What Putin’s two-faced strategy says about his approach to Trump and Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dispatched his close friend Kirill Dmitriev to Washington, while conscripting 160,000 new troops and bombing Kharkiv.

To the casual observer, Russia seems to be marching in two opposite directions.

President Vladimir Putin sent one of his close allies, Kirill Dmitriev, to Washington this week for diplomatic talks, the most senior Kremlin official to visit since Russia invaded Ukraine.

At the same time, Putin ordered the mobilization of 160,000 troops, his largest in 14 years, as his drones continue their nightly bombardment of Ukrainian civilians and he plans a spring offensive — if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to be believed.

But these twin approaches perfectly illustrate Russia’s strategy, according to some Western foreign policy specialists. They say that Putin is slow-walking talks with President Donald Trump so he can press his battlefield advance in Ukraine, while gambling on achieving normalized relations with a friendly White House.

Putin “thinks that time is on his side, and by dragging things out he’ll put himself in an even better position to negotiate,” said Sergey Radchenko, a Soviet-born Cold War historian and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putins-two-faced-strategy-says-approach-trump-ukraine-rcna199449

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