also with us, nina khrushcheva, the great granddaughter of soviet premier nikita khrushchev, professor of international affairs at the new school and co-author of the book "in putin's footsteps: searching for the soul of an empire across russia's 11 time zones". >> professor, thank you for being with us. i couldn't help but notice, i'm sure you took note as well, that president putin was far more subdued in the ceremonies than i think most expected. >> everybody, yes. it has been actually big comment that it was very anti-climactic speech, very subdued and putin almost seemed for his standards almost apologetic, almost sort of explaining away once again why the war was necessary, but not bombastic as he has been displaying in recent months. and in fact, as you know, a lot of air show was canceled in numerous cities and there have been questions as to why they did. are they running out of fuel, don't they have enough airplanes anymore? because in the -- in the soviet union, even in the soviet union bad weather was never, ever an issue for cancellation of air parade and now it has been c