Ian Bremmer

When it comes to things that the Russians could really do to undermine China's position globally,

Back in the beginning of the war in the first year, when it was looking more likely that Russia would use a tactical nuke in Southeast Ukraine because they were losing lots of territory, the Americans warned the Russians under Biden that if that were to happen, the United States would directly engage in military strikes against Russian military targets.

They said that directly through intelligence channels.

And they also told the Chinese and the Indians and China and India both at the head of state level told Putin, you have to absolutely not use a nuke.

And the American position I think has changed dramatically from Biden to Trump on this.

I fear has changed dramatically because the deterrent is weaker.

But I'm not at all convinced that India and China are less worried about it as a consequence.

So...

According to Putin, this is still not a war.

It's a special military operation.

According to Putin, these acts are acts of terrorism.

They're not direct acts of military war, which means that he is not compelled to take military responses, including on his nuclear threat level internally, that he would if it were a direct war.

helpful in that regard again he's dictator so he can change the rules uh at a whim but he likes to have potemkin law uh in russia that you know at least implies that he's going through a process whether it's a show trial or whether it's you know sort of a vote in parliament you name it um to approve an annexation all of this stuff so i think it's helpful um that that process goes through now um it's very clear to me

that Ukraine was very well aware.

The decision of when to launch this attack was informed by the reality of negotiations happening the next day.

Now, these are not Zelensky-Putin negotiations, which at this point, Zelensky says he welcomes, Trump says he wants, Putin refuses, Putin's cabinet says no.

but they were meaningful working level diplomatic discussions.

And despite Ukraine's extraordinary success,

the Russians still showed up.

And they didn't just show up.