You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero podcast.

Hi, Anatole.

Hello.

How you doing?

Well, apart from the general situation, I could be worse.

Apart from the impending end of the world, things are fine.

Mm-hmm. Let me introduce this. I'm Robert impending end of the world, things are fine. Mm-hmm.

Let me introduce this.

I'm Robert Wright, published with Non-Zero Newsletter. This is a non-zero podcast. Your Anatole Levin of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Author of a number of books, including the Baltic Revolution, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the path to independence and most relevantly for purposes of today's conversation.

Ukraine and Russia. the Baltic revolutions, Estonia, Lithuania, and the Path to Independence, and most

relevantly, for purposes of today's conversation, Ukraine and Russia, a fraternal rivalry.

We're going to talk about the Ukraine situation, which seems to be getting more alarming,

almost by the hour. So today is the day that, first of all, I think is the last

day of voting for the referendums in the four oblasts or provinces. It's widely expected that this

will be followed by Russia's annexation of some or all of them, which will vastly complicate the

prospects for near-term peace, I think, in your view,

and many others. And then the other thing that happened this morning, or I woke up to find it

this morning, was the sabotage of not one, but both Nord Stream gas pipelines coming out of Russia.

Now, why don't we talk a little about that first because it's

breaking. In the West, a lot of fingers are pointing at Russia. I don't quite get why Russia would do

this. I mean, unless it's some kind of fancy false flag attack, because if they just want to stop the gas,

there's a much easier way to do that, right? Because the gas comes from Russia to Europe, right?

...