And what a lot of Russians now say is that his hands are tied - that he'd like - and it's actually - it was actually echoed by Vladimir Putin himself at this press conference. But I think they had a lot of hopes for Donald Trump. They've gotten so much different information about, you know, how they didn't meddle in the elections. IOFFE: Well, I think a lot of ordinary Russians don't know what to think. MARTIN: What about among Russians? I mean, what are just ordinary Russians say about it? There's definitely a lot of buyer's remorse in Moscow. So he certainly did not get what he wanted. That was never even the case under Obama. Every meeting - every - any kind of interlude between the Russians and the Americans is immediately viewed with suspicion. They're even worse than they were under the Obama administration. Relations have never been worse between Russia and the U.S. Russia lost even more diplomatic compounds. Sanctions are now sealed in place for the next generation or so. They used to be great allies in the fight against terror. IOFFE: Exactly, exactly - is now - there are agents on there that are on the FBI's cyber most-wanted list. So the victories are often Pyrrhic, as it was with the interference in the presidential election. IOFFE: Right, but sometimes the risk immediately blows back on him. And sometimes it pays off, as it did in the presidential election. Like this is a guy who just really can tolerate a lot of risk. MARTIN: You write - it's a great line in here - that when people ask if Putin plays chess or checkers, it's neither. It was a very emotional, ad hoc, improvised attack. It was a very - you know, one Obama administration official called it throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what would stick.
And that really was how the Russians interfered in the election. IOFFE: Well, they see Russia the way they - they see the interference the way they see their everyday lives in Russia - as messy, uncoordinated, kind of ad hoc, knee-jerk. You found that Russians had a very different take on what happened. election as this highly calculated, very organized, coordinated effort. MARTIN: There's been this tendency to paint Russia's interference in the U.S. JULIA IOFFE: Thanks for having me, Rachel. She's written a piece for The Atlantic titled "What Putin Really Wants." And she joins us now. And that is something journalist Julia Ioffe has thought quite a lot about. is still investigating what Russia did and when they did it. PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Through interpreter) Why do you have this spy hysteria - Russia-meddling hysteria? But at this year's press conference, which happened yesterday, ABC News reporter Terry Moran put a question to Putin about Russia's involvement in the U.S. Almost all of the questions are softballs. Every year at about this time, Russian President Vladimir Putin takes questions in a marathon press conference.