So there are some people including here at this conference I've spoken to who say, nah, he won't do that. Guess this was existential for him. But he's not on the suicide mission and he takes enormous pains to protect himself. So that would be a risk too far. He won't go this far. What do you say

to that? I think that it's very important to understand that he sees this war as really existential. It's life and death for Russia. And he also said that we don't need this world without Russia. It's a very anti-Russian saying by the way. I think that our national identity for at least the educated class is built on the idea that Russia's sacrifice itself and stood in the way of Mongolian hordes and that allowed European culture to thrive and have renaissance. And then in World War II, we also sacrifice up to 30 million people. And then the idea is based on self-sacrifice. So to say that we are ready to destroy the world and go down. When did he say that? He said that in one of the Val-Dai meetings, I think. Right. Couple of years

ago. A couple of years ago.

And he was I think very clear cut on this. And then he was once asked what happens if there is nuclear war. And he said, we all go to heaven and then the foreigners, the evil Americans will just die. And I think that he is not somebody who is not communicating his mind openly. Like a lot of grievances going back to the Munich speech and like all of the red lines were proclaimed by him in a broad daylight. It's just people don't listen attentively or there is this dysfunctional policy process where some do some don't and then they are not taken seriously not plan accordingly or how to deal with that threat. So yes, I do believe that he is dead serious about nuclear weapons. And it's not

necessarily suicide that he will

die. There are multiple bunkers, Soviet experience was to planning for the day after the doomsday. And there are multiple preparations for

this.