affected by the fallout of the breach of the kakhovka dam, the flooding and the rescue efforts continue there. clare sebastian, thank you very much for your continued coverage. and we re now joined by masha gessen, staff writer for the new yorker and author of the book surviving autocracy, which won the u.s. national book award in 2017. masha has been covering russia and vladimir putin for years. masha, it s good to meet you. thank you for doing this. as we see ukraine stepping up its military activities right now, let s take a listen to putin s reaction. translator: it can be stated with absolute certainty that the counteroffensive has begun. the ukrainian troops have not achieved the tasks assigned to them in any of the main sectors of the military operations. this is an absolutely obvious thing. so obviously, masha, there a defiant putin. what are the risks that putin