All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's speech at this forum for business and industry that took place in Russia the other day.

And a speech from Putin where he talked about bricks, he talked about a new payment architecture, a new payment systems.

And he also talked a lot about sanctions from

the collective West and the weaponization of the U.S. dollar against Russia. All of this, of course,

in the context of the ongoing negotiations and bilateral talks with Trump and the Trump administration.

So what are your thoughts on this business summit that Putin spoke at?

This is an extraordinary speech, and it was an extremely important one. What makes it important

is the nature of the audience, because can I say this is the union of industrialists and entrepreneurs.

This is the major business employers' union in Russia. It's the equivalent of the CBI in Britain or the BDI in Germany. It brings

together business, at the business community. So he's addressing the representatives of the business

community of Russia, the people who basically are running the economy and who have to make the investment decisions.

Now, he is talking about the future direction of the Russian economy.

And he's talking about this publicly to the people who are going to be making the long-term investment decisions and all of that.

So he's not going to misdirect them, because if he does, he's going to affect Russia's

economic development.

So we can take what he says in this speech as being a genuine expression of his

own thinking and that of the Russian leadership.

And basically the outline that he provided is that whatever happens with the Americans, whatever agreements

are made over Ukraine, whatever long-term agreements are made with the Americans about

Europe, security, all of those things.

The period of globalization, the period of Russia participating in a globalized economy

is over once and forever.

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