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Deep in my heart, I still believe that the democratization of Russia and the democratization of Ukraine will proceed.

Putin is playing the long game. He has a strategic plan in mind: the Eurasian Union, which would be in competition to Europe.

We live in an era where the global capital markets are the super power in the world, and when they move against you as they've moved against Russia, as we've all seen in the ruble, there's nothing that can stop that.

I think the soft underbelly of Russia is - what's driving their ability to be aggressive is their energy. If you take the energy out of their economy, Russia is not so strong.

Ukraine had quite serious impact on the many Russians. They could see that ordinary people in Ukraine which is a bordering state, very close to Russia, the people of this state are, they didn't want to tolerate anymore the power abuse by Ukrainian officials.

Russia continues to side with... rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests.

Quite frankly, Russian aggression in Ukraine and its illegal occupation of Crimea remind us that we still have a good deal more work to do to guarantee the strategic vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.

Putin needs strong moves to keep the country as one. There is some criticism that he is centralizing power, but in Russia, if you don't centralize power, you have the risk of losing the country.

As long as the opposition believes the world will stand with Ukraine's democrat reformers, they will have the leverage and the courage to establish a legitimate republic under the leadership of Viktor Yushchenko.

There must be pressure on Moscow so that we have negotiations. Moscow will not succeed by unilaterally backing Bashar al-Assad.