The Ukraine War Has Putin Making Some Bad Decisions: Don’t bother reading Russian President Putin’s speech announcing the Russian Federation’s annexation of four Ukrainian provinces occupied by Russian troops. It’s the same old mishmash of bad history, lunatic ravings, fascist Russian rhetoric, and wishful thinking that Russia’s dictator has been mouthing for years.
There’s no point in pointing out—again—the obvious: that the whole procedure, like Putin’s regime, is a violation of international law and common decency.
If you thought Putin would someday abandon his never-never land and return to reality, this speech would do nothing to encourage your delusions.
The speech is important for what it portends. That’s quite a lot, and none of it is good for Putin or his Russia.
First, Putin has effectively made any negotiations with Ukraine impossible. Since the occupied territories are now “part” of Russia and will, according to him, remain so forever, any chance of a compromise involving territorial concessions has turned to zero. The only thing to talk about is capitulation—either Ukraine’s or, what is far more likely, Russia’s.
Second, the annexation will only enhance the Russian population’s disillusionment with and sense of betrayal by Putin. Naturally, he’s hoping for the opposite effect—that Russians will now rally around the flag and lay down their lives for devastated territories with hostile populations and next to no emotional meaning for them. Crimea’s annexation resonated positively with many Russians. Their enthusiasm for the Donetsk and Luhansk entities was markedly cooler. Their desire to ingather Kherson and Zaporizhzhya provinces at the cost of their lives will be smaller still.
In effect, Putin has confronted Russians with the following choice: die for meaningless lands or oppose me and risk being arrested. Some Russians will follow their political culture’s infatuation with death and opt for the first option; most, such as the 300,000 Russians who have already fled their country in the last week to avoid being mobilized testify, will not. Needless to say, with this level of military elan, the war will not go well for Putin.
Third, Putin has made it significantly more difficult for his successor to conclude the war. If the Ukrainian success in liberating their occupied territories continues—as it will—it’s perfectly possible that they will recapture most of Luhansk and Kherson provinces and much of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya provinces and Crimea within the next few months. That’ll be a body blow that Putin will be unlikely to survive. His successors may very well want to conclude peace by officially agreeing to cede some territory. But the Russian Constitution won’t let them, as it has no provisions for such an eventuality. This means that the war will continue, sanctions will remain in place, and Russia’s transformation into a third-world country with a lousy army and the bomb will continue apace.
By the way, the illegal annexation of these territories does not make Putin’s turn to nuclear weapons more likely. If he does something that criminal and that stupid, it will be for whatever lunatic reasons that motivate him and not because Ukrainian troops would be supposedly “violating” Russian sovereignty.
Fourth, and most importantly, Putin signed the Russian Federation’s death warrant. Since all it takes for secession and annexation to take place is some illegal “referendum” (held at gunpoint and in the absence of most of the region’s inhabitants no less) that supposedly reflects the will of the people, there is nothing to stop the Russian Federation’s non-Russian political entities—22 autonomous republics, four autonomous districts, and one autonomous province—to declare independence. Back in the 1990s, a “parade of sovereignties” swept Russia as Russian and non-Russian political entities declared autonomy. Expect another such parade to take place shortly. Yakuts, Buryats, Chechens, and Dagestanis have already taken to the streets to protest Putin’s mobilization. Others will get on the bandwagon as the war continues, Russian territorial and human losses increase, and the old man in his bunker is increasingly blamed for destroying his country.
Ukrainian “Hurricane” jet artillery cannons fire during exercises at the firing ground near the small village of Devichki, some 90 km west of Kiev, April 17, 1997.
Once again, Putin, the chronic bumbler, has bumbled. And this time, Russia’s permanent humiliation, systemic collapse, and civilizational disappearance are likely to be the unavoidable consequences.
Expert Biography: Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
MrSatyre
September 30, 2022 at 11:39 am
“Their desire to ingather Kherson and Zaporizhzhya provinces…”
Ingather? Who says that? Why not absorb, or simply gather?
Yesterday is was Russian molecules instead of Russian gas. Today it’s ingather. There’s an old engineering phrase I’m going to paraphrase for you: “Just because you CAN use that word, doesn’t mean you SHOULD use that word.”
Goran
September 30, 2022 at 11:45 am
Russia has an advantage, as Daniel Davis points out, because if Putin decides to use the Nord Stream to blackmail the EU and if he decides to conduct a mobilization. then ….
Actually, never mind.
Dr. Scooter Van Neuter
September 30, 2022 at 12:47 pm
One would think in this day and age with information available to anyone with internet that this kind of Soviet-style subversion would be impossible.
Even the vast majority of Russians surely know the referendum was a complete sham.
I fear the only thing that can save the world from inevitable disaster is a Russian coup.
Begemot
September 30, 2022 at 1:08 pm
Motyl, Macbeth best describes your work:
“It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
TheDon
September 30, 2022 at 1:30 pm
Hard to believe Putin can call the loss of 50000 Russians a win.
Stalin2.
Russians are disposable for ego.
mcswell
September 30, 2022 at 1:37 pm
MrSatyre: Go to Myriam-Webster’s; “ingather” has been used since (at least) 1557.
Jay
September 30, 2022 at 2:24 pm
Putin:
cunningly cruel, but all in all really stupid.
abraham lincoln
September 30, 2022 at 2:34 pm
It is my working hypothesis that Hitler actually had his brain transferred into a primitive, secret German computer at the end of World War II, and subsequently, his brain was installed in a little dorky Russian midget named “Putin” and he has been trying to destroy the Russian nation ever since. Looks like he is succeeding magnificently.
ZoneDr
September 30, 2022 at 2:39 pm
What drivel.
Matt
September 30, 2022 at 2:46 pm
Thank you McSwell. Ingather is a rather good description of what is happening.
Yrral
September 30, 2022 at 3:00 pm
Lots of American are delusional for theirb support of a war,that you do not follow the day to day happening of the war, Ukraine is run by a comedy team ,that were part of the entertainment of Zelensky,show Servant of the People,that have no government or diplomacy experience,this it would be like the cast of SNL running the White House Google Zelensky Comedy Cabinet Google Zelensky Nato
Jim
September 30, 2022 at 3:58 pm
Since I’ve been reading this author on the 1945 website, he has always been a “maximalist” type of analyst (and probably has been from the first day of the war).
Has Ukraine been winning from the first day of the war?
After all, Russia has taken about 20% of Ukrainian territory, and today has officially incorporated four oblasts (at least from the Russian perspective).
I suggest, at times, the author has been out over his skis in characterizing what is happening on the ground.
And, that creates a credibility gap.
It also creates another problem… where do you go when subsequent events make you look like Baghdad Bob?
I’ll admit I’m tired of trying to predict what will happen because, one, I can’t do anything about it, two, I’m nearly half way around the world from it (which isn’t a bad thing).
So, I’ll see what happens, like everybody else.
But based on my best efforts to try and know what is going on… it does seem the author is continuing & will continue to be a “maximalist.”
Information war is a big part of this struggle… but at the end of the day, propaganda will not decide this war… real events will decide the war… and in that sense, this author is in no better position than myself.
Actual events are the tale of the tape.
(What I do care about most strongly is that we don’t get into a nuclear war that ends civilization as we know it… and I think the party most likely to cause a nuclear catastrophe is the U. S. foreign policy blob.
Why?
Because this is an existential struggle for them as well as Ukraine & Russia.)
TheDon
September 30, 2022 at 4:30 pm
Goran.
Putins advantage is he doesnt care how many Russians parish.
I wonder what happens to Russia once all criminals learn to fight together. Do they go back to jail or become an new large organized crime syndicate.
Putin started a war unprepared and with poor intelligence and strategy.
Generals should end it as everyday the future is being compromised for his ego.
Steven
September 30, 2022 at 5:18 pm
Excellent article Dr. Motyl!
John
September 30, 2022 at 8:59 pm
I have to break it to you. Putin may have signed our death warrant.
Russia has achieved nuclear superiority thanks to Obama and our failing elites.
Where is Russia’s sub with its 100 Megaton nuclear torpedoes right now?
We better go to Defcon 3 and have as many missile subs as possible on patrol. France and GB too.
And our nuclear disarmament has to stop. Biden has been wrong on so many things including our nuclear posture. It has to be strenghtened, not weakened. Forget about student loans, need to think about our survival.
Russia is breaking out from New Start.
Need to activate our reserve warheads and build new warheads using reserve pits.
Need space based missile defense.
Will somebody in the GOP take a stand or can they only focus on Hunter. And GOP, taxes may have to be raised to afford more nuke spending.
Watch the movie The Road if you want to learn what may be in store for us
Bender
September 30, 2022 at 9:34 pm
Good article, thanks.
Goran
September 30, 2022 at 11:32 pm
“I’ll admit I’m tired of trying to predict what will happen”
-some predicted that Putin will tear Ukrainians a new one and that they have to cave in before that happens
-nobody predicted that Ukrainians are capable of a swift victory
-some assumed that Ukrainians can hold their own if they are sufficiently supplied.
So Jim, if you feel that your predictions are off the mark, maybe you’ve been betting on the wrong team.
Gary Jacobs
October 1, 2022 at 12:32 am
Yrral, Jim,
In your own ways you both are missing the fact that Ukraine is on the march again, and as I type there is another series of towns being liberated.
Jim’s focus on the %20 ish Russia does control of Ukraine missies the fact of how much they have lost since the max amount they once controlled, and the fact that as I type there appears to be yet another fairly large scale Ukrainian victory occuring east of the Oskil River. Up to 5000 Russian troops are surrounded in Lyman. And some reports are indicating that the Russian defenses in Svatove and Kremmina are not strong enough to hold back the Ukrainian force bearing down on them.
Some say the entire norwest Luhansk line will fall soon as well. I hear there is a chance Russia has set up a stronger defense at Lysychansk.
Anyone actually digging into what is happening knows Russia’s hold on territory in Ukraine is weak and getting weaker. Especially in the east, but in the south as well.
I am looking forward to seeing the type of impact the new munitions for HIMARS have which spread 1 Million tungsten steel pellets per 6missile pod. That will likely start shredding Russian soldiers in trenches and light armored vehicles around Ukraine in the next few days.
After Lyman, and with the new munitions, expect a rapid series of new Russian territorial in the northeast, and perhaps the south. It will be interesting to see where Ukraine chooses to pause next, they already appear to have passed my initial estimate to the east of Zherebets River and north of the Siverskyi-Donets river. Then again they did capture Russian bridging equipment in tact with a 50ton weight capacity.
Back to This author: he may be a bit far ahead of the game predicting the end of Russia… but it would be nice if those minorities take their protests to the next level and go their own way. Only time will tell, but the more Russia loses in Ukraine, and Putin is seen as weak and detached from reality, the more other will feel emboldened to act in their own interests instead of being subservient to Russia’s imperial tyranny.
marcjf
October 1, 2022 at 2:10 am
I think reading his speech is a good idea, so you can form your own opinion.
My opinion is that the speech makes it clear Russia is playing for keeps.
Russia is not minded to lose the shooting war and has thus far achieved non of its stated objectives. So I expect an increase in the scale and intensity of the fighting. There are rumours of a peace proposal promoted by the Saudis so let’s see if that gets anywhere. I suspect not.
BRICS and the SCO continue in my view to “win” the longer term economic war, and the economic debacle unfolding in the UK/EU is good evidence that sanctions etc are back firing.
Tamerlane
October 1, 2022 at 2:28 am
Goran, that’s asinine. This garbage article written by a Ukrainian propagandist is not reflective of the most likely or even the semi-likely result of this war, nor is it intellectually honest whatsoever. But to you jingoistic chickenhawks who cheer for wars someone else fights, the time is ripe for a new regime change adventure!
The author here has been announcing Russian collapse for 7 months now—and he has been wrong each and every time before. Why on earth would we listen to someone so repeatedly and obviously blinded by personal emotion who has been so removed from reality?
Lincoln: you’re a small minded foreign troll posing as a Cheney like “make the world safe for democracy” regime change armchair warrior. Tragically for you, we Americans aren’t interested in your nice little road to war.
Jacksonian Libertarian
October 1, 2022 at 6:47 am
“Captains should study tactics, but Generals must study logistics”
Russian logistics are insanely bad, and after 6 months of war Russia is scraping the bottom of the barrel, fielding T-62 tanks which haven’t been manufactured for 50 years. While the Ukrainians are being supplied with smart weapons directly from the deep pockets West.
“Morale is to the material as 3 to 1” Napoléon
Russian morale is also insanely bad with Russian men dodging conscription in huge numbers, higher than even the 300,000 increase in the Russian draft. While Ukraine’s army might have tripled in size, the number is secret.
Politically, the forces which caused the Extinction of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union 30 years ago have not gone away. And the threat of reconquest (votes at gun point) by the corrupt authoritarian Russian Culture, will isolate the remnant of Russian empire that remains, as the Russian Federation collapses (what better time to leave than when the Russian military is to weak to stop you) just like the Soviet Union did, and for the same reasons.
Yrral
October 1, 2022 at 8:01 am
Jacobs ,I could care less about some dead Russian,when their are thousands of American,that been swept out too sea, should American be worried about rebuilding Florida with all that Ukrainain aid ,maybe you should register as Ukrainain agent, before the the Feds knock on your door Google Ukrainain Fara Google Fort Bragg Russian Agents
jasika
October 1, 2022 at 8:31 am
Goran.
Putins advantage is he doesnt care how many Russians parish.
I wonder what happens to Russia once all criminals learn to fight together. Do they go back to jail or become an new large organized crime syndicate.
Putin started a war unprepared and with poor intelligence and strategy.
Generals should end it as everyday the future is being compromised for his ego.
Gary Jacobs
October 1, 2022 at 11:33 am
Yrral,
Meh. America can do more than one thing at a time. Florida will get its aid, and so will Ukraine. The National Guard is being mobilized to help in Florida, and so is FEMA. Emergency funds will be available for Florida, and for Ukraine. As well, The US Military, and our military industry are mobilised to help Ukraine…and that takes away nothing from helping Florida.
The two things have almost nothing to do with each other. Your attempt to pretend that they do is another desperate attempt to undermine support for Ukraine for no valid reason.
Enfield
October 1, 2022 at 1:15 pm
At the time of writing, AFU forces are losing between 800 to 1000 soldiers every day, only to capture some villages back which they will later lose again.
There is no military power in the world that can defeat or stop the steamroller of the red giant once it is running at full power.
Everyone involved in this madness can negotiate peace as well, before it’s too late.
Goran
October 1, 2022 at 3:23 pm
Tamerlane, just because I say Ukrainians should be supplied with weapons that help them defend their country does not mean I want war or that the U.S. should send the military to take part in that war. Putin has no advantage, if Ukrainians want to return Putin’s ultimatum back to Moscow rolled up and rolled up real tight, that is their call.
Fred Adams
October 1, 2022 at 3:31 pm
This war is being fought on Urainian soil, not Russian soil, so the greatest economic damage is occurring in the Ukraine. Albertus Magnus advised to fight your wars on other people’s land. If this war were only Russia and Ukraine, the advantage goes to Russia, even if Ukraine kicks them out.
Unified Western support changes this picture. The economy of the West is far more powerful than Russia’s, despite idiotic energy policies in the West. Putin attacked before those policies could totally cripple us. Putin now gambles that Western resolve will crumble.
All reports indicate that Putin’s conventional military capability is in very, very poor condition. There is open protest in Russia against the war. If he wins, Putin’s win will be political, by sapping the will of the West, not by beating it militarily.
If not deposed, Putin will use tactical nukes in the Ukraine, unless the West can make it clear to him that such a move will cost him everything. Tactical nukes may destroy the Ukrainian land’s usefulness.
By giving Ukraine long range missiles, the economic damage of the war can be carried into Russia proper. Tactical nukes against the Ukraine must result in a direct tit-for-tat from the West.
We are in a war. Unfortunately, the enemy has the ability to make it very painful. They will lose, if we don’t give up. We cannot allow a selfish despot to blackmail the entire world. He must be eliminated, and his military capability extinguished.
Yrral
October 1, 2022 at 6:43 pm
The US military should be concentration on helping it own,like victim of sexual assault in the military and military suicide in the military, Google US Military Sexual Assault , Google US Military Suicide
Ki Wa
October 1, 2022 at 7:53 pm
A side issue that may become important.
Russia’s historical xenophobia against the idea of returning to the days when the “Mongel” (Chinese) dictated the limits of russian soviegnty.
With the collapse of Russian influence and China becoming dominant in central asia and chinese economic might dictating terms of trade how long until that becomes an issue for the Russian nationalist’s?
Tamerlane
October 1, 2022 at 9:30 pm
Goran: “just because I say Ukrainians should be supplied with weapons that help them defend their country does not mean I want war or that the U.S. should send the military to take part in that war.”
That’s completely and utterly mendacious. It’s irreconcilable to make the United States party to the war but with slight of hand try to say, “oh, but I don’t want to bear the consequences of intervening in a nuclear power’s most critical and existential self-defensive interest”. Of course you want war, that is evident. All that would have been required to avoid war here would have been to guarantee Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO, and would institute a regional federalism—something we easily have the power and ability to impose. Spare me the argument that we don’t or shouldn’t impose our will, as we do that all the time and have since our founding. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to secure and prioritize our own national interest first, certainly before Ukraine.
“if Ukrainians want to return Putin’s ultimatum back to Moscow rolled up and rolled up real tight, that is their call.” —yeah, I suppose if you don’t care about a massive escalation of the war or want it, that’s an accurate statement. Of course it isn’t the Ukrainian’s call. They are our proxies. Our client state. Our cannon fodder for bloodying Ivan. We control everything they do, and provide them with the intelligence, arms, training, and logistics to fight. How is it possibly their call? The United States doesn’t give two f’s for “sovereignty” of other countries, as the past 25 years has alone (with NATO’s attack and invasion of a sovereign nation and its conducting a referendum there on the militarily conquered territory—Kosovo, as well as Iraq of course) demonstrated amply. When it can be reasonably guaranteed that Russia if it loses conventionally will escalate, is it not incumbent on those actually providing the means of defeating them—those who will have to deal with the consequences of the escalation—to act the adult? I think it is. Ukrainian rejection is only done because the United States has instructed them to reject it. I’m
Not sure why you have such a hard time placing yourself and our country into the position filled by Russia when calculating likely outcomes. It’s up to the United States to plot out the secondary and tertiary effects of our own unprecedented intervention here—an intervention which may push Russia into utilizing nuclear weapons.
Tamerlane
October 1, 2022 at 9:51 pm
Fred: Your argument for nuclear war killing over a billion people is not only absolutely bonkers, but is absolutely divorced from American self interest. Perhaps you are Ukrainian (as are apparently 90%+ of trolls commenting on the Ukraine war) rather than just a sympathizer of that regime, but the fact of the matter is, it is not in America’s national interest to go to nuclear war over a non-ally client state like Ukraine which we are using as a proxy to bloody up Russia. For us, the posturing about the peaceful self-determination of any country is a convenient cover for our fairly rational use of intervention to weaken a country Biden/Cheney and the unrepentant neoconservatives believe must be destroyed (Russo delenda est???), but for Russia, preventing Ukraine from entering an aggressive, expansionist, explicitly anti-Russian military alliance (NATO) is in their existential interest—meaning that Russia will bear exponentially more risk and pain to prevent a viable threat to its very existence from matriculating. Why on God’s green earth would we get into a nuclear war with Russia—killing hundreds of millions of our own people—over something which is not existential to us? I know why the Russians would use nukes—it IS existential to them, but that’s simply not the case for us. If Russia nukes a country they are at war with which is not our ally, you advocate us, a country not at war with Russia, nuke them? Son, wow. Just wow.
Tamerlane
October 2, 2022 at 1:02 am
Goran: “just because I say Ukrainians should be supplied with weapons that help them defend their country does not mean I want war or that the U.S. should send the military to take part in that war.”
That’s completely and utterly mendacious. It’s irreconcilable to make the United States party to the war but with slight of hand try to say, “oh, but I don’t want to bear the consequences of intervening in a nuclear power’s most critical and existential self-defensive interest”. Of course you want war, that is evident. All that would have been required to avoid war here would have been to guarantee Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO, and would institute a regional federalism—something we easily have the power and ability to impose. Spare me the argument that we don’t or shouldn’t impose our will, as we do that all the time and have since our founding. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to secure and prioritize our own national interest first, certainly before Ukraine.
“if Ukrainians want to return Putin’s ultimatum back to Moscow rolled up and rolled up real tight, that is their call.” —yeah, I suppose if you don’t care about a massive escalation of the war or want it, that’s an accurate statement. Of course it isn’t the Ukrainian’s call. They are our proxies. Our client state. Our cannon fodder for bloodying Ivan. We control everything they do, and provide them with the intelligence, arms, training, and logistics to fight. How is it possibly their call? The United States doesn’t give two f’s for “sovereignty” of other countries, as the past 25 years has alone (with NATO’s attack and invasion of a sovereign nation and its conducting a referendum there on the militarily conquered territory—Kosovo, as well as Iraq of course) demonstrated amply. When it can be reasonably guaranteed that Russia if it loses conventionally will escalate, is it not incumbent on those actually providing the means of defeating them—those who will have to deal with the consequences of the escalation—to act the adult? I think it is. Ukrainian rejection is only done because the United States has instructed them to reject it. I’m
Not sure why you have such a hard time placing yourself and our country into the position filled by Russia when calculating likely outcomes. It’s up to the United States to plot out the secondary and tertiary effects of our own unprecedented intervention here—an intervention which may push Russia into utilizing nuclear weapons.
Goran
October 2, 2022 at 12:58 pm
Tamerlane, it is not true that the U.S. is in control of what the government in Kyiv does, I actually remember the U.S. officials encouraging the evacuation of Zelensky, his cabinet and making some dire predictions about the prospect of Ukraine being able to withstand the assault. However, Zelensky famously declined and rallied Ukrainians to fight back. That was organic, Ukrainian.
Starting a lend/lease program is not taking an active part in the war with Russia. North Korea and Iran are supplying Russia but no (sane) person will say that North Korea or Iran are active participants in this conflict.
Yrral
October 2, 2022 at 3:00 pm
If you not an American,you should not be saying nothing about what the US should send,when it fail thousands of dead American in Florida,that got swept out to sea,and never too be recovered,this money we gave Ukraine, should be the last money, until American are able to recover from natural disasters
Goran
October 2, 2022 at 4:14 pm
Yrral, I understand that in Putin’s dominion one guy controls everything and everyone but in a democracy like the United States, there are departments with their own budgets, experts and solutions. Florida will not lack financial resources because of Ukraine, people that are assisting disaster victims should not give a rat’s ass about solutions for Ukraine and U.S. personnel in charge of assisting Ukraine are not sidetracked by what is going on in Florida. In fact, that might be the reason why Putin is getting spanked right now, the power is very concentrated and permissions have to be obtained for a bowel movement.
Immediately after the loss of Lyman, Kadyrov complained about the lack of professionalism and rampant nepotism. He is right, and if he hadn’t inherited that fiefdom from his dad, he would have even had the credibility to complain about it. So don’t worry about the States, emergency management specialists are doing their jobs regardless of what happens in Ukraine.
Tamerlane
October 2, 2022 at 7:59 pm
Goran: I’m not sure where you get your information, but I happen to personally know people in Poland have been inside the command centers where Americans direct Ukrainian combat operations. The United States absolutely does control what Kiev does. We fund, train, arm, equip, plan, and provide intelligence to action plans—for the Ukrainians. They are our proxies, our client state.
If you don’t think a lend/lease is taking an active part in a war, you are historically an ignoramus. FDR pushed the lens/lease specifically to get the United States into WWII as a direct participant, and the lend/lease was the primary reason why Germany declared war on 11 December 1941. No sane person can possibly deny that NATO is waging an economic and military war against Russia right now.