People In Washington Start To Understand How Putin Works – The Hudson Institute Researcher

What You Need To Know:

✅ Russia’s recent increased military presence in and around the annexed peninsula of Crimea has raised concerned in the West and in the United Sates;

✅ “A lot of people in Washington have started to understand the way that Putin works;”

✅ Thoburn thinks that this could be more about Putin wanting to change the Normandy format or trying to get some changes out of the Minsk Agreement;

✅ “If Putin got his way, he would much prefer to have Russian-American negations about Ukraine,” adds Thoburn, without any European countries present.

Russia’s recent increased military presence in and around the annexed peninsula of Crimea has raised concerned in the West and in the United Sates. According to Hannah Thoburn, Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute, “a lot of people in Washington have started to understand the way that Putin works.” This is not the first time that the Russian President has taken military action during the Olympics, or in the month of August, when many individuals and politicians are distracted or away on vacation.

While this increased tension might not mean another invasion, Thoburn thinks that this could be more about Putin wanting to change the Normandy format or trying to get some changes out of the Minsk Agreement.

With the American presidential election just a few months away, Putin is aware that he has six months left to work with the Obama administration. If Clinton were to win, “he may not have that same potential for coming to a new agreement about the way the negotiations over the situation in Ukraine are going to be done,” says Thoburn.

“If Putin got his way, he would much prefer to have Russian-American negations about Ukraine,” adds Thoburn, without any European countries present.

Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk and Andriy Kulykov spoke to Hannah Thoburn, Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute via Skype during live broadcast of the Sunday Show on August 14th, 2016.