country as your correspondent pointed out. bigger than france, one of the larger countries in eastern and central europe. so, to me, it was never likely to be easy. but vladimir putin, you know, used in the world from a specific place with a small number of advisers and a certain amount of haughtiness in a certain amount of arrogance and a track record of being pretty effective in the limited military operations he previously conducted in crimea in 2014 or syria in 2015 so maybe he thought it would be a cakewalk to coin a term from our american debate before the iraq war. but it was never likely to be that and it s not likely to be that and it s not likely to be that and it s not likely to be that in the future. even if he can sees the big cities, we still don t know the degree to which the ukrainian army and air militaries would mount a fierce ongoing resistance smacking of insurgency and so i think putin is good to be very worried. apart from the economic cost was as of this for russ