.jpg)
BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Dana Lewis is a veteran World Affairs Correspondent. He's been everywhere. From global war zones to the streets of London where he is based.
He has been based in Jerusalem, and Moscow.
And he loves talking to people about whats behind the headlines. Award winning. "A real in the trenches reporter". Great interviewing skills and easy to listen to.
BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Canada And Trump, and Ukraine vs Russia's Imperial Ambitions
We are way past the joke stage on Donald Trump and Canada becoming the 51st state. He posted an image of Canada covered in the stars and stripes, you know, so he's obviously enjoying it.
Arlene Bynon :It has. It's changed, it's intensified. You know, everything was so partisan here. We had what we called mega maple, those who admired Donald Trump and admired what was happening in the United States, and I started to notice in some of the commentary yesterday that there was a little bit of a conflict happening even within the conservatives in Canada.
Lucian Kim :Trump is not approaching this in a new way. Of course, we know that Putin has his own ideas of how he wants to end this conflict. So, yes, I would agree that it is dangerous to go into any kind of talks with sort of these simplistic ideas that it's just a matter of having a good talk with Mr Putin.
Dana Lewis :Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Backstory, our first edition of 2025. I'm Daniel Lewis On everyone's mind, as Donald Trump is to be sworn in as US President January 20th. What will happen to Ukraine? Will Trump force Ukraine to the negotiating table to give up and give in to Putin's Russia? We discuss Trump's oversimplification of the issues with the international crisis groups, lucienne Kim, who, like many, say this was never about NATO, but Trump thinks it is, so his no-NATO membership solution is unlikely to fly.
Dana Lewis :But first Trump initially joked about Canada becoming the 51st state, and then it got serious. He has threatened economic force against my country, while threatening Greenland with military force and also the Panama Canal. Pretty bizarre stuff, and Trump isn't even sworn in yet. But Canadians have some soul-searching to do about what makes us different than Americans, what makes this great country special, unique, a mosaic that wouldn't exist in America's melting pot. And yes, we play better hockey, by the way a lot better, really. But it's more complicated than that. Arlene Bynum is a Toronto-based broadcaster and a longtime friend and colleague. Hi, arlene, good to see you.
Arlene Bynon :Great to see you, Dana, in this ever-changing world.
Dana Lewis :Ever-changing and more rapid than ever. Tell me we are way past the joke stage on Donald Trump and Canada becoming the 51st state. I sense Canadians now are taking it much more seriously.
Arlene Bynon :You know I thought something happened. You know we've been living with this haunting of Donald Trump during the election. Yesterday, when he said the words using economic might to take over Canada, I felt that something had kind of snapped in the country. People are taking it very serious, they're very concerned and we're also very vulnerable, Our prime minister resigning on Monday. So there is a scramble right now and it's a feeling that I've never experienced here in Canada. It's serious.
Dana Lewis :He posted an image of Canada covered in the stars and stripes, you know, so he's obviously enjoying it. It may just be the art of the deal and the way he is going to negotiate trade and tariffs, but you know, the longer it goes on, the more potential traction it might get. I mean, what are you seeing in Canada in terms of commentary, in terms of the headlines, in terms of the media coverage?
Arlene Bynon :now, here we had what we called MAGA Maple, those who admired Donald Trump and admired what was happening in the United States. And I started to notice in some of the commentary yesterday that there was a little bit of a conflict happening even within the conservatives in Canada. Some are saying hey, you, you fellow conservatives, now see what you get, and there's kind of a sense of dangling out there. You thought this was about the economy, you thought this was about groceries. Here's what people were frightened about. But there's the beginning, perhaps, of coming together a little bit in Canada, which I wouldn't have said if you and I were talking on Monday Very, very different. This threat is real and you're right. Is he joking? Is this the art of the deal? But if it's the art of the deal, those tariffs are working. The other thing that this happens is a time where we realize our military vulnerability. It's been there for a long time. We've taken America for granted, and now we're talking about election interference and we're seeing Russia do flybys over our Arctic and now this.
Dana Lewis :So it has, it's hit home losing 200 billion a year in trade and trade deficit, and other people would say that the Canadians would say the reality is it's really about 100 billion and almost the vast majority of it is oil revenue and oil exports, crude exports. So if you take away crude, in fact there may be a trade surplus on the American side. So the $200 billion figure is vastly overstated.
Arlene Bynon :It is and this was part of the argument. You know, when he tried to pull the NAFTA, we had to renegotiate NAFTA and that argument was quite successful, kind of getting through. There were people around him who said those things, but he's stubborn and he will not listen and this is the way he wants to project that he's kind of subsidizing Canada. I think he used those words and you're very correct. Those numbers do not match the reality of things, because the things that they're taking from Canada and buying from Canada, they need from Canada and they're getting a heck of a good deal. But we have a whole different scenario with America now.
Dana Lewis :And it's multi-layered right Because you have Trudeau announces he's going to resign, then you have a leadership race within the Liberal Party and then you will have a national election, I assume sometime in the spring, and this becomes trade with America. The economy, canadian identity, the ability for Canadian politicians to stand tall and push back all of these become critical lightning rods on an election campaign.
Arlene Bynon :You know it's changed everything. I was just thinking yesterday as I watched this unfold bang. I mean this was about. We saw Pierre Pauliev and we saw him with that economic message driving at home, making Justin Trudeau look like he had been tone deaf the housing crisis, groceries, talking to what he believed were everyday Canadians. He spent 20 points ahead, trend over time. It worked. Yesterday I saw the ballot question change. What does it mean to be a Canadian? How will you support Canada? It's very different and the challenge in a lot of ways is on the Conservatives and the Conservative leader. Can he pivot to be the defender of Canada? You know we had a kind of dangle that they had friends in high places, friends of JD Vance, the vice president. Now it's very, very different. He put out a strong message yesterday Canada first, but what can he? Many?
Dana Lewis :ways marketing himself, aka Donald Trump. I mean in many ways similarities were being drawn and parallels between the two. Not today, because that's political folly if he does that.
Arlene Bynon :Absolutely, and you know just to your point there it was true. Yesterday he put out a very strong message Canada first, this will never happen. And then it exploded on social media going oh my God, the conservative leader, no, look at, he's sticking up for Canada.
Dana Lewis :And honestly, you had to say this is where we are when we say isn't that great? Oh, we're thrilled, we're relieved, because there were some Canadians who weren't so sure how they would position themselves. Canadians would favor joining America. I'm sorry, but I think 13% is pretty high and this is just at the beginning of the discussion and the debate. You know that those numbers would change if this debate and it looks like it's going to go on increases in intensity. So the 13% I thought was a bit surprising. Some 80% of Canadians oppose ever being American, but I don't think that's a great starting point, Do you?
Arlene Bynon :Yeah, I totally agree. I was surprised, but not really. Things have changed. There's been a creep, especially during the election campaign, a creep into Canada and this Canada that's fighting America and this threat of annexation. Right now. All the things that divided us before are there. We have Quebec and the rise of the Bloc Québécois. We have that, it's always been there Well, quebec. Then we have Western alienation, separation always been there, intensified. But then we have, especially in the Western part of the country, an appreciation I'll put it that way for what's been happening in America. We've seen it grow. When I heard that 13%, I thought it was a pretty good starting point for America. And you're right.
Dana Lewis :Look at what we're seeing in messaging now, it's going to start to look like perhaps a good deal At this point. Canada's rallied though around their country, and I covered him and his justice minister at the time, jean Chrétien. But Trudeau now, as I read back because I read in a bit today I always thought that Trudeau Sr who has passed away, as you know, many years ago was very big on Canadian identity, thought Canada was more European than American, wanted to debate the Canadian identity. And are we a melting pot? Are we a mosaic? These are the things that I read about in high school, right, and now when I read back on Trudeau.
Dana Lewis :In fact, they say that Pierre Elliott Trudeau didn't believe very much in a national agenda. He felt that it was inevitably racist to promote ethnic identity within a country. And I guess where I'm going with all of this. Is that okay if you don't debate Canadian identity, if you're unable to say well, what the hell makes us Canadian and why are we not American? If you're unable to identify that and call that out, then you may as well be American, right, but the danger in that is it also splinters the country.
Arlene Bynon :It does splinter the country, and I think we're in perhaps and I'm braced for it, and so are other Canadians for that kind of an argument. We've always known we had cultural similarities. We give them many singers and movie stars and they become blended into America. You know, you? Just you can barely separate the two countries.
Dana Lewis :Some of that's just money. I mean, I went to work for an American broadcaster.
Arlene Bynon :Yes, you did.
Dana Lewis :Some of it was just dough and a bigger audience. It doesn't necessarily mean that they wanted to be American right.
Arlene Bynon :No, it doesn't, but they become it. And then America absorbs them and we see them there. We don't see them sometimes as Canadians. They have to remind us of that stuff. But we're heading into a new argument. I think you've touched on it and it may. This is a test. Let me put it this way. This is a test of how Canadians feel about their country. This is a test, in many ways, of a lot of the things that former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, justin Trudeau's father, talked about. This is a test, and you remember working here, all the money that was spent by governments to make sure that we had cultural identity, including in the media, enforcing things. But now things are different. Messaging is different.
Dana Lewis :What will happen? I mean, just to expand on that for people that don't know Canada, that was if you worked, worked in radio or you worked in television, you had to produce a certain amount of Canadian content, whether it be music, whether it be your newscasts. You just weren't allowed to be. You know, you couldn't repeat ABC News, radio or whatever on your station. You had to produce Canadian identity. You had to report on Canada, which I always thought was fair. I mean, our employers hated it because they had to spend money.
Arlene Bynon :They did, but it gave people like you and I a voice and a platform. But that's not there now. It's been all exploded. As we know, things are just moving in on their own accord social media, and that's another aspect of this. Moving in on their own accord, social media, and that's another aspect of this. I mean we have tech titans like Elon Musk swanning around taking credit for what happened in the American election with messaging using it. We have Canadians like Kevin O'Leary now saying he wants to buy TikTok, meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump in the last couple of days.
Dana Lewis :So we have this movement of canadians early, he ran for the conservative party I did dragons down.
Arlene Bynon :Yeah, you know, famous for the television show dragon's den and he's known for being an entrepreneur at the same time. And now he's down there talking to Donald Trump trying to buy TikTok. So we have, let me put it this way, canadians who are sympathetic to, I mean some are saying maybe we just call it an economic union, maybe it's like the EU already is being presented, but the first feeling in the last couple of days is shock that this could happen. Can you imagine an economic?
Dana Lewis :union, where Canadians adopt American currency and where the border you know where Trump says this. You know false line was drawn across the country, referring to the Canada-US border. He doesn't say that about the Mexican border, but okay. So, can you imagine Canadians swallowing any of them?
Arlene Bynon :Right now. No, there's outrage, but there's also a little bit of fear. I can smell it a little bit because the reality is, as you know, dana you lived here America is such a powerful this one, it's the most powerful country in the world. It's right next door. We felt that power because they protected us. But in his own words, he has said we protect them, we'll continue to protect you, dangling that they won't. He said he wants to pull out of NATO. That was a great fear here in Canada as well. If America pulls out of NATO, who protects Canada? We're very vulnerable right now and we're feeling how about this? The greatest hits of Donald Trump are starting to affect us right now.
Dana Lewis :Yes, and they've been sworn into office. You know, I mean pretty, pretty, pretty nutty. I know I think to you I'm going to make you work hard. I haven't already. How are we different? What is it to be a Canadian? If you're asking yourself that, and you think a lot of Canadians are right now, is there a simple answer then?
Arlene Bynon :I don't think there is now, but I think people are searching and remembering, and that's the good part of this. As Canadians, we used to identify ourselves, rightly or wrongly, as not being American, didn't we? And we've always been so chuffed with ourselves that we weren't like American, those brazen Americans poking their nose into places. We could travel all over the world and people would say, oh, you're Canadian, you're all right.
Dana Lewis :Or if you were an American, you would sew a Canadian flag on your back Flag Because it would be safer. You got it.
Arlene Bynon :It would be safer. We had that and I think in a lot of ways it was gifted to us and we haven't had. I'll go back to that word I used earlier test. This is a test and then if we pass it, we deserve it. In a lot of ways, we have to ask ourselves what are our values? Have deserve it? In a lot of ways, we have to ask ourselves what are our values? Have we been fighting for those values? Do we believe them any longer as a country, or are we willing to toss them out? You know, sometimes you appreciate things, don't? You love her as she's walking out the door, as the door is saying, and she may be walking out the door, and I think we have to decide how much we're in love and committed, which is a good thing.
Dana Lewis :You're going to make me hum that song all night now. So, arlene, thanks, all right.
Arlene Bynon :Hey, great to see you, great to talk, dana Cheers.
Dana Lewis :Okay, to Ukraine now. And Lucian Kim, who is with the International Crisis Group. He's also written a book called Putin's Revenge. And Lucien welcome.
Lucian Kim :Thank you Great to be here.
Dana Lewis :I was reading your book a little bit today of what you sent me and trying to rapidly go through it, and a lot of the topics and chapters are little pieces of my life too, things that we covered because we were both covering Russia around the same time of my life too, you know things that we covered because we were both covering Russia around the same time and I thought Putin's Revenge would automatically be a book about Putin getting back at kind of lost lands in the sense that you know NATO expansion. But it's not that at all, is it, you know?
Lucian Kim :nato expansion? Um, but it's not that at all, is it? Nato expansion? Uh, the enlargement of nato that happened over over years following the collapse of the soviet union was sort of a pretext. Now, if we look at what actually was happening, the last time that nato uh, well, I should say the first and last time that NATO accepted any new members that were in the former Soviet Union the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, latvia and Estonia was in 2004. And after that there was no more enlargement into the territory of the former Soviet Union, which was sort of a red line for Putin. He accomplished that, of course, by invading Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. But the suggestion that somehow, before the full-scale invasion, ukraine was on the brink of joining NATO is completely fallacious. On the contrary, after George W Bush President, george W Bush made a push for NATO to accept Ukraine, no US president was interested in the least in Ukraine or Ukraine in NATO.
Dana Lewis :So you really say two things. Or Ukraine in NATO. So you really say two things. And if I can quote your book or the introduction to it, the root cause of the war was the legacy of Russian imperialism, the idea of Russia as the center of a Euro-Asian empire, whether it was ruled by the czars or the communist party. In that empire, ukraine played a crucial supporting role as breadbasket, industrial powerhouse and strategic buffer zone, straddling the Black Sea and stretching into Central Europe. And then you said fundamentally a Soviet man, putin, could not comprehend Ukraine as an independent country. His view of Ukraine was based on outdated empires, ideas of a shared empire, and he could not accept that a new generation of Ukrainians, so close to Russians in language, culture and religion, was choosing a future in Europe. Do you want to help me kind of wrap that up in terms of exactly what you meant? A lot of self-explanatory.
Lucian Kim :Well, I would certainly agree with everything you quoted me to say. I think the basic idea was, when the Soviet Union collapsed and turned into 15 independent countries, for most of those new countries the direction was quite clear. It was they had the job of turning themselves into functioning nation states. That would be true for the Baltic nations, for countries such as Georgia or Armenia, azerbaijan and the Central Asian countries. For Russia, this was a much bigger, I would say it was a problem.
Lucian Kim :The question of so who are we going to identify with Russia? For centuries its identity has been wrapped up with the idea of empire, not of Russia as a nation state, but of Russia as a multi-ethnic empire. So for Russians to overcome this imperial legacy was extremely difficult because their history, their recent history, is so intertwined with empire. And again, I think the point I'm trying to make is it doesn't matter if we call it the Soviet Union or if we call it the Russian Empire. Under the Tsars it was fundamentally the same kind of territorially the same body, and the idea behind it was that Russia would be at the center of some kind, whether it was a communist state or not, that Russia was at the core of some kind of whether it was a communist state or not, that Russia was at the core of some great Eurasian empire.
Dana Lewis :Do you think under Yeltsin, Russia embarked on a journey of being European versus Putin?
Lucian Kim :I don't think necessarily Yeltsin abandoned this imperial idea. I think what we saw in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union was obviously a great collapse of an empire and it would take years and years for people to internalize, to understand what happened. So I think Boris Yeltsin although in some places in some former Soviet republics he is sort of celebrated as someone who facilitated their independence I think a lot of that had to do with his own internal power struggle with Mikhail Gorbachev inside the Soviet Union, rather than some new way of thinking.
Dana Lewis :Right, but I didn't. I guess in covering Yeltsin I didn't see this frantic struggle to identify what is Russia. It was just a journey to join Europe, get the economy going and make Russia prosper. At least that's what I saw.
Lucian Kim :Absolutely no. I don't think we're in any way disagreeing. My point was that Boris Yeltsin and his contemporaries, people, russians of that period of time, of course they were not concerned first and foremost with this question of who we are. This was a question that much more coincided with the rise of Vladimir Putin after the year 2000.
Lucian Kim :I think in the 1990s Russia very much was concerned with its economic survival and it was unclear whether these centrifugal forces that had been released by the collapse of the Soviet Union, whether they would continue inside Russia, and by that obviously I'm referring to the Chechen Wars, when Chechnya said well, the Soviet Union disintegrated, we also don't want to stay in any rump Russia. So I think in the 1990s were a very turbulent time. I think, correctly, one could say it was a traumatic time for many Russians. It's just a matter of what conclusions people drew for that. And obviously Vladimir Putin, representative representative, I should say, of millions of Russians, uh, uh felt that, um, you know, what had to follow was a time of restoration and, um, even rebuilding of, of, if not that uh empire, at least, uh, its influence.
Dana Lewis :And he used Chechnya to reinvade, to be the strong prime minister and eventually the president, when Yeltsin stepped aside and used that to show that he would bind Russia together, that he was stability, that he was strength, and he used that. But then after that there comes this evolution about okay, now what? What is Russia now under Putin? And then they start kind of identifying and playing experimental ping pong with World War II memorials and the fact that so many Russians lost you know, every family was touched by World War II and that they lost somebody in that conflict. They began to see that as something that really bound the country together somehow and they began to use those images and even talked of possibly breathing back life into Stalin's image, shockingly.
Lucian Kim :Absolutely In that search for identity and sort of a commonality. World War II and the Soviet Union's World War II experience was certainly one of the common experiences that Putin could go back to and I think in fact the World War II experience. It touched lives of people throughout the Soviet Union. It did not have to be necessarily a symbol of nationalism, of Russian revival. It could have been also. It was a shared pain. But Vladimir Putin chose to use the World War II and in some way co-opt the memory of World War II for his own purposes and to sort of cloak his own authoritarian regime and legitimize it by taking over the memory of that horrible war.
Dana Lewis :So, it comes as maybe no sort of jump in, but it kind of comes as no surprise then, by extension, that he uses those images in the Ukraine conflict Things like Nazism and denazifying Ukraine because that's something that Russians will identify with from their past.
Lucian Kim :Absolutely From the um, from also the popular culture, from the movies, um, this became kind of a, it became almost natural for for uh, Vladimir Putin to refer back to that.
Dana Lewis :So it's a hell of a jump, though, from all of that to Putin suddenly waking up in some weird dream in the pandemic. And I think you make the point in your book that he was largely isolated. And lots of my sources, people who have met with Putin, who said you know, talked about the fact he would hold a couple of dozen meetings a day. A day, people lined up in the lobby to see him. Suddenly, he's largely isolated for a couple of years, and then you raise questions in your book about how does he survive that isolation and how does he emerge from that. I don't mean to be crass, but do you think he blew a fuse in there?
Lucian Kim :he blew a fuse in there. What we know is that he was extremely, uh, isolated, and I think what's important to emphasize is that the people that did see him, or and that he did allow to see him, were members of a very hardcore ideology, or adherence to a hardcore ideology, seeing Russia sort of as a victim of Western aggression and calling for some sort of restoration. I think another factor that goes along with Putin's COVID isolation is the fact that in October 2022, he was going to turn 70 years old. In October 2022, he was going to turn 70 years old For Putin also.
Lucian Kim :Researching this book, I again became very aware of this. For Putin, anniversaries are extremely important. Almost all of the big dates in this book are somehow tied up to some anniversary, some kind of holiday, and I believe that Putin understood that the clock is ticking uh, literally uh on his, on his reign and uh. That time was uh running out for him to either, you know, make a big play, uh and um and reconquer ukraine, or go down in history as the russian leader who I'm using air quotes lost Ukraine once and for all.
Dana Lewis :But this is not about NATO again, right? So if you believe that and you've written that and a lot of other people do as well, they say this is just a ruse that Putin used to go into Ukraine to restore the Russian empire, to capitalize on the fact that there are, you know, trillions of dollars, for instance, in raw minerals, that are in the east part of Ukraine that interest Russian oligarchs in business and the Kremlin in a big way. But without going into that, if you then look at Trump today and his notion that he can somehow be sympathetic to the fact that Putin doesn't want NATO up against its border in Ukraine, then his recipe somehow that he'll go in and talk to Vladimir and they'll make sure that there's a promise that Ukraine won't join NATO maybe some demilitarization although I can't believe the Ukrainians would go for it and they'll allow Russia to bite off part of Eastern Ukraine for a deal for a ceasefire at least. Isn't that all incredibly?
Lucian Kim :naive. I think the way that world leaders have been dealing with Putin ever since he came to power you could call naive. I think there has always been this idea that, okay, russia has a strong man, but we can reach some kind of agreement. When Emmanuel Macron was elected France's president, he had the same idea. We are a grand nation and Russia has a glorious history, and I'm going to sit down with Vladimir Putin man to man man and we'll hammer out our differences. Incidentally, volodymyr Zelensky, when he became president, had the same idea that it was just a matter of sitting down with Putin and, sort of like, finally hammering out all the differences in kind of a long session. So Trump is not approaching this in a new way. Of course, we know that Putin has his own ideas of how he wants to end this conflict. So, yes, I would agree that it is dangerous to go into any kind of talks, um, with sort of these simplistic ideas that it's just a matter of of.
Dana Lewis :It's a matter of having a having a good talk with mr putin it seems to me that the the conflict could escalate rather than de-escalate in the short term, because if trump wants to be in a position of strength and bring Russia to the table with some muscle, he's not going to be able to stop funding Ukraine and back away from supplying weapons to Ukraine. In fact, they might have to give more to Ukraine to get Putin to sober up and come around to the idea that he better end this sooner than later.
Lucian Kim :I agree that there's a danger that uh, and come around to the idea that he better end this sooner than later. I agree that's. I agree that there's a, a, a danger that, despite um, even if we can call them um Trump's best intentions to end this war, or anybody's best intentions to end this war, um, it does not necessarily mean that we're going to see a quick end. I see one big danger, dana, in the idea of talks also that Putin may be incentivized to begin talks, to actually come to the negotiating table and to never finish them. We know that in the negotiations that led up to the so-called Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015,. Even as Putin was negotiating with people like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at that moment, russian troops were fighting on the ground in Ukraine, creating new facts on the ground that were influencing the negotiations.
Dana Lewis :So I can see that there's also a danger of talks starting, starting, uh, and never ending, and, and and russia using the, the situation to continue its, its, its, uh, westward grind in, in, in in ukraine you're being very generous, generous with your time and I promise not to ask you too much more, but because and I know you got to go but but let me just touch on this it seems ironic to me that Trump, even as we watch him in the last 48 hours of news cycle, is talking about possibly using not ruling out force in Greenland because it's in America's sphere and it's critical to security, to security.
Dana Lewis :He's talked about possibly using military force in the Panama Canal because it was there, built by the US military and it's critical that it not be taken by China. And you know he talks about North American sphere of influence, in essence renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and then my country, canada, you know he talks about it becoming maybe the 51st state, and then he's not going to roll the military in, but he'll use the muscle of economic tariffs and pressure to possibly bring Canada into some kind of closer relationship. I think it'll alienate Canada. But if you apply all of that logic, you know, the Greenland, the Panama Canal, what he's going to do with Mexico, isn't he just feeding President Putin that, yeah, you can have a sphere of influence because we have one? And isn't he telling China yeah, taiwan is right there, and surely that should be within your sphere of influence. Isn't this all double standard?
Lucian Kim :And it gets a bit convoluted doesn't it Convoluted and maybe in some sense for Vladimir Putin? In fact, it adds some clarity. Finally, there's a US leader that's speaking the truth about American intentions on lands surrounding the United States. So I think it's a very good point that you make, because for years now we have been lamenting Vladimir Putin's 19th century thinking, and here, all of a sudden, we're about to have a US president who is repeating that same kind of language.
Dana Lewis :It's dangerous if it feeds Putin's narrative and his belief that he should subject all of the countries on his border to Russian rule, and that includes the ones that are already part of NATO and part of Europe. The ones you mentioned in Latvia, lithuania, already part of NATO and part of Europe. The ones you mentioned in Latvia, lithuania, estonia.
Lucian Kim :Georgia and on, and Poland maybe? Yes, I mean, it gives credence to what Putin has been saying all these years, that Russia does have a sphere of influence over its neighbors.
Dana Lewis :Lucien Kim, great to talk to you.
Lucian Kim :Thank you so much, Dana.
Dana Lewis :And that's our backstory. This week, trump tends to provide news people with an endless supply of what I call crazy. It's entertaining, exhausting, but we're just getting started. Four more years of a President Trump is going to be a long time. Keep your sense of humor, if you can. Thanks for listening to Backstory. No-transcript.
