Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on as he meets with students at the Sirius Educational Center in Sochi on May 19, 2025, after a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump.
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Alexander KAZAKOV/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on as he meets with students at the Sirius Educational Center in Sochi on May 19, 2025, after a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump.
Alexander KAZAKOV/Getty Images
President Trump wants to make a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Putin says Russia wants to engage in peace talks, but Putin has also been ordering the most widespread and violent aerial attacks on Ukraine in years. This has led Trump to criticize Putin more and more in public — a step that’s been rare over the course of Trump’s two terms in office.
Three years into his war on Ukraine, what does Putin really want? It’s a question leaders around the world are trying to figure out.
To learn more, NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with Angela Stent, Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University, Senior Fellow at the Brookings institution — a nonpartisan policy organization in Washington DC — and author of the book “Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest.
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