Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate. Joining me is Ben Aris. He is the founder and editor of BNE in

Tele News. That's BNE.E.U. Longtime reporter covering Russia. Ben, thank you for joining me.

Pleasure. Pleasure to be here. Russia has accused the U..s of waging economic war against it i'm wondering

if we could start out by asking you to talk about the measures that the u.s has unveiled against

russia the sanctions the banning of energy, the seizing of its foreign reserves.

And what impact do you think this will have on Russia and the global economy?

So at the very outset, I think I should say that the Russia watchers are divided into two very

different camps. And in the one camp, they see Putin trying to rebuild the soviet union

that he hates Ukraine or doesn't see it as a real country is just a region of Russia which it was

for many years and that he hates democracy and that he sees Ukrainian democracy because it's a lot

more democratic than Russia,

as a threat.

And there's some truth to that, but I'm in the other camp,

which thinks this is all about NATO.

And that Putin, what he's doing to understand his actions,

it's about getting a security deal

because the NATO security infrastructure explicitly excludes Russia. It's not a member. And

therefore, on the outside, it feels threatened by NATO, which has been advancing towards

Russia's borders over the last, whatever it is, 10, 15 years. And that Putin has decided that

a clash with the West is inevitable and that Ukraine's

membership of NATO, despite the fact it hasn't been offered membership, nor is there any prospect

to be joining. Nevertheless, he believes its membership is inevitable. And he believes it's inevitable

...