The following is an interview transcript with Fiona Hill, former Senior Director of European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brain” on 17 August 2025.
Margaret Brainan: Welcome to face the nation. Fiona Hill served as Senior Director for Russia and European affairs in the National Security Council during President Trump’s first term. She now joins waterville, main. Good morning to you.
Fiona Hill: Good Morning, Margaret.
Margaret Brainon: Well, Fiona, you were an advisor during that infamous Helsinki Summit in 2018. You have talked about it in the past. I wonder what you think about how this Alaska Summit was compared?
Hill: Well, obviously in many cases quite different. A part of it was the fact that they decided to leave one meeting and lunch. I mean, these are usually part of the set of such summit conferences. And the press conference, of course, was a set of declaration, or announcements- presentations by the two leaders. Very high by President Putin, and more about a comment by President Trump. So the press questions were not free for all, which I am sure that you were a bit disappointing for you and others, who were present there in Alaska. But optics were not great at all, as the Congress Crowe was presented as a show of power based on an American Air Force with the Battle of B -52 and other fighter jets for the United States and for President Trump again, again, again, different, but again, but it looks like a performance of appreciation for Wladimir Putin. And so, optics were really much more favorable for Putin, as they were in the United States. It was really as it seemed that Putin had set the tone to the agenda, fiction and, in many cases, for the entire summit meeting.
Margaret Brainon: Well, saying that, you know, the President has a team of advisors around them, and in a traditional administration, they will determine the advisory policy, they will be planning optics, and they would be thinking through it. Do you think the President’s team established him for success here?
Hill: Okay, look, it can be well that one of the demands, because we have heard from Secretary Rubio, I have to say, I think things where things are, there was a very proper assessment of things where things are. So it can be well that one of the demands to make any progress in moving by the Russians was a really show of pomp and pageantry that originally enters Putin’s international affairs. The Russians may say to him in Moscow, either Steve Witchoff or Secretary Rubio, or someone else, that basically they wanted the presence of a major American-Russia, bilateral summit, before they would proceed to the nut-gratitude of something else in Ukraine. This is to give them- they all the benefit of doubt. But, it all now depends on what comes from it. And I feel again, Secretary Rubio made it clear that it is not easy. He was certainly reducing any expectation of a big success. But he said that there was something that could be possible. I think it’s going to be evidence of whether it was really worth all efforts to go to Alaska. And as the Congress Crowe said, there is a very high bar here, because what Putin is doing is very cruel, and he is not showing yet, now, there is a sign of giving anything to any signal.
Margaret Brainon: The Defense Secretary of the United Kingdom has said that he will be ready to put shoes on the ground in Ukraine to help under the supervision of the ceasefire. When you hear that these security guarantee is being talked about, and the secretary said that he is going to talk tomorrow, what should we think- what form is he going to take? Do you think it should look like this?
Hill: Okay, look, I think he really kept it out, and you also did it in your questions. And I think the Congress Crow made it very clear. This should be a combination of all the things that we have already discussed the show. You should be able to place some shoes on the ground. The Congress said that this does not need to be the United States. This is really the case. But, in fact it is some commitment from the United States that European forces actually enable European forces to keep that region and provide some safety guarantee for Ukraine. The United States is important in the context of its intelligence, in terms of enabling the equipment, and information and the data that we all need to intervene for safety. And it is also necessary in terms of equipment and defensive weapon of all other forms. We have already heard, of course, about Ukraine, from spear in the past to patriots, now, in the context of an integrated missile defense system, which Ukraine needs a strict need, requires all types of equipment. So there is a lot that we all know that should be done, and what we really need to see, I think, which will be on Monday and will move forward, there is a real commitment to the United States, to work with Europeans, and to do so to work with Ukraine to do so. See, it exists, also for European security. Therefore, reducing the real role of Europe here, it should be the United Kingdom, it is Poland, it is Finland, it is France, it is Germany, not the way to go. In Europe, all this will have to be said equally. It is about the future of Europe and the future of European security, not only about Ukraine.
Margaret Brainon: I want to ask you about the dynamic between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. You know both men. You have written Vladimir Putin’s autobiography, and of course, you served under Donald Trump. In one of the Fox interviews performed by President Trump, he said that he had talked about mail-in voting with Vladimir Putin in the United States, and during that press address, Putin also claimed that if Donald Trump was the President, the war would not have happened at all. I mean, it is a opposition, but Trump often says something- on footpath, why would those things be discussed if it was about Ukraine?
Hill: Absolutely. Well, look, this is Vladimir Putin, as usual, trying to manipulate American domestic politics. I have seen him doing this repeatedly, including Helsinki, when he set the President, not in the press conference, but before that, completely against his political enemies in a dietrib, because Putin deliberately asked him about this. So Putin knows that President Trump wants the acceptance of his self-confidence that the war would not have happened, it was not- he was in the presidency. And so, Putin is giving him something that plays well for President Trump in his own domestic environment. It does not play well in the international environment, where people know that things are very complicated, but it is basically a gift and a concession for President Trump. And Putin wants to sow chaos in the American electoral system ahead of the midterms. Therefore, of course, he is leading this whole issue of mail-in voting. And President Trump said in his Fox news interview that there are no countries in the world that allow mail-in voting. Well, Russia allows mail-in voting, and if everyone wants to go out and see, they can look for themselves. In 2020, President Vladimir Putin signed the law and was capable of voting by Russians by mail and on the Internet. And more than 30 other countries also allow some forms of mail-in voting. So, it is not just true that other countries including Russia do not use it. It is a pure, clear piece of manipulation, and it is the kind of thing that prefers to Putin.
Margaret Brainon: And, of course, I don’t think you will support the result of that voting system and those elections are rigged in Russia. Correct?
Hill: Of course. And I mean, originally, Putin wants to see us binding ourselves in lumps between the midnight. He is trying to sow chaos, and he originally uses his time with President Trump to accompany him. This, again, it’s a twist, it is an distraction, in fact, by conversation on Ukraine, because Putin does not really want to give anything, so he leaves, basically, something that plays well in the political field for President Trump and something that really plays very badly in his own political field for the United States, which he has corresponded to the United States.
Margaret Brainon: Fiona Hill, always appreciate your analysis. Thank you for joining us today. We will come back right.
