that if none of them neither them and then none of them, none of them works . Well, i think that thats where nuclear blackmail is going to take place. I personally predicted a lightning attack on our own, a smaller country on the eastern part of eastern most part of of natal, latvia or estonia, largely because they they very Large Russian minorities and and taking it to the brink and then saying well lets stop lets stop. Lets pull. Come on. Come on. We are were you know, looking at in the precipice. Lets step away from the precipice. Lets do an overall settlement. It will will talk about this, will stand down in terms of our nuclear posture. But have to settle ukraine as well and settling ukraine means, you know, cease fire or truce with Russia Holding most of its territory. So i want to back up a little. We accelerated to the last of the book, and there are a couple of a couple of planks i still want us to get in place. One is about the role of religion for putin in terrorizing of russian society. You know, he assigned a patron to his nuclear forces, etc. Yes. And i think we have a photo of putin crossing. There we go. So patron saint is, saint seraphim of seraph. A why . Because thats where beria, the father of a russian project, decided to have the headquarters of the Russian Nuclear. So this monk, who who was canonized by nicholas second early in the 20th century, the monk himself lived in the first third of the 19th century. Seraphim of seraph is a patron saint of the nuclear forces. Putin went twice now their blessing. He sending to the former patriarch. Thats aleksey. And they they blessed the procession on the 100th anniversary of the saints canonized by nicholas. The second and then put in again to pray at the relics of the of the of the of saint seraphim asking for his blessing of the Russian Nuclear weapons. And i think we have a rather striking images. Oh there we go there they are there are i think there is this the only one or theres theres theres more. Okay. There we go. See see . So one of the many wonderful things about this book is all of the pictures that leon has included it and this is just a tasters mention of them so so yes theyre sprinkling holy water on the new on the nukes so this tells you about how really perverse. This society. Well not the society the regime is now as far as far as the role of religion it was always you know, in russia, you know, in in Public Opinion polls, you them i you an Orthodox Christian . Oh, yes. You know, 90 . Well, what was the last you went to church . Cant remember so so so are very few active christians in russia although although much many more because look at the president look look how devoted his and general korea. I think it falls into the pattern you know after after ivan the terrible tortured and the last independent metropolitan moscow philip and then peter the great completed the breaking of the back of of the Russian Church i think 1721 when he established the holy synod he made the Church Hierarchy are the officers of the state and and thats how it continued and this is this really fits the pattern but let me tell you you know adding to the things that surprised the the okay alexy sort of died in time bef before or shortly after the yeah before the invasion but but this current patriarch of all russia kirill of forced all i mean he is completely shameless the the you know not all of these you know not all not not just the blessings but he really does putins bidding you know the last from the less from kirill is that is that those who killed in will go to paradise we see they crosspollination with new beliefs from no virgins yet but that may coming so so so in russian orthodoxy there was never this tradition of i mean yes you you know you die for the motherland. Youre a martyr. Thats great. But this thing about, you know, going to paradise. So. So this is state of of the russian arts. How much of this is bought by the russians . How how fervent they believe is hard to ascertain, but they think they were always a little skeptical. This is the country that never went through any kind of reformation. In those words, religion never brought never became personal. A guide to to, you know, daily behavior. It was always something out something that its a state and and its in that in that sense both it thats its strength but its also its weakness so you argue that thats this now that the system is in place itll be very hard to shake and for me the metric that proves your argument is the most recent figures. I saw is that there theyre now assessing the us and other countries are now assessing that up to 200,000 russians soldiers have either killed or, badly maimed and another hundred thousand 250,000 injured in the invasion of ukraine. How is this not creating a groundswell of opposition to the war . He is going very cleverly about this. Corey. So let me start with the most the craziest sort of factor the average russian annual salary income im sorry, income is seven the equivalent of 795. The median is about 1100 dollars. The families of the soldiers killed in ukraine get the equivalent. 73,000. This more than they ever in their wildest dreams could imagine. The paradox of it that their village in russia, the thrived. Yeah, i mean i mean its an unimaginable, sinister and yet hes gone. Its literally in those places does god godforsaken of the what its called monaco rada. It became the source of income. I mean, the people could repair their homes. They could finally get get a a small car there. Their only chinese cars, by the way, left in russia. But its better than nothing. Better than the russian car. And and another that he does very cleverly is a he avoids despite the clamor of patriotic bloggers, he he refuses to have a full mobilization. He announced a partial mobilization. He knows that the full mobilization will be extremely unpopular. Third, if you are an ethnic minority in dagestan, chechnya, marielle, about you, a young man there is 70 times more likely be killed in ukraine that somebody from moscow. Wow. Or St Petersburg. This is the statistics from a russian pollsters. So you dont go to where the and grandchildren of the elite are. Moscow, St Petersburg and you know im barred from for life from from going back. I was on the first sanctions list, but my friends bragging of course of im waiting for you to say this, but but but so i cant go but my friends and relatives telling me nothing changed in moscow there are the same restaurants. People sit in the streets having their cappuccinos and the little omelets. They go rides, they they watch theater. They they surprisingly incident, despite the despite the sanctions and thats thats from some of my italian friends there are also skiing in the i mean, i thought i thought theres theres a problem with i thought sanctions are for everyone. No, apparently not so so those so he goes cleverly about this and and there is no groundswell of protest yet if there you know inflation gets heated up if if you can no longer i dont know get a dishwasher because because as as its happening now they are disemboweled for chips to put into their Russian Military hardware or if there is a mobilization that begins to touch the children of the elite. Yes. But so far again how long that go on . We dont know. But i dont think there is there is an imminent danger of of of domestic opposition. So i see a lot russian expertise in this room. And i want to leave lots time for folks to ask questions. And i also see Research Assistants who worked on this book in the room and want to give leon a chance for them to shoot at the back. But i have one last question before we turn that, which is what how has the domestic stick the domestic stick im looking for right. Word brutalizing of russian economy primed them for what theyre doing in ukraine because its not clear whether this just a complete lack of military discipline or i think i have heard you argue elsewhere or a natural outgrowth the culture putin has created the war crimes that they are committing in ukraine. This is not the behavior of a normal fighting, a normal war. So one of the i mean, there are several Weight Bearing structures i describe that that he put in place to support the regime. And one of them is the revival of several soviet maxims, but also those that he lived as a street urchin in the slums of the postwar leningrad, that that. Fear and respect are the same thing that confidence and aggression, or rather i should say confidence comes from aggression and your right, i wish i wish i thought of writing the book. He brutalized society. But of course, you know, there are all kinds of examples. I mean, a nazi was saddam husseins iraq. First. You brutalized people inside and. Then that that toxic mix just sprays out the world. And we see the we see the results. So, no, youre absolutely right. Is a there is a there is a clearly an example. It one of the things speaking of brutalization, i, i think i did write about this as well. There was a historic historic practice introduced by evgeny prigerson of of of but apparently spreading widely because its effective and thats this what stalin created 1942 on the very dire. It was part of his new struggle. Nazar not not a step backward doctrine and and and, and dicked and that that you put behind your regular troops. You put the income of their or smersh troops with machine guns. And if you so much as turn around you killed by your own and and that is what wagner introduced and that is whats happening as far as we know continues to be the case and so what kind of what of morale what kind of attitude towards ukrainian civilians would you expect from these kinds of troops. And that grim note my friends anybody any questions for leon . Lets give us the first shot. Hello, doctor. Yes . Lance was a research assistant. Yes, yes, yes. Hes his hes recovering safely from the. Is this on . Okay . Yeah. Okay. Hello, dr. Aaron. Good to see you again. Excited to see the book published. Very fond memories of working many long hours, assisting with and im excited to see the final final have quick question about something that i know was a major of the research but wasnt discussed too much. This panel, which is sort of like the entire role of children and how that Going Forward will impact future relations with russia, because eventually, if its tomorrow, a year from now, ten years from now, the war in ukraine will putin will die and there will be some leadership turnover. And maybe itll be someone like zola of another tyrant. But eventually there must be some sort of transition period occurs. And when that does i know through a lot of the research that that youve done will be generations at this point, 20 years at least, of children now young adults who have gone through patriotic, militarized education. If its the more than a Million People that have been through the youth army or the other cadet groups like rumpole, or if it is now, i recently learned the existence of wagner eunuch of wagner group of the young army in schools. But could we show some . Yeah. There we go. Like all of this, this militarized consciousness. This is a poster for the 75th anniversary of the of the victory in World War Two. Oh, thats. How about something from the from the. There we go from from the patriot parks which were created we go oh this by the is the kindergarten demonstrating on the day of the 9th of may. There we go. Terrible. And with these, as everyone can see. Okay, this is a patriot parks that putin created all over the country. I think theres a there there thats favorite. Okay so very much so so this is this is the generation thats growing. Yes. I just saw an item. Showing that the russian schools spend orders of magnitude more on whats known as, the initial military training than they spend on the equipment for their physical cabinets are or chemistry cabinets, tens of millions of dollars im sorry, of of rubles. They are buying kalashnikovs, ak 47. They are buying the mock up hand grenades. The. Starting with the third grade, sometimes even younger i run around the school with with and throw the grenades. This a completely militarized society. Lets not forget also lance what theyre taught in schools again are harking back to my misspent youth. The i in the textbooks history textbooks that we studied in high school stalin was not mentioned, which was of course a huge problem but but he was not mentioned in the newly published. Textbook by guy by the name of madejski, who is to be very appropriately minister of culture, not only stalins mentioned, but stalin is back. He the wise leader of the country. They study his not a word about the gulag, not a word about the great famine of collectivization. And of course nothing about the first two years of the war that that that was new, that the war was newly lost. World war two because a of the purge of of the army and also because of his trust hitler so so stalin his back hes a wise father of the country and most of all he is the great victor in World War Two or as the russian called it, always the great patriotic war. So so is that this is a scary generation and god knows again my hope, corey, is that is that different elites coming to power would might turn even that generation around. You know for any and i know there are lots of people in room who remember august of 91 where tens of came to defend the socalled white house yeltsin and defeated the coup. This these are the same people. Well, i mean, not literally. These are probably the fathers or even grandfathers of of this current generation. But it shows that the russia is not dead to to the ability of democracy in the ability of freedom and the only hope i have is that is a new leaders of will will go back to that to that moment in russian history. Other questions. Yes. Thank you. Im charlie walser from der university. What really you get to see of the economic stuff is beginning to hit a little bit. If you read todays kommersant the cost of renovating your apartment has gone up 40 or 50 of the ministry of health Just Announced Something Like 400 medicines are no longer going to be making sure that stuff going to trickle down. But what i really want to ask you about is what some of us are calling the putin paradox. The what the paradox of anders austin are two of the 14 authors in a book were calling failure russia under putin. And one of the things that were grappling is the contradiction between the massive corruption and the rebuilding of great russia, of putin himself has got, what, two, 3 trillion after its phenomenal amounts of money. The more you put into the defense industry, the more it goes away. How do we reconcile that seeming contradiction contradiction . Well, harley, i mean that corrupt leaders could strong armies is is that what you think is is the paradox the the whats known as that carter which is a kickback of course and of course lets lets play Yevgeny Prigozhin and hell tell you everything you need to know about corruption in in the in the russian army in the general. As you said i mean if you throw billions of rubles at the Defense Sector you know some part of it is actually effective. The rest are stolen. So, so that that i think is probably probably explains it. We know of of by the way in this in the soviet days i mean military was also among the most corrupt sectors but there was not as much to steal so so that sort of put a limit to it. But i think the key he knows that this is going on again. I think prigozhin spoke from his heart when he pointed out to to immense incompetence and corruption in the higher echelons of of the Russian Armed forces. But i think the the you know the idea here i think for putin to tackle corruption is to tackle one of the foundations of his regime. As i mentioned, you know, he he he discovered that unlike his much soviet predecessor, admired him. He he he realized that could be actually more effective by bribing than by because because it if if if you give them something in they buy or they steal enough to have essentially upper middle class european live or better and you threaten to take it away. Its just as effective or even more effective than terror. Next right here. Thank you very much, kristen foulston. The Huntsville Foundation has the inside of foundation be had to shut down our office. You know, last year after after a conscious attack on the queen. Thanks for this fascinating talk. So my question is why there is no lily of resistance in and within the boston here to putin, how do you explain like, say, the gay who started as a performer, hes now so entrenched in this putin power structure, but putin, when he rose to power, was perceived as someone who had balance, civilizing interests the petersburg, the kgb, yeltsin, the leaders in 19th oligarchs and whatever is he now only want, supported by this kgb elite here, does he have to Balance Power structures anymore. So there is no resistance to putin . And do you see coming from business elites any so so i tried to touch this. Most of them would bribed. Some of them were intimidated and all of them were intimidated and bribed. So so the the that is where you stand. Yes, indeed. He he was again, he was very clever about this. Yes. The coterie around him, the enforcers are all the kgb officers that that were him in leningrad in the mid late seventies. Patrician patricia must him they all of them are actually are are quite in in the top echelon. I think he trusts them the most others as i mentioned after khodorkovsky. I mean you want to rebel and go to through two trials and spend years in jail be my guest. No that is not going to happen. The leap itself, i think the most plausible scenario, i would think would be some catastrophic defeat in ukraine where where they decide that this is something in other words, their coming after us that that not only we sanctioned were sanctioned by the west but but the regime will change and. We will have to answer to it. Remember, in in a in russian history of military defeats of a lead to a lot of domestic change. I mean, the first crimean war. So nicholas, the first dies, his son initiates revolution from above, including, of course, the liberation of the serfs. The problem with the russojapanese war leads to the first constitution, the the setbacks in world war one, the bolshevik revolution, a khrushchev falls from power in part of the embarrassment in cuba and and of course the the morass afghanistan was a was one of the factors in in revolution from above so so if they feel that that not only theyre stuck in ukraine but that things really becoming dicey maybe maybe on the other hand i mean it all depends then forget about bribery then its sheer terror. I mean, remember, stalin gave a very interesting speech at at in june of 1945 for charles. The tribute to the russian people. But the way he said was very interesting. He said, we horrific disasters. We the government made, horrific mistakes in 1941, in 1942. But russian people specifically russian people, had enough trust in the government and enough patience to trust that we would turn the situation around. Now, he was genuinely, from what i could, he was genuinely surprised us, he said. By the way, that any other people would have rebelled and made peace with germany and said, go away because because you dont know how to fight this war. So the question for putin and of course, you know, hes channeling stalin and so many different rhetorical ways is whether the russian people have that patience and that trust. Now, of course, under the of circumstances, the war of, you know, in ukraine is not going to turn in the, you know, existence or crisis of 1941, 1942 of the nazi invasion. But i think the question is still remain how long. Can the russian people trust the government . How long they can bear the so far, not the shame of of the defeat, but what is it if it gets close it and i think and i think you may see that the elites the elites follow follow the people. I think for the most part, certainly in russia rather than the other way around. I think we have time for one last question. Dr. Gaddy, its yours. You walked, right . Right behind you. Read behind it. Charles gati, what a wonderful panel. Thank you so much. Your last chapter, as you summarize, it scares the daylights out of me i mean, im an old guy. I have 11 grandchildren. So my question is deep, is your conviction that your analysis is about correct, that my analysis is what your analysis is about. Nuclear exchange as a possibility or probability. Hows your how strong your conviction . Well, for the question, charles, my professor from columbia university, my beloved professor, the things for the question also, because i need to make a make it more precise, i think that putin will take it to the brink but not the Nuclear Armageddon some some of the some of the russian certainly but even western experts said that he may go for to explode the tactical nuke in a way from from a you know, a a a key Population Center maybe somewhere in estonia, somewhere poland. I mean, horrible enough. But i think that would fall into that that wonderful escalate to deescalate. Dr. That some say exists say doesnt exist but basically when youre desperate detonate a tactical weapon. And of course this is be anywhere from, you know, five kiloton or a third of the hiroshima or up to 100 kilotons and. And and then and then step back and and deescalate everybody steps back. So i dont think it will come to a actually Strategic Nuclear exchange with the united states. I think he will take it as far as possible to get effect that he wants, which lets settle in ukraine. Lets settle here. But but but, you know the the when when you get the book, which i will inscribe you, youll see theres wonderful epigraph from margaret. Yes. Annas terrific book, the memoir of hydrogen. Let me read it to you. He had reached that moment in his life when man abandons himself to his demons or to his genius following a mysterious law which bids him either to destroy or outdo himself. And im afraid putin may be reaching this kind of stage. I would like to end on a more hopeful note, which is to point out that our choices can also very strongly affect those potential outcomes. And we are doing some things to try and dissuade putin from thinking would be in his interest. There is much more we can and should do to the range of choice that putin, the people around him and, the people who would be carrying out any such think about the of their choices and. On that cheery note, my friends thank you. First to edward and helen hints his generosity. This institution is manifold and we are super grateful for their support. Our scholarship and of this book. Second to all of you for time to come out and celebrate outstanding book at to the great leon aron. Himself. Why dont you join me inruth aso you, i spent the week in in graceland and daily and then in that fifth ward, a houston. And i keep thinking about one fundamental question that i was going to start with and that is how you muster the