er, cheaper, that would be quite a threat and it would not guarantee that there would be any boots on the ground, but it could be quite a good incentive for Russia to stay away. So I'm just speculating that there is a way to create a security guarantee that would be sensible. I wasn't sure there would be and that if Russia responds militarily that there would also be sanctions of course and maybe the sanctions would be worse if they could be worse.

Then the other thing that Russia wants is it wants complete control over the Donbas. So it sounds like they're not flexible on control of the Donbas, which would require, I think, Ukraine to actually pull out of some part of the Donbas that they have not yet lost, and Russia would have control over what they already have, plus a little extra.

Now, here's what the US seems to have counterproposed. Since the word that's being used is control, is it possible that you can find a hybrid situation where Russia feels like it has enough control to be let's say safe from a military buildup there or safe from something bad happening. But that I guess Witkoff and Jared Kushner have suggested that they turn the Donbas into a free economic zone so that you reframe it. I like this part. You reframe the Donbas from a military zone to an economic zone. And you say, "How about we make this the one place that you can make some money and there's not going to be any war. If that works for you, it works for us. We don't need to put any missiles there. You don't need to attack it. But you could have something like control."

Do you think there's any hybrid situation in which Russia would say, "All right, that's enough control because we're worried about security. We're worried about the US putting some missiles there and we would agree not to." Maybe I think there might be something there.

And apparently there's