Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering said Vladimir Putin’s goal is for Russia to be seen on an equal footing with the United States.
“Putin wants to promote Russia as an equal co-partner with the United States… he’s a politician. He wants to stay in office in his own country, and a lot of the policies he’s pursuing are designed to achieve that, just as some that President Trump is doing,” Pickering said Friday on CNN’s “New Day.”
Pickering also worked in the administrations of presidents of both parties, as an ambassador for both Democratic and Republican presidents in India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Jordan, as well as being the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1989 to 1992.
He said he wished that President Donald Trump had “the capacity, the understanding, and the depth” to resolve problems with Russia “rather than merely promoting his own kind of narcissistic traits before the American public,” Pickering said in the interview.
“But the president we got is the president we got, and the problems we have with Russia are the problems we have with Russia. And letting one stand in the way of resolving the other is not, in my view, in U.S. interests… not talking never gets you anywhere,” Pickering said in the interview.
“It worries me like 9 and a half,” Pickering said, when anchor Alisyn Camerota asked him to rate how worried he is about U.S. relations with Russia on a scale of 1 to 10.
Trump plans to invite Putin to Washington this fall, according to the White House.
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