Latest news with #psychologicalwar
ABC News
3 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Vladimir Putin leaves Alaska with a complete victory over Donald Trump
The war in Ukraine will continue and Vladimir Putin has outmanoeuvred yet another US president. These are the realities arising from the much-heralded meeting here in Alaska between Donald Trump and the Russian leader. This was vintage Putin, who spent years studying the art of psychological war and subterfuge as he rose through the ranks of the notorious Soviet intelligence service, the KGB. As he walked across the tarmac in Anchorage, he was the walking embodiment of charm and bonhomie. As he greeted his American counterpart, he smiled and joked. Putin, who former president Joe Biden wanted arrested for alleged war crimes only a year ago, was then invited into the back seat of the president's bulletproof limousine, known as the Beast. Images showed Putin sitting next to Trump, smiling and laughing — from alleged war criminal to presidential guest in the most secure car in the world. In this title fight of two of the most important world leaders, Vladimir Putin had played a blinder to get to this point. The happy couple then drove to the Elmendorf-Richardson US military base in Anchorage for their meeting. Their bonhomie was a far cry from the tens of thousands of people in Ukraine who have been killed, maimed, or disfigured by the missiles and drones that Putin's army fires into cities each week. After the meeting, Putin made one thing clear: Russia's attack on Ukraine will continue. In the joint news conference — although this stretches the definition as they took no questions — there were two key comments from Putin which told the story. The first was that Russia needed to "eliminate all the primary causes" that led to the war. That had always been Putin's justification for invading Ukraine — by this he means "NATO'S encroachment" near the borders of Russia. And by saying this, Putin means he is determined to continue the war. Trump was unable to even prise from Putin a conditional ceasefire or an agreement to meet Volodymyr Zelensky. The second telling comment by Putin was that he would like the next meeting between the two to be in Moscow, which presumably would be a way to exclude, yet again, Ukraine's president. Putin was clever enough to make this invitation in English. In that news conference, Putin talked about the opportunities for greater economic co-operation between Russia and the US. He brought with him a delegation of Russian economic advisers. Clearly, for Putin, the summit was useful. It brought him back onto the top table of world powers, and it was a chance to seek more economic opportunities between Russia and the US. Putin's only concession to Trump was when he mentioned, in passing, the need for Ukraine to achieve security. This from a man who, as he said this, oversees his military killing civilians in Ukraine every day. In reply, Trump spoke for only three and a half minutes. Trump loves to talk. Trump thrives on back-and-forth with the media. On this occasion, he had the world's media before him — yet took not one question. When Donald Trump speaks for only three minutes, it means he's very unhappy. He had said on Air Force One on the flight to Alaska that, should he not get a ceasefire from the meeting, he would be very unhappy. And that's what happened, although Trump did not want an open conflict with Putin in the joint news conference. Donald Trump was reduced to the lame response of saying he would "make a few phone calls" to NATO and Zelenskyy to brief them about the meeting. A few phone calls? When historians ask what was achieved at the Trump-Putin summit of 2025 to end the war in Ukraine, "a few phone calls" will sound excruciatingly lame. It was clear from the two men that they had not seen eye to eye. Putin said they had reached an agreement, although he did not explain what that was. Trump, in contrast, said "we didn't get there" when it came to the main issue of the war in Ukraine. At the after-meeting news conference, the two men stood before a backdrop with "Pursuing Peace" stamped over it. The Russian delegation appeared delighted by the meeting. At the news conference, key members of the Russian delegation sat in the front row. It was instructive that one of the Russian delegation in the front row was Kirill Dmitriev, the Harvard-educated head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Putin's special envoy for investment and economic cooperation. Dmitriev is, in effect, Putin's money man, and the fact that he was brought to Alaska and given a front row seat indicated that the Russians saw this as a business opportunity rather than a meeting about Ukraine. The extraordinary day began with public warmth. As much as appearances matter, they were warm. Both Trump's and Putin's planes sat on the tarmac at the Elmendorf-Richardson US military base until both leaders simultaneously walked down the stairs. Trump reached the meeting point on the red carpet first, and three times broke into little bursts of clapping as he waited for Putin to walk to him. A handshake, then smiles, before the two men entered the one vehicle. The image of Trump and Putin in the back seat of a limousine — with Putin laughing — will become an iconic presidential image. It needs to be said that Putin did not get everything his way. It seems Trump — or at least someone around him with influence — is learning the Art of Handling Putin, albeit very slowly. Trump had wanted the meeting to be with both Putin and Zelenskyy. But Putin would not agree to that. Trump blinked on that. The Trump White House appeared to have taken into account the concerns of Ukraine and many key European leaders that Putin and Trump might decide what they thought should be the boundaries of Ukraine, should any ceasefire be agreed to. Putin had wanted a one-on-one meeting with Trump. Trump agreed to this, but after pushback from European leaders and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump agreed this would be changed to a "three-on-three" — on the US side, it would be Trump, Rubio, and Steve Witkoff, Trump's close friend of many years who he bonded with over New York real estate deals. On the Russian side, it was Putin, along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and foreign affairs aide Yuri Ushakov. The Europeans and Ukrainians would be relieved that Putin and Trump did not discuss a redrawn map of Ukraine, baking in for Russia much of the 20 per cent of Ukraine that the Russian army has taken. But they will be chilled by Putin's reference to the need to "eliminate" the root causes of the war. They will know that means the war continues. Complete victory from the meeting for Trump would have been an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Complete victory for Putin would have been a vague form of words about "agreeing to begin consultation," which would allow Russia to continue its assault on Ukraine. Russia is slowly gaining more territory and wants to capitalise on that military advantage. Putin has made clear he believes Ukraine is not a legitimate country, and would like 100 per cent control over it — not just the 20 per cent Russia has taken since this full invasion began. If an immediate ceasefire was not possible, a partial victory for Trump would have been an agreement from Putin that he would meet Zelenskyy. A partial victory for Putin would also have been that follow-up meeting — at which he could agree to examine areas of agreement or disagreement. That would have allowed Putin to continue the war indefinitely and buy time to continue taking Ukrainian land. Vladimir Putin has had a complete victory. The Russians lost Alaska when they were desperate for money and sold it to the US in 1867. But when it came to 2025, Vladimir Putin won the heavyweight title fight in Alaska.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
How Putin has used flattery and deception to 'fool' five US presidents
By John Lyons , ABC US President Donald Trump and President of Russia Vladimir Putin during the joint news conference following their meeting in Helsinki in 2018. Photo: AFP / Sergey Guneev / Sputnik Analysis: Vladimir Putin has won both the physical war against Ukraine and the psychological war against Donald Trump. So far, at least. Only a year ago, the United States was urging countries around the world to arrest the Russian president should he touch down on their soil. Then-US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, called on the 123 states that are signatories the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest Putin for the alleged war crime of illegally deporting children from Ukraine to Crimea or Russia. Then-US president Joe Biden supported the ICC arrest warrant, declaring Putin to be guilty. What a difference a year and a new president make. Now, rather than facing an arrest warrant, Putin is about to be feted on American soil, given equal status at a summit in Alaska with Trump. Putin will be a guest of the US, and the photos that emerge from the meeting will be used by Russia's state media to argue that Putin was right to invade Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is a master of mind games who learnt his craft in the ruthless culture of the KGB. Photo: AFP / RAMIL SITDIKOV The Russian propaganda line is already that this summit has proved Putin is not the war criminal that the Biden administration tried to portray. Instead, he is a welcome guest of Trump. Putin, this master of mind games who learnt his craft in the ruthless culture of the KGB, has manipulated yet another US president. In the world of diplomacy, Putin has won as he's back in from the cold. When European leaders continue to urge sanctions against him, Trump has invited him back to the US. And on the battlefield, Putin will have won the war if by invading Ukraine and killing civilians for more than two years, he ends up with almost 20 percent of Ukraine. In the lead-up to the summit, Trump has talked about the need to "swap" land . What's there for Ukraine to swap? It's lost about 20 percent of its land to Russia as it slowly loses the war. Even up until the days before the summit was set to begin, Russia was taking small pockets in the east of Ukraine. Now Putin gets a prize - a summit that catapults him back onto the world stage. For the past two years, most world leaders have treated him as a pariah for illegally invading another country. For Trump - who these days clearly enjoys questions from some of the fawning members of the US media about whether he would accept a Nobel Peace Prize - it is a photo opportunity with a man for whom he has an unexplained fascination and admiration. The Nobel narrative never mentions that it is only with Trump's endorsement that unspeakable suffering, trauma and starvation is being committed by Israel in Gaza, often with US bombs. And while Putin and Trump both carve out for themselves some winnings from the injustice inflicted upon Ukraine, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and the people of Ukraine lose - their country has shrunk as a result of Russia's military might and violence. While there can be no real victory out of this summit for Ukraine, Ukrainians are fatigued and traumatised - they have been losing this war slowly. The only consolation to any end to the war will be that their young men and women will no longer be dying in the frozen fields of the front line and they can slowly try to rebuild a shattered economy and country. Firefighters work on a fire following a mass Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, on 4 July 2025. Photo: Handout / State Emergency Service of Ukraine / AFP Unless Putin decides he wants more and his army returns. The biggest winner, of course, is set to be Putin. During his years in the KGB, one of the specialties of Lieutenant Colonel Putin was personality profiling - before recruiting someone, Putin needed to understand their motivations and their vulnerabilities. He appears to have identified a weakness in Trump: the need to be at the centre of the world stage. Trump clearly revels in the big events, being at the centre of international attention. And so Putin - who daily orders the killing of Ukrainian civilians with his missiles and drones - is set to join Trump for yet another photo opportunity summit. This is classic Putin. He's manipulated or treated with contempt five US presidents - Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Joe Biden. Now he has a second look at Trump. Each US president has come to power convinced that they could develop a working relationship with Putin - that they could trust him and work with him. The most dramatic example was Bush, who invited Putin to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in 2001. It seems almost incomprehensible today, given the tensions and suspicion between Washington and Moscow, but Putin spent the night at the Bush ranch. The next morning, they visited Crawford High School - an unforgettable memory for the students of this small-town US school. Standing alongside the Russian leader, Bush told the student assembly about the evening the two had just spent together: "We had a little Texas barbecue, pecan pie, a little Texas music." Bush's assessment of his fellow president after their first face-to-face meeting was glowing. "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul." Many Russians were mystified, even amused, by this assessment. As Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats later told PBS's Frontline programme: "He [Putin] was trained not to reveal his, so to say, soul, if he has any. His life experience didn't allow him to reveal any inner him, any true him, to any representative of the West. [The] West, for him, remains to be the enemy. And the United States, as the leader of the West, is the enemy number one." It did not take long for Bush to become disenchanted. Despite Bush's urging, Putin made clear he had ambitions to invade both Georgia and Ukraine. Soon after, he invaded Georgia. Bush would be outraged some time later when Putin leant over to him at one of their meetings and said under his breath: "Ukraine is not a real country." The bitter breakdown in the Bush-Putin relationship was on display at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Frontline reported that the two had a hostile conversation as they sat watching the Olympics and Bush would later tell his staff: "You know, I don't know how, but we've lost him." Photo: AFP PHOTO / POOL / JORGE SILVA In recent weeks, as he too has been "losing" Putin, Trump has tried to turn up the financial pressure on Russia. He's been doing this by threatening tariffs on those who buy goods from Russia - India being his first big target . He is planning to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on all goods from India entering the US - taking India's tariff to 50 percent. This has been imposed because India has continued to buy oil from Russia. Trump goes into this Alaska meeting knowing how good Putin is at mind games and strategy. He's observed himself how Putin has "fooled" many of his predecessors, and has talked about how he can have what appear to be constructive conversations with Putin about Ukraine and only hours later Putin's forces will pound targets inside Ukraine. "After that happens three or four times, you say that talk doesn't mean anything," he says. "My conversations with him are always very pleasant - they're very lovely conversations and then the missiles go off that night. I go home, I tell the First Lady: 'I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation', and she says: 'Oh really, another city (in Ukraine) was just hit.' I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years - he's fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn't fool me but what I do say is that at a certain point ultimately talk doesn't talk, there's got to be action. There's got to be results." Having laid out the long list of US presidents who have been fooled, the question is whether Trump is about to cement his place alongside them. -ABC
ABC News
5 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
How Putin has used flattery and deception to 'fool' five US presidents
Vladimir Putin has won both the physical war against Ukraine and the psychological war against Donald Trump. So far, at least. Only a year ago, the United States was urging countries around the world to arrest the Russian president should he touch down on their soil. Then-US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, called on the 123 states that are signatories the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest Putin for the alleged war crime of illegally deporting children from Ukraine to Crimea or Russia. Then-US president Joe Biden supported the ICC arrest warrant, declaring Putin to be guilty. What a difference a year and a new president make. Now, rather than facing an arrest warrant, Putin is about to be feted on American soil, given equal status at a summit in Alaska with Trump. Putin will be a guest of the US, and the photos that emerge from the meeting will be used by Russia's state media to argue that Putin was right to invade Ukraine. The Russian propaganda line is already that this summit has proved Putin is not the war criminal that the Biden administration tried to portray. Instead, he is a welcome guest of Trump. Putin, this master of mind games who learnt his craft in the ruthless culture of the KGB, has manipulated yet another US president. In the world of diplomacy, Putin has won as he's back in from the cold. When European leaders continue to urge sanctions against him, Trump has invited him back to the US. And on the battlefield, Putin will have won the war if by invading Ukraine and killing civilians for more than two years, he ends up with almost 20 per cent of Ukraine. In the lead-up to the summit, Trump has talked about the need to "swap" land. What's there for Ukraine to swap? It's lost about 20 per cent of its land to Russia as it slowly loses the war. Even up until the days before the summit was set to begin, Russia was taking small pockets in the east of Ukraine. Now Putin gets a prize — a summit that catapults him back onto the world stage. For the past two years, most world leaders have treated him as a pariah for illegally invading another country. For Trump — who these days clearly enjoys questions from some of the fawning members of the US media about whether he would accept a Nobel Peace Prize — it is a photo opportunity with a man for whom he has an unexplained fascination and admiration. The Nobel narrative never mentions that it is only with Trump's endorsement that unspeakable suffering, trauma and starvation is being committed by Israel in Gaza, often with US bombs. And while Putin and Trump both carve out for themselves some winnings from the injustice inflicted upon Ukraine, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine lose – their country has shrunk as a result of Russia's military might and violence. While there can be no real victory out of this summit for Ukraine, Ukrainians are fatigued and traumatised — they have been losing this war slowly. The only consolation to any end to the war will be that their young men and women will no longer be dying in the frozen fields of the front line and they can slowly try to rebuild a shattered economy and country. Unless Putin decides he wants more and his army returns. The biggest winner, of course, is set to be Putin. During his years in the KGB, one of the specialties of Lieutenant Colonel Putin was personality profiling — before recruiting someone, Putin needed to understand their motivations and their vulnerabilities. He appears to have identified a weakness in Trump: the need to be at the centre of the world stage. Trump clearly revels in the big events, being at the centre of international attention. And so Putin — who daily orders the killing of Ukrainian civilians with his missiles and drones — is set to join Trump for yet another photo opportunity summit. This is classic Putin. He's manipulated or treated with contempt five US presidents — Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Joe Biden. Now he has a second look at Trump. Each US president has come to power convinced that they could develop a working relationship with Putin — that they could trust him and work with him. The most dramatic example was Bush, who invited Putin to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in 2001. It seems almost incomprehensible today, given the tensions and suspicion between Washington and Moscow, but Putin spent the night at the Bush ranch. The next morning, they visited Crawford High School — an unforgettable memory for the students of this small-town USA school. Standing alongside the Russian leader, Bush told the student assembly about the evening the two had just spent together: "We had a little Texas barbecue, pecan pie, a little Texas music." Bush's assessment of his fellow president after their first face-to-face meeting was glowing. "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul." Many Russians were mystified, even amused, by this assessment. As Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats later told PBS's Frontline program: "He [Putin] was trained not to reveal his, so to say, soul, if he has any. His life experience didn't allow him to reveal any inner him, any true him, to any representative of the West. [The] West, for him, remains to be the enemy. And the United States, as the leader of the West, is the enemy number one." It did not take long for Bush to become disenchanted. Despite Bush's urging, Putin made clear he had ambitions to invade both Georgia and Ukraine. Soon after, he invaded Georgia. Bush would be outraged some time later when Putin leant over to him at one of their meetings and said under his breath: "Ukraine is not a real country." The bitter breakdown in the Bush-Putin relationship was on display at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Frontline reported that the two had a hostile conversation as they sat watching the Olympics and Bush would later tell his staff: "You know, I don't know how, but we've lost him." In recent weeks, as he too has been "losing" Putin, Trump has tried to turn up the financial pressure on Russia. He's been doing this by threatening tariffs on those who buy goods from Russia — India being his first big target. He is planning to impose an additional 25 per cent tariff on all goods from India entering the US — taking India's tariff to 50 per cent. This has been imposed because India has continued to buy oil from Russia. Trump goes into this Alaska meeting knowing how good Putin is at mind games and strategy. He's observed himself how Putin has "fooled" many of his predecessors, and has talked about how he can have what appear to be constructive conversations with Putin about Ukraine and only hours later Putin's forces will pound targets inside Ukraine. "After that happens three or four times, you say that talk doesn't mean anything," he says. "My conversations with him are always very pleasant — they very lovely conversations and then the missiles go off that night. I go home, I tell the First Lady: 'I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation', and she says: 'Oh really, another city (in Ukraine) was just hit.' I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years — he's fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn't fool me but what I do say is that at a certain point ultimately talk doesn't talk, there's got to be action. There's got to be results." Having laid out the long list of US presidents who have been fooled, the question is whether Trump is about to cement his place alongside them.
France 24
01-08-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Thai-Cambodian cyberwarriors battle on despite truce
The five-day conflict left more than 40 people dead and drove more than 300,000 from their homes. It also kicked off a disinformation blitz as Thai and Cambodian partisans alike sought to boost the narrative that the other was to blame. Thai officials recorded more than 500 million instances of online attacks in recent days, government spokesperson Jirayu Huangsab said on Wednesday. These included spamming reports to online platforms and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks -- halting access to a website by overloading its servers with traffic. "It's a psychological war," Cambodian government spokesman Pen Bona told AFP. "There's a lot of fake news and it wouldn't be strange if it came from social media users, but even official Thai media outlets themselves publish a lot of fake news." Disinformation Freshly created "avatar" accounts have targeted popular users or media accounts in Thailand. On July 24, a Facebook post by suspended Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra condemning Cambodia's use of force was bombarded with 16,000 comments, many of them repeating the same message in English: "Queen of drama in Thailand". Another, similar post by Paetongtarn on July 26 was hit with 31,800 comments, many reading: "Best drama queen of 2025", with snake and crocodile emojis. Government spokesman Jirayu said the attacks were aimed at "sowing division among Thais" as well as outright deception. Similarly, Cambodian government Spokesman Pen Bona said fake news from Thailand aimed to divide Cambodia. Apparent bot accounts have also published and shared disinformation, adding to the confusion. Videos and images from a deadly Cambodian rocket attack on a petrol station in Thailand were shared with captions saying they showed an attack on Cambodian soil. Other posts, including one shared by the verified page of Cambodian Secretary of State Vengsrun Kuoch, claimed Thai forces had used chemical weapons. The photo in the post in fact shows an aircraft dropping fire retardants during the Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025. AFP contacted Vengsrun Kuoch for comment but did not receive a reply. Obscenities Hackers from both sides have broken into state-run websites to deface pages with mocking or offensive messages. One of the targets was NBT World, an English-language news site run by the Thai government's public relations department. Headlines and captions on articles about acting prime minister Phumtham Wechayachai were replaced with obscenities. Thai hackers meanwhile, changed the login page of Sachak Asia Development Institute, a Cambodian education facility, to show an image of influential ex-leader Hun Sen edited to have a ludicrously exaggerated hairstyle. The image was a reference to a video -- much mocked in Thailand -- of Cambodian youths sporting the same hairstyle visiting one of the ancient temples that were the focus of the fighting. Online attacks -- whether disinformation messaging or full-blown cyber strikes to disrupt an adversary's infrastructure or services -- are a standard feature of modern warfare. In the Ukraine conflict, Kyiv and its allies have long accused Russia of state-backed cyberwarfare, disrupting government and private IT systems around the world. And earlier this week, Ukrainian and Belarusian hacker groups claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Russia's national airline that grounded dozens of flights. Jessada Salathong, a mass communications professor at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, said the border clashes had invoked the full spectrum of information disorder, carried out by both sides. "In an era when anyone can call themselves media, information warfare simply pulls in everyone," he told AFP.
Asharq Al-Awsat
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israel Wages ‘Psychological War' on Residents of Southern Lebanon
Residents of southern Lebanon say they are living under the constant shadow of an Israeli 'psychological war,' as drones hover overhead, sound bombs explode near villages, and airstrikes fuel a growing climate of fear across the border region. While Israeli air raids and ground incursions have escalated in recent weeks, locals in towns such as Mays al-Jabal, Hula, and Kfar Kila report an additional, subtler kind of assault: one that aims not to destroy buildings, but to break spirits. 'Drones don't leave our skies,' Mohammad, a resident of Bint Jbeil, told Asharq Al-Awsat. 'Explosions near homes, constant buzzing, and open threats on Israeli media – it's designed to keep people afraid.' The psychological toll has been mounting. Sound bombs were dropped in Hula on Wednesday, while Israeli forces crossed the border near the village of Tufa, setting fire to a truck clearing rubble. In the town of Mansouri, a man was injured by an Israeli drone strike and hospitalized in nearby Tyre. In a separate incident, a man in his thirties was wounded by unexploded ordnance. Israel's tactics, residents say, aim to paralyze daily life and force displacement. 'This is more than a military campaign. It's a war on the mind,' said former Mays al-Jabal mayor Abdel Moneim Shuqair, noting that only around 500 residents have returned to the town out of a pre-escalation population of 7,000. Movement in the south has become increasingly perilous. Roads like the one linking Maroun al-Ras to Bint Jbeil are now considered too risky to travel. 'People avoid them because they're completely exposed to Israeli surveillance. Any moment, a car could be targeted,' Shuqair told Asharq Al-Awsat. On that note, Mohammed added that Israel doesn't just want locals to leave; it wants to break their will to return. In Kfar Kila, resident Mona Awadah described fleeing her home after it was targeted. Her husband survived the attack, but their home was no longer safe. 'We were one of the first families to return after the truce,' she said. 'We put up a prefabricated home on our farmland, but even that was targeted. It's as if they're saying: you're not safe anywhere – not even on your own land.' Locals say the absence of a comprehensive state-led reconstruction plan is exacerbating their sense of abandonment. Efforts to rebuild homes or install mobile housing units have reportedly drawn further Israeli strikes. Some families have taken shelter in public schools, sleeping on makeshift bedding. 'There's no alternative for us but this country and this army,' said Shuqair. 'We need a clear stance from the state and a serious plan for a safe and dignified return,' he added. As fear becomes routine, some residents warn of an even more dangerous development – adaptation. 'The biggest danger is that people are starting to get used to the emptiness,' said Mohammad. 'That's what the occupation wants – for us to forget our land.'
