both republican and democratic parties and many of the allies in western europe. nabil is absolutely right. there has been a whiff of appeasement among some western european powers towards ukraine for some time but there is a divide now. with 100 plus thousand troops on the border of ukraine, for instance, you have poland and hungary, which on the one hand had it in logical strains with western europe within the eu but have no doubt and have just been reminded of where the security interests lie. we do not want the clock turned back to an idea where they will be in essence a part of a russian sphere of influence. ironically, the same seems true of some scandinavian countries, like sweden and finland, are not part of native that had been
nabila ramdani, a french algerianjournalist and broadcaster, vincent ni is china affairs correspondent with the guardian. he is here in the studio with me. welcome to all of you. good to have your company today on dateline. let s begin if we may, ned, with this question of the sort of phony war stage we seem to be at at the moment with ukraine. the west appears to be playing russia at its own game in the last few weeks. propaganda strikes, some sabre rattling. mobilising troops from the united states and other parts of europe. in a sense, calling president putin s bluff. do you think he s bluffing? one of the problems is, i think the only person who knows the answer to that question is vladimir putin himself. and i think it s fairly clear that that is at least in part what this is about. and that s to say that president putin wants russia to be centre stage again in world diplomacy, he wants
to spread confusion, almost for its own sake. even now there are plans being laid for stage events, spinning a web of false hoods, designed to present any russian attack as a response to provocation. we have already witnessed a fake military withdrawal, combined with staged incidents, which could provide a pretext for military action. we knew this was coming, we have seen it before. no one should be fooled. we have to steel ourselves for the possibility of a protracted crisis. with russia maintaining the pressure and searching for weaknesses over an extended period. and we must together refuse to be worn down. what europe needs is a strategic endurance, and we should focus our energies on preserving our unity and deepening transatlantic cooperation. but for that to work, we must also be prepared to devote
good for the world economy and potentially good for western europe at a time when gas supplies from russia with the ukraine crisis are under threat. thank you very much. vincent, finally. in a sense another aspect of identity politics. i m going to talk about the 18 year old sports personality called eileen gu. she was born in san francisco to a she was born in san francisco to a chinese mother and american father. for many years she saw herself as a bridge between the two great powers, china and america. now, as the great power competition starts to intensify, she is caught up in the middle. her citizenship. this winter olympics, she is competing for china and has won medals for china. in america, people say she is a traitor because you now competing for our enemy, china.
and this means all 30 nato states, including the united kingdom, will be going to war on the side of the ukraine. as we know, this is by no means a geopolitical crisis but one that has remained unresolved for far too long. there was one of the biggest land grabs in europe since world war ii. it has led to widespread condemnation from the west and of course sanctions. since then the russians have been stepping up their military presence in the region at the ukrainian border after fighting escalated. vincent, let me bring you in here. nabila talked about sovereignty. we have two almost conflicting arguments, that nato countries are talking about sovereignty and protecting the identity of ukraine. russia is talking about identity.