Anne Applebaum

What that means is hard to say.

They threaten that they'll do that.

And they've been sending drones across the border into several other countries.

And so one of the speculations is they might use this moment while Trump is distracted by Iran and Europe is not quite ready.

They might use it to create some kind of provocation in one of the Baltic states just to show that NATO doesn't fight back or just to illustrate that there's weakness on our side or...

Or just to create some anger and distraction and, you know, and cheer up the Russians.

I mean, it's possible.

I mean, it seems like that would be a fairly foolhardy thing to do because actually they don't know how what the reaction would be.

Right.

I would think the more likely reaction is that Europeans who are now more aware than ever before of the physical and cyber and propaganda threat from Russia, certainly much more so than they were a year ago or two years ago.

It just might reawaken that understanding.

But, you know, I mean, his choices are all bad now.

And he can widen the war.

He can have mass mobilization, which would also create a backlash.

Or, as the Ukrainians have suggested many times, he could have a ceasefire on the current lines.

And for him, that would be a failure because he said he was going to conquer the whole country.

He still says he wants to conquer the whole country and he will not have managed to conquer the whole country.

But it might be at some point soon something that he or people around him will want to sell to the Russians on the grounds that, you know, it's not going well.

I mean, there's a deeper story here, too.

And this is this is maybe the better and more