Fiona Hill

I mean, people talk about Kovalchuk, for example, or

you know, kind of some of the other people who were, you know, friends with him that kind of go back to his time in St.

Petersburg.

You know, at various points, he seemed to, you know, spend a lot of time, you know, way back when talking to people who were, you know, people think of kind of more moderating forces like Alexei Kudrin, but, you know, it doesn't seem to be interacting, you know, with them.

You know, there are obviously aspects of his personal life, you know, does he speak to his daughters?

Does he, you know, speak to, you know, kind of

lovers, you know, kind of in a way people speculate about, you know, kind of who might he confide in, but I would greatly doubt that he would have deep political discussions with them.

He's a very guarded, very careful person.

I think he's deeply suspicious of people and of information.

And I think part of the problems that we see with Putin now

I mean, I've come from isolation during COVID.

I'm really convinced that, you know, like many of us, a lot of Putin's views have hardened.

And the way that he looks at the world have been shadowed in very dark ways by the experience of this pandemic.

You know, obviously he was in a bubble, different kind of bubble from most of us.

I mean, most of us are not in bubbles with multiple, you know, kind of palaces and, you know, kind of the Kremlin.

But, you know, we've seen, you know, so much, obviously a lot of this is staged, that isolation, you know, the kind of making it very clear that he's the czar, the guy who is in charge, making all the decisions, you know, one end of the table and everybody else is at the other end.

But, you know, it's very difficult then to bring, you know, information to him in that way.

He used to have a lot of information bundled for him in the old days by the presidential administration.

I mean, I know that because it was a lot more open in the past.

And I have a lot of meetings with people in the presidential administration who brought outside, you know, all sorts of information, you know, for him and, you know, kind of funneled in information from different think tanks and, you know, different viewpoints and, you