Ian Bremmer

The Russians have not shown restraint in a way that the Ukrainians have.

Let's keep in mind, Helen, that the fact that Ukraine was able to do this

meant that Ukraine could have deployed those drones against Russian civilians and civilian architecture.

They could have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Russian civilians in Moscow and in St.

Petersburg, and they didn't.

and they haven't and the russians are the ones that have historically for the last three and a half years launched their own missiles and drones and bombers and attacked everything they can find that moves in ukraine they're the ones targeting civilians so the ukrainians are ready for this

But we have to think about what Putin is going to do.

And we need to put ourselves in Putin's head here.

Why is it that Putin has believed that the longer this war goes on, the better for him?

And what might Putin's vulnerabilities be in his head?

Because he's the one that's making the decisions himself.

And those are two separate questions.

So let me try to address both of them for you.

First, why has Putin believed that the war, the longer it goes, the better for him?

And look, I think part of it is that Russia's military is bigger.

Part of it is that he doesn't care as much about his own civilians.

Putin runs a dictatorship.

The Ukrainians have to worry much more about popular response.

I mean, their conscription age was 27.

It was really hard just to bring it down to 25.