Professor, thank you for doing this.

The arc of, and it's not the topic of today's conversation, but the arc of your career

as someone who's just watched it pretty carefully all of these years.

You've wound up where I think all of us want to be, which is universally respected,

regarded as an Oracle.

It must be sort of nice to look back and be vindicated.

So anyway, so I'm honored to have you.

Where are we in Ukraine right now?

Well, we're in deep trouble if you mean the United States in Ukraine. You talk about we. The fact is that the Russians are winning the war and there's no way that Ukraine can rescue the situation. If you look at the balance of power in terms of weaponry and in terms of manpower,

the number of soldiers that each side has, the Ukrainians are in a hopeless situation.

And furthermore, they're heavily dependent on the West for support. And President Trump has made it clear that he's not going to refill

the Biden pipeline once all the weaponry and that pipeline runs out. So the Ukrainians are doomed.

And if you look at what's happening on the battlefield, it's quite clear that the Ukrainians are doomed. And if you look at what's happening on the battlefield,

it's quite clear that the Ukrainians understand that. Their defenses are slowly but steadily

collapsing. Now, one might say, well, can't we get a negotiated settlement? Can't we bring this war

to an end? And the fact is that neither the Ukrainians nor the West,

and here we're talking mainly about the Europeans, is willing to cut a deal that's acceptable

to the Russians. So there's no way you're going to have a diplomatic settlement to this war.

It's going to be settled on the battlefield battlefield and the Russians are going to win an ugly

victory and you're going to have a frozen conflict. Why can't you have a negotiated settlement?

Because Russia has a set of demands. There are three main demands and I'll spell them out in a second.

But they are unacceptable

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