is to make sure ukraine continues to be able to hold off the russian invasion, to be able to make advances in reclaiming its territory, and making sure that russia is constantly on the back foot. so if there is some negotiations and ukraine should come to those negotiations in a position of strength. indeed, and we re watching the pomp and ceremony as the bidens and the macrons, you saw them emerge down the stairs, pretty resplendent outfits by jill biden and mrs. macron. mrs. macron s outfit is particularly stunning. i have to make some sartorial comments because i feel like i have do it because they look really wonderful. does this mean as much as it used to in your view, bobby, because you know, america and americans tend to put a lot of stock in this kind of ceremony, in this kind of tradition. in the post-trump era, where he kind of broke the idea of tradition and broke the idea of sort of splendor and broke the
their back foot, they re doing poorly militarily but they ve been able to hobble ukraine by hitting critical infrastructure, power, heating, in a way we have ukrainian officials saying to ukrainians outside the country don t come back. so how much have those attacks levelled the battlefield? they re certainly spreading the battlefield. even if you are not being struck directly by russian missiles, you are beginning to go cold. and i think the warning to people not to return, ukrainians, is a very telling one. because basically what it says is, we are not going to be able to restore ordinary life in ukraine for some period of time, certainly through this winter. so it looks like putin has a two-part auststrategy, one is fe ukraine and how much does he turn the rest of europe.