Tuesday, October 21, 2025

HomeWorld NewsA former Moscow station chief on Trump and Putin : NPR

A former Moscow station chief on Trump and Putin : NPR

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks to Rob Dannenberg, a former CIA station chief in Moscow, about his time spent in Russia, President Vladimir Putin and more.



MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

What is Vladimir Putin really like? How does he think? Freshly relevant questions because we’re told another summit is in the works. President Trump says he’ll meet his Russian counterpart in Budapest, Hungary, date and time still TBD, but the topic is clear – the war in Ukraine and how to end it. Well, we called someone who understands how Vladimir Putin thinks as a former spy because he too is a former spy.

Rob Dannenberg was CIA station chief in Moscow. He did two tours of duty in Russia. When I spoke with Dannenberg today, I asked him to react to something another CIA veteran once told me – that spying on the Russians is like playing tennis against somebody really good – that you’re forced to raise your game.

ROB DANNENBERG: Yeah. I think we used to euphemistically say that, you know, operating against the Russians in a place like Moscow is like the Yankee Stadium of espionage. And we always considered the opportunity to work against the Russian target in general, but in Moscow in particular, it was playing at the highest level of espionage.

KELLY: And then Vladimir Putin himself – in your two tours in Russia, did you ever feel you really got a bead on him? Like, was there a moment where you thought, oh, I know exactly what he’s thinking, or the opposite – I have absolutely no idea what this guy is thinking?

DANNENBERG: I think there were certainly periods where I had the – both those impressions. I mean, a key part of Putin’s training as an operations officer will have been understanding how to assess and manipulate your target of interest. In the case of what’s going on in the world today and looking forward to Budapest and reflecting back on what happened in Anchorage, it is about Putin using his case officer skills that he learned as a young member of the KGB to assess and manipulate the president of the United States.

KELLY: And help me understand that ’cause I would like to think that any of us would, you know, prepare and be trying to assess the situation, read the room, if we walked into a meeting with the president of the United States. What does the specific training as a case officer – what does that allow Vladimir Putin to bring?

DANNENBERG: Well, I think in the specific case of Putin, he will have benefited from the intelligence file that his services have assembled over the years on Donald Trump. And he will know some of Trump’s darkest secrets and what they tell about the man, Donald Trump. And Putin will have factored that into his preparation for how he engages with Trump.

KELLY: OK, so let’s do the Budapest summit, which President Trump – again, we don’t have an exact date, but he says he wants this to happen sooner rather than later. President Trump says the goal is ending the war in Ukraine. Is it clear to you, Rob, that Putin shares this goal?

DANNENBERG: It’s clear to me that Putin does not share the goal of ending the war in the Ukraine in any kind of a compromise fashion or a fashion that would be legal or acceptable for the president of Ukraine, Zelenskyy.

KELLY: You don’t see any sign that Putin’s position is softening?

DANNENBERG: Oh, my goodness, no. None. Not a bit. I look with a bit of apprehension about what might happen in Budapest. And part of that reason is, you know, with this – what we’ve witnessed in the last seven days is Putin showing his ability to get on the phone and reach out to the president of the United States and get a concession from the president before any negotiation has actually begun. And obviously I’m referring to the phone call that Putin and Trump held just before Trump met with President Zelenskyy. During that conversation between Putin and Trump, it appears that Putin persuaded Trump to give up on the idea of selling Tomahawk missiles to the Ukraine. You can agree or disagree whether selling those missiles is a good idea or not. But one of the things you should know now about negotiating with the Russians is you don’t make concessions before the negotiations start. And Trump seems to have done that.

KELLY: You and I spoke, Rob Dannenberg, after the last summit, the Anchorage summit back in August, which you called a big win for Putin and an embarrassment – your word – for the United States. And I recall you thought part of the problem was that Trump treated Putin as an equal. And in your view, Putin only responds to strength.

DANNENBERG: Right. I think he inherited a Russia that was in chaos, and he is – to his credit – you got to be fair here – he’s rebuilt Russia to be a factor on the world stage. But that doesn’t mean there’s an equivalence between the president of the Russian Federation and the president of the United States.

KELLY: I’m remembering the optics of the summit in Anchorage, Alaska – the rolling out of the literal red carpet and the, you know, palling around. It sounds like what you’re saying is that old – what’s the old saying? – flattery will get you everywhere. That with Vladimir Putin, it’s almost the reverse – flattery is going to get you nothing.

DANNENBERG: It’s a sign of weakness, frankly, and Putin treats it as such. On the other hand, Putin uses flattery effectively as part of his tool kit to try and manipulate the president of the United States. He – Putin – is certainly aware of Trump’s famous ego. He understands that Trump’s a very transactional guy, and he wants to set the stage for Trump to achieve some sort of transaction that makes him look effective. But as far as the main subject matter for both Anchorage and what certainly will be the case in Budapest, concessions by Russia on the war in the Ukraine are simply not on Putin’s list of things to give Trump something that looks like a transactional success.

KELLY: There have been moments where Trump has taken a harder line – has sounded considerably less warm about Vladimir Putin. I’m thinking of last month, September. This is at a press conference in the UK.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He’s let me down. He’s really let me down.

KELLY: He’s really let me down. Do – what do you think the Russians are saying to each other as they listen to that in the back rooms of the Kremlin?

DANNENBERG: Yeah, I think the Russians are going to be saying, well, you know, that’s Trump today. We can offer him a phone call or another summit and we’ll get a quite different tune out of Trump. This is 90 seconds of Trump, and we can have a different tape played with a little bit more effort.

KELLY: Rob Dannenberg, thank you.

DANNENBERG: My pleasure.

KELLY: Rob Dannenberg, former CIA officer, former CIA station chief in Moscow.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.


Source link

Bookmark (0)
Please login to bookmark Close
RELATED ARTICLES
- Advertisment -spot_img

Most Popular

Sponsored Business

- Advertisment -spot_img