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00:00Paul Krugman wrote a piece in The New York Times a little bit earlier Ron basically accusing Germany of being Putin's enabler. Is that fair. Well I think the German relationship with Russia for a very long time has has been one that's dependence on energy purchases. Of course Germany is the largest consumer of Russian gas in Europe and is continuing to pay Russia for for its energy supplies. As we're seeing these terrible scenes coming out of Boucher coming out of other places in Ukraine. So as long as it's Germany and certainly the rest of Europe but certainly Germany keeps up that energy relationship with Russia it is continuing to fund the war effort. And so I do think that is a fair a fair criticism. OK. But even if Germany were to act even if they were to say OK we are going to stop importing Russian gas at X date how much does that actually make a material difference in the conflict in the near term. This is the big challenge. Don't take Germany a long time to shift away from from Russian gas supplies. There is certainly a dependency on Russia to to power German industries. It's not going to be able to happen overnight. And so that the effect of this German decision to move away from hydrocarbon imports from Russia is something that you know the effect we'll see. It will take time. So unfortunately I think even if Germany is able to to make the difficult decisions to readjust its its energy markets accordingly then that's really not going to have a major effect on Russia and its battlefield capabilities immediately. But certainly it will have a very potent effect on the political scene. Does it have a potent effect on Vladimir Putin though even if Germany were to take that action. We continue to see an incremental ratcheting up of sanctions and yet the conflict goes on. Are sanctions even really accomplishing anything at this point. I think this you know the sanctions that we're seeing are ratcheting up slowly at this point. If it were to transition into oil and gas despite all of the complications involved in that I think that would have an effect on Vladimir Putin. That means that the the Russian export economy is going to enter into a completely new era in which Russia's capabilities to to raise funds from from exporting energy abroad is no longer an option that will dramatically undermine Russia's war effort. It will really limit Russia's foreign policy options. And let's talk about what's happening in terms of the military story the West including Germany now willing to provide more heavy weapons to push back an expected offensive in the east from Russia. Many of those weapons will be Soviet era weapons but increasingly NATO is arming Ukraine with NATO weapons. Is this increasingly a proxy war. Is this now a proxy war. And what implications if it is does that have for the long term. Well I think it's the images of atrocities that are committed in Ukraine allegedly by Russian forces is making it quite hard for the rest of the West to stand by and provide Ukraine with second tier outdated weapons. This is starting to turn into a conflict where there is increasing involvement from the West to provide modern modern weaponry. I would say yes I think that's a fair assessment that things are starting to move into the proxy war territory. But I think that comes back to the fact that this is a war about the future of Europe. It's about whether Russia can simply run roughshod over a neighboring country. And we're seeing that the effects of that and real human terms. Well let's talk about the risk to the rest of Europe. The line from day one has been that right. Putin's ambitions do not end with Ukraine at this point. How large would you say the risk is to other Eastern European Baltic countries. Well I wouldn't count out the Russian military of course as it's not proven to be particularly effective in the way that it approached this war. But this is an invasion that it launched with with really faulty assumptions. Russia still has a lot of tools in its arsenal. And frankly as if Russia is as bogged down in Ukraine it increases the risk that Russia may rely on unconventional weapons to counter other threats that it perceives from from other parts of Europe. So it does kind of adjust into territory where Russia is still posing a threat to to Eastern Europe to Central Europe. But the fact is it's posing a threat that might not just be tanks and artillery but potentially the use of chemical weapons cyber attacks and other unconventional means of warfare. Andrew if Marine Le Pen occupied the Elysee Palace. How different do you think would Francis strategy be. Would Europe strategy be to this war. I think we might see a fundamental shift of course Mark Gurman has has been quite involved and trying to return France to to a leadership position in Europe to to help to broker a negotiated solution to find some some ways to achieve a diplomatic end to this this war. I think Marine Le Pen is quite quite involved in it and a rather sympathetic to to the way that Putin runs this country. And I think there might be an erosion in that united front if we see a more right wing government in France. Andrew you just said the phrase a diplomatic end to this war. Do you still believe that's possible. I think at this rate what we're seeing in the peace talks in Turkey are not. I would agree that they're not serious though. The fact is Russia is still in a position where it believes it can achieve war aims. It believes it can rest. Apart of Ukraine from from the control of Kiev and to present it as a victory it's not willing to compromise on some of its its aims even as he apparently there's no longer that the desire to remove Zelinsky from office. But Russia still believes that it can accomplish something. I don't think it's going to to negotiate that away at the negotiating table.

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EU Leaders Condemn Vladimir Putin

Andrew Lohsen, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program, joined "Bloomberg Markets: America" with Kailey Leinz and Guy Johnson on Friday to discuss the next steps for European leaders when dealing with the war in Ukraine. (Source: Bloomberg)

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