presidents have historically paid to win freedom for american citizens or face the consequences. they can cut a sweetheart deal to win freedom for their own nationals convicted of criminal activity or espionage if they abduct americans. the public inevitably blames a president when americans linger in captivity for months or four years. joining us now msnbc international affairs analyst and former ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. ambassador, thank you for being with us avalon of questions for you but first i want to talk about viktor bout, can you explain why this exchange, why bout himself was so personal for putin? well victor bout was an arms control deal around the world, getting arms to lots of bad characters, lots of back governments, lots of bad movements around the world, if you look at his biography on his wikipedia page you can see that he studied at institutions in the soviet union were typically kgb agents also studied. so he is close to that world, that world of vlad
himself, and i can tell you from personal experience when i was the ambassador to russia, that the russian government mr. putin s government, has been focused for years to try to get him home. they consider him one of tears and finally he is back at home like they wanted to achieve. like i said, for many many years. and i want to be clear, it is a victory and a celebration that britney griner s home, it is more about the questions that it raises moving forward for what this means for diplomats like yourself who work through these questions. i wonder how it is that you are thinking about it? these are very hard calls, they are very difficult decisions, all diplomacy is about trying to get a deal with
dictator could stay in power for a very long time. so i wouldn t be betting against putin right now in spite of the images. we re seeing an alarming series of threats in public by senior russian officials right up to the president of the use of nuclear weapons. the latest to say that russia would use nuclear weapons to protect the existence of our state as the areas in the eastern part of the country will have sham elections to make them part of the russian state. are russian leaders laying the groundwork to justify the use of nuclear weapons? what they re doing right now is digging into our biggest fears and worries by using the n-word. to use to talk about nuclear weapons is something that nobody has done before. so, they ve now put it on the table. but before we start capitulating and folding and getting scared away, we should just think for a
the country and even see something officials begin to have public criticism of the mobilization and even the russian leadership. is the opposition to putin today stronger, more credible than what we ve seen in the past? for sure it is. the idea and putin is crossed the rubicon, the idea of sending men, between the ages of 18 and 60 to be cannon fodder and dying on the in the war in ukraine is something that effects every single male in the country. and that really does bring it home, that this is no longer a theoretical issue that vladimir putin s decisions and his bad decisions are effecting everyone s life profoundly. okay. so more credible but more of a
threat, a genuine threat to putin s leadership or can he put this down? well putin is a very effective dictator. he has put down many other uprisings and discontent in the past. there were times when hundreds of thousands were marching through the street of moscow and he tear rised his own citizens and taking them and putting them in jail for ten years and senting a message too everybody else, that will happen to you. in this case, people are afraid of dying on the front. having said that, putin is a good dictator. he s very good at repressing people. he s very good at scaring people and he will use the entirety of his repression machine to go after people and my bet is that he succeeds. we ve seen another countries, in iran, in north korea that a