Anne Applebaum

Germany as well, have, you know, are continually stepping up, offering not just weapons, but money.

Remember, the Ukraine has its own defense industry.

It makes its own drones now, including these long-range drones that can hit Russian targets and Russian refineries and so on.

And I was there in September, and at that moment, there was still a lot of confidence.

You

Pretty sure they were going to make it through the winter.

They didn't expect the Russians to stop fighting anytime soon.

I mean, there's been a little bit of the huge pressure from Russian airstrikes in the last month or two, I think, has been... And this is on Ukrainian cities.

This has nothing to do with the front line.

This is the people, you know, bombs hitting Kiev, missiles hitting...

residential apartment buildings and so on.

I think that's been pretty debilitating.

But they don't, you know, you have to remember that if you're Ukrainian, you don't really see an option.

You know, your option is you keep fighting the war or you let the Russian win and then they destroy you and your family and they wreck your country anyway.

You know, so it's not like they have this great choice, you know, and it's not like if the war ends, then everything will be fine.

And I think that for the most part, I mean, there are variations inside each country.

I think most of the countries around Ukraine feel the same way, you know, for Poland, you know, or for the Baltic states.

You know, for Romania, if Ukraine were to lose, that wouldn't mean, oh, OK, the war's over now and we can get on and do other things.

No, that would mean it would be more expensive and they'd have to spend more money on defense and there would be more panic about where the Russians would go next.

And there would be more chaos from Ukrainian refugees and more economic disruption.