you've explained — yes, you've explained your connection with shirnov. thank you. more than a year, you served on the board of the state—owned energy giant rosneft. why did it take you three months after putin's all—out assault on ukraine in february of 2022, why did it take you three more months to decide to resign from that board? well, bp is still a shareholder in rosneft. it's there with $24 billion, ithink. it has never notified its exit. so, i'm nota person who quits when there's a turbulence on the ship, and that's why i stayed, but bp is still there. you didn't feel uncomfortable sitting on the board of rosneft as russian forces were invading ukraine? no, i did not feel uncomfortable. no, i did not feel uncomfortable and i think that bp and many others don't feel uncomfortable, just like qatar investment authority — and there are many other shareholders — but bp, british petroleum, beyond petroleum, whatever you might call it, is still a shareholder of rosneft. i guess the reason you just told me you didn't feel uncomfortable, you were happy to stay on the

there is a former kgb agent, sergei shirnov, who worked for the kgb until the early 1990s. made a home in france. he says that he attended the elite paris school, the ena, at the same time as you. he said, quote, "i had a lot of contact with karin. "she was my classmate. "she was pro—putin long before she became foreign minister, "and i got the impression — and i wrote this on "her intelligence card — that she could be a good "candidate to be recruited by our services". that's a former kgb agent. did the kgb ever formally approach you? no. nobody ever, from any russian embassy, has formally approached me — in contrast to some western countries, who were very eager to approach me. no, well, i don't mean formally — did they approach you in any way? no, i was never approached, neither formally nor informally, and this person, mr sergei shirnov, who you just quoted, let us also get here into chronological order, because there's a little bit of disorder. we attended the ecole nationale d'administration in paris in 1992 — that was the year when the soviet union was breaking apart