Fiona Hill

So like, so the old style of diplomacy with Russia wasn't working, you know, we tried all these kind of stale methods, and kind of, you know, trying to sort of, you know, be inventive about this, not the conventional wisdom.

You know, he addressed a lot of the problems that you could see there.

But, you know, the way that Russians operate is,

and that Putin operates.

I mean, he is very, very good at just being extraordinarily patient and figuring out all kinds of angles, the manipulation of people.

You know, they needed to have some insight into this.

I mean, you should not go into a meeting with Vladimir Putin without someone taking notes, without them taking note of what he's doing, what he's saying and why he's saying it, without your own interpreter and without any kind of preparation.

I mean, even if you want to have a fresh set of ideas and a fresh thinking about this, because you're just laying yourself open to be manipulated.

Yeah, a lot of these meetings, he was just going in, you know, with the Russians interpreter.

And God knows what he thought he was hearing.

And I think, you know, from what I've heard, the Russians were pretty frustrated by this as well.

Yes, but they didn't get any follow up.

I mean, you might get everything you want in the moment of somebody buying your whole shtick, basically.

But then what happens when he comes home and then can't remember exactly what they've said or gets it all confused, which seems to be the pattern in some cases.

And then nothing happens because these things are not implementable.

And you've got this kind of ridiculous, you know, you go to talk to Putin here and then you talk to somebody else here and then you go and have to talk to Zelensky here and then everybody else over there.

There's not a coordination of there's no there there in the process.

And people will complain about that the first time around.

People like Erdogan, for example.

I remember this is, you know, the president of Turkey.