extremely dangerous situation. we're now at a stage where russia could at any point launch an attack in ukraine. >> do you think that will happen? >> look, that's a very difficult question to answer. i would put it this way. putin has ratcheted up the stakes, and he has escalated because he wants major concessions. you know, churchill was once asked about stalin, does he want war? and he said, no, he doesn't want war. he wanted the fruits of war. in other words, he wants what he would get from a war. so putin is trying to -- he's playing a kind of poker game. my own sense is his preferred solution is no war because he understands that that would -- first of all, it gets him bogged down in a guerrilla war in ukraine with a population that really despises the idea of an occupying russian army. secondly, it would unify nato. it would trigger massive sanctions. it would in some ways cut russia