Q&A: Trump’s failed diplomacy and a coup in the Kremlin? With Matt Frei

**Matt Frei** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:05)
Trump can't just do diplomacy based on a few phone calls with Putin that he then says goes very well.

**Matt Frei** (0:11)
The question is, will the Russians listen this time? Imagine if Putin continues with this war. I cannot imagine that if he hasn't managed to roll from the Donbass to Kiev, he's going to do it now. He has not been to Kiev once, not once.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:25)
As close as Jared Kushner and Steven Witkoff are to Trump, there is no substitute for actual diplomacy.

**Matt Frei** (0:32)
In the 10 years of a disastrous Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, they lost 14,000 men. They've lost 100 times as many in something that's lasted half as long. I mean, this is a disaster.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:49)
Hello, everyone. It is that time of the week, the Q&A episode of The Ex Files with me and usually Jamie Rubin, but he's still on holiday until next week. So this week, our special guest, Matt Frei, presenter and Europe editor on Channel 4 and also presenter on his own LBC program. So hi, Matt, and let's get started with the questions this week. So I'm going to ask you the first one. This is from Ben on Instagram.
What do you think we should make of the CIA director's recent visit to Moscow? Do you believe Putin could be genuinely considering an attack on a NATO country? We discussed it a little bit in the main episode, but I think it's worth talking about again, because it's very unusual to send the spy chief. You know, it means, as some have said, that actually diplomacy has failed and now emergency interventions are being made.

**Matt Frei** (1:41)
So a couple of things on that one. It's a really, really good question, Ben. And I think first of all, I was deeply alarmed when I read this because there was a similar visit by the then head of the CIA to Moscow just before the full-scale Ukraine invasion at the end of 2021 And that didn't go so well. And we know from that particular visit that the then head of the CIA basically warned the Kremlin, don't go any further. We've got intelligence, you're trying to invade Ukraine. Don't do this. And they did it anyway. So although we don't know anything for certain, it is quite possible and plausible that again, today's CIA chief went to Moscow to say to the Russians, if you're thinking of a visible incursion into NATO territory, let's say in one of the Baltic Republics, remember that NATO is still there, it is still functioning, and there will be pushback. Now, the reason why they need to say that is, first of all, because the Russians have been nibbling away at NATO territory with cyber attacks, with cutting undersea cables for quite a long time now. They have been provoking NATO drone incursions into Poland or into Romania. This has happened on quite an alarming scale for years now.
But what they may be worried about is that they'll try and do something more, maybe involving tanks actually rolling across the border, trying to test NATO's resolve. Of course, Donald Trump, the president, has given Russian optimists in Kremlin some hope that NATO might not hold together. If you talk to Baltic leaders and you ask them this question, do you think the American president will intervene on your behalf militarily if the Russians invade? In other words, invoking Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, they will tell you, we are not so sure. And of course, the Russians know this. So it's quite possible that at a time when Donald Trump is losing a war that he started in Iran, is militarily exposed because they're running out of ammunition, etc, etc.
Europe is in some flux at the moment, that the Russians will try and do this, especially because they seem to be actually for the first time losing the war that they started in Ukraine in 2022 So I think this is a very dangerous moment. The question is, will the Russians listen this time or not?
And the main question is, what did he actually say to them? Let's assume he did warn them. Will they listen or won't they listen? And what was the warning?
Was it a sort of Munich warning of 1938, you can have a little bit of Lithuania, we'll do nothing at all, you've got a big minority there, we understand, we hear your pain? Or will they say you put one tank, one foot across that border and there'll be trouble? I mean, this is a, I think, potentially quite a dangerous moment.