This is John Bachelor. From a two-hour conversation with Professor

Seri Ploki of Harvard University, his new book

The Russo-Ukraineian War, it comes down again

to Vladimir Putin making the decision to start the war in February 28th. again to

start the war in February 22 but before that

ambition for Putin was to deal with

President Zelensky a first-time politician,

a man who'd been successful as an entertainer,

to deal with him in a fashion that he would do what he was told

and that Ukraine would become a client state of the Russian Federation.

Seri Plokie describes here the assumption that Vladimir Putin approached with before the war, before the war.

Putin's idea and that's the main reason why the war started in 2014 was to stop Ukraine's drift

toward the west and include Ukraine into the Russia-controlled sphere of influence, the so-called Eurasian Union.

And that's the goal was there in back in 2014, the goal in 2022 and I am convinced it is still the goal today and now

plan B is dismember in Ukraine if plan A doesn't work. And Putin's hope for President Zolenski, who had no political experience

before being elected, a comedian, very successful in bad sense.

The idea was that Mr. Zolensky would accept Mr. Putin's interpretations of

Minsk agreements. I see. Would implement them the way how Putin wanted them

to be implemented and in that way actually

Ukraine would become ungovernable. Once Mr. Zelensky told to Mr Putin during

the meeting in Paris in Paris that he was not prepared to do that.

Many observers believe and I agree with them that after that, after the December of 2019, that's where the

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