have not really opened up their coffer and extended loans to russia as many expected yet. but china did lift the ban on importing russian wheat and energy. of course, china is buying lots of energy. so, those things will offer russia money. of course, china has a kind of sort of mirror version of that with taiwan, doesn t it? i remember seeing something on weibo, the chinese equivalent of, i don t know, twitter or whatever, somebody writing now would be a good time to go into taiwan. do you think that s what the leaders believe? we did see a lot of what they call the wolf warrior youth, or some of the, you know, the really hot blooded nationalists online, and even taunting taiwan, saying, you know, the ukrainians are demonstrating to you what s going to happen if you keep pushing for it. but now i think even the officials have come out on a couple
planet. i believe that my parents can take care of themselves, but my grandmothers, i am can take care of themselves, but my grandmothers, iam really can take care of themselves, but my grandmothers, i am really not sure about them, because one of them is 97 years old, and she is an amputee and she cannot help herself. my other grandmother is 83 years old, and there was a huge fire at her house, where she lives. so i am not sure that i will be able to see them again. at least i hope that maybe some neighbours will help them, because my parents live far from my grandmothers. but i believe as soon as we have this corridor, at least, please, let people get some water, let people get some food. and of course i would love to see them, i would love for them to be evacuated. my would love for them to be evacuated. my parents have a car, and if it is still 0k, my parents have a car, and if it is still ok, if it is not broken or damaged by bombs, i would like them
the electronic signals world. so, the west invests a huge amount in the big collection bureaucracies of gchq and america s nsa, which suck up signals and intercept communications from russia. and it s possible either through, say, cyber espionage, hacking into the russian military s own internal systems, or through intercepting their communications, they ve got the plans. but of course, as you say, the possibility exists that somebody in putin s entourage is working for the west. the russians will fear that there s someone there, and what you re likely to be seeing now is a spy hunt within moscow. i mean, the fsb, the russian security service, will be desperately trying to find out, is there a mole at a high level? is there someone providing the battle plans? are our communications leaky? how do the west know about it? and if it is a person, they could be at great risk? does western intelligence use kind of psychological profiling and so on?
has it been a failure of western diplomacy? or do you think, actually with hindsight, it was pretty much inevitable that he would do it? i think, in my view, it was a failure of diplomacy, but one dating back to the fall of the soviet union. the fact that the west failed to go that extra step further to try and accommodate russia into the new european security architecture. is it possible that in past examples of russian aggression, such as in moldova, such as in georgia, such as in crimea, could the west have been more robust at that point? because we ve reached the stage now where many people feel that, that putin thinks that, you know, he can do what he wants, because the west will will huff and puff, but won t blow his house down. in the short term, the one thing that i ve been really surprised by and find very striking is the degree of diplomatic activity by the west and the unity within the west. particularly germany, of course. particularly germany.