next step the diplomatic, political talks. other things can happen beyond that. before you go, russian president vladimir putin is meeting with other leaders, the president of belarus, alexander la shiancoe. how does this fit in? the fact he s meeting with lukashenko, after lukashenko has had such troubles with the european nations, particularly poland, trying to sort of force migrants across the border there into poland recently, that created a large amount of tension. but the sort of broader meeting that putin is having is independent states, which is really, in essence, the former republics of the soviet union in this commonwealth with russia, where it s a forum for discussion on sort of common foreign policy, policing, economics, these sorts of things. but of course absent from that