exactly what happened with world war ii germany making fake claims about being attacked. i looked at this and said if disinformation is going to be successful as a former intel guy you have to start with a baseline of truth. some kernel of fact and then build the lies on that little bit of fact. i think what the white house is doing and secretary blinken today, over the course of weeks and months, is take out the prospect that anybody could believe the russians. so i think the chance that disinformation works that the russians claim work is low except for countries that already support putin. the final thing is the important players here are the europeans. the americans are going to need the europeans if the russians move in. i can't believe anybody in europe believes what the russians are saying. >> phil, are any russian people hearing any of the information from the west? are they just being fed putin's disinformation? >> one of the most interesting aspects of this is the use of the russian security services, domestic security service for