FILE In this file photo taken on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia. Putin may look like a winner after an abrupt U.S. decision to pull out of Syria, but the Russian leader faces massive challenges in Syria and elsewhere, and he hasn't moved an inch closer to the lifting of Western sanctions that have emaciated the national economy. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
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