What Russia and China learned from America after 9/11

Journalists Mikhail Zygar and Cindy Yu explain how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan helped reshape Russia and China's ambitions. Transcript JOEL ROSE, HOST: This weekend's talks in Ukraine and Russia come on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. At that intensely vulnerable moment, many world powers, including Russia and China, found common ground with the U.S., believing they shared some common interests like fighting global terrorism. We wanted to explore how relationships between those superpowers have changed since 9/11. So we called up British-Chinese journalist Cindy Yu and Russian author Mikhail Zygar.MIKHAIL ZYGAR: I think that's very important to remember that that was almost the beginning of Putin's presidency. He became president in year 2000. So he was just learning how to become the head of state, and he was trying - really badly - to become a friend of George W. Bush, as well as to become an equal partner for his European leaders. He really wanted to, for example, to become a part of G8, to become a partner of the United States in the war against terror. He was trying to use it as the justification of his war in Chechnya.He was not that person w...