I'm John Batscher with my colleague Mary Kistol, Executive Vice President Stevenson Incorporated,

former Senior Advisors for the Secretary of State,

Looking at the Ukraine War, now in its third year,

and no end in sight, larger weapons arriving all the time.

We're told F-16s are available, though there are very few

– a Ukrainian pilots trained to fly them. We're told that there has been entertainment of sending

contractors into Ukraine because there's a manpower shortage.

We're also told that the Russians continue to take huge casualties and yet there is no end

in sight unless we note that Ukraine's foreign minister in China these last days talked with the foreign minister of China.

That would be Wang Yi, a man skilled in brutal confrontation, talking about achieving a fair

peace in the war with Russia. Fair peace is euphemism for time to talk, maybe.

Mary, there is, there is from Vladimir Putin,

no hesitation to say, these are my demands. We keep this this this this you don't

join NATO ever we disarm the whole of the country and we're happy.

That is Vladimir Putin generalized.

The other side, Mr. Zelensky says,

the war ends when we regain Crimea and all of our territory. Do you see this

remark by the foreign minister in China about a fair peace? Do you see this as an opening, a slight opening of a door to a negotiated settlement.

I don't until Russia moderates its and its behavior. China has played peacemaker in the past or made those overtures and never followed through.

The Ukrainians obviously want peace but want it on terms that benefit them and

rightly so given the war crimes that Russia has committed against them.

So I guess, John, I'd say that the proof will be in observing the behavior of Moscow at the end of the day.

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