This is Putins last victory parade -how will the new strongman look like? - Jonathan Fink knows it

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]How will the way be way out before Vladimir Putin from this? Do you see another 9th May victory parade in 2027?

[00:00:08]Not with him at the head of it. No, I don't.

[00:00:11]Hello everyone. I'm very, very pleased once again having Jonathan Fink in the channel. He's the host of Silicon Curtain and he himself is really my absolute role model. Jonathan's interview partners read like a who's who of internationally renowned Putin critics, war experts.

[00:00:28]He has now published a book also with the collection of the most interesting of his interviews. We'll talk about that later. But let's first look at now the actual things Putin's May 9th parade.

[00:00:39]This time it's different. No tanks, no missiles, no foreign state leaders, no veterans. What's going on, Jonathan?

[00:00:46]Well, he's paranoid and he's afraid.

[00:00:50]And I think rightly. And recently an intelligence report from a European country, not actually revealed which one. I'd love to know which one.

[00:01:00]And this report breaks out in detail um what is going on. And it seems Putin is fearful of Ukraine, fearful of Ukrainian drones humiliating him in front of his people and especially his elites and foreign leaders on May 9th. But he is also apparently, according to this report, equally paranoid about his own internal elites. He fears assassination, coup.

[00:01:28]I imagine scenarios of playing through his head. Gaddafi being clubbed to death by with shoes in a ditch. Ceausescu dragged into a courtyard and shot and filmed. These scenarios will be playing through his head. Saddam Hussein arrested and eventually hanged. And then of course we have Maduro with the recent example. Now, he knows. He knows and the Russian elites know that if they are going to somehow regain access to Western markets, access to their you know what do they call it? Mansions abroad.

[00:02:06]If they're somehow going to start to live their luxurious lifestyles again and forget about this you know Imperial history nonsense which they they I think they dearly would like to do now because it's clearly not working.

[00:02:19]They know that [clears throat] Putin can't go too far.

[00:02:22]They know that if Putin carries on the war, he's going to wreck the economy but he's also going to wreck their chances of being allowed back into the civilized world. Now, it's my view that they shouldn't be allowed back in for generations until they fix you know, the issues that have led to this but the international community your country as well, I think are are primed to sort of when can we have Russia back? When can we have the old Russia back? You and I would explain to them that the old Russia never existed anyway and and the one you think of, the one where you bought you know, their hydrocarbons and and you thought was your partner, that's gone. That is completely gone. But anyway, irrespective of that, many Western leaders would like to rehabilitate Russia no matter how obscene that sounds. If Putin goes too far, if he drops a tactical nuclear weapon, if he does all sorts of crazy stuff that he might do when he gets really desperate, they know there's no way back. So, I think we're reaching a point where Putin has to escalate but all the elites around him realize that that escalation will turn them into pariahs for generations.

[00:03:30]Yeah, okay but just just once again on Putin back.

[00:03:35]His paranoia was always there because he is a KGB agent. He he'll he'll learn that from the very beginning. Um but something has obviously changed. He's been not visible for a for a while and so >> I mean, this has been happening throughout the war.

[00:03:53]Here the number of his public engagements has steadily gone down since 2022. His online engagements has gone down. The suggestion that he's spending more and more time in his bunkers and not his palaces in Valdai and so on.

[00:04:09]That of course has incrementally increased through the war. And I think there that that paranoia, the twofold paranoia we described has been building incrementally. But you're right, it's reached some kind of critical threshold because in the early stages of the war, I think there was a certain amount of freaking out in the elites. Like how are we going to carry on making money? How are we going to you know, how are we going to live like this and what's this going to turn into?

[00:04:35]But I think it became fairly clear through 2023 as the war entered its kind of I won't call it a stasis, but you know, the the the front lines became frozen.

[00:04:44]Um, they started to figure out how they could make money from it. And then the gray fleet built up. The income continued to come in. The Western sanctions were full of holes frankly and didn't have the will to defeat Russia embedded in them. They were, you know, managerial box ticking exercises frankly. Um, and the elites realized actually this isn't so bad. We can live with this. We can make money. Who who cares if, you know, a certain percentage of the rural population and and and non-Russian ethnic minorities are being, you know, massacred in in meat assaults.

[00:05:19]They don't care. They figured out a way to actually profit from it. That is coming to an end. Yeah. So, I think you've you've got that. You've got them the declining success of not successes, but you know, they're they're starting to be eroded at the front. You've got the economic situation. You've got Europe really stepping up with its rearmament program and supporting Ukraine. All the assumptions they built their longer term wealth and security on are falling apart. Now now they've got very stark choices. If you can't win the war, you have to find a way to stop the war.

[00:05:54]But, this guy, Vladimir Putin, is not stopping. And I think that that's the biggest problem for them.

[00:06:01]That That is the biggest problem for them. And uh for for Vladimir Putin, once again, uh his 9th May victory parade and everything else, it's it's about projection of power and to show we are the most mighty and the most powerful country. And now it's uh visible to everybody that that they are they are not winning in Ukraine. They are losing. So, the least pro-pro-Russian Z blogger now understands they are losing. And the public also will do it. So, how will the way be way out before Vladimir Putin from this? Do you see Do you see another 9th uh May victory parade in 2027?

[00:06:41]Not with him at the head of it. No, I don't. I think this is his last one, whether he realizes it or not. This is the last one, and it is going to be an ignominious humiliation. There's no tanks. There's no missile launchers.

[00:06:55]There's no heavy equipment. Now, they're at risk of can- canceling the flyover or having the planes so far up in the sky that they're barely visible.

[00:07:05]Which color are they? Which color are they? Um the whole thing is is an utter humiliation. Um he is now begging uh Donald Trump to put pressure on Zelenskyy to allow him his little victory parade, his little victory of Ukraine. None of this makes any sense.

[00:07:24]And I think he may not see the optics and understand it, but the optics of it show him in such a weak position, such an incredibly weak position. And a weak strongman is an oxymoron.

[00:07:37]Everyone in Russia uh will know that you know, when when Putin becomes weak, no longer able to defend their interests as well as his own, it's over. Why do you need a Vladimir Putin if he's not strong? If he can't arbitrate between different factions and different mafia groups and Chechens, if he can't guarantee at least minimum standards of living for the urban elite, forget about the provinces, if he can't keep the internet on, what use is Vladimir Putin?

[00:08:07]Now he becomes a burden and this is what many of his their blogs are talking about, not just the minor ones, the really big ones are starting to hint that Putin no longer aligns with the interests of the elites. Mhm. That's a telling phrase.

[00:08:21]Do you Do you see the next strongman on the horizon?

[00:08:25]Someone like >> know what individual that is. What I do know is that the the mindset of This is going to be a broad generalization.

[00:08:33]People say, "How can you say this is a The mindset of your average Russian is finely-attuned to a hierarchy and it's not a hierarchy built on class, it's not a hierarchy built on earnings or talent, it's a hierarchy built on strength and on fear.

[00:08:53]So, of course, everyone will be looking out for the next strongman. They don't necessarily know who it is, but they are primed to embrace the next person who can uh institute some kind of order. And what does order mean in the Russian sense?

[00:09:10]Order means you can inflict fear and punishment.

[00:09:15]Order means So, you might have to edit that bit out there.

[00:09:21]Um order also means uh that you have to be able to marshal resources, take control of resources, uh and then distribute them down through your power vertical. These are the key functions of the strongman. Um so, they're going to be looking out for someone who can do that and who can manage different factions, whether it be mafia groupings, whether it be the army, whether it be the various directorates of the intelligence service. That person has to be able to instill a certain amount of fear in all these organs of state, otherwise it's chaos. And I think everyone in Russia feels that. Ukraine is is wired completely differently.

[00:10:03]Ukraine does not have that mindset. We saw this in Prigozhin.

[00:10:07]You remember when Prigozhin came into Rostov? Yeah. He was mobbed. He was surrounded by people. Do they care that he is war criminal? No. Do they care that his groups are mass murderers, rapists? He's the head of a convict army? No. None of them cared about the moral character of that man. What they saw was strength and purpose. Someone who could impose their will on the system and reinstate the hierarchy. I mean, this is one thing that doesn't get discussed much. We talk about war crimes. Well, actually the media doesn't talk nearly enough about war crimes. Not enough, yeah. But you have Bucha, you have all these other places, you have Irpin. And I think you know, it's not just individual sadism and it's not just systematic sadism of the army. I think there's a fundamental confusion going on in the heads of all those Russian soldiers. They and they realize that the whole dynamic of society is different and that these Ukrainians do not fear them and they do not exist in the same kind of hierarchy.

[00:11:15]They do not the Russian word is pachinit. They they do not observe that pecking order.

[00:11:22]And they don't understand it. So, I think many of the war crimes come about yes through sadism and cruelty, but also just like, why can't you be like us? Why that they understand how the world works and how this order works because what you've got is chaos.

[00:11:37]And of course there's the dichotomy there because they see that materially Ukrainians are living better, things working better, a style of life they couldn't even dream [clears throat] of when they've been told for decades that Ukrainians are inferior, intellectually inferior, civilizationally inferior culture, inferior everything.

[00:11:57]And then they come here and find the Ukrainians live much better and they live a completely different dynamic and they do not respect the Tsar and the hierarchy.

[00:12:06]That that's that's one of the causes I think of of of the extreme brutality we see. But every Russian's going to want that for their system. They're going to be looking at for the person who will reinstate that sense of order in Russia.

[00:12:18]>> but that that was all the time also the the case in the times of the Cold War when when there was the Soviet Union and the West. So the Soviets, I was always wondering why don't the people I I mean me as a German I'm a perfect example because I am I grew up in the country which was divided between two systems of Soviet Union and West Western Germany.

[00:12:40]Occupied in the beginning by the allies, by the Americans, French and English and on the other side there was GDR occupied by the Soviets. And I have I I grew up as a boy and I was visiting my relatives in East Germany and I wondered all the time don't they see that we live we live better and that we want to have that too.

[00:13:03]And of course they wanted to have that too. But when it came to the reunification I thought now everything is fine.

[00:13:10]Everybody thought that.

[00:13:12]But >> End of history. The end of history mindset. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:16]>> That was so wrong. So very wrong.

[00:13:18]>> of history but we our values we had imposed by the Americans and and the democratic world they did not count so much as as the the bad values like lies or like brutality or like power or like disbelief.

[00:13:36]>> Here, um I mean, this is this is the one This is one of the things which is I find fascinating, but which isn't nearly discussed enough, is that you have, you know, far more, you know, let's say political respect for the Soviet Union.

[00:13:51]You had more and in France, Italy, Germany, you had more of the detente, more trust when the fall came, and more of a desire to rehabilitate and reincorporate, you know, Russia into the the the the family of of civilization. Um and of course, you've got greater proximity. And these are all logical geopolitical reasons, but we also forget that the Red Army brutalized Germany.

[00:14:20]Yes. I mean, brutalized it in in the sense of mass rape, uh and mass torture, and mass beatings. So, I think deep deep in the psychology, there's also a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Absolutely. They they are afraid of the Russians, and that's what I feel now here. And and this fear of Russia is also now in Western Germany, which makes me wonder.

[00:14:44]Because in the Eastern parts, there as you know, you you also wanted to talk with me about the AFD, this pro-Russian party.

[00:14:52]And they have those pro-Russian narratives that Russia is invincible, it's great and strong, and we have to to make deals with them, and buy cheap energy, and so on and so on.

[00:15:05]>> [gasps] >> Uh instead of looking on the the human values which we had in the Western hemisphere, the Western world.

[00:15:13]You had re-education. I mean, my own family from part of my family are from Vienna, although they were of Polish ethnicity.

[00:15:22]They they escaped some of the great >> escaped uh Vienna in 1938 and my grandmother in 1939, just a few weeks before it all kicked off. She was in St. Stephen's Square uh during the Anschluss.

[00:15:35]Uh uh she actually saw Himmler and Hess Mhm. uh drawing in uh and you know, the flags and and how it was created. So, I've had those conversations with her.

[00:15:46]One of the reasons I do the channel is that history is absolutely visceral.

[00:15:50]Knowing that the direct relative had those experiences, she was uh interrogated by the SS for, I think, 12 hours as she tried to leave the country uh because they didn't believe they thought her passport may have been falsified and she was a Jew trying to get out. And of course, her fiance was Jewish. So, uh she was very lucky to escape the country with with her life.

[00:16:13]But, going back to Vienna, which I I I like the architecture but I actually can't stand Vienna.

[00:16:19]>> [laughter] >> Uh some people think it's lovely, but I I I just find I just find the conservatism overwhelming. I find it and that's the small c conservatism. I find it to be a very intense uh place and I I I don't like the atmosphere at all. I mean, the the cakes are nice and the coffee's nice in the coffee shops and it's all lovely, >> [laughter] >> but um they didn't have that reeducation program. I mean, I think the Germans, it was imposed, but I think there was also some reciprocity and that people really did embrace the idea of reeducation and denazification.

[00:16:56]Well, the Japanese didn't really quite go through that um and the Austrians absolutely didn't.

[00:17:02]Now, they just turned around and said, "Yeah, it's all the Germans' fault. We had nothing to do with it. We're victims, too." They had a lot of to do with it. They had a Well, yeah. I mean, the little guy with the mustache happens to be Austrian as well, you know. He was He was created created by Vienna um and that culture.

[00:17:20]No, I mean joking aside um you can see the danger of not coming to terms with your past. And I think Russia's in the same position. It's never come to terms with its Soviet past, its imperial past, the crimes of it. And if Russia's going to be rehabilitated, and I've said this since the first year of the war, the next Russian dictator will not be some extreme nationalist.

[00:17:47]Um because that's to suggest there is organic politics in Russia, that somehow it's going to behave more like the West.

[00:17:54]This is the irony. If they were to have some far right-wing figure, some extreme nationalist, that's a Western political process because it suggests that somehow the leadership is going to reflect some kind of popular opinion or political processes. No, the next leader of Russia is going to be appointed by the intelligence services because they control all the country, they own it, and they own all its politicians. So, the next leader of Russia is going to be a pseudo liberal.

[00:18:23]A puppet of the intelligence service and will try to fool the West into once again forgiving them, and then they will dodge that whole cycle of you know, coming to terms with their history and their criminality.

[00:18:38]>> But But Putin Putin was also a guy from the intelligence service. Was he imposed by the intelligence service?

[00:18:45]Yes or no?

[00:18:46]>> Not imposed. I mean it it's basically my view is that I was I was there when it was happening. My view is that in the mid-90s the um FSB or the KGB, which had become really quite weak institutionally, started to regain its strength and gradually it formed a plan and it started placing people throughout society uh the media, in culture, uh uh in the banking system, uh so that they would have their key agents throughout the heights of the economy.

[00:19:23]And then, when they were ready, they started doing a uh almost a reverse takeover of the mafia.

[00:19:29]At some point in '96, '97, when I was out there, you had big businesses, Western businesses, who would have to pay protection money.

[00:19:39]And at some point, they were paying protection money to a mafia guy. And then, maybe a few days later, someone from the FSB would come along and take another payment. But around '96, '97, that fused into a single point of contact. You had a merger of the intelligence services with you know, the worst mafia networks in the world. So, when Putin came to power, that's that's already happened. The coup has already happened. The takeover has already happened. Putin is just a formalization of the total, uh let's say, um the total kind of capture of the state, which had already taken place behind the scenes. So, so the the the the front lines between organized criminality and uh mafia and uh KGB or FSB, they are completely fluid. There is There is no difference between them.

[00:20:37]>> Uh there's essentially no difference. I mean, you'll you'll have uh you know, you'll have uh different groups and incomes and agreements and whatever. And sometimes, you might have some some uh you know, you might have some friction and tension and whatever.

[00:20:51]But Putin's strength is as a mediator, a mediator between all these groups.

[00:20:57]But it also is in recognition that essentially they are part of the same organism. They're part of the same intelligence-mafia hybrid, and they have the same interests, which is to milk the system, milk the country for as much revenue as is possible, and export their mafia intelligence methodology worldwide, and again to suck in resources, money, and and create wealth for that trickle-down, that hierarchy.

[00:21:22]>> So somebody who who will be the successor of Putin must come, as you said, exactly out of the same sphere.

[00:21:29]And it's nobody will nothing will change.

[00:21:32]>> they can't use an intelligence officer cuz it would they won't have the rehabilitation they require, but what they will do is, and they have been fostering a number of figures, um they will have so-called liberal politicians, so-called oppositionists.

[00:21:47]Um these people are not their puppets, they're completely controlled uh by the intelligence service.

[00:21:53]They all know what the score is, and who they work for. Um one that comes to mind is Ksenia Sobchak. You know, if they if they need a temporary, you know, couple of years in which to reset with the West, then employing a a uh uh a liberal, so-called woman would be a great way to fool the West. I mean, see how everyone's been in some ways fooled by uh Yulia Navalnaya, who is not particularly liberal to my mind, and certainly not effective or competent.

[00:22:23]But I don't think she's operated by the intelligence service. Ksenia Sobchak almost certainly is. She's the daughter of the St. Petersburg mayor, who, guess what, gave Putin his big opening.

[00:22:33]Oh, wow, that is >> Putin is his his his uh yeah, um That's an interesting insight. I've never thought about that.

[00:22:40]>> Putin is his godfather. He's her godfather. But she goes around, you know, even sometimes criticizing in a fairly open fashion the government. And I say open, it's it's not really open, but she creates this persona that she's got nothing to do with the government whatsoever. But that's because she's given license to create that persona. If she was genuine opposition, and she'd criticized the government in the way she has done, this is the irony, she'd have, you know, fallen out of a a window or something.

[00:23:10]>> [laughter] >> But, um it tells you a lot. When you see someone who who has a strong opinion and has been allowed to express it over a number of years, that tells you that they are being operated as a project.

[00:23:24]So, was this also the case with Alexey Navalny, or now with Yulia Navalnaya?

[00:23:28]>> think so. I think possibly, and this is this is what quite a few Russian liberals believe, is that he started out as a regime project.

[00:23:38]Um and the niche in the ecosystem that he was given was as a young nationalist uh firebrand.

[00:23:46]So, his the idea was that he'd become a sort of young version of Zhirinovsky, and he'd he'd occupy that particular space, and and you'd be able to control that nationalist fervor. Well, he seems to have gone off script pretty early on, and come to believe that um he would be a rival for power, rather than just occupying this little niche defined. And he moved far more into the center. Now, a lot of people will hold his early stuff against him and say he's an ultra-nationalist, and he's a racist, and he's said this, and he said that.

[00:24:18]I don't know what we can say with any certainty, because if that's a persona that's been built for him, we don't know if that's his genuine belief or or not.

[00:24:27]But, it also means that if you And this is all hypothetical.

[00:24:32]But, if you've been groomed by the system to occupy that niche within the opposition, and then you decide to occupy a different niche, or go off script, or go for the big guy's job, well, that's even worse than if you just come up organically, you know, because you have betrayed. You've taken the money, or whatever it was, and then you've betrayed uh the people. And so, that's why I think Putin Handon's special loathing for him, it's because he saw him as a turncoat, a traitor, someone who the state had co-opted and who then betrayed their plans. I see.

[00:25:09]That's That is That is very interesting insights I always get from you. Thanks so much, Jonathan.

[00:25:17]Um I am wondering about Now let's let's turn back to the West. We are here also watching Russia collapsing. We don't know when it will happen. It will happen for sure in the near future. I'm also convinced by that. So how will the West behave later on?

[00:25:36]Because will we adapt more to this criminal thing or will we stick to our values? And will Europe be able to unite and to become a democratic power democratic rock in the in this turbulent world? Do you see any possibility that we can unite? How do you see the role of Ukraine also in this game? I mean we are perhaps more united than we were when this started and we were still in the depths of the Brexit trauma when the war kicked off. And I think the war in some ways helped to unite Britain much more. You know, I have relatives who unfortunately voted the other side.

[00:26:18]We could barely we could barely talk about politics whatsoever. Um and and COVID also was quite a divisive topic, especially amongst those who voted for Brexit. Things go together.

[00:26:30]Yeah. But what reunited us was common ground on the idea of Ukraine and the injustice of it. So in in in a way Ukraine has provided or did provide some almost healing narratives because we can find things in common.

[00:26:47]That's helped me a lot, you know, with with a lot of American colleagues in this fight and they're Republicans whose uh you know, domestic policies I wouldn't necessarily agree with, um but where we can actually have conversations about freedom and democracy and agree that we have very different conceptions of how the world should be organized, but we have the same ideas about the underlying ground rules, the rules around separation of powers and so on.

[00:27:16]I think there's a lot of uh there's a lot of reasons to be positive. Um >> [snorts] >> the Moldovan election and the pushing back against Kremlin candidate is very positive. Um My my conservative Polish friends won't agree with me, but Donald Tusk um helping sort of roll back some of the illiberal measures of PiS in Poland is positive. You have Orban being kicked out of Hungary is positive. There's certainly negatives um with AfD and so on, um but it it it's a mixed bag, but I think there is there is the materials there to be uh to be positive.

[00:27:52]And then you have Ukraine. Ukraine, which has shown us over and over again through its revolutions and now in resisting Russian aggression, what freedom means. And this, you know, phrase which is often repeated that freedom isn't free, Ukraine has a different political DNA, a cultural DNA in how it organizes, and it can appear quite chaotic. Someone's described it um one of my speakers uh described Ukrainian politics as the art of applied anarchy.

[00:28:23]But there is something incredibly creative about the Ukrainian chaos um and how they're wired to uh to to do politics.

[00:28:34]I'm positive in future that I think the rock is Ukraine uh militarily, but also if we can study it and if we can learn from some of its political values, that could reinvigorate Europe. It could take us back, especially Britain, where we know, you know, democracy or mass democracy kind of got started, and a lot of the tools and instruments of democracy uh were pioneered uh in in Britain early uh in a far earlier than uh than the than most European countries, which tended to be more, you know, either monarchical or, you know, more centrist and so on, and then based on more traditional power structures. Um tools like satire, newspapers, pamphleteering, coffee houses, open debate, all this kind of stuff, you know, these are the tools of democracy, the culture of democracy. Well, I think we've lost quite a lot of that in the post-war period, where the state grabbed more and more uh problem-solving power to itself. We've reached an inflection point where the state is not so good at solving people's problems anymore. Mhm. But we haven't relearned the idea that actually it's up to us, it's beholden to us to solve those problems. And for that, you need a strong cohesive society. Well, Ukraine teaches us all of this stuff, because without that civic society, they would have gone under uh not just in 2022, but in 2014.

[00:30:06]>> [sighs and gasps] >> And the when you would say when you describe well that, um I think also about the when we take zoom out and take the wider image, um I think that Europe has become the point where the fight will be um concluded uh the between democracy and dictatorship. Yes.

[00:30:32]>> Because uh just Mark Carney recently said uh Europe uh must be the key. And I when I me as a European, you as a European, when we look at the game, we say Ukraine is the key. So, why shouldn't we reunite as Europe once again and accept the leadership of Ukraine and democratic values also in in security matters?

[00:30:53]Absolutely. And this isn't to say that you know, Ukraine's democracy is as finished and finalized. I think one of the creative aspects of this is that actually a lot of work still needs to be done in Ukraine. A lot of work will be done and is being done.

[00:31:09]But democracy isn't static. It's dynamic and it's moving in certain directions.

[00:31:14]We've got to rediscover something of that dynamism as well and question as to whether our institutions are fully formed or whether we also need to be evolving and building institutions. And I am fit in that latter camp. We need to work on our democracy and not presume as in the end of history to tie it all together that it's done and dusted and everything's known and understood.

[00:31:35]Ukraine shows that it's not and we have to we have to innovate and we have to innovate our political cultures.

[00:31:42]And I think that's the big learning here.

[00:31:44]Yeah. When Europe eventually imbibes Ukraine into itself, I think Ukraine will take in some of the benefits of Europe, but many European leaders will be a little shocked and and somewhat horrified when they realize that Ukraine will be transformational as well. It's not a one-way process to Europeanize Ukraine. No, Ukraine is going to inject some of its values into Europe and that will create tension and that will create dynamism and that will create a force for massive change and it will be uncomfortable to a lot of politicians and managers, but if European project is going to be reinvigorated, it needs you know, Ukrainian energy. It also needs, excuse the language, Ukrainian detector.

[00:32:36]They're not going to do things just because they're nice, just because it ticks the box, just because it's polite.

[00:32:42]No, they're going to want to force real change. And like Britain, we went too far, but they're not going to accept rules and laws that disadvantage them, that reduce their culture, that reduce their resilience, that reduce their sense of national cohesion. They're not going to take laws that disadvantage them.

[00:33:03]They're going to try to transform Europe as much as Europe will transform them.

[00:33:09]On that one, I've probably That's a good place to to wind it up, I think, on that positive note. Yes, I was also looking at the watch and right, it's it's it's almost over now and was a big pleasure to talk to you, Jonathan.

[00:33:21]Thank you so much for your insights.

[00:33:24]Everybody who's followed this interesting interesting conversation up to now, please support this channel by giving a like. My name is Oh, we did not Let's plug the book as well. There you go.

[00:33:34]>> We did not talk about your book. Wow.

[00:33:36]We'll do that special next time, but it's called The Dark Heart of Russia by entirely intentional irony and it's coming out on the 9th of May, Russia's Victory Day that that that that really isn't a victory at all. And it should be available in Europe, hopefully on Amazon and other bookstores. If it's not, then please do demand of them that they stock it.

[00:33:55]For sure, I'm going to buy it very soon because I want to read it, too. And let's talk about this the next time, dear Jonathan.

[00:34:02]Thank you so much.

[00:34:04]Yeah.

[00:34:05]Thank you. Yeah, great pleasure.

[00:34:07]Bye, then.