All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's statements yesterday as he was receiving the credentials of about 30 ambassadors, new ambassadors to the Russian Federation, including ambassadors from what Russia terms as unfriendly countries.

And Putin said some interesting things, especially with regards to Trump or the

negotiations that are taking place. He also talked about a security architecture in Europe.

It's been a while since Putin has brought that up, but it does seem like his position is

hardening with regards to the negotiations that are taking

place between Russia and the United States. Your thoughts?

I thought this was an important and interesting speech, and it is not getting the attention

that it should. And to the extent that it is getting attention, I think it is being misreported

because I think people are not

reading it, at least the media of the West, are not reading it correctly. There were three

things that Putin said that I thought were important. There is one that is standout the most

important of all. But if I can just deal with the other two first, the first thing to say

is that there was a long passage in which Putin reprimanded Trump and the United States,

and did so in very clear terms. He said that unilateral actions are wrong, that might is right philosophies are wrong,

that there is such a thing as international law, and Russia upholds it, and he spoke in

defense of the United Nations and of its charter and of the multipolar system, all of which he said are the legacies of the Second World War,

which are fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for, not just in other words Russians,

but also Americans fought for as well.

This was a clear, as I said, rebuke of Trump and of the recent actions in Venezuela and Iran and elsewhere and of the rhetoric that's been coming from the administration and indeed from Trump himself.

And again, it's hardly been mentioned, but it was very interesting that Putin said it.

The other thing that I thought was interesting, it's a minor point, but I wanted to touch on it. He referred to Cuba as an ally.

He said that Cuba is an ally. When we are talking about a country being referred to as an ally by Russia.

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