It is an interesting and certainly plausible theory.

As a counter argument, I would say that there was no artificial time limit placed on the conversation (per Tucker in the prelog). And, Putin seemed to not give a fuck about time when giving his answers. For example, at the start he said, give me 30 seconds, maybe a minute, to explain. ...then he went on for over 30 minutes on the history of Russia and why it is relevant.

It is an interesting and certainly plausible theory.

As a counter argument, I would say that there seemed to be no artificial time limit placed on the conversation (just a list of topics to discuss). And, Putin seemed to not give a fuck about time when giving his answers. For example, at the start he said, give me 30 seconds, maybe a minute, to explain. ...then he went on for over 30 minutes on the history of Russia and why it is relevant.