The real purpose of the counter-offensive is to create a political change in Russia, by which I don't mean regime change. There has to be a moment when the Russians decide that the war is not worth fighting anymore and they take their troops and leave. It's the kind of decision that the French made in 1962 when they decided to pull out of Algeria. The British made that decision a number of times in their empire. There's a moment when the empire ends. And the Ukrainians will use both military tactics as well as political tactics to convince the Russians to leave. I remember the war is over when the Russians go home. The Ukrainians don't have to occupy Moscow. They don't have to get anybody to surrender. All they need to do is get them to leave. And so what you're going to see over the next few weeks is both the kinds of shaping operations we see now, attempts to cut off railway links and so on. You may see some bigger military moves, but you'll also see more events like this small group of Russians who went over the border, free Russian forces calling themselves. You'll see drones in Moscow and other Russian cities. That's also part of persuading the Russians to go home.

I think that's a very good way to think about it. And I think the analogy with France and Algeria is exactly right, which is the French tried and tried. And at some point they realized, after by some estimates killing 1 million Algerians, that the Algerians were just not going

to, they were going to get their independence. And they just weren't French. I mean, it wasn't going to be part of an empire. And Ukrainians at some point need to convince the Russians that they're not Russians. They won't ever be trying to murder lots of them in order to persuade them to become Russian isn't going

to work.