This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel with my colleague Bill Rajo, and we are very pleased to have John Hardy of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy here to comment on Ukraine conflict.

There are all kinds of rumors floating around, John, about the new administration of Mr. Trump or the outgoing administration, Mr. Biden,

what Keith wants, what Moscow wants.

At this point, the editorial in the Financial Times points to a peace agreement that's not too hot,

not too cold, just right.

Don't give Russia too much.

Don't hold back too much.

To your reading so far, has Keith changed its opinion in any formal fashion to say we fight until we regain all of our territory?

Or is there reason to believe that that is a moving story and that Keith is now determined to go along with the idea of giving up territory for

a ceasefire. Where is it, John? Right. So right now, Keith's official position is that they're

basically willing to stop the fighting where the lines are. They're not going to formally seed that

territory, but I think they're willing to, they understand that they're not going to formally seed that territory, but I think they're willing

to, they understand that they're not going to retake all of it back. And so they're willing to

stop fighting on the condition. This is really critical that they receive security guarantees from

the West, and in particular, NATO membership after the war is over. And so basically how they square the circle is saying, okay, the Article 5 guarantee,

this is collective defense, attack against ones and attack against all.

That would apply to Ukraine territory, but not immediately to the territories under Russian

control.

So Russia's occupation of those territories would not trigger

Article 5. And so basically, the Ukrainians see that guarantee as critical if this potential

peace agreement is not going to lead to kind of an invitation to further aggression by Moscow.

The Ukrainian nightmare is that it kind of stopped fighting for a few years.

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