Anne Applebaum

But you certainly have now the formation of new companies and new thinking.

I mean, I know you're interested in that.

That's begun.

And, you know, it's interesting to see the connection between this geopolitical shift, which is happening kind of in the ether, and people saying, right, okay, we need our own stuff.

And that's happening now.

To some extent, that's true.

I mean, I think people are still hoping the U.S.

will have some influence.

There's a lot of, you know, maybe...

you know, maybe false hope.

I think there's, you know, there's a fear that a U.S.-Russia condominium, you know, kind of U.S.-Russia deal would be bad for everybody and we'd like to avoid it.

So I didn't think people want some kind of huge break with the United States.

But yeah, I mean, the United States is not going to be able to dictate what happens in Ukraine, and they certainly won't be able to dictate a bad solution.

And by bad solution, remember, it's

What a bad solution means that Ukraine is so badly weakened that Russia can invade again.

That's like that's the bad solution.

And I don't think the U.S.

is going to be able to dictate that, even if that's what they're you know, even if that's what they want.

So, no, the U.S.

doesn't has fewer and fewer cards and is going to have less and less influence as time goes on.