it's good medicine. >>> and we are back with andrey kortunov in moscow, natallya gumenyuk in kharkiveastern ukraine and katrin bennhold in berlin. cat rihn, let me ask you simply germany does seem -- your own reporting suggests to be the weak link here in the west, more unsure of what to do and many people have spoken out against sanctions and the ruling coalition. why is that and is it changing because there has been some -- recently some shift in the rhetoric. >> yes, thank you for inviting me. i agree that the tone has been shifting slowly, but the messages have been all over the place, and i guess it goes back to the old question of is germany willing and able to lead? i think what this has shown, this entire episode, is that the country isn't quite there yet, and it's a question that of course we've been asking for the last 30 years. the other point to make, of course, is that olaf scholz has been in office for about 50 case, he's new in that sense, weak almost by definition. he garnered about 25% of the vote, he has a three-way coalition. there are a lot of reasons why this gov

andrey kortunov is one of russia's top foreign policy thinkers.e is the director general of russian interaffairs council. natallya gumenyuk is a ukrainian journalist who reports on conflict and international security and katrin bennhold is "the new york times'" berlin bureau chief. natallya, let me start with you. i think you are in kharkiv, 40 or 50 miles away from where russian troops are, it's a russian-speaking area. what is the atmosphere there and what can you tell us about the atmosphere in those russian-speaking parts of ukraine? >> hi. good to talk to you indeed. it is the major town in ukraine and it could be an interesting explanation that if after the first shock a couple of weeks ago people were -- they felt anxiety, what would happen because this threat is such a formidable threat. the feeling is like, okay, well, it's our town. if something happened we don't flee, we would fight, we would resist. so there is some level of confidence instead of just looking at the scenarios. of course, i should probably stress that on the ground real