Michael Weiss

She got burnt by Russia and needs no education on what it represents, both to the security of Europe and to the security of the United States.

But that ship has sailed, I guess.

It is, but again, the adversary that they face doesn't want to stop the war for a variety of reasons.

Putin, his economy is now wholly dependent on keeping this going.

There's some very good analysis that's been produced by Russian economic experts that say –

The Russian economy is not going to collapse, but it is going to contract considerably and has begun to do so already.

And all of the money that's going into the defense sector is money that's not going into basic civil services and things that would otherwise keep the economy growing.

Added to which, he is –

He is a belligerent revanchist who wants to reconstitute as much of the former Soviet Union as possible.

And Ukraine is the biggest prize in that objective, right?

You know, there's sort of double bookkeeping on the Russian side here.

On the one hand, he sees a mug and a dupe and an imbecile in Donald Trump, somebody who can be easily manipulated and flattered and persuaded to do things

at least to say the right things about Putin.

On the other hand, and this is important because it gets lost in the noise of how we talk about Trump and Russia.

On the other hand,

There is an element within the Russian government, particularly what's known as the Siloviki, the security apparatuses, the strong men, that will never, ever believe that the United States will be anything other than hostile to Russia.

The U.S.

remains the main adversary of Russia.

That's not going to change with, it could be Hillary or Bush or Trump in the White House, the same thing.

And the evidence that they would produce to justify that is U.S.