Now let's get some additional perspective on the prisoner swap. Nick Schifrin has that.

Nick.

Jeff, to discuss the larger implications of today's events, we turn to Andrew Weiss.

He's a former State Department official who served in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton

administrations and is now the Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace. Thanks very much.

And Joe Weiss, welcome back.

Great to be here.

To the news hour, as we just showed a few minutes ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of pride in time,

welcome to him all these Russian spies and their families on a big red carpet, big flowers.

What message is he sending?

So if Vladimir Putin goes to great lengths

to wrap himself in the valor of the Russian security

establishment, but all of that covers up

a pretty unpleasant and embarrassing fact, which is that Russian spies have been

arrested all over the world or caught red-handed doing bad stuff including the

hitman in the Berlin case of Vadim Kraskov.

So, you know, what Vladimir Putin is doing

by putting on such a big show is covering up, frankly,

for the continued underperformance

of his security

establishment and acting like they're big heroes.

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