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00:00You know Steve kind of highlighted this sort of cozy relationship between Moscow and Beijing. Is that becoming more of a liability for Xi Jinping you think. You know in some ways it is a CCE tied in to a country that is losing a war that that started clearly the last couple of weeks have been pretty bad for Vladimir Putin. And now Xi Jinping is gonna meet with him. This is a country Russia that has now had to find weapons by buying them in North Korea and in Iran. They were on the run for the last couple of weeks because of the Ukrainian advances in the northeast in which about 8000 square kilometers of territory was retaken in just a matter of days. And so the meeting is going to be an interesting one. As you just mentioned the partnership of no limits that was signed and agreed to just prior to the war and the Beijing Olympics in February. Let's see how many what. What in fact those limits are so far. China has not been willing to provide military equipment and Chinese firms have not been willing to provide the kind of high technology that has been blocked by us and Western export controls. We'll see whether there is going to be a turning point. My guess is she doesn't want to be in bed with Putin on that road given what's happening in Ukraine itself. After assuming David here by the way assuming the war ends soon and hopefully it does. How do you think that relationship then looks like. Post both. Post Ukraine war. Well we hope the hot war will end soon. I'm afraid it's going to go on for quite a long time because neither the Ukrainians or the Russians are going to settle through a negotiation. Given that the goals that both have are very different. But once once it's over it really depends on what the nature of the ultimate fight is. Right now looks like Putin is going to come out of this with a big strategic loss. He is found in NATO that is far more capable and far more united than it has been in the past. He's found in West that is far more united than it was in the past. And under those circumstances the question that she has to ask what's the benefit that we have for being a partner with with Russia. One benefit clearly is oil and gas. And that will be a major discussion in the meetings that the two leaders will have in the coming days. But besides oil and gas it's not really clear what it is that Russia has to offer China. It's clear what China has to offer Russia military aid political support and economic assistance. But whether that in fact will be forthcoming is another one of the big questions of the meeting that we will see in the next couple of days. Even a lot of people are talking about this no matter how the dust settles at the end of all this is. Is Russia essentially saying the days of it being a global strategic player over with. Yeah I think so in many ways Russia has not been a great power since the Soviet Union collapsed. It's tried to figure out a way to assert itself on the on the global scene. And the fact that it has large nuclear weapons and is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council sort of makes it an important country. It's been able to disrupt relations in the Middle East in other parts of the world. But as a true great power it doesn't have the economic influence. It certainly doesn't have the political influence. And now it looks like it may not even have the military influence that you would expect a great power to have a country like the United States has had now for it for 70 80 years and clearly a capability to China seeking to acquire. So I think we're coming out of this war with a Russia that is significantly diminished and it will look for a place on the stage even uglier. There's going to be room for it. Exactly. I mean let's not forget they have got thousands of nuclear weapons. They've got huge military superiority over Ukraine. Let's not lose sight of that. Given the euphoria of its recent victories here they have me revising is starting right. I mean why June 41 when enough Barbarossa started and then the Soviets never actually won a battle until Stalin got in February 43 and then they never lost one after. Well we also have to see I think on the military side clearly to do have a lot of nuclear weapons. It's not clear what they could do with them. You don't win wars with nuclear weapons. You prevent wars with nuclear weapons as long as other countries have nuclear weapons to route to respond in kind. As for the military side so far it's true that the initial campaign was was successful to acquire about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. That means remains in the hands of the Russians. But in the last week the Ukrainians have regained as much territory as Russia has gained the last five months. The idea that this is a fight that the Russians are bound to win is I think disproven by the last seven seven months. And and Putin is seeing domestic opposition. He's seeing foreign opposition. The meeting not this weekend. And it was Becky Starr. But next week in New York we'll show I think that he is increasingly isolated and she will have to decide is this the partner we want for the future or do we want to look for something else. Ego final question you're for. You were the former U.S. ambassador to NATO. So I'll end on a NATO note here. I mean the war started with Russia not wanting NATO at its border eventually based on the developments these last few months. We might just actually get more members in NATO at the Russian border. How do you think this looks like for Vladimir Putin. And what do you think his game plan will be post-war. Well I mean I think if you talk about a strategic miscalculation this is one this is a war that ostensibly started because NATO was encroaching on Russia's border. And the result of that war is that Finland has decided to join NATO and eight hundred kilometers. Eight hundred miles. Fourteen hundred kilometers of a border between Finland and Russia is now going to be a new border between Russia NATO. NATO has come closer to Russia because Russia has decided to use military force in a way that is completely unacceptable. Russia NATO is now more united than it's been since anytime since the end of the Cold War. The US is strengthening its capabilities as are the Europeans in Eastern Europe. And as a result unfortunately Russia is going to find that it has a bigger and more significant adversary in NATO than it than it counted on when it started this war.

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Ambassador Ivo Daalder on Xi-Putin Meeting

Former NATO Ambassador and Chicago Council on Global Affairs President Ivo Daalder discusses Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping first face-to-face meeting in Uzbekistan since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. He speaks to Yvonne Man, David Ingles and Rishaad Salamat on "Bloomberg Markets Asia". (Source: Bloomberg)

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