putin s goal really is there. they don t want to criticize too much or say, you know, we know what the intention is. as for the communication, too, obviously no coordination coming with russia before these air strikes began, but again, the white house is saying they ve set up the means of communicating now with russia, that there has been contact of, okay, let s talk about this. but it didn t happen before the air strikes started. so they re saying, let s wait and see what that communication does show before we really start questioning what russia s intentions are going to be moving forward, brooke. michelle kosinski, thank you. i want to stay on this, bring in another voice, daniel dres ner, an international politics professor at tufts university and a contributing editor for the washington post. so, daniel, thank you so much for being with me. thank you, brooke. you essentially say from what i ve read vladimir putin wants russia to engage in the middle