opec s decision to slash oil production is prompting calls for the u.s. to crack down on the world s largest oil suppliers. now opec plus s production cut is expected to push gas prices up in the u.s. after following steadily over the summer highs in june, and now the white house says it s weighing all options as several lawmakers renew proposals to hold saudi arabia and the other opec nations accountable for price fixing, and this does seem to have at least some bipartisan support. joining me now is jonathan panikov. he s a director at the atlantic council. he s also a former national deputy intelligence officer with the national intelligence council. good morning. thanks so much for joining us. do you see this as a big slap in
reporter: when the russians took over in 2014, they held similarly dubious referendum and in that case, 97% of the population voted to join russia. jim, poppy? i m saddam hussein was elected with 90% of the vote. joining me now deputy intelligence officer for russia and retired u.s. air force colonel cedric layton. andrea, why is russia doing this? what is it attempting to create with these false votes. i think that s exactly the right question to ask. ukraine s invasion in the north, things are not going well for russia and so he s moving ahead with these referendums. we should note russia has
the director of middle east security initiative at the think tank in washington. he s also a former deputy intelligence officer at the national intelligence council in washington as well. jonathan, kaitlan and i have some questions for you. thanks so much for joining us. how important are these talks that are underway? what s your analysis, and specifically what s to come as far as gas prices are concerned because that s certainly hovering over these talks as far as the u.s. is concerned? well, thanks so much for having me, wolf. i m thrilled to be here. the reality is this summit was not going to be able fro deuce meaningful changes if gas prices. they have very, very limited spare capacity themselves. on the other happened, there may be a little bit four ta u does timing here. commodity prices may be dropping across the bore.
joining me, former national deputy intelligence officer and a retired brigadier general. it s good to have both of you with us this morning. as we look at the response from the kremlin, somewhat redistr predictable, any chance of ukraine joining nato was realistically years and years away. it s a different story now with finland. do you think there is a real chance that russia acts here, that they make good on some of these threats or could this in some way be tempering these potentially larger ambitions that putin has? a bit of contact to underscore how russia sees this. finland and russia share an 810 mile border. it s russia s longest border with any european country.
invade ukraine a. western intelligence report said senior chinese officials told russian officials in early february not to invade ukraine before the end of the beijing winter olympics. the times also reports chinese shared with russia sensitive information they received from the u.s. to get china to per swat putin to stand down. nbc news has not independently confirmed this reporting. this comes as the justice department is set to seize the assets of russian oligarchs who have been sanctioned. with me, rick stengel, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, and andrea kendall taylor, senior fellow at the center for a new american security. former deputy intelligence officer for russia at the national intelligence council and former cia analyst who worked on russian political dynamics. as the u.s. and other countries