I'm John Datsch who with my colleague Colonel Jeff McCausen.

CebS News, U.S. Army Retired Artillery Man and CEO of Diamond Six Leadership and Strategy Important

Visiting Professor Dickens at college.

The headlines on Ukraine are mixed.

Mr. Putin staged at dinner for dead soldiers soldiers families on Orthodox Christmas Eve.

At the same time there is talk of prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.

But, offsetting that those peace gestures, perhaps PR, we have continued fusilads directly against Ukraine by Russia. Most notably in these last hours a hotel

associated with journalists in Karkov was hit and there was one dead journalist I believe

from the reports I saw but it's fog of war

and Russia's threatened Ukraine if it continues to send missiles against Belgrade a Russian

city in reach of the Ukrainian border. It will attack the north of Ukraine.

Again, remember Russia is parked in the east of the country, not in the north.

That would be out of Belarus directed towards Kief.

At the same time, Belarus is back in the news.

Again, we've been through this dance.

Russia is deploying nuclear weapons tactical nuclear

weapons into Belarus and Lukashenko the dictator Belarus is boasting about it not

to attack Ukraine but in the event says the Kremlin of NATO war, which is unlikely from our point of view,

but the foreign minister of Latvia has said in these last days,

Mr. Karans, that he believes after Ukraine falls and is partitioned

or fragmented, that Russia is coming from the rest of its Soviet Empire.

I mention all of this because none of these things go in one direction Jeff they're all over

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