Welcome to the Affair Podcast. I'm Anna Williamson. Now, if you don't know me, I'm a relationship

therapist, coach and TV personality. One in five people have admitted to having an affair.

Each episode features a different real-life affair story told by the people involved and offers

insights into the emotions, causes and

consequences of infidelity in today's world.

Available to listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm John Batchezer with my colleagues, Bill Rajo, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

He keeps the Long War Journal.

He's a senior fellow, where you can find reporting by John Hardy of the FD, watching both the battlefield, the battle space in Ukraine these years, and now the negotiating table.

John, last week, there was surprising news to me that the special envoy from President Trump,

Steve Whitkoff, was scheduled and did meet with a Russian negotiator, Kirill Demetriyev.

Carol Demetriev, not yet 50, is a man who was born in Ukraine and educated in the United States.

Stanford was mentioned in his education.

Served as a consultant, certainly is familiar with the markets and speaks English and

Ukrainian, we can imagine, and Russian. He is now in charge of the Russian sovereign wealth fund.

He's a banker, even a central banker eventually. And he was sent by the Kremlin to talk to Steve Whitkoff about Ukraine.

What did you make of this, John, when you first heard the news? Not a general, not a diplomat,

not a team of specialists, but a banker to talk to the U.S. about Ukraine.

So, Dimitriov, he's head of the Russian direct investment fund, Russian sovereign wealth fund.

He has ties to the Putin family.

He has played an important kind of informal role in U.S. Russia talks, hoping to broker a

prisoner swap, for example. I think the Kremlin has kind of used

...