Thanks for having me.

Also tonight in Russia, an unusual press conference being held by Vladimir Putin for the first time in this nature, since he launched his invasion of Ukraine, a call-in show, including his very own deep fake, we'll tell you more on what you're seeing here right after a quick break. Earlier today, we heard from Russian President Vladimir Putin in his first major news conference since he invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago. With Western media there in attendance, the Russian leader confidently predicted that Russia will outlast Western support for Ukraine.

Today, Ukraine produces almost nothing. They're trying to preserve something, but they produced almost nothing. They get everything, excuse the bad manners, for free. But this freebie may end someday, and apparently it is ending.

This highly choreographed call-in show from the Kremlin lasted over four hours. It ranged from acknowledging, for the first time, an American journalist who is wrongfully being held in Russia to the price of eggs. Joining me here tonight, time correspondent Simon Schuster, who covers Ukraine and Russia, also the author of the showman inside the invasion that shook the world and made a leader of Vladimir Zelensky. Thank you for being here. To listen to this marathon press conference, obviously one of the biggest takeaways is we're watching this fight in Washington over funding for Ukraine, is he very clearly thinks that it's about to be over.

He does, yeah, and it was a very confident Putin. I think he has reason to be pretty sure of himself. But what I took away just watching the events today was this amazing split screen. With Putin on the one hand, trying to get across to his people that we need to be in this war for the long haul, we're facing the West, we're in a kind of existential battle with the West, and preparing them for a kind of forever war, an almost cult of war. And then on the other hand, you had President Zelensky able to tell his people, look, the European Union is opening, membership talks with us. So I think the visions that the two leaders today presented to their people were so dramatically different. One is able to tell his people at least, look, at the end of this long horrific war, we do have an opportunity to live in prosperity with the European Union.