Is still going to be, the worst is yet to come, the ones that i speak to they are very much hoping this ends soon and the sanctions roll back. they don t think russia can go like this forever. putin does seem to think. yeah, max, thank you very much for taking time to join us. very important perspective there. michael in the last hour joins me now. let s listen in for one second. [ speaking foreign language ] michael joins me now. michael, of course, this military parade is to get a sense, this happens every year. victory day has been happening for years.
To president putin in red square in moscow on this victory day that s being commemorated in russia, does every year. it defeated nazi germany in the second world war. of course, this year it comes under the shadow of a new war in europe, an event that s taken added significance. we heard president putin there within about a minute or so of his speech really coming out with conspiracy theories. the only thing i can say. michael borsekew is here with me. the west did not want to listen to russia. they had other plans. and he kind of hinted there at the fact that the west turned down russia s proposed security guarantees, talking obviously about nato. what stood out to you? well, i don t know if you had the same interaction at the end,
Bombed. but the ukrainians have been able to sustain, kind of we ve seen the push and pull sustain attack. the question you and i were talking about earlier was how long can they sustain that because if this is going to be a protracted war, there are other challenges for president zelenskyy here. exactly. as much as the west likes to provide these high-tech weapons and get them into the hands of the ukrainian army as soon as possible, we mustn t forget the human toll. you and i were talking earlier, i was at the cemetery yesterday. it really brought home the human cost of the war. there s about 66 graves there right now since the beginning of the conflict. they ran out of space inside the cemetery. now they re putting graves outside. this has to be remembered from western leaders that as much as the ukrainians are doing a great, great job, there is that human not only amongst military, but huge civilian cost. indeed. michael, i know you ll stay with us. we ll take a short break a
However. yeah, you are quite right. as you were talking, nic, michael and i were both nodding in agreement to what we heard. i jotted down as well him thanking the donbas volunteers and the russian troops for fighting for the motherland. the question now is, nic, what can we expect? how does that translate, perhaps his words translate to the battle field here, to the front line in the east of the country? reporter: i think it does give him the ability to have or not have the success that he wanted to have. that his ultimate achievement may be to secure a slightly larger territory within the donbas, and maybe not even within the whole sort of geographically politically donetsk or donbas. that he may be able to frame this ultimately as that s what
The opposing forces, president putin, at least, nothing has changed there. and they will continue to ramp up. and continue to try to diminish president putin s propaganda, the disinformation. that was one of the commitments from the g7, but also to throttle back energy imports with the aim of ending, as soon as can be done in a timely way, oil imports from russia. again, this would be, this would be a financial hit for putin. nic robertson for us in helsinki. thanks very much. michael borsekew is with me now. you have seen many of these parades like i have, no doubt. almost like an air show, air parade, victory day. this apparently has been canceled because of the weather, this coming from kremlin spokesman dmitry peskov. looking at this image, it doesn t look like a cloudy or