This is John Batchelor, conversation with Henthal Levin, my colleague at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

How do the Russians greet the news of Donald Trump's return to the White House?

What are they thinking of? What do they want to know about?

And how to deal with them, given the state of the war in Ukraine, the remarks made over these years and the

expectation of negotiation ahead.

His Anatol to describe his anecdotal information, and then also point to a recommendation

about where to go next with diplomacy.

Anatol Levinan, Russia hears Trump's victory and much more of this later tonight.

Well, I mean, I'm sure that they are happier with Trump than they were with Biden or would have been with Harris.

But they have no, they really don't know, it seems. Well, none of us do

exactly what Trump is going to offer. They're also worried, you see, that Trump, they're worried

about that North Korean scenario that I mentioned, that Trump possibly even, you know, ambushed

into this by the US establishment, will make an offer

that he genuinely thinks of as genuinely viable and generous, like this deal of territory for

NATO. The Russians will turn it down and Trump will then get angry, which he's good at, and kick over the table,

and things will be even worse than they were before. So there are a lot of Russian worries about this.

I mean, the point being that there are things I am told, though not of course by Putin, that the Russians are prepared to negotiate

down, not completely away, but down. You know, this denatification business, demilitarization,

they can be, you know, greatly reduced. The two things that they're not prepared to negotiate are giving up

territory that they already hold in these four provinces that they were next. And neutrality,

no-nature membership. I mean, I was told by everybody that these are non-negotiables as far as

Putin is concerned.

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