Putin: a man of many tongues?

I know I’m not the only person on Earth who believes this.

Still, I must wonder whether Russian President Vladimir Putin knows English far better than anyone really knows.

I’ve never heard the Russian strongman speak English. He had that translator in the Helsinki meeting with Donald J. Trump. He always communicates through a translator, for that matter.

But here’s the deal: Putin is a former head of the KGB, the highly sophisticated spy agency that operated during the days of the Soviet Union. Does it make any sense that the top KGB spook wouldn’t be fluent in English, the language of international trade, commerce, transportation? (And yes, I intended to type the word “wouldn’t.”)

All of this makes me wonder why we keep talking about translators and ensuring that they convey the messages delivered by whomever the Russian president is meeting.

My strong hunch is that Vladimir Putin understands perfectly whatever the U.S. president was giving up, er … telling him when they were behind closed doors.