The Putin Interviews

Trip 1—Day 1—July 2, 2015

OS: I think a lot of Western people don’t know much about you except for the news. We’d like to know about your background and where you came from. I know that you were born in October, 1952, after the war. That your mother was a factory worker and your father had been in the war. But I don’t know what he did after the war. And I know that you lived in a collective apartment with other families as you grew up.

VP: My mother didn’t work at a factory. She was a worker, however, but she did different jobs. But I was an only child. They had lost two children before me. One during the Siege of Leningrad,[1] during the war. And they didn’t want to give me up to an orphanage. And that’s why my mother was working as a warden—

OS: Because she did not want to give you up?

VP: Yes, that’s correct. And my father was working at a plant—a factory.

OS: Doing what exactly?

VP: He was an engineer. He graduated from college. He had a vocational education and he was working in a factory.

OS: Steadily or was it stop-gap work? Did he work on a steady basis?

VP: Yes. Yes. On a steady basis. I would say. And he’d been working for a very long time. And then he retired and he still worked until he was 70 or so.

OS: He was wounded in the war, though?

VP: Yes, he was. When the war started he was serving in a special unit. There were small intelligence groups which were sent to the area guard of the enemy to perform different actions. There were 20 people sent in such a group and only four survived.

He told me of that and later, when I was president, I got the archives and I received a confirmation of what had happened. It’s quite curious. It was. And then he was sent to the armed forces to one of the most dangerous areas of the Leningrad front. It was called the Nevsky Pyatachok—the bridgehead. There were hostilities on the Ritneva River. The Soviet army managed to create a small bridgehead two by four kilometers.

OS: Going on, your older brother died within a few days, I believe it was, or within a few months of your birth?

VP: No, he died during the Siege of Leningrad. And he was less than three years old. And back then in order to save children, children were taken from their families to support them, to save their lives. But my brother got ill and he died. And our parents were not even informed where he was buried. Quite curious, just recently there were some interested people and they managed to find something in the archives. They used the surname, the father’s name, and the address from whence the child was taken. And they managed to find some documents about his death and about where he was buried and the orphanage where he was sent. And last year was the first time that I visited his burial place. It’s in Memorial Soundry in St. Petersburg.

OS: Well, considering the casualties from World War II, I would imagine your father and mother were not broken by these tragedies. They must have looked to their third son as a new hope.

VP: Well, indeed they were not broken. But the war ended in 1945, and I was born only in 1952. And that was a very difficult time for ordinary people who believed in the Soviet Union. And yet they decided to have another child.

OS: And tell me… I hear you had a bit of… a bit of a juvenile delinquency problem. You were a bit of a wild child until, I heard, you studied Judo at the age of 12.

VP: Yes, indeed. My parents tried to pay attention to my upbringing but still… I lived in freedom and I spent much time in the courtyard and the streets. And certainly I was not always as disciplined as some would have liked me to be. And since I started going into sport on a systemic basis, started to do Judo, this became a changing factor in my life for the better.

OS: I also heard that your grandfather on your mother’s side was a chef at times for Lenin and for Stalin.

VP: Yes, indeed. It happened. It’s a small world as it were. It’s true. Before the 1917 revolution he worked at a restaurant in Petrograd, in Leningrad. He was a chef, a cook. I don’t know how he got to work for someone of Lenin’s stature. But later, indeed, he worked in the countryside where Stalin lived and he worked for Stalin. He was a very simple man—a cook.

OS: Did you hear him tell any stories?

VP: No, he didn’t. He didn’t tell me anything, but to be honest, part of my childhood I spent in the Moscow Oblest. We lived in St. Petersburg, which was called Leningrad back then. But in the summer we went for a few weeks to visit my grandfather—he was a retiree. But he still lived where he used to work. He lived in one of the State dachas. And my father told me how he went to his father when Stalin was still alive. And my grandfather showed him Stalin from afar. That’s the only thing I know.

OS: We have something in common—my mother who’s French, her father—my grandfather—was a French soldier in World War I. He was a chef also in the trenches. And he told me many stories about World War I and how tough it was.

VP: Yes, my mother told me also about the first World War, from what had been told to her by her father. He also participated in the first World War. One curious story from the human side. It was a war in trenches. And my grandfather got back and he told one story. He saw that one of the Austrian soldiers—I believe that was the Southern front—was aiming at him. But my grandfather was first, he shot first and the Austrian fell. And then my grandfather saw that the Austrian was still alive. But his disposition was like that—he was the only person there apart from the Austrian—and the Austrian was bleeding to death. He was going to die. And my grandfather just crawled to him. He took his first aid kit and bandaged his wounds. Quite curious. He told his relatives, “I wouldn’t have shot first if I hadn’t seen that he was aiming at me.” But whatever country you are from—we are all the same, we are all human beings and those people are also just ordinary people, just workers as we are.

OS: The French war was as bloody as the Russian war. In World War I, one-half, 50 percent of the population of young men between 17 and about 35 were killed or wounded in that war.[2]

VP: Yes, that’s true.

OS: You graduated from high school and I believe you went directly to law school. That’s the Russian system?

VP: Yes, that’s true. I graduated from high school, secondary school, in Leningrad and I directly entered Leningrad University and started to study law.

OS: And graduated in 1975? That’s pretty good—as a lawyer and met your first wife there—I mean your last wife—your only wife.

VP: That was later. That was after seven years.

OS: And then you joined the KGB right away in 1975 in Leningrad.

VP: Yes, as a matter of fact, there was this system of distribution of jobs in the Soviet higher education institutions. So when you graduated from a higher education institution, you were supposed to go where you were sent.

OS: Oh, so you had no choice?

VP: Well, I’m going to tell you. So I was taken right away—by job distribution I was obliged to go there—but I also wanted to. Moreover, I entered law school because I wanted to work for the KGB. And still when I was a pupil at school I went to the KGB office in Leningrad by myself. And I asked them what I had to do in order to work for the KGB. And the worker there told me that I had to have a higher education and better legal education. And that’s why I entered law school.

OS: Oh, I see.

VP: But you know, since that moment no one remembered me of course, and I hadn’t had any contact with the KGB. And when the time came for the distribution, it was quite unexpected that the KGB found me and offered a job.

OS: And you had romanticized, of course, the Soviet films about the KGB and intelligence work.

VP: Indeed. That’s exactly the case.

OS: Their names were Tikhonov and Georgy… Starring Tikhonov and Georgy… Movie actors.

VP: There were books, there were films. That’s quite correct—you formulated it quite aptly.

OS: Yeah. And you went to Dresden from 1985 through 1990, but for the first 10 years you were mostly in Leningrad?

VP: Yes. Exactly. In Leningrad and also in Moscow at special schools.

OS: And you were rising, you were doing very well.

VP: Yes. On the whole, yes.

OS: East Germany from 1985 to 1990 was pretty dismal.

VP: Well, not exactly dismal. Back then, in the Soviet Union, there were these processes which were related to Perestroika.[3] Well I don’t think we’re going to elaborate on that—there were many issues related to Perestroika but there was still this vein—this spirit of innovation. And when I came to Eastern Germany, to the Republic, I saw no spirit of innovation at all.

OS: That’s what I meant.

VP: And I had this impression that society was frozen in the 1950s.

OS: So Gorbachev—you didn’t know him, I mean, you didn’t really have… A sense of reform was going on but you were not in Moscow to feel it. It was a strange time. Did you go back to Moscow? Did you experience Perestroika?

VP: You know, it was quite understandable to Gorbachev and to his entourage that the country needed changes. Today I can say with all confidence that they didn’t understand what those changes were and how to achieve them.

OS: Right.

VP: And that’s why they did many things which dealt great damage to the country. Even though they were reacting for the sake of good and they were right to think that changes were required.

OS: But Gorbachev—I met him several times—he came to the United States and I also met him here. But he has a resemblance to you in the sense that he came up through that system. Very much humble beginnings. He was an expert in agriculture. He studied the documents, he worked very hard and he seemed to recognize early, in his memoir, that there were many difficulties that would not work in the economy. Things were not working.

VP: We all have something in common because we’re human beings.

OS: Yeah, but what I’m saying is that he was a worker. He was specific and he was asking questions—how do we fix this?

VP: I was not a worker and I think it is exactly this specificity, this concreteness, which many of the former Soviet leadership were lacking. Gorbachev included. They didn’t know what they wanted or know how to achieve what was required.

OS: Okay. But there was a coup d’état in 1991 in August,[4] and you resigned on the second day of the coup. The coup being from the Communist Party.

VP: Yes, there was an attempt at a coup d’état. And back in those days—I don’t remember if it was the second day or the third day—indeed I resigned. Because when I returned from Germany I worked at the university for some time. And I was still an officer of the KGB—external intelligence service. And afterwards the former mayor of St. Petersburg, Mr. Sobchak, offered me a job.[5] And that was quite a curious conversation because I used to be his pupil and he invited me into his cabinet.

OS: But that was afterward. Why did you resign? I mean this is your career.

VP: I’m going to tell you everything. So when Sobchak invited me to work for him, I told him that I was very much interested in working with him. But I thought that it was impossible. And that it was not the right thing to do. Because I was still an officer of the external intelligence service of the KGB. And Sobchak was a prominent Democratic leader—a politician of the new wave. And I told him directly that if someone were to know that I worked side by side with him, as a former KGB worker, it was going to do damage to his reputation. And back then the country was witnessing very acute political strife. But I was very much surprised at Sobchak’s reaction when he told me, “Oh that’s nothing to me.” And I worked for him for a short time as his adviser. And afterwards, when the coup d’état was attempted, I found myself in a very ambiguous situation.

OS: In August, ’91?

VP: Yes, the coup d’état was attempted with the use of force. And I could no longer be an officer of the KGB while remaining a close adviser to the democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg. And that’s why I resigned. Sobchak made a telephone call to the president of the KGB of the USSR. And he asked him to let me go. And he gave his consent just a couple of days later for the decree and my resignation to be issued.

OS: But in your mind, did you still believe in communism? Did you still believe in the system?

VP: No, certainly not. But at the beginning I believed it and the idea is a good one and I believed in it. And I wanted to implement it.

OS: When did you change?

VP: You know, regrettably, my views are not changed when I’m exposed to new ideas, but only when I’m exposed to new circumstances. It became clear that the system was not efficient and the system was at a dead end. The economy was not growing. The political system was stagnating. It was frozen and was not capable of any development. The monopoly of one political force, of one party, is pernicious to the country.

OS: But these are Gorbachev’s ideas, so you were influenced by Gorbachev.

VP: These are not ideas of Gorbachev. These ideas were put forward by the French socialist Utopians,[6] so Gorbachev has nothing to do with these ideas. Gorbachev was responding to the circumstances. I reiterate—his merit is that he felt this need for changes. And he tried to change the system. Not even change, he tried to renovate it, to overhaul it. But the problem is, this system was not efficient at its roots. And how can you radically change the system while preserving the country? That’s something no one back then knew—including Gorbachev. And they pushed the country towards collapse.[7]

OS: Yeah, that must have been traumatic. The Soviet Union collapsed, and the Russian Federation was formed under Yeltsin. But I was in St. Petersburg in early ’92 and I met with Sobchak. I think I may have met you—who knows, if you were an assistant to him back then.

VP: No, I don’t remember, but I want to tell you that Sobchak was an absolutely sincere, wholesome man. From an ideological point of view, he was a Democrat, but he was categorically against the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

OS: He was against the disintegration. Yes, it was a wild time, it was exciting. It felt like it was a birth of something new and no one knew where it was going. There were gangsters, there were—people were different. They were wearing new clothes. I had been in the Soviet Union in 1983 during the Brezhnev era and was very depressed by it. So when I came back seven or eight years later it was unbelievable to me. Sobchak took us to a fancy restaurant and we had a wonderful time with him.

VP: But back then, at the same time, when the fancy restaurants appeared, the Russian social security system was destroyed completely. Whole branches of the economy stopped functioning. The healthcare system was in ruins. The armed forces were also in a very depressive condition, and millions of people were under the poverty line. And we have to remember that as well.

OS: Yes, that was the other side of it. You moved to Moscow in 1996 and became the head of the Federal Security Service for 13 months.

VP: No, not right away. I moved to Moscow and at first I was supposed to work for President Yeltsin’s administration. And I started to work in the office of the administration of President Yeltsin. I was in charge of legal matters. And afterwards I was transferred to the administration. And I was responsible for the Oversight Directorate. This Department was overseeing the government and the regional administrations. After that I became the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB – Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti).

OS: Right, so in that role you must have seen what a mess this was, I gather. It was a nightmare of chaos.

VP: Yes, certainly. I often hear criticism addressed to me. They say that I regret the collapse of the Soviet Union. To start with, the most important thing is that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, 25 million Russians—in a blink of an eye—found themselves abroad. In another country.

That’s one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century. People used to live in one country; they had relatives, work, apartments, and they had equal rights. And yet in an instant they found themselves abroad. And there were certain signs and then full-fledged civil wars. Yes, I saw that all personally, especially when I became director of the Federal Security Service.

OS: And in 1999 you worked your way up to be the acting Prime Minister. And Yeltsin resigned in 2000. Obviously, just looking at press conferences and film of Mr. Yeltsin, he was clearly alcohol diseased. His brain seemed to be—the way he spoke and the way he stared at the camera, the way he moved—he looked like he was catatonic.

VP: You know, I do not think that I have the right to give any assessment—either about Gorbachev, or the personality of Yeltsin. Well, I told you that Gorbachev didn’t understand what had to be done, what the objectives were and how to achieve them. And yet he was the first to make a step towards giving the country its freedom, and that was a historical breakthrough. Quite an evident fact—and the same thing goes for Yeltsin. Just as any one of us, he had his problems, but he also had his strong side and one of those advantages was that he never tried to avoid, to shirk responsibility, personal responsibility. He knew how to assume responsibility. Even though certainly he had his demons. But what you said is true. It’s no secret. It was also the reality.

OS: Just out of curiosity, because I know the Khrushchev story, having to drink with Stalin—did you have a drink with Mr. Yeltsin at night sometimes?

VP: No, never. I was not as close to him as you might suspect. I never was one of the closest advisers either to Gorbachev or to Yeltsin. And it was a complete surprise when he appointed me head of the Federal Security Service. That’s the first thing. Secondly, I never abused alcohol. But even when we met, it was also always in a businesslike manner. And I never saw him drunk when he was at work.

OS: A hangover maybe?

VP: I never checked. I never tried to smell him. I’m quite sincere. I never went with him to hunt, I never spent time with him. I met with him at his office. And that’s it. I never drank a shot of vodka with him.

OS: Wow. So here you are—many prime ministers come and go and all of a sudden—you’re the acting prime minister. Now what?

VP: Yes, you know that’s a curious story. You see, I came from Leningrad to Moscow in 1996 just as you said. And on the whole in Moscow I didn’t have any strong support, any contacts. In 1996 I came, and on January 1, 2000 I became acting president. So it’s an incredible story.

OS: Yeah.

VP: But I have to tell you that indeed I didn’t have any special relationship either with Yeltsin or his team.

OS: Maybe some other prime minister had been fired and he just said, “Well you take the job now.”

VP: I don’t know. Probably he was trying to find someone because he had decided to resign. And indeed several prime ministers had been appointed, then resigned. I don’t know why he chose me. Before me there had been very talented prime ministers and recently just one of them has passed away. But when Yeltsin offered this job to me for the first time I refused.

OS: You refused? Why is that?

VP: Yes. I told him—it was in the adjacent office—he invited me in and told me that he wanted to appoint me as prime minister and then wanted me to run for president. I told him that was a great responsibility and that I had to change my life for that. And I was not sure that I was willing to do that. And he told me, “Well, we’ll get back to this conversation later.”

OS: Changed your life in what way? I mean, you had already been a bureaucrat in the government for a long time.

VP: Well it’s quite a different story still. It’s one thing when you’re a bureaucrat—even a high level bureaucrat—you can live almost an ordinary life. You can go to see your friends, go to the cinema, to the theater, to talk to friends freely. And not assume such personal responsibility for the fates of millions of people for everything that’s going on in the country. And to assume responsibility for Russia back then was a very difficult thing to do. And, moreover, in August 1999, when Boris Yeltsin offered my candidature as prime minister and the parliament supported that decision. And the second Chechen War started in Russia in August.[8] And that was an ordeal for the country. And frankly speaking, I didn’t know back then President Yeltsin’s final plans with regard to me. But the situation was just like that. I had to assume responsibility for this situation. And I didn’t know how long I would endure. Because at any second President Yeltsin could tell me, “You are dismissed.” And there was only one thing I was thinking about back then: Where to hide my children?

OS: Oh really? And what would you do?

VP: Well, what would you think? The situation was very acute—just imagine if I were dismissed. I didn’t have any bodyguards and what would I do? How to secure my family? And back then I decided if that was my fate, then I had to go to the end. And I didn’t know then that I was to become president. There were no guarantees of that.

OS: May I ask, were you ever in meetings with Yeltsin and any of the oligarchs?

VP: Yes, certainly.

OS: So you saw the way he handled it?

VP: Of course. It was quite official, very pragmatic. He met them not as oligarchs but as representatives of large enterprises—as people on whose work the fates of millions of people depended and large labor forces.

OS: Did you sense that Yeltsin was being pushed around?

VP: Yes, but he didn’t understand that. Boris Yeltsin was a very distant man. If he is to blame for anything with regard to this oligarchic system of governance, it’s that he was very trusting. And he had no relations whatsoever with oligarchs. And he never got any benefits from those oligarchs personally.

OS: Did you ever meet Berezovsky or people like that?[9]

VP: Yes, certainly. I was acquainted with Berezovsky even before I came to Moscow.

OS: In what way? Was it friendly?

VP: No, we didn’t have any friendly relations. I met him because I was working in St. Petersburg and there was a request from Moscow to receive someone from the US Senate, if I remember correctly. That was a senator flying from Tbilisi and he wanted to meet Sobchak and, since I was in charge of external relations of the city, I was asked to organize that meeting. I reported to Sobchak. He agreed and we met that senator, that gentleman who came from Tbilisi and Berezovsky came with the senator—he was accompanying him. And that’s the way I met him. And Mr. Berezovsky fell asleep during the meeting.

OS: Well, Berezovsky is a smart man, he must have summed you up—looked at you wondering how he can handle you or deal with you, right? I mean, it’s going both ways.

VP: No, you see I was just an assistant to Sobchak. If he was thinking about something he was thinking about how to foster his relationship with Sobchak, not with me.

OS: Okay, well we’re in 2000 now. This is a dark time. Now you’ve become president. The vote was 53 percent. You’re not expected to last. You’re president of a country which is in a dark time—the Chechen War is going on. It looks very bad and the oligarchs… Privatization is everywhere. You push back. I’ve seen the documentaries and I can show the footage of that fight. There was the greatest struggle it seems to me—one of the darkest times of your life.

VP: Yes, that’s… exactly the case. But those difficult times came not in 2000 but much earlier. I think it was in the early 1990s, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and by 2000… In 1998, we had a crisis—a very large economic crisis. In 1999, the second Chechen War was resumed and I became acting president and the country was in a very difficult situation. And that’s the truth.

OS: And did you wake up at four in the morning? Did you ever sleep? What were the dark nights like?

VP: No, I never woke up at 4 a.m. I went to sleep at midnight and I woke up at seven or so. I always slept for six to seven hours.

OS: Very disciplined. No nightmares?

VP: No.

OS: Really? This is a discipline from the military, from the KGB experience?

VP: I think that’s thanks to sport and to military service as well.

OS: You have a lot of discipline, sir.

VP: The thing is, if it’s not done then it’s really difficult to work. If you’re not disciplined then you will not have enough strength to address the current issues. Let alone strategic ones. You always have to keep fit.

OS: Yeah, but did you see your children during this period? And your wife?

VP: Yes, certainly. But only for a very short time.

OS: Regular basis? You’d have dinner at home or did you have dinner with them? Did you see them on a nightly basis?

VP: I came home very late and I went off to work very early. Well, of course I saw them but very briefly.

OS: And when did your parents die? In this period?

VP: My mother died in 1998 and my father in 1999.

OS: That must have been very difficult—among all these other difficulties.

VP: For the last two years my parents were in a hospital. And every Friday, I flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg to see them. Every week.

OS: And for the weekend, and come back on Sunday, or…?

VP: No, I went just for one day. I saw them, and then I came back to Moscow.

OS: Were they proud of you?

VP: Yes.

OS: Your mother and father couldn’t believe it, right?

VP: That’s indeed so. My father didn’t live two months to see me appointed as prime minister. But even before I became prime minister, when I saw him, when I came to see him, he always told the nurses, “Look—here’s my president coming.”

OS: That’s nice. That’s nice. You’re credited with doing many fine things in your first term. Privatization was stopped. You built up industries—electronics, engineering, petrochemical, agriculture, and many others. A real son of Russia—you should be proud. You raised the GDP, you raised incomes, you reformed the army, you resolved the Chechen War.[10]

VP: Well, it’s not exactly like that. I didn’t stop privatization. I just wanted to make it more equitable, more fair. I did everything so that state property was not sold for free. We put an end to some schemes—manipulation schemes—which led to the creation of oligarchs. These schemes that allowed some people to become billionaires in the blink of an eye. With all due respect to Wassily Leontief, the American of Russian origin and Nobel Prize winner in economics. And when he was alive I met him and I attended his lectures and I listened to him talk. He said that property could be distributed freely for one ruble. But in the end, this property was supposed to get into the hands of people who deserved it—that’s what he thought. I think that in our conditions, in the Russian conditions, it led to the legal enrichment of a whole category of people. And it also led to a situation where the government either lost control of strategic industries or just led to the destruction of those industries. So my goal was not to stop privatization, but to make it more systemic, more equitable.

OS: I saw the footage of you with the oligarchs in 2003-4. It was an interesting meeting. But did you have head-on collisions with Berezovsky and people like that, with Khodorkovsky.

VP: No head-on collisions. I just told them that they had to be equidistant from the government. That was the fashionable term back then. And I told them that if they acquired their property within the framework of law, then we would not seek to take that property from them. But today laws are changing and they have to conform to the new laws. I assume that any attempts at revisiting the outcome of privatization can do more damage to the economy of the country than the privatization itself. And that’s why we’re going to continue with the privatization on a fairer basis and do everything in our power to secure these properties, these titles, but everyone has to understand that everyone has to be equal before the law. And no one objected back then.

OS: You cut the poverty rate by two-thirds?

VP: That’s correct.

OS: Respect for the old people. Pensions.

VP: Yes, many fold.

OS: In 2000, 2,700 rubles was the average income. In 2012, 29,000 rubles.

VP: Yes, that’s correct.

OS: Immensely popular in 2004—you’re reelected with 70 percent of the vote.[11]

VP: A little more than that.

OS: And 2008, because only two terms are allowed, you would become the prime minister. A force behind the throne. And in 2012 you run for president and you win. By 63 percent, I believe 63 percent in 2012.

VP: Yes, that’s correct.

OS: So yes, three times president. Maybe, some people would say a fourth term like Roosevelt—you’ve outdone Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

VP: He was president four times?[12]

OS: Yes, he didn’t complete his fourth term, but he obviously was immensely popular. And obviously you’re criticized for many things. And we can get into that later, but you’re criticized for cracking down on the press, among other things, but I’m not going to get into that tonight. I realize that you have been president now for almost 15 years. Which is unbelievable.

VP: No, just first two terms—that’s eight years—four and four. And now starting from 2012—it’s 10 years.

OS: Okay. Well you worked hard when you were prime minister, too.

VP: Yes, I worked hard and quite successfully too on the whole. But back then, Russia’s president was a different person. I know the assessments given to this period abroad. I have to tell you that President Medvedev performed independently all his functions. There was this division of functions according to the Constitution. I never interfered within his domain.[13] There were certain issues when he deemed it possible to consult me on this or that matter. But that was quite a rare occurrence. He did almost everything as he deemed necessary. Furthermore, I can tell you a curious story. During the inauguration of President Medvedev,[14] we met here—just a handful of those who were close to him—and one of the Russian dignitaries said some kind words to me. And he said, “We all understand everything—that you’re still our president,” he told me. And I told everyone, “Thank you for the kind words, but please, do not send false signals to society. Only one person can be the president of the country—the one who is elected by the people.”

OS: Fair enough. Five assassination attempts, I’m told. Not as much as Castro, whom I interviewed—I think he must have had 50—but there’s a legitimate five that I’ve heard about.[15]

VP: Yes, I talked with Castro about that and he said to me, “Do you know why I’m still alive?” I asked him, “Why?” “Because I was always the one to deal with my security personally.” Unlike Castro, I do my job and the security officers do theirs and they are still performing quite successfully. I was quite successful in performing my functions and they in theirs.

OS: So you are saying you did not follow the Castro model?

VP: I don’t see there is a need for that.

OS: In other words, you trust your security and they’ve done a good job.

VP: Yes.

OS: Because always the first mode of assassination, from when the United States went after Castro, you try to get inside the security of the president to perform assassination.

VP: Yes, I know that. Do you know what they say among the Russian people? They say that those who are destined to be hanged are not going to drown.

OS: What is your fate, sir? Do you know?

VP: Only God knows that. Only God knows our destiny—yours and mine.

OS: To die in bed, maybe?

VP: One day this is going to happen to each and every one of us. The question is what will we have accomplished by that time in this transient world and whether we’ll have enjoyed our life.

OS: I have about 10 more minutes of questions and then we can wrap it for tonight.

In a Russian documentary I saw about you, they described the Iceberg Theory, which is in foreign affairs most people see one-seventh of the iceberg, the top only, they don’t see the six-sevenths below the surface of the water. And that all foreign affairs are very treacherous and different than what they appear to be.

VP: That’s very complicated.

OS: Well, I’d like to go there tomorrow and the next day. I mean it’s almost impossible to tell what’s going on in the world unless you look below the surface.

VP: You know, it’s sufficient just to closely monitor what’s going on in the world always and then you’ll understand the logic behind what is going on. Why do ordinary people often lose touch with what is going on? Why do they consider these things complicated? Why do they think that something is concealed from their eyes? This is simply because ordinary people live their lives. On an everyday basis they go to work and earn money, and they are not following international affairs. That’s why ordinary people are so easy to manipulate, to be misled. But if they were to follow what’s going on in the world on an everyday basis, then despite the fact that some part of diplomacy is always conducted behind closed doors, it’s still going to be easier to understand what’s going on and you’ll be able to grasp the logic behind world developments. And you can achieve it even without having access to secret documents.

OS: I’ve read about your prodigious work habits. You read, you study. And I wanted to tell you a story that I recently read about John Kennedy. He was an exciting and glamorous president, but he also worked very, very hard. His brother Robert Kennedy wrote a book, Thirteen Days, about the crisis in Cuba between Khrushchev and Kennedy and in the book it was amazing that Robert Kennedy described that his brother read every document, every speech by a foreign leader that he could. He knew what the speech was, he didn’t take the extract of the information from the CIA, from this intelligence agency, because he didn’t trust them. And as a result, he was able to reach his own conclusions with Khrushchev and solve this crisis.

VP: I do not read abstracts. I always read documents—the original ones. I never use analytical materials provided to me by the intelligence services. I always read separate documents.

OS: It’s interesting, I had that feeling. Your theory of life they say is summed up in the philosophy of Judo?

VP: Yes, more or less. The main idea—the flexible way, as it were—that’s the main idea in Judo. You must be flexible. Sometimes you can give way to others. If that is the way leading to victory…

OS: And at the same time there’s a rat story, which you told Mike Wallace, where you chased a rat, when you were a young boy I guess, with a stick, and the rat turned on you.

VP: It didn’t bite, but it tried to jump at me. And then I was the one to run from the rat. And there were the stairs, and there was a landing, then another flight of stairs. So it was like that—one leading down, then the landing, then another stairs. Even though I was very small I was still able to run faster than the rat. I had the time to run down the stairs, then the landing, and then down the other stairs. And do you know what the rat did? It jumped from one set of stairs to the other from above.

OS: Well, you pissed off the rat with the stick, right?

VP: Yes, I think that was the case.

OS: So in your philosophy with Judo it would be don’t push too hard sometimes—your opponent may look weak, but your opponent may turn on you.

VP: Well, I didn’t go into Judo back then. And the conclusion, I think, is somewhat different here. You know there is this famous saying: you should never corner a rat. And that’s exactly what I did. No one should be cornered. No one should be led to a situation which ends in a dead end.

OS: The oligarchs underestimated you. When you became president, they didn’t think you would last.

VP: You see, oligarchs are different. And that’s true. Among them there were those who were willing to conform to the system of relationship with the government that was being proposed to them. And they were told that no one was trying to infringe upon their property. They were told that the government would protect their property. Even if the previous laws had been unjust. The law is always the law. But that’s another rule to be observed.

OS: The law is always the law, unless it changes. People protest. In America, there was civil rights legislation. Many good things come out of protest—disobedience to the law.

VP: That’s also true, but our situation was different. I believe that the privatization laws at the beginning of the 1990s were not just. But if we were to conduct de-privatization, as I said before, it would have been even more damaging to the economy and to the lives of common people. And that’s what I told the big business leaders, that was a frank discussion. I told them that the previously-existing schemes were to be phased out of existence. I told them that laws were supposed to become fairer and more just. And I also told them that business was to assume more social responsibility. And many businessmen, the overwhelming majority of them, conformed to the new laws. Do you know who was not happy about the new laws? Those who were not true businessmen. Those who earned their millions or billions not thanks to their entrepreneurial talents, but thanks to their ability to force good relationships with the government—those people were not happy. They didn’t like the new laws. But there was just a handful of those. On the whole our relationship with business was good.

OS: Just to close on a note about Stalin. You know, you’ve said negative things about Stalin, and of course he’s widely condemned in the world. But at the same time we all know that he was a great wartime leader. He led Russia to victory over Germany, over fascism. What do you make of that ambiguity?

VP: I think that you are a cunning person.

OS: Why? We can discuss it tomorrow if you want.

VP: No, I’m ready to answer. You know, there was one prominent politician of the past, Winston Churchill. He was very firmly against Sovietism, but once the Second World War started, he was a great advocate of working together with the Soviet Union, and he called Stalin a great war leader and revolutionary. And after the Second World War, as is well known, it was Churchill who initiated the Cold War. And when the Soviet Union made the first nuclear test, it was none other than Winston Churchill who announced the need for a co-existence of two systems. He was a very flexible person. But I think that deep down in his heart, his attitude toward Stalin never wavered, never changed.

Stalin is a product of his era. You can try to demonize him however much you like. We try to talk about his merits in achieving victory over fascism. As to his demonization, there was such a person in history as Oliver Cromwell—he was a bloodthirsty man who arrived in power on the wave of a revolution and he turned into a dictator and tyrant. And monuments to him are still scattered all across Great Britain. Napoleon is deified. What did he do? He used the surge of revolutionary zeal and arrived in power. And he not only restored the monarchy, he pronounced himself Emperor. And he led France to a national catastrophe, to utter defeat. There are many situations, many people like that—more than enough in world history. I think that excessive demonization of Stalin is one of the ways to attack the Soviet Union and Russia, to show that the Russia of today has something originating from Stalinism. Well, of course we all have these birthmarks.

What I’m saying is Russia has changed radically. Well, of course something probably has remained in our mentality, but there is no going back to Stalinism, because the mentality of the people has changed. As to Stalin himself, he arrived in power with wonderful ideas that he was propounding. He was talking about the need for equality, fraternity, peace… But of course he turned into a dictator. I don’t think that in a situation like that anything else would have been possible. I’m referring to that particular situation in the world. Was it any better in Spain, or in Italy? Or in Germany? There are many countries where the government was based in tyranny.

But of course this doesn’t mean that he was not capable of bringing together the people of the Soviet Union. He managed to organize resistance to fascism. And he was not behaving like a Hitler. He was listening to his generals. And he even conformed himself to some of the decisions which were offered to him by his generals. This doesn’t mean, however, that we have to forget all the atrocities Stalinism committed—the destruction of millions of our compatriots, the extermination camps. These things are not to be forgotten. And he is an ambiguous figure. I think that at the end of his life he was in a very difficult position—a very difficult mental situation, I believe. But that requires an impartial study.

OS: And your father and your mother admired him, right?

VP: Yes, certainly. I think the overwhelming majority of the former Soviet citizens admired Stalin. Just as the overwhelming majority of the French admired Napoleon in the past—and many still admire him.

OS: I would like to just end on a quick, lighter note. I saw footage of you—it’s unbelievable—where you have learned… You obviously were not trained as a young man in these skills but you’ve learned how to play the piano. I saw that.

VP: Certainly. Recently a friend of mine taught me to play with two fingers a couple of very popular melodies.

OS: I mean, it’s still amazing that at your age you wanted to learn something new and I also saw you skiing. You had never been skiing before.

VP: I started skiing when I was a student. And I just recently started skating.

OS: Yeah, I saw that—in hockey.

VP: When I started skating, my first thought was—that’s just two years ago—I thought that I was never going to learn how to skate. And my first thought was: how to stop, how do I stop?

OS: Yeah. So are you worried about breaking an ankle? Or you’re not worried about injuring yourself, are you?

VP: Well, if you keep thinking about these things then probably you should stay at home.

OS: Well, hockey is a rough sport.

VP: Well, I didn’t expect it to be so rough. I thought that Judo was the roughest one, but it turned out that hockey was very athletic in its nature.

OS: Are you still playing?

VP: Yes, this morning I played hockey.

OS: Really? Unbelievable. And do you have any plans to conquer a new sport?

VP: No, not yet.

OS: But you’ve learned French?

VP: No, actually just a couple of phrases.

OS: Well, you went to Guatemala—that was enough to get the Winter Games.

VP: One of the International Olympic Committee members told me that I had to say at least a couple of words in French. That was a must he said.

OS: Oh, it was just a couple? You cheated.

VP: He said it was a token of respect. Not to the French, but to the Francophone African countries.

OS: Well thank you Mr. Putin for a wonderful beginning.

VP: Thank you. We’re going to continue tomorrow.

Trip 1—Day 2—July 3, 2015

VP: There were many economic advisers from the United States working with the Central Government and the administration of President Yeltsin. And since we were in St. Petersburg we had little to do with it.

OS: But you joined with Yeltsin in ’95, right?

VP: 1996, to be more exact. I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that I was working in the office of the administration of the president and we had to deal with domestic matters. And I personally was in charge of legal affairs. But certainly later when I worked at the office of the administration and when I was working in St. Petersburg, we closely followed all these matters. And we saw the discussions between the American School of Economics and the Europeans, the majority of whom were not entirely approving of the recommendations which we were given by the Americans. I refer in particular to the privatization of state property. And to be frank we couldn’t interfere within this process and we didn’t. But what the Europeans told us back then, I thought that was quite objective, quite just. But what the American experts promised us looked much more attractive.

OS: Now, looking back at it, was this a private effort or did you feel the presence of the American government as well?

VP: I think both. Both the private sector and the government. Certainly the private sector was taking an active part in this process. But no doubt under the control of the central government.

OS: Did Mr. Yeltsin ever express dark thoughts about American interests here?

VP: No, never.

OS: Never?

VP: Never. Well, he didn’t express those thoughts but he didn’t go deep into economic issues. He trusted the government on the whole. He trusted those people who work around him. Those people whom he thought to be the new generation.

OS: And the Europeans were telling you what?

VP: Europeans thought that unchecked privatization that was conducted in Russia wouldn’t lead to raising the efficiency of the economy. Particularly as far as privatization in the key branches of the economy was concerned. As a matter of fact they proposed a softer way to us. Two words: market economy. And I believe that would have been much more efficient now that I look back at that time. And it wouldn’t have led to such acute social consequences. But we have to admit and to give credit to those who took the decision back then—they were bold enough to take steps without which no transition towards a market economy would have been possible.

OS: And who would that be?

VP: Yegor Gaidar, primarily. Chubais, from the economy ministry. Andrei Nechaev.

OS: So you’re saying you agree with the policy, but it was implemented too quickly?

VP: I agree with the objectives which they put forward. But I do not agree with the methods which they employed.

OS: As a young man, did you see anything wrong when Gorbachev made his deal with Reagan and brought back the troops from Eastern Europe? Did you see anything wrong with the United States intervening in Iraq in January of 1991?

VP: Publicly, I spoke about that, as far as the first part of your question is concerned. As to Eastern Europe, I think it would be senseless and damaging if the Soviet Union itself was to impose on other peoples and other nations their rules of conduct. Their vision of how society was to develop, how the political and state system of those countries was to be constructed. And that approach didn’t have any future. And it was quite evident that one way or another that had to end. People cannot always put up with decisions which are imposed on them from outside. Apart from that, Eastern Europe and Europe on the whole had their own political traditions and that couldn’t be neglected.

OS: Let’s lay it on the line here. I mean, I was in the Vietnam War. We sent 500,000 troops to Vietnam. That was outrageous and condemned by the whole world. After the détente with Gorbachev, Reagan and the United States put 500,000 troops into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

VP: I know that you are very critical of the American government in many dimensions. I do not always share your point of view. Despite the fact that, with regards to the American leadership, we do not always have the relationship we would like to have with them. Sometimes decisions have to be taken which are not entirely approved of in some parts of society. But it’s better to make some decisions than make none.

OS: So you don’t disapprove of the US sending 500,000 troops to the Middle East all of a sudden?

VP: You know, I think it’s erroneous and wrong to impose on other nations and peoples one’s own standards and models. I’m referring in particular to democracy. Democracy cannot be imported from outside, it can only be born within society. And society should be helped to follow this path, but trying to impose it by force from outside is senseless, it’s counterproductive, it’s damaging. And as to the use of force, including ground force, sometimes it is necessary. Certainly it’s better if it’s done at the invitation of the governments concerned or in accordance with international law, and based on a decision by the UN Security Council.

OS: Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean Gorbachev makes a supreme effort for peace. And within a few months of the Berlin Wall falling, the US is sending troops into Panama illegally—not supported by other nations, condemned by the Latin American countries.

VP: Well, certainly there is nothing good about that. Besides, Gorbachev, before taking any unilateral steps should have thought about how his partners would respond. Steps can be taken towards your partner, but you have to understand what’s going to follow. You asked me about Iraq. I think that was a mistake. Sending troops to Iraq, overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

OS: That was later. I’m talking about the beginning of this thing in 1991, when they invaded Kuwait.

VP: Back then the United States didn’t go further—they didn’t overthrow the government in Iraq. I know there are discussions on this matter and some say they should have gone further and overthrown Saddam Hussein. And others say that everything was done correctly, they had to stop at the right moment. And President Bush was quite right to do what he did, he was cautious. He responded to aggression and then stopped when the time was right.

OS: Okay, I understand your point of view. I don’t agree with it, but I understand. For the United States to send 500,000 troops anywhere in the world is to establish a major, major interest. And once you send that many US troops into an area, it changes forever the dynamic in that area. There is no way now that the United States would leave the Middle East.

VP: Yes, I think so, probably. The most depressing thing is the attempt to change regimes in that part of the world with the hope that the next day everything is going to sort itself out. And that American-style democracy will emerge. But that’s impossible and we’re witnessing what is happening in that region right now. Where did ISIS come from? There were never any terrorists there before. And now they have a beachhead there and they are in control of two thirds of Iraqi territory. And the same is happening in Syria. Libya, as a territorially integral state, has ceased to exist.[16] And remember how happy they were when Gaddafi was killed, but there were no reasons to be happy.[17] The standard of living there was quite high—near the average European level. Did they have to fight for democracy? Yes, they had to, but not using these means which they resorted to. You see the result—it’s a catastrophe.

OS: I understand. I think you’re getting a little bit ahead of me.

OS: I wanted to go first of all to the growth of this issue, which is the second Bush… W. He came into office and in 2001 he met you. And he said, in Slovenia I believe, “I looked into his eyes and got a sense of his soul.”[18]

VP: Yes, that’s exactly what he said. He’s a very decent person—a good person.

OS: What did you sense when he was saying that—what did you feel?

VP: I felt that here was a person we could come to agreement with—a person we can deal with—at least that’s what I hoped.

OS: And on 9/11, you were one of the first to call him and offer condolences?[19]

VP: Yes, we had planned military exercises of our new strategic forces for the next day. And I canceled those exercises and I wanted the president of the United States to know that. Certainly I understood that heads of state and governments in such a situation need moral support. And we wanted to demonstrate this support to President Bush.

OS: And when President Bush invaded Afghanistan, you cooperated with the invasion and set up bases in the Caucasus in Eurasia in order for the Americans to have a supply line for the war in Afghanistan?

VP: Well, it’s not exactly like that. We didn’t set up any military bases specifically for that purpose. Since the Soviet Union, we have had a division in Tajikistan which we later turned into a military base specifically to protect this direction, which is dangerous from the terrorists’ point of view—in Afghanistan. We supported the United States.[20] And we allowed them to use our territory to supply weapons and other cargo.

OS: And continued to do so until recently.

VP: Yes. We believe that this cooperation is in our national interest. This is a field where we can and should put our forces together. We provided our American partners with additional information including intelligence information, as far as it was possible.

OS: Russia has a long history of intelligence in Afghanistan. Of course you know a lot about it. How come you guys did not figure out where bin Laden was and what was really happening with bin Laden? Not just where he was, but how weak the Al Qaeda base was at this point in Afghanistan.

VP: Al Qaeda is not the result of our activities. It’s the result of the activities of our American friends.[21] It all started during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. When the American intelligence officers provided support to different streaks of Islamic fundamentalism, helping them to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. So it was the Americans who nurtured both Al Qaeda and bin Laden. But it all spun out of control and it always does. So they’re to blame.

OS: I understand. Although Bill Casey, Director of the CIA under Ronald Reagan, made it a special effort—this is documented—to excite the Muslims in the Caucasus in Central Asia against the Soviet Union.[22] His plan was bigger than just to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was hoping for regime change in the Soviet Union.

VP: You see, the thing is, these ideas are still alive. And when those problems in the Caucasus and Chechnya emerged, unfortunately the Americans supported those processes.[23] Not the official forces, not the democratic government of Yeltsin. They didn’t support that. Even though we counted on American support. We assumed that the Cold War was over, that we had transparent relations with the United States, with the whole world, and we certainly counted on support. But instead we witnessed the American intelligence services support terrorists. And even when we confirmed that, when we demonstrated that Al Qaeda fighters were fighting in the Caucasus, we still saw the intelligence services of the United States continue to support these fighters. There was one episode, I told President Bush about that, and he said, “Do you have any concrete data who specifically does what specifically?” And I told him “Yes, I do have such data,” and I showed him, and I even named those persons of the American intelligence services who were working in the Caucasus, including in Baku. And those officers didn’t just provide some general political support—they also provided technical support, they helped transfer fighters from one place to another. And the reaction of the American president was the right one—very negative. He said, “I’ll sort this all out.” There was no response, by the way. And weeks had passed—

OS: What year was this?

VP: 2005 or 2004. Some time had passed and we received a response from the American intelligence services. The response was quite peculiar. They wrote to us: “We support all the political forces, including the opposition forces, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

OS: They sent a letter to you in 2005?

VP: Yes, the CIA sent us a letter.[24] They sent this letter to their counterparts in Moscow. And to be honest, I was much surprised—especially after my conversation with the American president.

OS: Did you speak to him after that?

VP: Yes, certainly. You know, politics is a strange area. I’m quite confident that President Bush has always been a person with integrity. But all this bureaucracy, which still clings to the ideas that you’ve talked about—namely the possibility to use fundamentalism to destabilize the situation. Well, these ideas are still alive. And despite the fact that the situation has changed radically in Russia itself—the Soviet Union ceased to exist. I’m going to say something very important, I believe. We are now quite confident—we had a very confident opinion back then. But our American partners were talking about the need to cooperate, including in fighting terrorism, but in reality they were using those terrorists in order to destabilize the internal political situation in Russia. And frankly speaking, we were much disappointed.

OS: I suppose you want us to go over to the Palace.

VP: Yes, it will be easier there.

OS: Two big dreams.

VP: You were flying in one?

OS: Yes, I try to remember the dreams. I wake up, I write them down, it’s a habit I’ve gotten into.

VP: Very interesting.

OS: Yeah, it’s important. That’s why I was surprised when you said you didn’t pay attention to dreams or didn’t remember them.

VP: Sometimes I remember my dreams but for a very short time and then I forget.

OS: I make an effort to get up in the middle of the night to remember them, because I know I’m going to forget them when I go back to sleep.

VP: And where do you live most of the time?

OS: Between New York and Los Angeles. And I travel a lot.

VP: Do you have an apartment or house, an apartment in New York and a house in Los Angeles?

OS: I have places in both. But I spent the last six months in Munich.

OS: Okay. So you’re involved in the Afghanistan war and the cooperation with the United States. They’re in Central Asia now. You know more and more about their support of terrorism—Islamic terrorism—against the Soviet Union. But now they are fighting terrorism and they’re looking for bin Laden and putting a huge amount of money into hunting Al Qaeda—although I’m told that Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan reached as low a level as 100 fighters. There were only 100 Al Qaeda left when we were still fighting there.[25]

VP: Regrettably, the general principle in some countries is to support people who have extreme views in order to get their help fighting people who are seemingly their enemies. The thing is, the greatest problem is, distinguishing between these people is impossible. Because these people also evolve and change. They conform to conditions and it’s impossible to understand who is using whom—whether the intelligence services of the United States is using Islamic radicals. The radicals understand that the intelligence services want to use them to fight for their own interests and they get money, they get support, they get arms, and then they deal a heavy blow to their benefactors. Or they transfer part of their money, weapons or equipment to other armed units and are involved in activities which are not welcomed by the benefactors or those who support this or that country’s unit. The same is happening with ISIS right now. Exactly the same thing. When there is this talk about the need to support the opposition in Syria—the normal opposition, they are given money, they are given weapons, and then it turns out that some of them defected to ISIS. And our partners recognize that. But it’s a systemic mistake which is repeated always. This is the same thing which happened in Afghanistan in the 1980s. And right now it’s happening in the Middle East.

OS: I know we discussed it before, but please tell me again whether you believe the United States was involved in any way with supporting the Chechens in the first or second war.

VP: Yes. We’re 100 percent sure that we have objective proof of that.[26] You see you don’t have to be a great analyst to see that the United States supported financially, provided information, supported them politically. They supported the separatists and terrorists in the Northern Caucasus. And when we’re asking our partners, “Why do you receive them at the official level?” they responded, “We’re not doing that at a high level—it’s just a technical level—the level of experts.” But that was just ridiculous. We were seeing that they were granting them support. Instead of trying to pull forces together to fight a common threat, someone is often trying to use the situation to their own advantage and short term interests. But in the end, they’re the ones who get damaged by those people they support. That is what happened in Libya when the US ambassador perished.

OS: Are you talking about arms to the Chechens? Are you talking about money, about Saudi Arabia contributing, too?

VP: Saudi Arabia at the state level didn’t grant them any support. We have always had good relations with Saudi Arabia—with the late king and with the current leadership of the country. We do not have any proof that the official government supported terrorism in any way. There is another thing. There are many private funds and physical persons who provided support and we know about that. That was also a source of concern to the royal family of Saudi Arabia. They were always preoccupied with this threat of a surge in terrorism. Bin Laden is a Saudi. But Saudi Arabia is not our ally, it’s the ally of the United States in the first place.

OS: But the US support was covert—you say you have evidence that they were supporting the Chechens?

VP: Yes, certainly. I’ve been telling you about that. As to information and political support, no proof is required. That was evident to everyone, because it was done publicly, openly. And as to the operative support and the financial support, we have this proof and moreover some of this proof we submitted to our American counterparts, and I’ve just told you about that. And you know the response—I’ve told you about it as well. There was this official letter and they told us that, “We support all the political forces including the opposition forces and we’re going to continue to do that.” And it was evident that they were not just talking about the opposition forces. They were also talking about the terrorist organizations and structures. Nevertheless, they were painted just as regular opposition.

OS: In your mind, what was the most dangerous moment in the Chechen wars—the first one, the second one, what years?

VP: You know, I find it difficult to name a particular moment. The so-called Second Chechen War started with the attack of international armed gangs from the territory of Chechnya on Dagestan, and it was a tragedy.[27] The thing is, it all started with the federal forces opposing the terrorists. It started with common citizens in Dagestan, and Dagestan is also a Muslim republic. They took up arms and they organized resistance to the terrorists. I remember those days very well. I remember well when Dagestan was not just urging us, they were crying to us: “If you don’t want to protect us, Russia, then give us arms and we’ll do that ourselves.” And back then I had to be actively involved in sorting out this issue. Back then I was acting prime minister.

OS: Meanwhile the United States, while they’re in Afghanistan, invades Iraq in March 2003. What was your reaction to the build-up to the war, as well as the invasion?

VP: We understood that the developments, which were nascent in Afghanistan, were related to the attacks of terrorists against New York. And we had this information saying that there was a terrorist cell—the concentration of terrorists in those territories. And we said right away we would contemplate providing support to the United States. As to Iraq, I told you already. We believed that, in the end, that would lead to the disintegration of the country, to the disappearance of structures which were able to resist terrorism, which in turn would lead to large scale regional problems. We put forward proposals to cooperate in this direction, but they were left unanswered. The United States prefers to make these decisions unilaterally. Incidentally, you know that not all NATO allies of the United States supported their action. France and Germany were against that decision. Moreover, there was this unique situation—both France and Germany, not we, formulated their own position on Iraq and they tried to convince us to support the European position.

OS: I’m sorry if I didn’t understand, but you were saying that the Russians had evidence that there were terrorist cells related to the attack in New York in Iraq? Is that what you’re saying?

VP: No, it was in Afghanistan.

OS: Right, but I thought you said Iraq. So you knew that there was no link between the New York attacks and Iraq, you knew that?

VP: Certainly, there was no link whatsoever. There was a link with these terrorist groups which were in parts of the Afghan territory. But Iraq had nothing to do with that.

OS: But that was put forward by the Bush administration, particularly by Richard Cheney, the Vice President—that there was a link.

VP: We didn’t have any proof of that.

OS: So you knew this was a manufactured theory.

VP: Concocted in some way where probably the official government of the United States used some information which was not entirely correct. I do not think that I have the right to put forward any accusations. But that was a great mistake, as we are witnessing right now.

OS: The weapons of mass destruction—I presume you had a similar reaction.

VP: Yes, absolutely the same. Moreover, we had exact data that there were no WMDs whatsoever in Iraq.[28]

OS: You never discussed this with Mr. Bush?

VP: Yes we discussed it, but our American partners thought that they had enough proof and that was sufficient. That’s what they thought.

OS: Well, so from your viewpoint—and you’ve talked to many world leaders—Mr. Bush is a decent man, he has integrity, and yet he’s misled time and again by his experts, his specialists.

VP: Well, not always—not all the time. Secondly, after the terrorist attack in New York, President Bush certainly thought how to protect the United States and to protect the citizens of the United States. He thought how to do that. And it was easy for him to believe the data he was provided with by the intelligence services. Even though that data was not entirely correct. There are attempts at demonizing Bush, and I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.

OS: Okay. Okay. So Mr. Bush did continue to expand NATO during his presidency, after Clinton had started to re-expand NATO.

VP: That was another mistake.

OS: Okay… How did you feel? I mean from what I’ve heard from Mr. Gorbachev, as well as read from American officials including James Baker, there was a deal with the Soviet Union not to expand NATO eastward.

VP: Yes, I talked about that publicly—including in Munich. And when the decision was made on the reunification of Germany, and back then, the dignitaries both in the United States and the United Nations Secretary General, and the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany. They were all saying there was one thing that the Soviet Union could be sure of—that the eastern border of NATO would not be extended any further than the eastern border of the German Democratic Republic.

OS: So this was a clear violation.[29]

VP: It was not enshrined on paper. It’s a mistake, but that mistake was made by Mr. Gorbachev. In politics, everything has to be enshrined on paper because even something which is enshrined can be violated often. And he just talked and he decided that that was enough. But that’s not the case. And after that there have been two waves of NATO expansion. Incidentally, I remember President Clinton and his last official visit here. We met in the adjacent room with him and with his delegation. And I told him—half-seriously/half as a joke—“probably Russia should think about joining NATO.” That’s what I told him. And his response was, “Why not? I think that’s possible.” But when we saw the reaction of his team, we understood that they were somewhat bewildered or even frightened by this idea.

OS: Did you really mean it?

VP: I said that I said it half-seriously/half as a joke. And what I really meant, I think I would rather not divulge it right now. But that’s what I told him and the reaction of his delegation was very cautious. And I can tell you why—because NATO, as far as I am concerned, is a remnant of the past. This organization emerged during the Cold War—between two systems. And as of now, NATO is a mere instrument of foreign policy of the United States. It has no allies within—it has only vassals. And I have a fairly good impression of how work is done within NATO. Someone can argue about some secondary issues. But as far as any serious issues are concerned, there is no discussion whatsoever within NATO. There are only two opinions in NATO—the American opinion and the wrong opinion.

OS: Well, it seems that you’re taking this change in the wind seriously.

VP: Just a second—I’d like to add something. Just imagine if Russia were part of NATO. Certainly we wouldn’t behave like that, because we have an opinion of our own on a great number of issues. And we would defend our opinion.

OS: So there is an advantage to joining it because you’re able to vote “no” on something.

VP: [laughs] I think that’s exactly what the delegation of the United States didn’t like about that idea.

OS: Well, I believe under the rules of NATO you’d have to share all your nuclear information with the United States.

VP: You see, our openness to all our partners—including towards the United States—after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and after the change in our political system, was so great that it even covered our nuclear forces. We had almost no secrets back then. The American monitors were at one of our largest factories producing components for nuclear weapons. And those monitors were stationed there on a permanent basis. You see? We were open enough. And there were no additional threats to us.

OS: It’s clear at this point in time that you’re missing the signals in the wind—there were a lot of signals coming, including Mr. Bush’s withdrawal in 2001 from the anti-ballistic missile treaty of 1972.[30]

VP: No, that’s not the case. We were most actively discussing this issue with our partners. And there is one curious thing—the presidents of your country change, but the policy doesn’t change—I mean on principled issues. I refer in particular to the withdrawal of the United States from the ABM Treaty.[31] It’s the goal. That treaty was the cornerstone of the system of national security as a whole. It was the foundation of international security. And first President Clinton tried to persuade me to support the United States withdrawal from this treaty.

OS: On what basis?

VP: No foundation, no basis at all. He was saying that there was a threat emanating from Iran. Then the same attempt was undertaken by President Bush. We tried to convince him, to show him, and that was not entirely fruitless, that it was a threat to us. And at a certain stage our American counterparts at the defense ministry level, at the state secretary level, said that they understood our concerns. And I have to say that we proposed that we should work together on an ABM system—the United States, Europe, and Russia. But in the end, even though quite sadly our partners refused to follow up on that proposal, they suggested that we should handle our concerns—technically. But they refused to follow up on their own proposal. In this regard we spent very much time on this matter and we were saying that we would not develop our ABM system because that was very expensive and we didn’t know whether that would lead to anything at all. But to preserve the crucial element of international security and stability, namely the strategic balance of power, we would be obliged to develop our offensive capabilities—missiles capable of surmounting any ABM systems. And their response was quite simple. They told us they were not building up that system against Russia. And they told us, “Do whatever you like, because we’ll assume it’s not against the United States.” And I said, “All right, let’s do it this way.” And that’s what we’re doing. And I find it strange that now when we announce that we are renovating our nuclear capabilities without overstepping the limits of treaties on the reduction in our nuclear arsenal, it always leads to a very nervous reaction on the part of our partners. We were not the first to start this race and we told them in the first place what we were going to do—what we would have to do.

OS: Two quick questions—so, Bush did this without consultation? He just did it?

VP: We had had many discussions, many negotiations on that matter and the United States made this decision to withdraw from the treaty unilaterally.

OS: Right, with Clinton there were discussions, but with the Bush people it didn’t work?

VP: We had discussions both with the Bush team and the Clinton team.

OS: Okay, so no rules—new rules. American rules.

VP: Probably our partners thought that the armed forces of Russia, the economy of Russia, the technological capacities of Russia were such that we would not be able to face the challenge. But as of now I think everyone has understood that Russia is not just capable of that. Russia is doing that and meeting the challenge.

OS: Now, but not then?

VP: Back then I believe there was this understanding that Russia would not be able to do that.

OS: Can I ask—this is a technical question: Did Russia back then have any ability to monitor the US systems, or could the US have cheated anyway?

VP: We had these capabilities and we still have them. First we agreed on reductions. Both we and the American partners followed them and stuck to those agreements. There is a reservation on these agreements—if one of the parties decides that this treaty goes contrary to their national interests, then any party to the treaty has the right to withdraw from it unilaterally. So you see there has been a great deal of discussions on this matter. I just do not think that I have the right to talk about certain things because they are of a confidential nature. But sometimes I found those discussions just ludicrous, because everyone understood everything. First they feigned not to understand something and when everything was sorted out, they’ve gone through all the details, they recognized our concerns, but they proposed that we should remove our concerns this way or that way and then they withdrew even that proposal. By the way, the whole ABM system—the very idea of an ABM system—is based on the following. It’s based on the idea of nuclear threat emanating from Iran. Right now we are coming to an agreement with Iran. We are placing under outside control all of its nuclear program. There are even talks about lifting sanctions from Iran. What does this mean? It means that we are all admitting that there is no threat, missile or nuclear, whatsoever emanating from Iran. So it has to be done right now? All these ABM programs have to be cancelled?

OS: Cancelled?

VP: Yes, so why do that? If the whole idea of an ABM system is based on a threat from Iran and now this threat is gone, are there any reasons to continue with this program?

OS: Correct me if I’m wrong—I had the impression that the Russians were ahead technically in creating an anti-ballistic missile program.

VP: Not entirely like that. We have more sophisticated air defense systems. But as to anti-ballistic defense, the thing is we have to talk about protecting ourselves from ballistic missiles and ballistic missile strikes with a cosmic velocity. And another type of system is required to counter this threat. These anti-ballistic missiles are just a part of a greater anti-ballistic missile system, and these missiles are usually placed on the periphery of the country. This system is very complicated, very large, it requires information support, space support. But to Russia two threats exist—the first threat is the placement of these anti-ballistic missiles in the vicinity of our borders. In Eastern European countries, these count as part of our missile compounds which are located in the European part of the country. And the second threat is that the launching pads of these anti-ballistic missiles can be transformed within a few hours for offensive weapons to be placed in those launching shafts. And both these threats are quite real. And we now have a situation—if these ballistic missiles are placed in Romania or Poland, if those missiles are also placed on the water using ships patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and the Northern seas, and in Alaska—where Russian territory is encircled by these systems. So, as you can see, that is yet another great strategic mistake made by our partners.[32] Because all these actions are going to be answered by Russia adequately. And this means nothing else but a new cycle of an arms race. And our response is going to be much cheaper than the antiballistic missile system. Well, of course our response can be rougher, not so sophisticated, but our systems which we’re going to build are going to be efficient. And we’re going to preserve the so-called strategic parity. And I think that not just the citizens of Russia and the United States are interested in that—the whole world is interested in that. Balance is of the utmost importance.

OS: Right.

VP: You remember how the nuclear project developed? When the United States created the nuclear bomb and the Soviet Union entered the race and started to actively develop the nuclear program. Russia had both Russian scientists working, and foreign scientists, Germans primarily. But our intelligence also received a whole bunch of information from the United States. Suffice it to remember the Rosenberg spouses who were electrocuted—they were American citizens…[33] The Rosenbergs didn’t acquire that information—they were just transferring that information. But who acquired it?

OS: Klaus Fuchs.[34]

VP: The scientists themselves—those who developed the atomic bomb. Why did they do that? Because they understood the dangers. They let the genie out of the bottle and now the genie cannot be put back. And this international team of scientists, I think they were more intelligent than the politicians. They provided this information to the Soviet Union of their own volition to restore the nuclear balance in the world. And what are we doing right now? We’re trying to destroy this balance. And that’s a great mistake.

OS: So stop referring to them as partners—“our partners”—you’ve said that too much. You’re being euphemistic. They’re no longer partners.

VP: But dialogue has to be pursued further.

OS: Yes, but “partners” is a euphemism. “At one point… ” you could say that. Yeah, sometimes understatement doesn’t work. But in this period, the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, the invasion of Iraq, expansion of NATO…. It must be clear that your view of US intentions has to have become more suspicious certainly and that Russian policy has to change. And in 2007 in Munich you made a statement that there was indeed a new attitude in Russia.[35]

VP: I didn’t want to say that the policy would be different. I was just saying that I thought it was unacceptable what the United States was doing. And I said we saw what was happening and that we had to take measures. I was saying that we would not let ourselves be dragged to the slaughter house and applaud that at the same time.

OS: Right. With that speech and others, you’ve talked very eloquently about international sovereignty of countries. You’ve talked about the violation of sovereignty in Libya, in Iraq, in Syria. Would you like to add any other countries?

VP: No, I just want to emphasize that that approach is dangerous. When we had the walk through the garden I told you that democracy could not be exported. It cannot be imported from outside. It has to emerge from within society. And this work is more promising even though it is more difficult; it requires patience, it requires much time, and it requires attention. Certainly it’s easier to send bombers. And what then? What comes next? And then a surge of terrorism and the need to take the next step to fight terrorism. Take ISIS. Where do they recruit new members? There are many countries sending people there. And what about the armed forces of Saddam Hussein? They have been dismissed, but they are in the streets, and right now they are in charge. They take cannon fodder from all across the region and the leadership already exists and they’re well-trained.

OS: The US attitude toward the old Soviet Union—the moment the revolution happened in 1917. It was hostile, the US troops came to Siberia, along with 16 other armies to destroy the revolution. Woodrow Wilson sent those troops—he was a liberal. From that point on, it was very difficult for the Soviet Union to accept that the United States was not its enemy. Until Franklin Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union finally in 1933. The United States and the allies did nothing to help the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union was warning the world about the fascist threat in Spain and throughout Europe. In fact, many US politicians—including Harry Truman at one point—said to let the Germans and the Russians kill each other. And despite the alliance, at many times during the alliance Stalin felt that he was not being supported by Churchill or by Roosevelt. And the Soviet Union was bleeding enormously in order to fight the German war machine. The US and England entered the war against Germany late—much later than the Soviet Union needed, and basically did not commit a lot of troops to the struggle until 1944.[36]

At the end of the day, by Churchill’s own admission, it was the Soviet Union that destroyed the guts of the German war machine. Five out of six German soldiers were killed on the Eastern Front.

Russia was basically impoverished after the war, had nothing, and was promised aid by Roosevelt, and by Britain—they were promised something like 20 billion dollars to be split 50/50.

But Roosevelt died in April of ’45 and Truman took over. Truman had a different viewpoint about the Soviet Union. The Cold War started in that period. And the blame was put always on the Russians in the American history books and in the West. And as you said last night, they used the tyranny of Stalin as a justification and an excuse.

US bases circle the world now—we don’t know exactly—800 to 1,000, maybe more bases. US troops are in 130-plus countries, military missions, and sometimes treaties. Has this ever stopped? Has this attitude of the US ever stopped that they had an enemy in Russia, whether it was communism or Putinism, or any form—it was just the concept of an enemy?[37]

VP: Well, I think everything flows, everything changes. After the Second World War a bipolar world order emerged, and I think that was a strategic mistake the Soviet Union made. Certainly it’s good to have allies. But it’s impossible to first force someone to be your ally. We have good examples. We fostered our relations with Central European countries. The Soviet Union troops left Austria—and that’s it. And now Austria was preserved as a neutral state. It was an asset and the same goes for Finland. And to tell you the truth, if such a structure of relations were preserved then we would have been able to preserve our influence there on a civilized basis. We would have been able to cooperate with them. We wouldn’t have had to spend enormous resources to support their inefficient economies. We probably would have been able to have military treaties with them.

But the Soviet Union was acting quite straightforwardly, primitively, and they gave an excuse to the United States to create NATO and to launch a Cold War. Well, the Cold War was not initiated because of that, it was because the Soviet Union started its atomic bomb project and it created an atomic bomb quite quickly. I think that when the United States felt they were at the forefront of the so-called civilized world, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, they were under the illusion that the United States was capable of everything and they could act with impunity. And that’s always a trap, because in this situation, a person and a country begin to commit mistakes. There is no need to analyze the situation. No need to think about the consequences. No need to economize. And the country becomes inefficient and one mistake follows another. And I think that’s the trap the United States has found itself in. But there is an understanding that controlling everything, commanding everything is impossible. But there is also a need for a society to understand reality in the same fashion, because if society is dominated by these imperialist notions, then society would push the political leadership—especially in an electoral campaign—to follow this rationale.

OS: In the US?

VP: Yes, certainly. If there is this imperialistic notion in society, and if the whole of society believes that they are sinless, that they are the righteous ones, then the political leadership has to follow the same logic as society.

OS: Well, what we have basically in the US is a bipartisan foreign policy which is creating military bases everywhere and intervening in other countries, and basically trying to guide the policies of those countries. Right now we are facing problems, obstacles in China, Iran, and Russia. And they keep talking about these three. What I’d like to talk about next time is this pursuit of world domination. What are the obstacles to it and where does Russia fit into this program?

VP: Well, let’s agree on something. I know how critical you are of the United States’ policies. Please do not try to drag me into anti-Americanism.

OS: I won’t. I’m just trying to talk about the facts of what happened. And I want to do it honestly because the old Soviets were always very realistic about American policy. They always tried to understand the intentions of the Americans. I don’t know if those think tanks still exist here, I would imagine they do, and that you get very accurate assessments of what United States intentions are.

VP: Yes, certainly, I do get those assessments. We understand that. I’ve told you already, I believe that if you think that you are the only world power, trying to impose on the whole nation the idea of their exclusiveness, you then create this unrealistic mentality in society which in turn requires an adequate foreign policy which is expected by society. And the country’s leadership is obliged to follow this logic of imperialism. And in practice this might go contrary to the interests of the American people. That’s my understanding of how things stand, because in the end it leads to problems, to deficiencies in the system. And it demonstrates that it cannot be in control of everything—that’s impossible. But let’s talk about that later.

OS: Okay, thank you.

Trip 1—Day 2—July 3, 2015

OS: So can we talk on the way? I don’t want you to crash. [laughs]

VP: Neither do I.

OS: No traffic—I love summer nights. I met you the first time when I was finishing the Snowden movie here in Moscow early in the summer of 2015. You were at a play, written in the 1960s, celebrating the Russian Folk tradition of the villages.

VP: I was invited to this play a long time ago by the head of the theater. One of the very famous and very popular Russian artists—Alexander Kalyagin. He played in many popular films. And that is his theater. Several years ago I attended the ceremony of the inauguration of this theater. He’s also the head of the Association of Theatrical Actors.

OS: I want to talk about Snowden a bit. In 2012, this is a long time ago now, and you’ve said you were good with Bush. Presumably you were good with Obama. You were dealing with him on Syria. You were dealing with him on Iran. There was no break. I don’t remember anything melodramatic about your relative positions with the United States. And then out of the blue you gave asylum to Edward Snowden in 2013.

VP: Not exactly like that. On the whole, the relationship dampened because the United States supported terrorist groups in the Caucasus. That has always been a problem in our bilateral relations. Not just with the President, but also with Congressmen—they were saying that they were supporting us but in practice we saw that their actions were completely contrary to what they were telling us. And then our relations were dampened even further because of Iraq.

There were other issues as well which were of concern to us. For instance, the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the ABM treaty.

OS: Yes, but that was during the Bush era—now Obama’s come in.

VP: Yes, but still that issue persisted in our relations, and continued to be part of our relationship. Indeed after we granted asylum to Mr. Snowden it didn’t lead to improvement of our relationship; on the contrary, it aggravated it.

OS: I want to go back. We know that Bush supported the Georgian offensive in 2008.[38]

VP: Not exactly—yes and no. We were surprised when we saw that the aggression by President Saakashvili was not just supported by Bush. They tried to paint the picture that Russia was the aggressor, when it was quite evident that it was Saakashvili who decided to launch the aggression.[39] Moreover, he declared that publicly. And he made a TV address. There was just some surprise at how everything could be turned upside down. And they even tried to shift the blame on Russia next door. So even without Snowden there were many issues dampening our relations. So that when the Snowden factor came up it was an additional factor aggravating our bilateral relations.

OS: But can I say, after Russia took a strong position against Saakashvili—a very strong position and made it clear that there was a red line so to speak in Georgia—let’s say at that point there was no new dramatic conflict after the Georgian situation. It seemed to me that Obama accepted those conditions.

VP: To start with, I’d like to clarify. You see, we were very cautious with those unrecognized republics. I, personally, as president of Russia, never met the leaders of those two unrecognized republics. And in my personal contacts with President Saakashvili, I told him many times that we would facilitate the restoration of the territorial integrity of Georgia. But I was telling him that he had to accept the realities and acknowledge them and understand that the problem they were facing had just arisen until recently. The tensions between these groups had deep historical roots. After the first World War, after the so-called October Socialist Revolution—back then Georgia declared that it wanted to be an independent state. And Ossetia declared it wanted to be part of Russia. And back then in 1921, Georgian troops undertook two punitive actions against these factions. And all that is part of the historical memory. Something had to be done about that. We had to gain the trust of the people if Georgians wanted to preserve the territorial integrity of their country.

OS: But I repeat, I don’t remember there being anything major, loud, between Obama and you up until the Snowden story…

VP: That’s true, but if you’ll allow me, I’d like to say just a few more words about Georgia. Many times I told Saakashvili, if he wanted to restore the territorial integrity, he had to be very cautious with regards to the population of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And I told him we’re willing to help you, and moreover I think George [Bush] can confirm that. I told him that he had to avoid potential aggression because if he were to launch hostilities against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, then the ethnic composition of the Caucasus being what it was—there were people living in adjacent regions in the Russian Federation who couldn’t have stayed outside that conflict. And we wouldn’t have been able to prevent them from engaging in that conflict. Just have a look at South Ossetia—a small republic. And in the north there is North Ossetia, as a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. And the same people live in both South Ossetia and North Ossetia. And it would have been impossible to prevent them from dashing to help their compatriots. And Russia would not have been able to stay outside that conflict. And our American partners were telling us, “Yes, we understand it.” It all led to the war which was started by Saakashvili. His actions dealt a great blow to the Georgian state. As to Snowden, indeed, at that time we seem to have had good relations with the United States. And the Snowden affair pushed our relations to deterioration.

OS: So here we are in June, 2013. You get a call, I suppose, and hear that Snowden is on the way via Moscow. I’m sure you get calls from the US, including Obama. How does the situation devolve and how do you handle it?

VP: Our first contact with Mr. Snowden was in China. We were told back then that this was a person who wanted to fight for human rights and against violations of human rights. And that we had to do that together. I’ll probably disappoint many people, probably even you, but I said we wanted nothing to do with that. We didn’t want to do that because he had quite difficult relationships with the United States as it was, and we didn’t want to aggravate those relations. And Mr. Snowden didn’t want to give us any information, he was just urging us to fight together and he has to be credited with that. But when it turned out that we were not willing to do that yet, not ready, he just disappeared.

OS: He just disappeared?

VP: But then I got a report that Snowden’s on a plane bound for Moscow and that he was supposed to get on another plane and fly to Latin America, if I’m not mistaken. But it turned out that the countries he wanted to fly to were not quite happy about receiving him. Secondly, this is not our information, this information comes from other sources and that information was leaked to the press while he was on the plane. And it turned out that he could not continue his journey. And he was stuck in the transit area.

OS: But the US revoked his passport in midair which they have never done before.[40]

VP: I didn’t remember that, but anyway, it was quite clear that he could not continue his journey. He’s a courageous man, probably even foolhardy. And he understood that he had no chance. He stayed in the transit area for 40 days. And then we provided him with temporary asylum. But of course the Americans asked us to extradite him. It’s quite understandable that we couldn’t do it.

OS: Why not?

VP: Because back then we were talking about concluding a treaty on cooperation on legal matters. That was our initiative. And that also would have stipulated mutual extradition of criminals, but the United States refused to cooperate with us.[41] And they also refused to sign the agreement which we put forward. And according to our law, Snowden didn’t violate any law—he didn’t commit any crime. That’s why in the absence of this agreement on mutual extradition, given the fact that the US has never extradited any criminals to us who sought asylum in the United States, we had no choice. It was absolutely impossible for us to unilaterally extradite Snowden as the United States was asking us to do.

OS: Did Obama get on the phone with you?

VP: I should not like to discuss this in the film because it’s of a confidential nature.

OS: Let me ask you—I’m sure you must have, as an ex-KGB agent, you must’ve hated what Snowden did with every fiber of your being.

VP: No not at all. Snowden is not a traitor. He didn’t betray the interests of his country. Nor did he transfer any information to any other country which would have been pernicious to his own country or to his own people. The only thing Snowden did he did publicly. And it’s quite a different story.

OS: Right. Did you agree with what he did?

VP: No.

OS: Do you think the National Security Agency had gone too far in its eavesdropping?[42]

VP: Yes, certainly, I think so. Well, in that matter Snowden was right. But you asked me and I gave you a direct answer—I think he shouldn’t have done it. If he didn’t like anything at his work he should have simply resigned—that’s all. But he went further. I’m not acquainted with him personally, I only know of him from the press. If he thinks that by his actions he can prevent some threat to his country, I think he has the right to do it. That’s his right. But since you are asking me whether it’s right or wrong, I think it’s wrong.

OS: So you’re saying that he should not have whistleblown—which is an expression we use, “to whistleblow”—and he should have resigned in principle, somewhat like you did when you resigned from the KGB.

VP: Yes, I think so. I had not given it thought, but I think yes.

OS: You resigned because—I gather from yesterday, that it was in part because you did not want to serve in a government if the Communists controlled it.

VP: I resigned because I didn’t agree with the actions undertaken by the Communists in the attempted coup d’état against Gorbachev. And I didn’t want to continue to be an intelligence officer during that time.

OS: So you do agree the NSA went too far. And how do you feel about Russian intelligence activities in their surveillance.

VP: I think they’re working quite well. But it’s one thing to work well within the framework of the existing legislation. And it’s quite another story if you violate the law. Our intelligence services always conform to the law. That’s the first thing. And secondly, trying to spy on your allies—if you really consider them allies and not vassals—is just indecent. It’s not done. Because it undermines trust. And it means that in the end it damages your own national security.

OS: But the US surveillance no doubt has been heavily surveilling Russia?

VP: And they are still continuing that surveillance. No doubt. That’s what I always assume.

OS: Right. In a scene in the movie we show where Snowden shows his colleagues a heat map in Hawaii where it shows that the United States is collecting twice as many billion phone calls in the United States as it is in Russia. Russia is number two. The US is number one.

VP: Yes, I think that’s quite true. Regrettably, that’s an existing practice of how the intelligence services work today. Well, I am a grown up now and I understand how the world works. But spying on your own allies? That’s just unacceptable.

OS: Would you call the US an ally?

VP: Yes, sure. But it undermines trust among allies. And it destroys relations. But I’m just telling you that as an expert.

OS: Well you must be spying on the US because if the US is spying on you… I mean the Americans are going to say I’m sure you’re spying on us.

VP: Yes, sure. I don’t have anything against their spying on us. But let me tell you something quite interesting. After radical changes—political changes—took place in Russia, we thought that we were surrounded by allies and no one else. And we also thought the United States was our ally. And this former president of the KGB, of the special services of Russia, all of a sudden he transferred to our American partners, our American friends, the old system of eavesdropping devices at the US Embassy in Moscow. And he did it unilaterally. Just all of a sudden on a whim—as a token of trust symbolizing the transition to the new level.

OS: Was that Yeltsin?

VP: No, it was the head of the Russian intelligence service. It was under Yeltsin. And many named him a traitor. But I’m quite confident that he thought it had to symbolize a new character of our relations. So we were willing to stop the activities of the special services. But we never witnessed any step from the United States toward us.

OS: The Snowden affair, in terms of the US-Russia relationship, seemed to turn—was a big deal for the neo-conservative movement in the US. And the neocons seemed to focus in on Russia once again. It wasn’t too long afterward that the Ukraine issue came up.

VP: Yes, that’s true. Probably we can talk more about it tomorrow. But as to Snowden I think I’ve elaborated on our position.

OS: As a realist, as a political realist, I think I would consider Snowden a pawn in the game.

VP: I think you’re mistaken. He would have been a pawn if he had been a traitor. And he’s no traitor. Well, listen to my position as to what he has done. I think he’s still a personality and he has a position in his own right and he’s fighting for this position. He’s defending it. And he spares no effort in this fight.

OS: So under these circumstances, in this three-year period that you have given him asylum, you would not return him under any circumstances to the United States?

VP: No, under no circumstances. Because he’s no criminal.

OS: In your law he did not break the law?

VP: Our American partners say he has violated the law. But in Russia, he has violated no laws. And there is no inter-governmental treaty between the US and Russia on extradition because our American partners refused to sign this agreement. When criminals who had committed crimes in Russia fled to the United States, the US refused to extradite those criminals to us. We are a sovereign state and we cannot decide on extradition without reciprocity.

OS: Are you saying that if the US signed that agreement then Snowden would come under consideration to be returned?

VP: Certainly, we have such an agreement with Armenia, and one of our military men committed a crime in Armenia. And in accordance with this treaty, he would have to stand trial in Armenia.

OS: So if the United States wanted Snowden badly enough they would sign an extradition treaty with you?

VP: They should have done it earlier. It’s too late now. Because the law cannot be retroactive. So if we sign this treaty in the future, this law will only be effective with regards to cases that arise after this treaty has been signed.

OS: Okay—one last question. They revoked his passport in the air.[43] They knew he was going through Moscow. Many people believe that it was the intention of the United States to stick Snowden in Russia because this would be the best place for him to be reviled and to be called a traitor.

VP: I don’t believe that. Nor do I believe that the American intelligence service were the ones to organize the terrorist attacks in New York.

OS: I didn’t say that. I’m just saying—

VP: I know you’re not saying that. I’m just saying that I do not believe this version of events. Nor do I believe that they organized Snowden’s flight to Moscow.

OS: No, that was organized by WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks did a very good job. They had, I’m told, 25-plus tickets to come out of Hong Kong so that they didn’t want anybody to know he was going. When he was in the air, I believe it came out from the Hong Kong authorities, or possibly Wikileaks, that Snowden was going to Moscow. And at that point he did have a safe passage to Ecuador and to Cuba. And he was welcome in Venezuela, as well as in Bolivia. So he had a destination. It would have worked. The question remains to me—why didn’t the US authorities let him go through Moscow to Latin America? If they wanted to snatch him in a commando raid they could have done a far easier job of it in Venezuela or Bolivia probably than in Russia.

VP: They just acted unprofessionally. I don’t think they did it on purpose. They were acting under emotions. And they were very nervous, very anxious. And in such cases with intelligence matters you should never be nervous. You should keep calm. They should have let him climb on a plane and then make this plane stop at one of the airports on the way.

OS: You think they could have?

VP: Yes, sure, why not. They managed to stop the plane of the Bolivian president.[44]

OS: Stunning.

VP: It’s just outrageous. They’re acting with impunity. And yet they were bold enough to do it. Just imagine if they hadn’t revoked his passport. They could have let him climb on a civil aircraft and while it was flying over Europe, according to some technical matters, they could have made the plane stop.

OS: Unless they wanted him here in Moscow to embarrass.

VP: I don’t think so, because that’s too subtle for them.

OS: Really?

VP: I don’t think so. And besides, he’s sitting here. And what is he doing? He’s not doing our bidding—he’s doing everything he does of his own volition.

OS: Yes, and he’s been effective in the United States and in Europe as well. Congress has looked at reform. Our courts have looked at the laws and have struck some down. That’s not to say they’re being carried out, but several courts have judged them illegal. This illegal bulk surveillance. So he has been effective.[45]

VP: If they had detained Snowden somewhere on his way to Latin America, this never would have happened. That’s why I’m quite confident that the American authorities were just acting under the pressure of circumstances and they have made many mistakes.

OS: Okay, fair enough.

VP: Their mistakes are what saved Snowden because otherwise he would be in prison now. He’s a courageous person and I give him that. And he has character. I don’t know how he’s going to continue with his life. I just don’t understand that.

OS: Well, one thing is clear. I think the only place in the world where he’s safe is here in Russia.

VP: I think so too.

OS: And there’s a great irony in this. In the old days, the Russian defectors would go to the United States. And this is a reversal.

VP: But Snowden is not a traitor.

OS: I know he’s not.

VP: That’s the first thing. And secondly, there’s nothing strange about that today, because however much they try to demonize Russia, Russia is a democratic country and also a sovereign country. There are risks to that, but also a great advantage to that as well. Because there are just a handful of countries who can really wield their sovereignty. And the other countries are burdened with so-called allied obligations. In reality, they have limited their own sovereignty of their own volition. That’s their decision.

OS: Okay, sir. Thank you. Tomorrow we’ll start off with Ukraine.

VP: Sure, whatever you say. And I will go work a little bit more.

Trip 1—Day 3—July 4, 2015

OS: Hello, Mr. Putin. How are you today?

VP: Fine, thank you.

OS: Right now, I’m fine. I have water and Coca Cola. You’re not going to drink anything? You don’t drink very much or take a lot of water.

VP: Well, you’re doing the right thing when you drink a lot of water.

OS: When I wake up in the morning I have three big bottles.

VP: In the morning, I also drink a bottle of water like that one.

OS: So, by the way, just to finish last night, I checked and Mr. Snowden was on an Aeroflot plane coming from Hong Kong to Moscow. So I don’t think the United States would have intercepted an Aeroflot plane. I’m not sure.

VP: Oh, that wouldn’t have been a problem for them.

OS: Really?

VP: To start with, they could land any plane due to some technical reasons in any airport, anywhere in the world, under the pretext of the need to check the aircraft. They could have made all the passengers disembark anywhere. And then separate the passengers. And within 10 hours Snowden would have been in prison in the United States. But the thing is, he was flying by Aeroflot just to Moscow and then he was supposed to embark on another aircraft, on another airline. He was supposed to change aircraft in Moscow.

OS: But you would not have objected strongly to the grounding of an Aeroflot plane?

VP: What does it have to do with the Russian territory? He would have been downed when he was flying to Latin America.

OS: I thought because it was a Russian plane, it was considered Russian territory.

VP: No, Russian territory is only considered that way when it’s a military vessel, military aircraft, or a merchant ship in neutral waters.

OS: Okay. I’d like to talk about Ukraine.

VP: Just a second—if our aircraft were landing in some transit country between Russia and Latin America, I wouldn’t have known about that in the first place. No one would have reported it to me. It’s just a transport procedure—a standard one which has nothing to do with any politics. And if Snowden had flown from Moscow further, then I wouldn’t have known about it either. So it has nothing to do with us. It has to do with what the former bosses of Snowden were trying to do to him.

OS: Okay, Ukraine. I want to say first of all that I interviewed Mr. Yanukovych here in Moscow a few months ago. And he told me his version of events.

VP: The thing is, here is an objective sequence of events. These events can be assessed differently, and you can name these events using different words, different formulas. But it’s quite evident you can follow what was happening day after day. And then you can give the people a chance to make an assessment of their own of what has really happened.

OS: Well, I would like your perspective on it from November to February 20th, 2013 into 2014. During those three months, there was quite a bit of protest in Ukraine. You must have been aware of it.

VP: Do you want to know what was happening in Ukraine starting from the early 1990s? What was happening there was the systemic robbery of the Ukrainian people. Right away after independence, Ukraine started an even wilder privatization and robbery of state property, which led to the deterioration of the standard of living—right after Ukraine gained independence. Whatever powers came into force, nothing changed for the lives of ordinary people.

And certainly the people were fed up with all those arbitrary actions and that crazy corruption, the impoverishment and the illegal enrichment of other people. That was the root of the discontent the people were feeling. And certainly people were thinking that exiting in any way to the EU would liberate them from the terrible conditions they had found themselves in starting from the beginning of the 1990s. I think that was the driving force behind the developments in Ukraine.

And the crisis was sparked, as is well known, when President Yanukovych said he had to postpone the signing of the association agreement with the European Union. That was the starting point. And our partners in Europe and the United States managed to mount this horse of discontent of the people. And instead of trying to find out what was really happening, they decided to support the coup d’état.[46]

And now let me tell you how it unfolded and what our position was. Mr. Yanukovych announced that he had to postpone, not cancel, the signing of the association agreement with the European Union because, at that moment, Ukraine had already been a member of the Free Trade Area of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States).

Ukraine itself was the engine behind the establishment of the free trade area in the CIS space. And it was the force that led to the creation of this zone. As a result of this, and the fact that the economies of Russia and Ukraine were emerging as a united economy and had unique economic relations, many of our enterprises could not exist independently. There was very deep co-operation between those enterprises.

The markets of Russia were absolutely open to imports from Ukraine. We had and still have a zero tariff barrier. We have a single energy system and a single transportation system. There are many other elements which bring our economies together. For 17 years we have been in negotiations with the European Union on the conditions of Russia’s accession to the WTO, and all of a sudden, it was announced to us that Ukraine and the EU were signing an association agreement. And that meant the opening up of the Ukrainian markets. It meant that the technical standards and trade regulation and other elements of the economic policy of the EU were to be implemented in Ukraine, and that was happening very fast without a transition period. At the same time, our customs border with Ukraine was absolutely open. And the EU was able to enter our territory with all of their goods without any negotiations, despite the agreements—principled agreements—which we had reached with them before, during those 17-year talks on our accession to the WTO.

Certainly we had to respond to that. And we said that if Ukraine had decided to act like that it was its choice. And we respected that choice. But this didn’t mean that we had to pay for that choice. Why do people living in Russia today have to pay for this choice the Ukrainian leadership has made? That’s why we told them that we would have to take protective measures, and those protected measures were nothing special and they were not discriminatory. We were just trying to extend the regular trade regime to the territory of Ukraine which in international private law is called most favored nation status. So we’re just going to withdraw the preferences. But without preferences, the Ukrainian enterprises would not exist too long in the Russian market. And we proposed that we hold talks with our European partners in a trilateral format. But there was a flat refusal. They told us that we had better stay out of it. They told us, if we are talking to Canada, you would not interfere, right? If you are in talks with China, we are not interfering with those talks—that’s what they told us. And they asked us not to interfere in their relations with Ukraine.

And we said, those situations are quite different—Canada, China, and Russia/Ukrainian relations—these are different stories. But we told them, if you think like that then we’re not going to interfere. But in that case, we ask them to respect our right to undertake protective measures and to continue this economic policy. I would go even further, talking about the economics, and after the coup d’état, after the leadership changed in Ukraine, and Mr. Poroshenko arrived in power, at the request of our American partners and the request of the Ukrainian side, we did not implement protective measures.

Whereas the Ukrainian leadership signed the association agreement with the European Union. And they ratified this agreement, and after that they postponed that agreement from entering into force until January 1st, 2016. So you’re now shooting this documentary in mid-2015, and as of now, this association agreement between Ukraine and the EU has not yet entered into force.

That’s exactly what I had proposed to Mr. Yanukovych. He had proposed that the signing should be postponed. So the question is what was the reason for the coup d’état? Why did they drive this country into chaos, into civil war? So what was the sense behind all that? And now as to the unfolding of the political situation, indeed you have now mentioned the fact that there were riots and a coup d’état was perpetrated.

Let me remind you that before that, on February 21st, 2014, if my memory serves me correctly, three foreign ministers from European countries arrived in Kiev. They took part in the meeting between President Yanukovych and the opposition, and they agreed that early elections were to be held.[47] They agreed on the future of relations between the president and the opposition.

And the following day, President Yanukovych went to the second largest city of Ukraine, Kharkov—he went there to participate in a regional conference. And once he departed, his residence was seized, his administration was seized, and the government was seized as well with the use of force. What would you call that? And the Prosecutor General was shot at, one of his security officers was wounded. And the motorcade of President Yanukovych himself was shot at. So it’s nothing more than an armed seizure of power. Naturally, someone supported this coup d’état. Where I started from this—not just personally against Yanukovych, but against the government itself because people were fed up with the chaos of what was happening. The poverty, they were fed up with it, as well as with corruption. After power was seized, some people liked it. But others didn’t like it. People were frightened by this surge of nationalism, radicalism.

The first thing the newly-arrived in power started to talk about was the need to adopt a law limiting the use of the Russian language.[48] The Europeans prevented them from doing that. But the signal had already been sent to society, and people understood the direction the country was moving towards in such places as Crimea, where the overwhelming majority of people are Russians by nationality. Whereas Ukrainians who live in those places, as a whole, believe their native language to be the Russian language. Certainly, people in Crimea were especially frightened by this situation.[49] Furthermore there were threats made against them directly. And all that led to the circumstances which are well known. I’ve elaborated on them on many occasions, so if you are interested, I can repeat. But something like that started to happen in the southeastern part of Ukraine on the whole. In the territory which is called Donbass, there are two large cities, and people didn’t accept the coup d’état there either.[50] First there were attempts at arresting them using the police, but the police defected to their side quite quickly. Then the central authorities started to use special forces and in the night people were snatched and taken to prison. And afterwards there was the tragedy in Odessa.[51] And people who were unarmed took to the streets for peaceful protests and they were pushed into a building and were massacred atrociously. Even pregnant women. That is a catastrophe. But still no one is going to investigate it. Certainly not people in Donbass. After that they took up arms.

But once hostilities started, instead of engaging in a dialogue with people in the southeast part of Ukraine, after they used Special Forces, they started to use weapons directly—tanks and even military aircraft. There were strikes from the multiple rocket launchers against residential neighborhoods. We repeatedly appealed to the new leadership of Ukraine, asking them to abstain from extreme actions. They started hostilities once, they were put to rout, they stopped, then elections took place, then this new president arrived in power. I talked to him [Poroshenko] on many occasions. I tried to persuade him not to resume hostilities.[52] And he had an opinion of his own about what was happening. He always referred to the losses his forces had sustained to two or three as people during the hostilities with the militia. Certainly that was a tragedy. It is always sad when people die. But when he resumed the hostilities, thousands of people died. And the official forces suffered another defeat. Then they started hostilities for the third time. And once again they were defeated. After that, the latest Minsk Agreements were signed. They agreed that these agreements would be adhered to by both parties. Unfortunately, we’re not witnessing that, and I think the official authorities in Kiev are not willing to engage in any direct dialogue with Donbass. They refuse to be engaged in direct dialogue. Up to now. All the provisions of the Minsk agreements stipulate directly that issues related to amendments to the Constitution, issues related to the adoption of the law, on municipal elections, issues related to this special status of Donbass—all these issues have to be coordinated, that’s what it says. But nothing like that is happening.

Right now, the Kiev authorities are trying to make amendments to the Constitution. But according to the information I have—just yesterday I received new information—there is no contact, no negotiations with Donbass. Moreover, the Minsk agreements say directly that the law which had already been adopted by the Verkhovna Rada should enter into force. This is along with the special status of Donbass. Unfortunately, just several days ago President Poroshenko announced that no special status would be granted to Donbass. I have to talk to him. I have to understand what it means. Does it mean that the Kiev authorities refuse to adhere to the Minsk agreements?[53] There are other considerations at work here. One of the provisions of the Minsk agreements says that it’s necessary to adopt a law on amnesty. But the law has not been adopted yet. How can you talk to people in Donbass who are threatened with criminal prosecution? Another provision—the economy and the social sphere of Donbass have to be restored. But instead the authorities are strengthening the blockade of these territories.[54] And all things boiled down to one thing—they are saying that Donbass is fighting against them and that’s why they’re not going to pay them anything. And I say there are pensioners who are entitled, according to the law of Ukraine, to a pension, that there are people with disabilities who are not fighting anyone. They are just victims of this situation—hostages. I asked them, “Do you consider them to be citizens of your country? Well in that case you have to take care of them.” Their response was quite simple—“We do not have money and we’re not going to pay them anything.” We are supplying energy. Ukraine has refused to pay for that energy.

So on the whole, it’s a full-fledged, very tough blockade. Many people criticize Israel for the blockade of Palestine. I’m not going to elaborate on that, I’m not going to talk about that because it’s a different story entirely. But the same thing is happening here and everyone seems not to notice what is happening. There is not enough food there, not enough medicine.[55] Nothing. And that is a serious issue. We assume that there is no other way to find a solution to this issue, other than adhering to the Minsk agreements—they have to be implemented.

We always hear appeals that we have to influence somehow the leadership of these unrecognized republics. Just recently, the leaders of these republics announced publicly that they were willing to go back to the Ukrainian state under certain conditions—if the Minsk agreements were observed. But these agreements were not implemented. And Donbass is not to blame for that. Let me reiterate, I believe that there is no other way to settle this crisis. And the Minsk agreement is the only way toward that end.

OS: Well, obviously there are problems with it. What if the people in Donbass came across the border to Russia? That would be their only hope if things got really bad.

VP: Do you mean that the best way to solve this issue is to push these people from their homeland?

OS: I’m not saying that, I’m saying if they have no water, no food, and they can’t go on living, the only way you can travel is on your feet. I mean we’re talking about major migration.

VP: Yes, many people have already resorted to these means—two and a half million Ukrainian citizens are in Russia.[56] The overwhelming majority of them are men who are under conscription. They’re eligible for conscription. But in these territories there used to be four and a half million people. Right now estimates are around three million people are left there.[57]

OS: So what if they come?

VP: Well, they are already doing that. They are coming. But once the situation quiets down, they go back to their homes.

OS: Yes, I understand. Of course the Kiev government would claim that the Russian army or the Russian government has intervened already in Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea. And the troops—they’re saying there are paratroopers or whatever you want to call them, contractors, soldiers and arms dealers helping them or helping the separatists.

VP: As to Crimea, I’d like to ask you, what is democracy? Democracy is a policy which is based on the will of the people. And how do we know the will of the people? In a modern world we use the voting procedure. People came to a referendum and there were no whips, no machine guns. And you cannot use these means to make a person come to a polling station to vote. People came, the turnout was more than 90 percent. And more than 90 percent voted in favor of re-unifying with Russia.[58] The choice of the people has to be respected. And you cannot try to conform international law to your political interests against the principles of democracy.

OS: Nonetheless, the United States would say that you have violated international law—and that’s been a theme that has been repeated again and again by the EU. And you yourself acknowledged that the US had done that in Iraq, so it’s a question of course, at the end of the day, of power, isn’t it?

VP: Yes, that’s correct. As to armed forces of the United States coming to Iraq. And there were no elections there. No elections were held. As to Crimea, yes, we created conditions for people to be able to come to polling stations. But we were not engaged in any hostilities there, no one was shooting there, no one was killed.

OS: But literally the US would argue that elections were held eventually in Iraq.

VP: In the end, yes, but before that there was a war. And there was no war in Crimea. That’s the first thing. Secondly, there is another criticism addressed to Russia. They are saying that international law was violated. I have already talked about that but I’d like to emphasize that in the course of the Kosovo crisis, the International Court of Justice considered very cautiously this situation and the ICJ arrived at a conclusion saying that when the issue of self-determination of a nation is concerned, in accordance with Point Two of the United Nations charter, if my memory serves me correctly, the concerns of the central authorities of this or that country on this matter are not required.[59] And thirdly, since you are preparing this documentary and you have time, I’d like to ask you to do something—have a look at what was said on that matter by the representatives of the United States, and the representatives of certain European countries—Germany, Great Britain—what they said in those matters when they were talking about them with the ICJ. All of them were saying that no consent from Belgrade was needed, and they were saying that everything was done in accordance with the United Nations Charter. I was always wondering if Kosovars were allowed to do it, why is that not allowed to Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, and Crimeans? There is no difference whatsoever.[60] Moreover, the decision on the independence of Kosovo was adopted by the decision of the parliament. Whereas, in Crimea first the parliament voted in favor of independence, and afterwards they held a referendum and during that referendum the people said that they were willing to go back to Russia. Every step has a reason behind it.

OS: Was there any UN condemnation of the annexation of Crimea?

VP: No, I don’t know anything of that.[61]

OS: Can we talk a little bit about the airplane that was shot down in July—the Malaysian Airliner [MH17]?

VP: Yes, certainly.

OS: Thank you. I’ve heard both sides. I know Russian intelligence has claimed there were two planes in the air, or at least two planes, and there was a possible shooting down of the airplane from another aircraft. Is that correct?

VP: There are two principal versions. The first version is that this plane was shot down by the Buk air defense system of the Ukrainian armed forces. And the second version is that the same system, the same system of arms—the Buk systems that are produced in Russia—was employed by the militia, the separatists.[62] Primarily, let me say that in any case it’s a terrible catastrophe. And that is simply atrocious. And in this regard, let me say something. That would not have happened if the leadership of Ukraine had listened to us and had not started full-fledged hostilities. It was the Ukrainian authorities who started to use all kinds of weapons systems in Donbass.

Now as to the aircraft, the planes which were in the air—as far as I know, right away after this terrible catastrophe, one of the Ukrainian air controllers, I think he was a specialist originating from Spain, announced that he had seen a military aircraft in the corridor assigned for civil aircraft.[63] And there could have been no other military aircraft than the one controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. Certainly that needs to be investigated. I’m not saying that this plane was shot down. I do not say that this military aircraft shot down the civil aircraft, but the question is what was that plane doing in the corridor because that is against the existing rules of the international flights of civil air aviation. As for the Buk air defense systems, which can send missiles from Earth—according to our specialists and experts, and not just our intelligence services but also our ballistic experts—the reports that I’ve received say that the strike hit the tail of the aircraft. And if that is the case, then that is exactly where the air defense system of the Ukrainian armed forces were stationed. So I don’t understand what they were doing there in the first place. Why were they there and why were they pulled out of there so quickly? In any case, that requires a thorough and de-politicized investigation.

OS: Do you believe the American intelligence has any information about this, because wouldn’t they be watching this situation after the coup? Wouldn’t they have intelligence from satellites and whatever?

VP: I’m confident that that is exactly the case. But regrettably, there is no proof from the partners that we’ve received.

OS: But they have not shown much?

VP: No, that’s quite understandable, because we understand their position on Ukraine. And certainly they all wanted to shift the blame on the militia fighters in Donbass and indirectly Russia, who supports the militia.

OS: So if they had contrary information they don’t want to release it?

VP: Yes, if this information is contrary then they will never reveal it.

OS: Can we talk about outside influences in this Ukraine story now?

VP: Yes, certainly.

OS: We know about the NGOs that were operating in Ukraine. We know that Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Eastern Europe I believe, was very active supporting a change in government. We know that Senator John McCain visited and was seen at rallies with extremist leaders, including some neo-Nazis. We know that America and the National Endowment for Democracy, which is also a very influential private nonprofit NGO was very active, very active here. Paul Gershman, who was the president of it made very strong independent speeches—he wanted an independent Ukraine. And we know that the Hungarian billionaire hedge funder George Soros was also very involved in supporting the groups in Ukraine.[64]

VP: Yes, all that is true. You know I do not always understand the rationale behind the actions of our partners. I already said that sometimes I fall under the impression that they’ve got to control or enforce some discipline in their Euro-Atlantic camp. And to that end they need some external enemy. And despite all the concerns they have, Iran at this point cannot fulfill this need.

OS: In other words, the United States can keep a united pro-American Europe and NATO with an external enemy such as Russia.

VP: I can say something definitely—that is true. I know that, I feel that. Without this internal discipline, the Euro-Atlantic cause is destabilized. This is not the Cold War we’re living in. Several years ago, certain leaders told me that our American friends were asking me to frighten them. But they said that they were not afraid. They understood that the world had changed. And that external threat—it is impossible to enforce this strict discipline. And in that regard, that is probably in the interests of someone, but I think that is the wrong logic. Because this logic is looking back into the past. But you have to look into the future. You have to understand that the world is different now. There are new threats arising, strategic threats included. You cannot freeze it as if we were still living through the Cold War. I told you about the ABM system, about the ABM treaty, about the fight against terrorism. Regrettably, I have to say that all our attempts at fostering a relationship with the United States were met either with the lack of understanding or total indifference. But this situation cannot persist.

OS: I’m surprised. I’ve always had great respect for Russian intelligence services and their knowledge of the West, but in this situation I was surprised by their lack of, it seems, information of what was going on in Ukraine. It’s been said that you yourself were surprised by this takeover, and that you were paying attention to the Sochi Olympics and you weren’t paying attention to what was going on in Ukraine. What happened to your intelligence service?

VP: No, that is not true. I had a fairly good picture of what was happening within Ukrainian society. And there is no doubt about that. This take-over could have happened at any time. There was a takeover when Kuchma was leaving office.

OS: And a pro-Western group came in, is that what you’re saying?

VP: Yes, and Yanukovych was the one to win the elections. But the street did not agree with that outcome of the election, and a third round of elections was proclaimed in violation of the Constitution. So it was also a quasi-coup d’état. Back then I thought they had made a grave mistake. Even though pro-Western politicians arrived in power, people very soon lost their confidence in those leaders as well. Because those politicians continue to do everything that had been done before them by the previous leaders of the country. And that’s why they were defeated in the subsequent elections. Unfortunately, President Yanukovych didn’t manage to change much in the country either. And the same thing happened to him. The very paradigm has to be changed of their relation to the people. They were talking about the need to get rid of the oligarchs. And now the oligarchs are in power. So nothing has changed really. They were talking about the need to get rid of corruption. What has changed? Nothing. The governor of the Odessa region is now former President [of Georgia] Saakashvili.[65]

OS: Yeah, I know.

VP: That’s just a spit in the face, an insult to the people of Odessa and to the whole of the Ukrainian people. I do not want to give any assessments of Saakashvili, I think that would be the wrong thing to do. Whatever person he is, he was president of a nation [Georgia]. And it is up to the Georgian people to give him assessments. And besides, we are personally acquainted with him. He was not even granted a working visa in the United States. The investors he tried to get did not want to give him a permanent job. But quite strangely, he can act as the governor of the Odessa region [in Ukraine]. Are there no people with integrity, people from Ukraine who can do this job quite as well? It’s just ridiculous. And it’s an insult to the Ukrainian people.

OS: I have three specific questions about Ukraine, then perhaps we can take a walk? During the Maidan massacre, did you get any intelligence of what was going on? It’s the strangest massacre. Because of the number of casualties of policemen, and the civilians who were killed, and the policemen not firing back, they were retreating and called back by Yanukovych. And during that it seems like there was a sniper force that was definitely aiming at the policemen and civilians to create the chaos necessary for the takeover.

VP: To start with, that is absolutely correct. Yanukovych didn’t give an order to use weapons against civilians.[66] And incidentally, our western partners, including the United States, asked us to influence him so that he did not give any orders to those weapons. And President Yanukovych said that he couldn’t imagine any other way of dealing with this situation. He couldn’t sign an order on the use of weapons. And when both the police and the protesters were shot at, it’s correct what you’ve said—the goal was to sow chaos. And certainly President Yanukovych was not interested in the expansion of this chaos. He was interested in containing the situation. But I have to say that the so-called protesters were very aggressive.[67]

OS: Some of them, yes.

VP: Some of them centered in the office of the party of regents which was headed by President Yanukovych. And they burned it down. And technical workers came out and they said we are not members of the party. There was one electrician. And he was shot and they were thrown into the basement and then everything was burned. And that was even before the takeover. So Yanukovych was not interested in chaos, he did everything he could in order to quiet the situation, to restore calm.

OS: Well, who are these snipers?

VP: Well, who could have placed these snipers? Interested parties, parties who wanted to escalate the situation. I do not have any data on who precisely those snipers were, but elementary logic tells me.

OS: Have you heard any reports about the training that was going on in other cities, in Minsk and so forth, of battalions and the Right Sector—hardened people of the right?[68] There were 100-man units that came to the city, I am told, in the days before the Maidan massacre.

VP: No, not in Minsk, but we have information available to us that armed groups were trained in the western parts of Ukraine itself, in Poland, and in a number of other places.

OS: I see. Have you heard of the Azov battalion?[69]

VP: Yes, certainly. There are certain armed formations which are not accountable to anyone, nor are they accountable to the central authorities in Kiev. I believe that is one of the reasons why the current leadership right now cannot put an end to these hostilities. That is simply because they are frightened that these uncontrollable armed forces will return to the capital.

OS: My second question—Mr. Obama, during this period, what kind of communications did you have with him?

VP: We were in constant contact. Well, I can say it was almost on a permanent basis. And Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov, they had personal meetings months ago and they also had telephone conversations. And myself and the president of the United States, we both had a great deal of regular telephone conversations.

OS: Obviously you didn’t agree.

VP: Yes, we had different assessments as to the causes of the Ukrainian crisis and its unfolding.

OS: Are you still talking to him?

VP: Yes, just a couple of days ago I had a telephone conversation with him. We talked about our bilateral relations, the Middle East situation, and also the Ukrainian situation. But I have to tell you—I think that there is some understanding on a number of issues—despite the differences in our assessments. There is some common understanding.

OS: Would you say relations or the dialogue is cordial?

VP: No, but they are businesslike. And quite even.

OS: Do you see each other visually when you talk?

VP: No, but I can tell you that this dialogue is a dialogue of interested parties. So there is no confrontation behind it. I think that President Obama is a thinking person, he assesses the real situation, with some things he agrees, with others he disagrees. But we also manage to find points of common understanding on a number of complicated issues. And this is a fruitful dialogue.

OS: This is a just a trivial question, but I’ve always been curious, do you call each other Vladimir and Barack?

VP: Yes.

OS: You call him Barack or Barry?

VP: Barack.

OS: You do—first name, that’s great. Last question—Sebastopol and the meaning of it. It was your major submarine base, I believe, on the Black Sea. And it has obviously been a major defense facility. And you had an agreement with Crimea to have troops there—it was a base that was agreed to. I don’t know exactly when the treaty was made. How, when this was going down, obviously this is important in your mind—if the United States or NATO troops are able to take over this base, what are the consequences of that?

VP: I was thinking that this never was supposed to happen. Well, there is the subjunctive mood as we say, but there can be no subjunctive mood in politics—the “what if.”

OS: Hypothetical.

VP: And this treaty with Ukraine was supposed to be enforced until 2019. And after that it was supposed to be prolonged even further, I don’t remember—another 20 years probably. But in response to that we reduced the price of Russian natural gas for Ukraine. We gave them a large discount. And I’d like to draw attention to the fact that even though Crimea is right now part of the Russian Federation, this gas discount for Ukraine has not been withdrawn.

OS: Right. The consequences of a US seizure of the base or a NATO base?

VP: Those consequences would have been very grave, because, well this base per-se doesn’t mean anything—no significance, but if they had tried to station either ABM systems or offensive systems in those territories, that would no doubt have aggravated this situation in the whole of Europe. Incidentally, that is what is happening in Eastern European countries. I already talked about that. I just wanted to tell you about one nuance—why we are responding so acutely to the expansion of NATO? Well, as a matter of fact, we understand the value—or lack thereof—and the threat of this organization. I know this organization is a loose one and it’s not viable, even despite Article 5 of the treaty. What we’re concerned about is the practice of how decisions are made there. I know how decisions are made there. And the experience of previous years of work has given me full information as to how decisions are made. When a country becomes a member of NATO, bilateral talks are held on this country and it’s quite easy to deal with this country on a bilateral basis, including on the placement of weapons systems that are threatening to our security. Once a country becomes a member of NATO, it is hard to resist the pressure of such a large presence as the United States, and any weapons system can be stationed in this country all of a sudden. An ABM system, new military bases, and if need be, new offensive systems. And what are we supposed to do in that case? In this case we have to take countermeasures, and that means that we have to aim our missile systems at facilities which, in our view, are becoming a threat to us. And the situation becomes more tense. And who needs that, and why?

OS: You said that the base in Crimea didn’t mean anything in itself. Does that mean to say that you would have built another naval base on the Black Sea elsewhere?

VP: We already built such a military base.

OS: Oh, where’s that?

VP: In the city of Novorossiysk. And it’s more modern, more sophisticated than the last one.

OS: Interesting. What province or region?

VP: It’s the Krasnodar region between Sochi and the Crimea.

OS: I see, good to know.

VP: So it’s also the Black Sea coast. Right. Thank you very much.

Trip 1—Day 3—July 4, 2015

OS: You should wish me a Happy Fourth of July, being an American.

VP: And I congratulate you.

OS: It’s our Independence Day, so to speak.

VP: Yes, I know that.

OS: I’d like to talk about war for a few minutes.

VP: Yes, sure.

OS: Not Cold War, but Hot War. Yesterday you talked about Russia rebuilding its military infrastructure and refreshing its nuclear facilities and adding to it. I think you’re building 40 ICBMs, I believe—they’re TOPOLs.

VP: We are changing them, substituting them. Introducing new missiles which replace the obsolescent ones—the ones whose term of use are expiring.

OS: And new anti-ballistic S-300s and S-400s and you’re working on S-500s too.

VP: Yes, but these are different weapons systems. These are air defense weapons systems.

OS: And other things? I’m also told that most of Russia will be protected by these anti-ballistic missiles from exterior attack. It’ll be a missile shield around Russia in 2017, if you stay on target.

VP: Yes, on the whole that’s correct.

OS: So, let’s talk about the possibility of—the “madman” possibility of war, where the US and Russia go at it.

VP: We are covering almost all of the Russian territory, and along the perimeter of all of its borders.

OS: So, in a Hot War is the US dominant—yes or no?

VP: No.

OS: So it would be a case of Russia surviving it?

VP: I think that no one would survive such a conflict.

OS: Even with the missile shield?

VP: As of now the shield of missiles wouldn’t protect the territory of the United States. Just remember the current State Secretary John Kerry once spoke against the so-called Star Wars program which was put forward by Ronald Reagan.[70]

OS: Right.

VP: And why was he speaking against it? You can ask him. Back then, this attempt at protecting so large a territory as the United States from potential military strikes was impossible. And today, despite the modern weaponry, despite the new generation of technologies—information technologies, space technologies, radars, and interception means, information systems—despite all that, I think that as of now, and in the midterm, strategic anti-ballistic missiles will not be efficient enough. And I think there is an element of threat to that. And the threat consists of the fact that there might be the illusion of being protected. And this might lead to more aggressive behavior. And in that sense, we believe that there are more problems than advantages with that, apart from everything else. We are developing systems capable of surmounting these anti-ballistic missile defense systems. And these systems, they bring down the possibilities of antiballistic missile protection even further. And that’s why this attempt at unilaterally creating a protective shield, as I believe, is both inefficient and dangerous. And besides, this ABM system is not just a protective system, it is an element of strategic forces which can only be efficient if it works together with offensive weapons systems. And that’s why the philosophy behind the use is quite simple—especially given the fact that there are now precision-guided munitions. First you have to make the first strike against the command and control system, then you make a strike at strategic facilities. You protect your own territory as far as it’s possible. You can even combine weapons, both strategic and ballistic weapons systems and use other weapons systems. You also use cruise missiles. This all increases the defense capabilities of a country. But at the same time it is no guarantee of security.

OS: Can I ask you also just briefly—space warfare. I know the United States has been working very hard to develop space as a weapon.

VP: Yes, certainly. We know about that as well. That’s why it is so important to prevent unilateral actions. That’s why we proposed that we should work jointly on the ABM system. What would that mean? That would mean that we would establish the missile dangers and where they emanated from. We would have equitable access to the control system of these systems. And we would also search jointly for solutions to other operational issues related to technological development. I believe such an approach of working together in order to find solutions to these existing challenges and threats would create a far more stable condition, and the world would be a safer place.

OS: This was originally proposed, you know, by John Kennedy with Nikita Khrushchev in 1963.[71]

VP: If you are getting back to the past now, let me remind you from whence the Cuban Missile Crisis started. I’m not an admirer of Khrushchev, but placing Soviet missiles on Cuba was prompted by the stationing of American missiles in Turkey, from the territory of which those missiles could easily reach the Soviet Union. And that’s why Khrushchev responded by stationing missiles in Cuba. Cuba was not the one who initiated the Cuban missile crisis.[72]

OS: No, I know. It was a crazy time. Stanley Kubrick, a filmmaker I much admire, made a wonderful film called Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.[73] Have you seen it?

VP: No.

OS: Oh, you must see it. Really, it’s well worth it—a classic. Because Mr. Kennedy was dealing with the military’s system that had been growing and growing since World War II and the generals, at that point, knew that the Soviet Union did not have the capacity to match them. And many of them said, “This is a time to hit the Soviet Union.” So there was a desire for a unilateral strike against Russia.[74] Kennedy said, “You’re crazy,” and then as other situations developed in Berlin and Cuba it became more dangerous. But honestly, there was a desire to strike first. I fear that still in the United States. I fear the neo-conservative element as being so hungry, pro-war, to make their point, to win their case, that it’s dangerous.

VP: And I fear them too.

OS: Knowing that the United States is in this Cold War mode, would you, therefore, at any point in the near future go to war for Ukraine?

VP: I think that would be the worst-case scenario.

OS: If the United States pushed more weapons onto Ukraine, and the Ukrainian government became more and more aggressive in Donbass, it is inevitable that if the Russians decide to fight for the Donbass region, there would be a conflict.

VP: I don’t think that anything is going to change. Well, I told our American partners about that. There would be more victims. But the result, the outcome will be the same as it is today. Conflict of such kind—conflicts like Donbass—cannot be resolved via weapons. Direct talks will be required. Why wait, one way or another? And the sooner our friends in Kiev understand that the better it would be. But the western countries—Europe and the United States—have to help the Kiev authorities to understand this reality.

OS: Yes, let’s hope so. If you look at the candidates who are running for office in 2016 in the United States, if you look at the Republican side—every one of them made Russian statements—aggressive statements.

VP: That’s the logic of internal political strife within the United States.

OS: Well, the United States has become more right wing since the Ronald Reagan era. And now we have Hillary Clinton on the left—the supposed left—she’s the Democratic challenger, probably will be, making very aggressive statements also about Ukraine and comparing you to Hitler.[75]

VP: Nothing new to us, in this situation. We are personally acquainted, she is a very dynamic woman. Well, we could make also such a comparison, but due to the level of our political culture, we try to abstain from extreme statements.

OS: Yes, you could make those statements, but you don’t. You have maturity, and you’ve suffered for war. But the United States has never really had a war on its own homeland. And to many people, who are very important people, war is somewhat of a game.

During the Missile Crisis, the head of the Air Force, Curtis LeMay, who had led the firebombing of Tokyo and been in charge of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, called on Kennedy to wipe out the Soviet Union. “Now,” he said, “before they get too strong.”[76]

VP: Yes, we know about that. And we knew about that back then.

OS: Well, I hope you understand that the American temperament is volatile at times and cowboy-ish, and it might come to a situation where they might call for your resignation personally because they will personalize it.

VP: [laughter] Well, they’ve already done that—they’ve already personalized it. But unfortunately for them, to them who want that, Russia is a country that is guided by the will of its own people—not directions coming from outside.

OS: Right.

VP: And that’s our advantage.

OS: I know how you’re going to answer this, but I’m going to ask it anyway. If you were the difference—if you were able to resign and pacify these people in the United States, and it would prevent a nuclear war, would you resign?

VP: I don’t think that anyone would push for nuclear war, and people with extreme views in the United States, they should remain calm whoever is chosen as the head of the Russian people. They should be guided by the profound interests of their own people—the American people. And I think the fundamental interests of the American people are consistent with having good relations with Russia.

OS: So do I, but the corporate media is calling for Cold War and it’s been very anti-Russian.

VP: The problem is not with persons or personalities. The problem consists in the fact that the current American leadership would not suffer any other opinion than their own. They do not need countries who have sovereignty. Our partners are not willing to be engaged in a dialogue on equal footing. And so removing any leader in Russia is not going to lead to the pacification or to the improvement of bilateral relations without the willingness of one of the parties, including the United States, to see their partners as equal partners.

OS: We’re going to walk inside?

VP: Yes, we can. But I don’t think there is anything interesting to see inside. But we have no secrets there, so I can show it to you. What would you like to see? It’s my gym inside.

OS: Sure. I hear you work out almost every day or five times a week.

VP: Every day.

OS: Seven days? No.

VP: Yes.

OS: That’s too much. I like ping-pong.

VP: You want to play?

OS: Yeah, if you want. You’re very competitive, huh?

VP: Yeah, but I don’t know how to play. Unlike you.

OS: Well, first I have to get used to the table.

[playing ping-pong through the following exchange]

OS: I didn’t sleep enough. The ball is too heavy.

VP: Well, that’s exactly the case.

OS: What if I win?

VP: Friendship is going to win.

[playing stops]

OS: There’s the gym. Beautiful. No treadmill? All ellipticals. Do you do all of them variously?

VP: Yes, all of them. Do you like it?

OS: Yes, I would come here more often. Do you have a trainer?

VP: No, I’m my own trainer.

OS: Well, you will live a long time if you keep doing this.

VP: Well, only God knows how long I’ll live.

OS: Yeah. It’s beautiful. Swim first, then gym? Then you relax the muscles. It’s a beautiful gym. Do you think when you swim, do you get ideas? From the unconscious, do you find it to be meditative?

VP: No, just absurd things come into my mind when I swim.

OS: You don’t believe much in dreams. This is for badminton or what?

VP: For tennis.

OS: I play paddle tennis. You don’t play tennis?

VP: No. This statue is the founder of Judo. Do you like it?

OS: Very much. Beautiful, well done. Every day, though? That’s tough.

VP: I’m just accustomed to it.

OS: Do you watch television news while you’re doing it?

VP: No, I don’t.

VP: Do you like horses?

OS: Yes, I used to have a big place in Colorado that had horses.

VP: How many?

OS: Eight or nine horses and about a thousand acres. Beautiful riding. I used to ride, gallop, and all that. I was very free.

VP: And what kind of horses did you have?

OS: I bought them at auction in Colorado—you know, no Arabians, no big deal, just riding horses. Western saddle.

VP: You see the horses?

OS: Yes, Arabian horses?

VP: Yes, mostly.

VP: Do you want to see our church?

OS: Yes. When you come here, where do you sit, if you sit? Are there any chairs? Do you sit down?

VP: No, there are no chairs in a Russian Orthodox Church. The mass is served while you stand.

OS: I see.

VP: It’s the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church.

OS: People don’t pray kneeling, they pray standing.

VP: Well, you kneel, but you don’t sit on anything while you pray. Do you know where this icon comes from? I brought it from the United States. The patriarch of the Russian Church abroad presented it to me while I was staying in the United States.

OS: Was this one of your major problems with communism, that it was atheistic? You didn’t feel that it appealed to the people?

VP: Well, I think that happened at a certain moment when I understood it. You see, it’s St. Elizabeth. She was the wife of the Governor General of St. Petersburg, and when he died at the hands of terrorists, she founded a monastery. And then she took her vows. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks executed her, and the Russian Orthodox Church abroad announced her as a saint. When I was staying in the United States, I was presented with this icon from the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. And I brought this icon here, to my home. And all of a sudden I understood that she got back to her home, because it used to be her home in the past.

OS: I was talking about your adoption of Orthodox religion back in the Russian system. You’ve been a proponent of that.

VP: Well it’s quite simple really. When I was a child my mother baptized me.

OS: Legally?

VP: Yes, well they tried not to speak about that publicly. But that was absolutely legal. She went to church and she asked to have me baptized.

OS: But bringing this back and making it frontal in Russian life has made you very popular with most of the population?

VP: I was not the one to do it, to make it this central element. It was done by the Russian people themselves.

OS: Okay, I understand. But there’s been a renaissance.

VP: This renaissance is due to the fact that the communist ideology ceased to exist. And in reality there was some sort of an ideological vacuum. And this vacuum could be filled by nothing else but religion.

OS: Right. I see.

VP: You asked me about the baptism. I can tell you an interesting story. Recently I was talking to the patriarch of Russia and Moscow, Kirill. I asked him how he had come to this church. And he told me that his father was a priest. And I asked him where. And he told me in Leningrad. I asked him in what church he was serving. And he named the church. And I also asked him during what years he was a priest there. And he named the years. And it turns out that I was baptized exactly at that church during those years. I asked him, “What was the name of your father?” He said, “Nicolau.” “And were there any other Nicolaus apart from your father at that church?” And he said, “No.” “Do you know,” I’m telling him that, “your father was the one to baptize me. Because my mother told me that the name of the priest who had baptized me was Nicolau.”

OS: So this is your dacha, your ranch?

VP: This is the official state residence.

OS: And you come here on weekends?

VP: Well, I almost live here. Partly here and partly in the Kremlin.

OS: Oh, I see. So it’s about 25 minutes, 20 minutes from Moscow?

VP: 20 minutes or so.

OS: For example, this weekend you have guests come over for the weekend?

VP: Right now?

OS: This weekend, for example?

VP: Right now my daughters are here. They are staying here and we agreed to have dinner together after our meeting with you.

OS: That’s nice—not too early, I hope. The two daughters are married and they bring their husbands, so you meet your sons-in-law on the weekend?

VP: Yes, they have their own family life and we meet, of course.

OS: So are you a grandfather yet?

VP: Yes.

OS: Do you like your grandchildren?

VP: Yes.

OS: So are you a good grandfather? Do you play with them in the garden?

VP: Very seldom, unfortunately.

OS: Very seldom. Do the sons-in-law argue with you? Do they have different opinions, do they give you sort of gossip?

VP: Well, sometimes their opinions are different, but we’re not arguing—we’re having a discussion, so to speak.

OS: Daughters too?

VP: Yes, them too.

OS: That’s nice.

VP: But my daughters are not into politics and they’re not into large business. They are into science and education.

OS: They both studied to be professionals.

VP: Yes, they graduated from university. They are now writing their theses.

OS: You’re a very lucky man. Two good children.

VP: Yes, I’m proud of them.

OS: You’ve talked much about the multipolar world and the importance of it. Balances of power. But you haven’t said anything about China.

VP: China can speak for itself.

OS: But it is a very important regional power and world power, now.

VP: Yes, no doubt about it. It’s a world power.

OS: Right. And naturally if the US is the dominant world power they are going to run into issues not only with Russia, but with China.

VP: I think it’s always about global leadership—not arguments about some second rate regional issues. And the competition is primarily among the world powers. That’s the law. The question is what are the rules by which this competition is developing. I would very much like common sense to accompany any competition like that.

OS: I know that Russia has grown closer to China. Your trade agreements. I don’t know if you’ve had military agreements.

VP: Russia doesn’t need any special agreements to get closer with China. Russia and China are neighbors. We have the longest joint border in the world, I believe. So it’s quite natural that we should maintain good neighborly relations. So there is nothing strange about that. On the contrary, I think that’s very good, both to the people of China and to the people of Russia. And to the whole world. We are not trying to build any military blocs.

OS: I understand.

VP: But our trade and economic ties are developing dynamically.

OS: But China has made it clear that it wants to avoid confrontation with the United States, as does Russia.

VP: Well, that’s good. That’s the right thing to do. We also want to avoid confrontation. We don’t want any confrontation with the United States, because we have our issues to attend to.

OS: I understand, but Ukraine has brought you into a direct, potential conflict.

VP: The problem is, we were not the ones to initiate that conflict. We are not responsible for organizing or supporting a coup d’état. And we’re not the ones to blame for the fact that part of the Ukrainian people didn’t agree with that.

OS: Could the US have a strategy here? A long-term strategy saying, “We know China is going to be this economic global power, we know Russia is—can we start to attack this problem by dismantling Russia?”

VP: I don’t know anything about that. You’d have to ask them. I wouldn’t want to think that is the case. But that would be the wrong way. The right way is to build equal relationships and to achieve mutual respect. Russia doesn’t need any expansion. We have an enormous territory—the largest one in the world. We have vast natural resources. We have wonderful people. We’ve got a profound system for developing and renovating our own country—any conflict just diverts us from this strategic goal.

OS: I totally agree, I’m just looking at the alternatives, which is that China is building up its nuclear capacity.

VP: Yes, and China is going to continue to do that—that’s quite logical.

OS: With Russian cooperation, or not?

VP: We are not cooperating in the nuclear military field. We are developing joint projects in peaceful nuclear energy. And solely for peaceful purposes. But we have a huge military/technical cooperation, but it has no nuclear elements to it.

OS: You recognize that China would not have guaranteed Snowden asylum?

VP: I cannot comment on that. You have to ask our Chinese friends.

OS: I notice they haven’t let RT—the Russian television network—into China.

VP: Well, I don’t know anything about that. I don’t think that Russia Today is operating in the Chinese language—not yet. But I don’t think that’s a problem of our bilateral relations. It’s just a matter for discussion, for negotiations.

OS: I saw the head of RT, Margarita Simonyan, and she was telling me that China would not let them in yet.

VP: And yet, negotiations have to take place—I believe this is a matter of business.

OS: Like the apricots from Greece? I heard the story when Alexis Tsipras was here, that you wouldn’t give Greece some kind of import license for apricots?

VP: No, it’s not that. We cannot make any exemptions for the countries of the European Union. But to all countries of the European Union we can offer cooperation and establish joint enterprises. And if these joint ventures are created in Russian territory, then they can partly import produce for their own purposes.

OS: Well, China has talked about wanting to create the Silk Road again through Eurasia. We know that Russia signed an oil and gas deal with China—a huge one. So there’s a new business renaissance here in Eurasia, with Russia, China, and all the Eurasian countries.

VP: There is nothing new about that.

OS: I know.

VP: We’ve been long pursuing that purpose and the so-called sanctions introduced by the West, they simply pushed this process forward. Apart from what you know, we also have plans for developing the so-called Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Baikal Railroad, and it all corresponds well to the Chinese plans of reviving the Silk Road. So, on the whole, we have very harmonious relations which are complimentary to each other.

OS: Yes.

VP: Let’s have a look at the horses.

[walking into the stables]

OS: Ah, beautiful—nicely done.

VP: You like it?

OS: Well, so far, yeah. That’s a beauty—wow. What is this, a race horse?

VP: I’ll have to ask.

OS: Wow. Looks like a thoroughbred. Is he one? Looks like he’s fast.

VP: Yes, he’s very fast.

OS: You ride them all?

VP: Seldom, unfortunately.

OS: Well, if they throw you, these are big horses.

VP: Yes, once I fell and flew over the head of the horse.

OS: Yeah, that’s dangerous. I must’ve fallen off five or six times. Many concussions. And here’s a tiny one.

OS: Did you read the article recently—there was a big break by the investigative reporter Sy Hersh in London, he’s an American reporter, on the bin Laden raid?[77]

VP: No.

OS: It’s an amazing story and makes sense to me.

VP: What does it say?

OS: It says that Pakistan’s ISI—their intelligence agency—made the raid possible by opening its airspace and letting the US in to basically take the man or kill him, as long, of course, as the Americans didn’t divulge this. As you know it was staged as a big heroic action, but it was essentially a mercy kill. There was no resistance in Pakistani airspace—none at all. Whereas they are in a state of alert for war against India. And he presents numerous other pieces of evidence of what really happened on that night.

VP: Where can we sit?

OP: Over there—it’s pretty. Back to what I was saying about the bin Laden raid, what do you think?

VP: I don’t know anything about that.

OS: Is it possible?

VP: Yes, I think it’s possible. Well, if they’re partners, why wouldn’t the Pakistani intelligence and the American intelligence agree on that? That was quite possible. But I cannot comment on that because I don’t know anything about that.

OS: And that he was there since 2006 and then he was basically a pariah and he was no longer really running anything. He was a guest of Pakistan.

VP: Well, that’s possible.

OS: And we knew about it for a while. But we didn’t really verify it until 2012 and then we took him very easily.

OS: Okay, you said you’re a global power—Russia is a global power. You did not say a regional power.

VP: Do you think there is a strict definition? Well there are certain issues which cannot be solved without Russia. And in that sense Russia is a world power. So, international nuclear security cannot be guaranteed without Russia. Nor is it possible to globally solve energy-related issues. And in that regard, Russia is also a world power. Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. And just as all the other permanent members, it has veto power, which means that a whole number of the key issues of the international agenda cannot be solved without Russia. But we understand full well that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we lost 40 percent of our production capacities[78] and the Soviet legacy was a semi-ruined and outdated economic management system, as well as technologies which were outdated. But at the same time, it gave us certain chances of making resolute steps to revive our economy and our social sphere. And that’s why we are not exaggerating our importance. Nor are we trying to get some status of a superpower. We don’t need that. Because the superpower status means a certain burden—primarily a financial and economic burden. And why would we need that? We don’t need that at all.

OS: You’ve said several times in the last two days that Russia is a democracy. Your critics in America—and there are many—would say that Russia is not a democracy, Russia is a traditional authoritarian state. And the parliament does not make major decisions. It has limited access to television for the opposition parties and that your party dominates the media. The registration process is difficult for these opposition parties. That there’s a lack of judicial independence—although that’s an old problem in Russia, I gather. That you’re opposed to gay rights in Russia. These are the criticisms that are often launched at you. I’d love you to take a chance here and respond to that.

VP: To start with, as to the technocratic character of the Russian state, just have a look—for almost one thousand years our country was being constructed as a monarchy. And then the so-called 1917 Revolution occurred, communists arrived in power, and Stalin found himself at the helm of the state. Certainly, very much a legacy passed down from the Empire to Soviet times even though the plaque on the surface changed. Only at the beginning of the 1990s, events came to pass which laid the foundation for a new stage of Russian development. Certainly, you cannot imagine that we can instantaneously get the same model, the same structures, as in the United States, in Germany, in France. That’s impossible to start with, and secondly, that’s not required. Society, just as every living organism, has to develop stage-by-stage, gradually. That’s the normal development process. When talking about the one party system, I’d like to remind you that the Soviet constitution had a provision saying that the Communist Party had absolute leadership. That was something stipulated in the Constitution. So the only political force was the Communist Party. But, there is nothing like it in the Russia of today. We have a multi-party system. And today, parliament comprises four parties—there are representatives of four parties in the parliament.[79] As to the opposition parties, they are always discontent. And can I ask you how many parties are represented in the US Congress? If my memory serves me correctly, just two. You understand that no one concludes from that there is less democracy in the United States than in Russia—because in Russia there are four parties in the parliament, whereas there are only two in the United States. The American Constitution is fashioned in such a manner that the head of state is elected in two stages. There are electors choosing him or her. And the Constitution is constructed in such a manner that a candidate can arrive in power for whom more electors voted. But those electors might represent the minority of voters. And twice in the history of the United States it occurred.[80] Does this mean that the United States is not a democratic country? I don’t think so. But the problem is evident. And we also have problems of our own, but we’re developing.

You asked about access to the media. Certainly, the ruling party is trying to create prerogatives for itself. Do you know, or does any of your audience know, that when the head of state is elected where parliamentary elections are held, the ruling party always has an advantage of two to three percent. And why is that? Because all across the world they are using this administrative resource, their power, to secure an advantage. And that’s the case all across the world, and it’s just like that in Russia. We have hundreds of TV and radio companies and the state doesn’t control them in any fashion. Because that’s impossible. But the problem with the opposition forces is not just about fighting the power, the government, they’re trying to demonstrate to the voters that the program they are putting forward is more advantageous, is better, from the point of view of the interests of the voters. Incidentally, in Russia, the head of state is elected through direct elections—unlike in the United States. Now, regarding the multi-party system and the possibility of registration, just recently we radically liberalized the situation in this domain. And right now the possibility of registering one’s organization, one’s party is so simple that voters are faced with another difficulty—it’s very hard to find what their preferences are. There are so many choices. But I don’t see any problems here from the point of view of democratic institutions. But all that is a living organism and the country is moving forward.

Now concerning the rights of sexual minorities. During the Soviet times, there was a criminal responsibility for homosexuals, and right now there is none. We eliminated that part of the criminal code back in the 1990s.[81] Whereas the United States has four states, I believe, that have criminal responsibility, and those laws say that homosexuals are criminals. In Texas and in three other states probably. And recently the Supreme Court of the United States adopted the decision saying that LGBTs should not be prosecuted criminally.[82] But I don’t know yet what it’s going to lead to, because this area of regulation, as far as I understand, is within the purview of each and every state. So I don’t know how these judicial procedures are going to play out in the end. Why did such a surge of criticism against Russia arise? It was because the parliament adopted a law which prohibited the propaganda of homosexuals among minors.[83] But there is no discrimination against people—either on the basis of their religion, or sex. And the LGBT community here have grand careers, they are awarded state awards for their merits. There is no discrimination against them whatsoever. The purpose of this law is the following. This law seeks to protect children who have to grow up, to mature, and only afterwards make a decision of their own on their sexual orientation. We are just telling them to leave children alone. Let children grow up, become grown up persons—there is no discrimination on this basis. So I was very much surprised to hear criticism from the United States, because some legislation in the United States provides criminal responsibility for homosexuals.[84] I think this is just one of the instruments for attacking Russia, trying to showcase Russia as being different from the others, which would mean that some other instruments and pressure would have to be applied against it. And the question is why. And the answer is simple and I already told you the answer. That is done so that on other issues which have no relation whatsoever, either to democracy or to the rights of the LGBT community, or to the media, so that in other issues related to geopolitics and politics, they want Russia to be more malleable. But that is an encroachment and they are not using the right means. There is only one way to achieve balanced decisions, and that’s dialogue on equal footing with due regard for mutual interests. And these are not just hollow words—not just hollow phrases. Behind these words are the interests of the government, the state and of the people. Behind them lies the solution to economic issues, to security issues, and personal issues. The citizens of the Russian Federation are interested in that.

OS: You mentioned the parliament passed a law, but has parliament ever passed anything of major consequence against you in recent memory, against your administration.

VP: If I am against this or that law I can just not sign it and then it is regarded as rejected. But as to this law, I have to tell you this was not an initiative of mine, it was an initiative of—

OS: Can you point to an issue where the parliament disagreed with you on a major issue?

VP: You know, we sometimes, quite often have situations when we are required to have very thorough negotiations with different factions of the parliament. And these consultations often prove difficult. And these difficult consultations are certainly those related to social and economic matters. Right now we are at the stage where we’re working actively on next year’s budget. And there are many options, many forks.

OS: Okay, they’re pushing us for time so quick answers if possible. The Arctic—I’m hearing rumors that this is the next race between the US and Russia.

VP: There are three major issues related to the Arctic. I’m no military specialist, but I don’t think that I’m going to divulge some secret if I say that this territory, the North Pole, has the trajectories of ballistic missiles going over—both the US missiles and Russian missiles. Let me remind you that the so-called flight assignments of both American missiles and Russian missiles are aimed at each others sites, which is regrettable. And these trajectories are right over the Arctic. And considering the deployment of the ABM system by Americans, including the Aegis systems and their military vessels, and in the North Sea, we’re certainly contemplating ways to protect our territory. The Arctic is of great strategic importance because it helps us to secure our defense capabilities, which secure the country.

OS: It’s not about oil or anything like that?

VP: No, absolutely not. Secondly, mineral resources. And we’ve started to extract hydrocarbons in the Arctic seas—a couple of years ago we started it. And there might be many discussions, but I think that all these arguments, controversies can and should be resolved within the framework of the existing international law. The international law of the seas. We had long discussions with Norway on certain parts of the border. And we managed to arrive at an agreement on all the controversial issues. And there is the third element—the transport element. Given the fact of global warming, the period of time each year when this part of the planet can be used for navigation purposes is becoming longer. In the past, we can only use two or three weeks for vessels to go through the North Sea. Right now, these routes can be used for several months. And it decreases significantly the costs of supplies from Europe to Asia, from Asia to Europe, and even to the United States. And that’s another reason why this region is becoming so important. Very interesting. There are certainly other considerations, but these are the three main elements I believe. That’s why many countries of the world—not just the Artic countries—are showing interest in this region. We have the Artic council, we’ve fostered a toolkit for cooperation. I believe all these instruments are going to be employed, and we’re going to seek mutual understanding on all of these most important issues.

OS: Your Muslim population in Moscow—I was shocked to read that you have the largest Muslim population in Europe—larger than any other city.

VP: Not entirely true. Muslims make up 10 to 12 percent of the whole population of Russia. In France I think the percentage is the same.[85]

OS: Okay, well France is fairly thickly-populated, but you’ve mentioned in the past the Russian ethnic population is diminishing.

VP: You know, fortunately we’ve managed to reverse this trend. And it’s the third consecutive year that we are witnessing a natural increase in the population, including in the regions which are traditionally populated by ethnic Russians.[86] As to the inter-ethnic relations, this has always been a delicate issue—whenever, wherever. But Russia has certain advantages in this regard. Take Europe and the United States of today and you’ll see that people with other religions are mostly immigrants. Russia is different. Those people with other religions are Russians. And it is their homeland and they have none other. From the very beginning, Russia was emerging as a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country. And over a thousand years, we’ve nurtured a certain culture of interaction. Even Christianity in Russia is called Eastern Christianity. And it has many elements which might be reminiscent of Islam. We have very good relations, there’s been an inter-penetration between religion and culture. And those places where mixed population live—Christians and Muslims—there are many situations when people side-by-side celebrate both Muslim feast days and Christian holidays. And I think that based on these huge positive experiences, we will be able to surmount quite easily all those things, sensitive delicate issues of inter-ethnic and inter-religious interactions. Nevertheless, we should still pay close attention to these issues on a permanent basis.

OS: Are you for the Kyoto Protocol and will you sign it?

VP: We signed the Kyoto Protocol. The United States was against it[87] and it was difficult to reach an agreement with our Chinese friends—with India as well there were some difficulties. But Russia supported the Kyoto Protocol from the very beginning and we signed it. Certainly we are in talks. I mean, our territory covered by forests is the lungs of our planet. And we are not just making emissions, we are absorbing emissions and all that should be taken into account when a final decision on the issue is discussed.

OS: Are you going to the next meeting in Paris in December?

VP: I don’t know that. I have not yet made a decision that Russia is going to be represented there at a high level.

OS: Fernando, my producer, thinks you should go and represent Russia at a high level.

OS: In closing, I’m just going to say—you’ve said twice that I’m anti-American and that you don’t want to be dragged into it. I want to explain—I love my country. I love America. I grew up there. It’s like my mother. You have disagreements with your mother, sometimes, but you love her. Sometimes you love your mother and sometimes you hate her. It’s like your homeland. And I have disagreements with my country.

VP: You see, you can allow yourself, you can afford and you have the right to give this or that assessment to the actions of your country’s leadership as you deem fit because you’re an American. And you can even give harsh assessments. Whereas we are fostering partnership relations, not just with your country, but with your government as well. That’s why we have to behave very cautiously. And however great the differences are, we have to stick to certain rules. Otherwise international relations cannot be built.

OS: I understand—that’s very clear. Lastly, I am not anti-American, I am not pro-Russian, I am pro-peace. It’s very important to me, in my lifetime I would like to see peace and I’m scared right now. I’m worried for the world, because I’m worried about my country’s attitude towards peace. And it doesn’t seem to understand the stakes that it has raised. That’s the point I’m trying to make in my documentary here.

VP: And you’re a man of peace. It’s easy for you. And I’m pro-Russian. And it’s more difficult for me.

OS: And I thank you for illustrating for us in these last days the stakes.