The people working at the White House at the time are friends of mine, and they're friends of mine to this day. I don’t want to trivialize how diffic… - Michael McFaul

I guess my preliminary take away is that China is running a brilliant foreign policy right now. They have convinced the Russians that they have a strategic relationship when in fact the most important bilateral relationship for them is with us, and that’s smart; that’s good diplomacy. I don’t know what will happen in the long run, but I think that’s a great position to be in. They fully understand that the management and deepening of their relationship with US is way more important than any other bilateral relationship, including with Russia. Just because trade levels, for economic and security reasons, the bilateral relationship is the most important for them. Russia is peripheral in that respect. Having said that, maintaining good relations with many countries is in the Chinese interest, and that’s what they’re doing.

I speak in general. I think that Putin does not understand that criticizing power can help this power. How do we fight corruption in the United States? There are two forces - independent media and powerful opposition party.

In rhetorical terms and broad strokes, in terms of ambition, I think the Biden administration has a fundamentally different approach to Putin than Trump did. I’m using my words very precisely — the Trump administration had a policy towards Russia, but Trump himself had a much more friendly relationship with Putin. There is little gap between President Biden and the Biden administration on that front.