I think it's one thing to hear about them, quite another to actually try to deal with them.
I can see the scene in my mind's eye ... maybe 6 hours in. "Well, Vladimir, what do you think?" "Sergei, these guys are nuts. They're f***ing loons. Holy crapski!"
“I think it’s one thing to hear about them, quite another to actually try to deal with them.”
Bingo. Putin is nothing if not pragmatic, and oriented on building a power-base piece-by-piece, with rational long-term objectives in mind. Surely his dealings with various world leaders have shown him that most are either similar to him or rather more corrupt and subject to influence if it works in their interests to some degree or other.
It must be an eye-opener to come fact to face with heads of a nuclear state that borrow lines from the street-corner preacher of doom.