Not protect a friendly country. the problem of ukraine fundamentally, is it seems to me, that the ukrainians sort of reject entirely, this, what you call, the mystic russian narrative, they see themselves as formerly part of the west, they want to be a liberal democracy, they want to be the capitalist society, they want to be allied with the west, can putin live with that? well, before the war, i would ve said no. and i warned against incorporating ukraine into nato, 10 years ago. and predicted it would lead to some sort of conflict. but, the solution that i had then, was to make ukraine a bridge between europe and russia. ....