Welcome to Pushback. I'm Marin Mate.

Joining me is Nikolai Petro.

He is professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, editor of Ukraine in

Crisis, and author of the forthcoming book, The Tragedy of Ukraine, also a board member of the

American Committee for U.S. Russia Accord.

Nikolai Petro, thank you for joining me once again.

Nice to be with you, Aaron.

Let me start by asking you your views on the Russian invasion so far.

Were you surprised that Russia went ahead with this invasion and your thoughts on how it's going so far?

Yes, I was with the mainstream policy analytical community in not taking the intelligence assessments that we were being given as gospel.

And I thought that if Putin had demonstrated them to be false, that he would have had the upper hand

in the long run in negotiating.

But I was wrong. And as a lot of people that I admire were older and wiser than I,

like Jack Matlock, for example, is also admitted and said the same thing.

So this is a tragedy, a word I use a lot, but also a disaster in the mutual relations between Russia and Ukraine, in the European context.

It will be very difficult for Russia to overcome.

I am, like many people, puzzled by the strategic goal.

But I do understand the logic of his explanation as to why he felt there was no alternative for Russia strategically, but to act and to act now.

So the argument is threefold. One, that Russia got a flat rejection of any negotiation on a key red line for Russia, which was further expansion of NATO.

Along with two other key demands that were in Russia's vital security interests, the placement

of strategic weapons aimed at Russia on its border, specifically in Ukraine, which could have occurred

and was already being negotiated regardless of NATO membership.

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