i want to keep talking about russia and ukraine, but joining me now are experts on the ground in those two countries and one other key player in the story that i mentioned, germany. andrey kortunov is one of russia s top foreign policy thinkers. he is the director general of russian interaffairs council. natallya gumenyuk is a ukrainian journalist who reports on conflict and international security and katrin bennhold is the new york times berlin bureau chief. natallya, let me start with you. i think you are in kharkiv, 40 or 50 miles away from where russian troops are, it s a russian-speaking area. what is the atmosphere there and what can you tell us about the atmosphere in those russian-speaking parts of ukraine? hi. good to talk to you indeed.
now to make ukraine a nation, which arguably in some ways it wasn t before, uniting ukraine. he has also given nato a reason to exist. some now feel as this escalates that he may just be the reason that germany moves from this very tortured past, from a past where it was on the wrong side of history and had struggled with leading in any way with military power, moving perhaps into a future that is different. so it s possible that putin ironically perhaps might be achieving just that. there s certainly signs that the position is hardening now. andrey, what do you think it would take for the russian government to deescalate? because as natallya was saying there have been efforts to negotiate between ukraine and russia, the youk neens believe the russians are making no concessions. the americans have held out the prospect of diplomacy. why is it that, you know, even though there does seem some
mad for the ukrainian government to choose this moment to try to retake donbas with all those russian troops there. there s a lot of fear in the west that that is an excuse that will be manufactured so that russian troops can go in and claim that they are simply protecting people in donbas. well, you know, i am not in a position to judge about what the ukrainian leadership is up to, but according to the russian intelligence, at least that s what they claim officially, there is a major concentration of ukrainian troops in the donbas area and if you follow the political discourse in kyiv, not everybody in the ukrainian leadership is happy about the minsk agreements. there are many people who maintain that these agreements are detrimental to the ukrainian sovereignty and to the national interests of ukraine and, therefore, they have to be and some other ways of reincorporating of donbas should be considered by kyiv. natallya, let me ask you whether you could imagine the ukrainian go
newborn daughter of andrew and his wife rachel. talia is named for her older sister francesca known as beans who passed away a little more than a year ago after bravely battling pediatric cancer. everyone at cnn is welcoming talia with open arms, we can t wait to meet you and are so happy you re part of our family. the news continues now. this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world, i m fareed zakaria coming to you live from new york. today on the program, secretary of state blinken offers russia what he terms a serious diplomatic path forward. should russia choose it. could it work? can invasion be avoided? i will talk to experts on the ground in ukraine, russia and
and our techno wizardry calculates your car s value and gives you a real offer in seconds. when you re ready, we ll come to you, pay you on the spot and pick up your car, that s it. so ditch the old way of selling your car, and say hello to the new way at carvana. and we are back with andrey kortunov in moscow, natallya gumenyuk in kharkiv in eastern ukraine and katrin bennhold in berlin. katrin, let me ask you simply