One of the things that was very interesting to hear in Albania over the course of the 90s

was that we had gone through a communism that was really different from Yugoslav communism and

was much more isolated and in some ways more restrictive and many Albanians who had part of their nation in

Yugoslavia in the form of Kosovo thought that you know it was much better to be Kosovo than

to be in Albania because of the degree of censorship and oppression and yet after in 1990

Yugoslavia went through war and the breakup of Yugoslavia came with a massive human

cost and I remember hearing these arguments in Albania about how you know it

wanted to be Yugoslavia for all these years but then in 1990 you suddenly didn't want

to be Yugoslavia anymore because you saw what the breakup was and brought for people there.

And now the good fight with Yasha Monk. Like many of you have been filled with deep admiration at the courage and the bravery of the Ukrainian people over the last week.

Anybody who claimed that Ukraine is not a real nation, anybody who claimed that Ukrainians don't care about self-determination, that they don't want to be able to be masters of their own fate,

has been proven deeply wrong by the inspiring solidarity, the inspiring resistance that we've seen throughout the country

over these terrible days of war.

At the same time, I have also felt deep admiration for segments of the Russian population.

In the last week we have seen thousands upon thousands of people being arrested

for protesting the war.

We have seen courageous petitions against the war from scientists to musicians to

scholars of William Shakespeare, a petition on move on atorg has over a million

signatories. And unlike in a free country where signing an open letter can sometimes feel ritualistic and pointless,

it takes very real courage to put your name to a letter when that can have bad consequences for your career or even land you in jail.

All of this should drive home an obvious point, which is that we are in a deep and important

conflict with a Kremlin, with Vladimir Putin, but we are not at war with the Russian people.

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