Former KGB and Russian foreign intelligence officer Sergei Zhirnov revealed what Vladimir Putin achieved with the negotiations between representatives of Russia and the US in Saudi Arabia, which took place a few days ago in Riyadh.
In front of FREEDOM TV, the former intelligence officer revealed that Putin's main task was not to negotiate something about Ukraine, but simply to sit at the negotiating table with the Americans and for Russia to be seen as an important global factor again. And he succeeded.
The negotiations in Saudi Arabia have become not only a test for American diplomacy, but also a field for manipulation by the Kremlin. Putin tried to bring Trump to the negotiating table and succeeded, Zhirnov pointed out.
„Putin's main goal was to get Trump to sit down for negotiations, no matter what topic they were going to talk about. Besides, I don't think they were going to talk about ending the war on Ukraine. The talks that took place in Riyadh also had little to do with that. They emphasized the very fact that they (Russians and Americans) started talking and meeting again. Notice how they said that everything went great there, as if they joked, drank, ate and talked for four and a half hours“, Zhirnov said.
Zhirnov considers this event a diplomatic “breakthrough“ for Putin. “The fact that this happened didn't surprise me. What Trump said about Zelensky is just terrible. "I think this is a crime and a moral abomination," he said, referring to the US president's words that Zelensky is a "dictator" who is to blame for Russia's military aggression against Ukraine.
Zhirnov believes that Trump should have positioned himself as the "supreme arbiter." But if you look at the "picture of the negotiations" in Saudi Arabia, you will get a different impression. "The Saudis are sitting at the head of the table, and then there are negotiations between one country, the United States of America, and another country, the Russian Federation. It turns out that Saudi Arabia is the "supreme arbiter" in this story. This is an extraordinary humiliation for the United States of America. But they don't even understand that," Zhirnov said.
According to him, it is strange how Trump speaks of Putin as if he were his best friend, while at the same time speaking harshly about the country that is a victim and has been attacked in the person of Ukraine. The myth of Trump as a "super negotiator who can supposedly get everything" collapsed at the very first negotiations in Saudi Arabia. In fact, Moscow and Washington have not agreed on anything so far, not even on when Trump and Putin should meet face to face.