I'm John Batchel with my friend Anatole Levin at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

And we're speaking of a conversation, two conversations, really, one with the Financial Times over

a Sauvignon, wine, I believe, all these things mean are significant.

The other with the New York Times is much more

straightforward as Mr. Blinken leaves his role as Secretary of State and starts to be a

world-scale speaker. And I look forward to his information. He's going to write books, and it will

be revelatory of these last years. Ukraine is darkness visible,

along with Syria. I'm going to stay with Ukraine, however, because it was prominently in the New York

Times interview. Ukraine is now an unsolved story. We've talked of a ceasefire these last weeks.

I didn't see it in Mr. Blinken's remarks.

Did you find it there?

Well, Blinken acknowledged, what I think is now pretty much universally acknowledged,

that there are going to have to be talks that, you know,

that in the end there will have to be an agreed solution, which by definition

means an agreement with Russia. And that has not really, previous, or was not, the Biden

administration line. But, of course, he wouldn't go into any details about this, nor, of course, would he acknowledge the many accusations

that have been levelled that the US could have avoided this war diplomatically or ended it

diplomatically much earlier on much better terms for Ukraine, because, of course, certainly over the past year,

the Ukraine situation on the ground has got steadily worse.

And, you know, there is a risk of disaster.

So, I mean, I don't know whether it would be fair to ask Blinken, you know, to respond more

honestly on that.

...