Journalist: Putin skilled at stringing Trump along

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00:00From your experience interviewing Putin and covering the Kremlin,

00:05what's your sense of how he's likely to respond to this kind of direct pressure

00:12from the US President Donald Trump?

00:15Well, I would say it's interesting, first of all, the way that this unfolded

00:21in terms of diplomatic theater today, because President Trump was supposed to talk to President Putin

00:25and then brief Ukrainian President Leader Zelensky afterwards.

00:30And in fact, we know now that, according to the White House, that Trump spoke to Zelensky first,

00:36and then he got on the phone with President Putin, and they've been on there for more than an hour.

00:40We don't know the exact minute the call started.

00:43But I think when you look at President Putin, he's just very good at stringing Trump along,

00:49stringing the Americans along and saying, yes, he wants to end the war, but he won't end the war,

00:53because the longer the fighting goes on on the ground, the more the Russians are able to take

00:57territory in those four regions. And they believe that maybe towards the end of this year,

01:03the Ukrainian lines could collapse, and they'll completely occupy the four regions that they

01:09have publicly announced that they want to annex, Kherson, Lugansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia,

01:16and then they'll have what they want anyway. So I think that they want to go on fighting,

01:20but they don't want to anger the American administration, which has talked about more

01:24possible sanctions, stronger sanctions. And so, you know, Putin will flatter Trump

01:32and appear not to say no to President Trump.