In his first major news conference since the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today offered a glimmer of hope for the family of detained Wall Street Journal reporter and New Jersey native Evan Gershkovich saying Russians want to, quote, reach an agreement on Gershkovich's return.

The journalist has been in Russian custody since march on charges of espionage that he the Wall street journal and U.S. government vehemently deny.

Putin statement comes as Moscow rejected Gershkovich's latest appeal for release and after Putin told the world there will be no peace in Ukraine until the Kremlin achieves its goals, which includes the demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine.

For more on that and a possible deal on Evan's release, I'm joined by former U.S.

Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.

Ambassador McFaul, thanks so much for joining the show.

President Putin made these remarks about a potential agreement to release Evan Gershkovich on the heels of some very aggressive language around the war itself.

Do you believe that the circumstances around where the war is at right now is lending itself toward a more favorable negotiation for his release?

That's a hard question.

I don't know the answer to that question.

I think it was very interesting and different that Putin himself did talk about a possible swap.

That was the biggest news as far as I was concerned, for the entire press conference.

He didn't give details.

But the very fact that he himself was talking about it suggests that, one, there have been negotiations.

And it seems, from what I've heard from our side, there have been proposals and that he spoke favorably about them suggests that something is happening on that front.

Well, to the extent that you can and based off your experience, can you take us inside what those discussions might look like?

Because he also mentioned U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

As well, and they only mentioned those two.

There are two other Americans, by the way, that are detained, but they only mentioned those two.

If I were guessing, thinking about previous cases like this, the Russians want to get criminals out of jail and maybe they even want to get one of their most horrible criminals who's in Germany right now.

And so that complicates the issue even more, where it's not just people that the United States might be holding, but in particular this killer in Germany that they've been talking about for years to try to get out.

I'm guessing I want to be clear about that, I'm guessing.

But in the previous cases, that's what happened there was a swap.

They got out people that they really wanted.

But that's the kind of hard game that they play in terms of these prisoner swaps.

How long could we expect this to drag on?

Again, based on your experience.

Tragically for a long time, you know, the family of Paul Whelan knows that more than anybody.

So, you know, we get these glimmers of hope and you know, most certainly I jumped on that when I heard that today.

And then sometimes they fall through and sometimes they go for many, many years without a resolution.

But that said, the fact that Putin chose to answer the question the way he did that suggests that there is some movement here.

And it suggests to me that these things are not related to the war in Ukraine.

Right.

Sometimes we think, well, the war is going on there, so there's no cooperation.

Actually, I don't think that's the case.

I think these things happen, untangled from each other.

And if the deal is good enough and ripe enough for Putin, I think he would take it.

Well, let me ask you about the war then.

Ukraine's President Zelenskyy, was in the White House again visiting D.C.

It appears that Republicans support is waning exponentially.

What will happen if the U.S. doesn't provide aid, munitions, weapons for Ukraine?

Well, the fact that Putin had his press conference today is a signal that he's more confident today than he was a year ago.

He canceled that.

It used to be an annual event.

He canceled it last year because the war was going so bad.

Today, tragically, his forces are really dug in.

We should have pushed them.

We should have helped the Ukrainians push them out when they weren't so dug in.

But they're dug in now and he's playing for time.

He thinks time's on his side and he's, you know, he's happy.

I hope that the Senate and members of Congress, after that, the House of Representatives, will get this deal done, because otherwise they're giving a gift to Putin for the holidays, not a gift to the Ukrainian soldiers that are are literally, you know, in trenches today and not firing as many shells as they would like because their supplies are depleted right now.

Michael McFaul was the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014.

Michael, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.