katherine stoner, let me start with you. you heard what president putin had to say about his motives, what do you think this has t th? >> i don't think this has nothing to do with khodorkovsk khodorkovsky's ill mother. i think it has everything to do with the olympics. >> is it really that important? >> it depends on what you call state. it's a lot of money and the most expensive olympics. and the second stake is the participation. putin is expecting to have high level international participation, and that is exactly the reason, it's to give those leaders who want to come, but they cannot come under current circumstances. it's kind of a giving and, cues more than shap--excusing the shf russia. >> so they feel safer coming and they won't have to have public relations blow back if they visit russia during the games. >> yes, exactly. if you look at how russians behave from their imperial past, they amount certain problems, that this should not be a problem at all. then they start to sort one by one. khodorskovsky, the pussy rio

from stanford, katherine stoner political scientist and senior fell on democracy, development and rule of law at stanford university, and back in the studio, william miller, u.s. ambassador to ukraine from 1993 to 1998. let's go back to the 90's, mr. ambassador, it looked like for a while the ukraine had managed the trick of making the transition from a post self yett state that could stand on its own. they worked out deals with the arsenal, soviet navy, territorial pursuits, the ukraine for some time looked like it was ready to become an independent country. >> it was first in line, but unfortunately the politicians in charge tried to play both sides against each other. east and west. and they lost their way. but more significantly the leadership of ukraine initially was soviet. soviet in background and soviet in mentality, and soviet in behavior. and it's only now that we're beginning to see the generation that it was born after independence. it was not brought up in soviet ways, and is definitely on track to become a democratic nation. >> katherine stoner, are we watching ukraine ar