The final words of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Alaska Summit were delivered with a smile spoken in an unusual burst of English.
“And next time in Moscow,” Putin said no translation is needed, in response to President Donald Trump, suggesting that they meet again soon.
President Putin is known to give casual side comments and elegance in foreign languages. He also said “thank you” in English at the end of the summit with Trump.
However, the Russian leader – former intelligence agent KGB with security services in the Soviet Union, usually avoids speaking in English during diplomatic conversations using translators.
Putin is known to be fluent in German. During his time as a KGB officer during the Cold War, Putin was assigned to Dresden. Dresden was in East Germany at the time. Putin and former German Prime Minister Angela Merkel were known to speak German to each other during their meetings.
According to the Kremlin itself, he also speaks good English.
In May, when the two leaders spoke on the phone, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin could get the impression he had said to him before his interpreter relayed the translation to him.
It suggests that he is likely to understand his US counterpart when the pair travelled together briefly in Trump’s presidential limousine after their arrival in Alaska on Friday.
In 2017, the Kremlin said, according to the Russian Izvestia newspaper, Putin had a “almost complete” understanding of English and could even modify interpreters.
When he is “out of the road,” Putin said, “most of the time he speaks English, but when negotiations are being made and official meetings are taking place, of course he communicates through an interpreter,” Peskov said.
“I’ve translated at the highest level for so long, so I know what stress it is,” Peskov said.
The interpreter can also be used in high-level meetings to pilot the leader’s room.
For example, prior to his talks with Trump, Putin appears to have not understood or heard the offensive questions he cried in English by pressing media about the war, and instead made no speeches, making confusing expressions.
When asked if he would “stop killing civilians,” Putin appeared to gesture that he could not hear the question.
There are quite a few examples of Russian leaders showing off his language skills outside the negotiation room.
He conducted an exclusive interview with CNN about the conflict in Georgia in 2008, where he spoke in part in English.
In 2013 he issued a rather long on-camera statement in English and announced the Russian bid to hold the 2020 World Exposition in the central city of Yekaterinberg. “It’s going to be a priority national project,” he said in Russian accented English in the two and a half minutes clip.
Perhaps the most famous exhibit of his English proficiency, he once directed “Blueberry Hill” at the Charity Gala in St. Petersburg in 2010, but he stumbled over several words. Some Hollywood celebrities, including Kevin Costner, Goldie Horn and Kurt Russell, were among the audience to witness an unusual performance.
At a video conference earlier this year, he responded in fluent German to a German man who had been seeking citizenship in Russia. After switching to German, Putin spoke a bit about his time living in East Germany, and other officials at the meeting laughed.
On Friday, Trump responded quickly to Putin’s English invitation for another meeting in Moscow, saying, “Oh, that’s interesting. I don’t know, I can get a little fever on it, but I can probably see it happening.
