The war in Ukraine could change everything | Yuval Noah Harari

I hope for the sake of everybody—Ukrainians, Russians, and the whole of humanity—that this war stops immediately. Because if it doesn't, it's not only the Ukrainians and the Russians that will suffer terribly. Everybody will suffer terribly if this war continues.

The key issue of the war, at least for President Putin, is whether Ukraine is an independent nation, whether it is a nation at all. He has this fantasy that Ukraine isn't a nation, that Ukraine is just a part of Russia, that Ukrainians are Russians.

Empires are often the creation of a very small gang of people at the top. I don't think the Russian people [are] interested in this war. I don't think that the Russian people want to conquer Ukraine or to slaughter the citizens of Kiev. It's all coming from the top.

The war in Ukraine now, it's not a natural disaster; it's a man-made disaster and a single man. It's not the Russian people who want this war. There is really just a single person who, by his decisions, created this tragedy.

This is why we need, again and again, to urge the leaders to stop this war, and especially, again and again, tell Putin 'You will not be able to absorb Ukraine into Russia. They don't want it. They don't want you. If you continue. The only thing you will achieve is to create terrible hatred between Ukrainians and Russians for generations. It doesn't have to be like that.'

Russia is a very, it's a very rich country, rich in resources, but most people are very poor. Their standard of living is very, very low, because all the world and power is kind of sucked by the people of the top, and very little is left for everybody else.

One thing should be very clear: I don't mean to say that [Putin] is going to suffer an immediate military defeat. He definitely has the military power to conquer Kiev and perhaps the whole of Ukraine. Unfortunately, we might see this.

Ukrainians and Russians didn't hate each other before Putin; they were siblings. Now, he's making them enemies. And if he continues, this will be his legacy.

All hopes of stopping the AI arms race will go up in smoke if this war continues.