Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, folks, for being here today.
I kind of hoped that we would hear from some of the folks behind Professor Moens. Perhaps one of your students may want to answer this. There was a comment you made that intrigued me. I've asked folks this question a lot of times, and a lot of times I've thought about it myself. I thought about Putin looking for a legacy and empire building. A lot of the aggression he has is because of that.
I've had some folks testifying here and some folks I've talked to on the side say that he was really hoping to have a buffer against NATO countries in the EU. When they were seeking NATO membership, he felt that they would lose that buffer.
You said something that I thought was really interesting. You said that it's not NATO that threatens Russia; it's liberal democracy. Putin has a fear that the Russians may think, “Well, why not us? Why can't we have a liberal democracy?” It's the first time I've heard that.
It's more a comment than a question. I don't know if you have something you want to add to that, but that struck me as kind of interesting.