This is CBSI on the world.

I'm John Batchel, visiting with my good friend and colleague for many years.

Anatole Levin of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

He is in St. Petersburg, that is the famous imperial capital of Russia.

He's been in Moscow.

He's been in Sochi, the Black Sea resort.

It was the scene of the Olympics, and it's now the meeting of the Valdai Conference.

However, the opinion of Mr. Trump is a mystery to me,

and Mr. Trump's presentation these days in Gaza, it looks successful. Is there a sense of him

now in the people you talk to, both for and against the war, foreign against Putin, just in general?

Have they got a read on him yet that you can report to us? Well, there was a great deal of hope on all sides that Trump would bring peace.

Some of the liberals, the remaining liberals, hoped that Putin would accept, you know, Trump's proposal

for a ceasefire along the present battle lines and some additional American promises.

Others hoped irrationally that Trump would somehow order Ukraine, not to surrender completely,

but order Ukraine to leave the whole of the Donbass to, you know, accept Russian language rights.

And so there is now a great deal of disappointment in Trump. But the informed Russians, who do also read what a lot of the

Western media has been saying about this, or think that it is actually very unlikely that

Trump would give Tom aawks to Ukraine.

Because America doesn't have very many.

They're overwhelmingly on aircraft and ships, which America can't give to Ukraine.

And, of course, it would be a great escalation.

So there's a good deal of confidence that this is just bluster on Trump's part.

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