for more on that, we turn to: david kramer, the president of freedom house.organization that monitors democracy movements around the world. and heather conley, director of the europe program at the center for strategic and international studies. so hovering over all of this is vladimir putin, and whether he's present or absent, does it matter? does it cast a cloud, heather conley? >> it does. in fact, this trip for the president, just like his trip to europe in march, has been shadowed by putin and what he's done in ukraine, and the end of the trip in normandy where president putin will be meeting with german chancellor merkel and david cameron, seems like the isolation policy has come to an end and looks as if european leaders are unwilling to take more difficult steps like tougher sanctions even though they're talking tough, taking that next step of harming european companies and european business just seems like a stretch too far, so the president has an enormous task on his hands in brussels at the g7 and in normandy to deep european solidarity against ru