It's good to have you here.

Now, I don't think we know why Vladimir Putin

really decided to invade Ukraine.

Who knows what lurks in his heart little heart.

But we do know that lots of people who are sympathetic

to Putin or who are at least inclined to apologize for

or explain away the worst of what Putin does.

A lot of those people had a favorite supposed explanation

for why Putin felt the need to start that war.

A lot of Putin apologists and Putin sympathizers said

that Putin felt like he had to invade Ukraine

because he felt very shy about NATO.

The NATO alliance just had too many countries in it,

too many countries that were too close to Russia.

And that all just gave Putin this terrible kudis

feeling about NATO being too close.

And so therefore he had to invade Ukraine.

Again, I don't actually think that's it.

I don't think we know all the reasons why he does what he does,

who knows what's going on in his little short dictator heart

of hearts.

But if, in fact, the apologists are at least partially correct,

...