This is CBSI on the World. I'm John Batcher with my colleague, Anatole Leven of the

Queenstead Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writing most recently about informpulsi.com,

about Crimea, the counteroffensive, the leaks, the Ukrainian position, which is mixed with

politics and history and patriotism. And I touch on the Russian position as much speculation

about the Putin regime in the Kremlin and about the Russians' losses and the depredations

of the general population given the sanctions. Anatole, of course, Ukraine is not the best place

to put your ear to the ground to hear the Kremlin. But do you sense that there is any negotiating

room in Moscow about Crimea? There has been, I think, a few suggestions about international

territory, autonomous creating a free city, something like Dan Segaterno, there are other

analogies in history. Is there any talk like that in Russia to your understanding?

No, I mean, not in the Russian government or the establishment. The line is simply that

Crimea is ours. In the past, of course, there was a desire that the Donbass should return

to Crimea with autonomous status. And that was the agreement made at Minsk in 2015,

brokered by France and Germany. But Ukraine basically rejected that agreement. And now Russia

has illegally, of course, but annexed the Donbass. And so those two territories, at least,

look from a Russian point of view, probably non-negotiable, will certainly in the case of Crimea.

The question is whether in return for a peace settlement leaving those territories in

Russian hands, Russia might be prepared to abandon other territory, or whether the entire

territorial issue could be shelved for future negotiation under a ceasefire. We know.

We know. Of course, what has happened in other cases of territorial disputes?

Yes, a ceasefire followed by years of conflict that has not resolved leading to decades.

A Korean peninsula would be one in which everybody rearms and the world is destabilized by the

...