Amna Nawaz:
To decode what President Putin had to say today and assess the state of play of all this diplomacy, we turn now to two longtime Russia watchers.
Thomas Graham served on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration and at the state and Defense Departments. He’s now a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. And Andrew Weiss is a former State Department official who served in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. He’s now the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Welcome to you both gentlemen.
Andrew, I will start with you.
You heard President Putin say he’s open to proposals to stop the cease-fire, but he has questions. What’s your read on what he’s doing here? Does he actually want a cease-fire?
Andrew Weiss, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: I think Vladimir Putin is going out of his way not to taunt the West, he’s trying to look reasonable. He’s trying to avoid irritating Donald Trump, who’s obviously invested his own personal prestige in trying to bring about the cease-fire.
But Vladimir Putin is in an uncomfortable position. He’s essentially been wrong-footed by the diplomacy that we saw in Saudi Arabia earlier this week. And now he’s the one who looks like he doesn’t want peace. He’s the one who wants to impose conditions on any cease-fire.
