The Munich Security Conference promised to be a crucial gathering of leaders as crises flare around the world and a bumper election season gets into gear.

On Friday as the meeting got underway,

news of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

spread through the bustling Byreshahov Hotel Hotel and that elicited a moving tribute from Yulia Navalny, his wife in attendance when the news broke.

It feels like a crystallizing moment and particularly for those gathered here dedicated to supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russia.

Welcome to Power Play, which we're bringing to you this week from Munich.

I'm Anne McElvoy and from the throng of securocrats and defense experts gathered here,

we've selected two conversations we thought you might find enlightening on how America

and its allies should deal with pressing conflicts from Ukraine's stalemate

to war in Gaza and the specter of a possible Donald Trump return.

I'll be joined by Celeste Wallander, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for

International Security Affairs and one of the Pentagon's foremost thinkers on Russia and

Vladimir Putin. Well first I'd observe that President Putin says a lot of things that have a tenuous relationship with the truth, or with facts,

and I think it's in that context we should always take with a grain of salt what he says publicly.

It's usually for a

deeper purpose than the obvious and Senator Ben Carden

German of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is with the chairman where we will begin this bumper Bavarian

addition.

Senator Khmer's welcome to Power Play.

It's wonderful to be with you, thank you very much.

On this slightly drizzly day here in Munich, we learned just as we

were going into this conference of the death of the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Lovvani, who died in a prison camp. What was your reaction you

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