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Slack.com slash DHQ. Hey, everyone. It's Sunday, February 27th. I am usually not in your

feed over the weekend, but with the announcement today that Ukraine has agreed to diplomatic

talks with Russia and with Vladimir Putin putting his nuclear arsenal on high alert, we

wanted to get this conversation out a bit earlier than usual. We recorded it last week.

Many observers have been caught off guard by Ukraine's ability to fend off Russian forces

so far. But Slate's Fred Kaplan, he's not among them. In this conversation, we talked

about how the history of Russian aggression and democratic pushback have led us to this

moment. All right, here's the show.

When I asked Fred Kaplan, who writes Slate's war stories column, whether he'd anticipated

the kind of open warfare we're seeing in Ukraine, he had an admission to make.

I have to confess I was surprised.

Fred actually came on this show back in December and made a prediction that an invasion

wasn't really what Putin wanted in Ukraine. He was wrong about that. For Fred, it's still

sort of stunning.

It'll be interesting if the archives ever reveal when Putin made up his mind to go for it.

You know, he disembowed this massive force. He could have found some way out to gain a

few decaries and go home.

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