Fiona Hill

So what you would have to, you know, be trying to think about, so what is it you would want to elicit information from him?

You're trying to understand the guy's worldview.

And what we're trying to also understand is if there's any room there where he might compromise on something.

You know, so if your goal was to go in there, you know, to talk about Ukraine at this particular moment, I mean, one of the problems that I've often seen in the sort of the meetings we've had with Putin, it just ends up in sort of mutual recriminations.

you know, kind of, no, well, what about what you've done?

Oh, no, you've done that about, you know, and there's always this whataboutism.

I mean, it often say, well, you're saying that I've done this, but you've done that.

The United States invaded Iraq.

What's the difference between, you know, what I'm doing and all of the things that you've been doing here?

I mean, what you would have to try to do is kind of elicit information about why or what he is thinking about this particular moment in time and why he thinks it.

No, he doesn't.

Yeah, an open discussion.

You know, actually, I mean, I said, you asked me before about, you know, that issue of trust, and he often says he only trusts himself.

And I said, you know, he's often, you know, distrustful of people, but he does trust some people for certain things where he knows it's within their competence.

So he has people he trusts to do things because he knows they'll do them and he knows that they'll do them well.

Which is why he has his old buddies from St.

Petersburg because he's known them for a very long time and he knows that they won't try to pull a fast one over him.

But he also knows their strengths and their weaknesses.

And what they can be trusted to do.

I mean, he's learning that, you know, some of the people in the military that he thought were competent or people on other things are not, right?