On the tape, Hitler dominated the discussion, with his audience – Mannerheim, Finnish State President Risto Ryti and German Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel – mostly silent. He discussed the failure of Operation Barbarossa, Italian defeats in Africa, the invasions of Yugoslavia, and Albania, his surprise at the Soviet Union's ability to produce thousands of tanks, and his strategic concerns about Romanian petroleum wells. He was at pains to present German policy as having been consistent throughout, but also emphasized that imminent Russian aggression had given him no choice but to attack the Soviet Union.