all right. carl bildt? i think the tragic thing at the moment is that putin is dealing far more with the past of russia than with the future of russia. as sergey said, he s a 19th century thinker and he wants to recreate sort of a great russian dominate slavic empire with ukraine, russia, belarus sort of the 19th century recreated and then he wants to have sort of the role that that particular russia had in europe, very reactionary intervening that s where he is. but he s a realist. he s a realist. well, that s not the way the modern world is. the 19th century was the 19th century and we are now in the 21st century. what about the athenian generals, the strong exact what they can, the weak grant what they must. i think putin still lives by those rules. he is there, but we are more in an interdependent world, where we should be cooperating more across borders. where, if we descend back into the 19th century, battle between nations over everything,
are set on conflict. what concessions does he want? what concessions? well, putin thinks in 19th century terms. he wants influence. i do not think that he is trying to rebuild the soviet union i don t think he is trying to do that but i think he is trying to extend his interests, extend his influence into areas that are immediately bordering russia. if i canjump in. while i fully agree with everything which was said, let me add a bit of pragmatism and sergey has partially mentioned it. when we re talking about putin, we re not only talking about putin talking to foreign leaders, he s also a president of a country and he talks to his population and he needs to be supported. and basically, war rhetorics is not very much supported by russian population so far. but like it was back in 2014 when he annexed crimea, just ahead of the elections, his rating was going higher, really. now it is not the case but now he s been subjectivized
these autocratic regimes like. crosstalk. if i can recollect in my memory, just speaking about the russia and understanding, back in 2013, until the war started, we were about to sign the association agreement, the large trade agreement with the eu putin, he didn t care about the agreement, he didn t care about the trade, and basically it wasn t ukrainians who were thinking that we had to choose between the russia and the european union. we have never been thinking this way, when we were negotiating this agreement. but it is putin, who is putting us in front of the choice you choose europe or you choose russia. and we were shocked that we were put in front of this choice, because we were not thinking this way. we were thinking about the democratic relations with, and friendship with russia, but it is them who has put us in front of that. so sergey, is it inevitable that these autocratic regimes will fall, and what happens? look, i am very pessimistic.
i do not think we should putin as set on conflict. the russians have shown over the years that they want to see themselves as partners of the west, they want to be recognised by the west, whether they are part of the west or not it is another question, but i do not think that they are set on conflict. what concessions does he want? what concessions? well, putin thinks in 19th century terms. he wants influence. i do not think that he is trying to rebuild the soviet union i don t think he is trying to do that but i think he is trying to extend his interests, extend his influence into areas that are immediately bordering russia. if i canjump in. while i fully agree with everything which was said, let me add a bit of pragmatism and sergey has partially mentioned it. when we re talking about putin, we re not only talking about putin talking to foreign leaders, he s also a president of a country and he talks to his population
it is something where the collective west has got the extremely good experience of building the consensus. and now in a global world, where you cannot take decisions only on your own, on behalf your country when it comes to covid, to energy crisis, even to military force. we have learned how to make the consensus, and how to make collectively the decisions. but what putin hadn t learned is to be part of some consensus. broader consensus. and until he understands that he should be a player together with everybody, this could change the situation. you say putin is not part of a consensus, but he has got friends, hasn t he? we have just seen russian troops go in as part of the collective security treaty organisation, into kazakhstan to help president tokayev there, sent a couple of thousand troops. he gets on very well with alexader lucashenko in belarus this is not somebody without friends