The putin interviews, p.20
The Putin Interviews, page 20
OS: Well, I’m looking for a change in your thinking but it doesn’t seem like you admit to it now, so let’s move on.
VP: You know, there is one thing I have to say where we agree—the certain naiveté with regards to our relations with our partners—it was there. We thought that our country had changed drastically. We had voluntarily taken due political actions of great importance. We had prevented violent actions from happening when the Soviet Union dissolved. We had opened up to our Western partners. Suffice it to say to remind you that the former head of the KGB had opened to the US partners the whole system of surveillance in the American Embassy in Moscow.150 He told them everything about that thinking that the US was ready to do the same, with the Embassy of Russia in the United States. And that was not the most well-thought-through decision, because there was nothing in response from the United States.
OS: Well, a lot of the neoconservative historians misinterpreted a lot of the files to favor their point of view in history. So there were a lot of arguments about the old Cold War files that came out of the Kremlin, as well as people who were looking for the JFK assassination papers. There was all kinds of stuff going on—it was quite a commotion in the mid-‘90s, as I remember.
VP: I know all these speculations about that tragedy—the assassination of JFK—and attempts at trying to implicate the Soviet Union. As former head of the Russian FSB, I can say that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the JFK assassination.
OS: [laughter] I believe you. And I think other people believe you.
VP: You know, if you stick to that logic, you can shift all the blame on Russia saying that all assassinations were done with the participation of the Soviet Union.
OS: Yeah, I was never one of those.
ON GEORGIA, UKRAINE, AND CRIMEA
OS: In 2008, from the American point of view, the war in Georgia marks a prominent return of Russia to an independent position showing off military muscle for the first time since 1991—correct me if I’m wrong.
VP: Sure, something like that. I told you, we have reduced significantly our armed forces. Moreover, we still have plans to reduce our armed forces even more. We’re going to do that calmly as new military equipment arrives. Right now we do not have any plans for immediate reductions. But on the whole, as we receive new military equipment, the personnel is also going to change.
OS: That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking, from the US point of view, it’s seen as a significant departure from the Russian behavior of the previous years. Tell us a little bit about the war and what was at stake and why you committed the troops.
VP: In the first place, I was not the one who made this decision, it was taken by President Medvedev—the then-president of Russia. I’m not going to conceal it. Indeed, I knew about this decision. Moreover, when I had been president for my second term, we had thought about possible actions, these kinds of actions, from Georgia. But certainly we had hoped that this would not come to pass. And let me remind you how this conflict erupted. President Saakashvili ordered his troops to attack the territory of South Ossetia. And during the first strike they performed, they destroyed the peacekeeper space—Russian peacekeepers. During the first strike, 10 or 15 people died. The strike performed by the Georgian troops with multiple rocket launcher systems, and people simply didn’t have time to get out of their barracks. And afterward, Georgia performed a large-scale military assault. I’d like to look at other countries’ representatives and ask them what they would do if one strike were to destroy all their peacekeepers. So we did lend a hand to South Ossetia, but we were also—and I’d like to emphasize that—performing our duties as peacekeepers. And apart from that, we suffered losses, unprovoked. We could have perceived that as an attack against the Russian Federation. On many occasions, repeatedly, I told the US, the European partners, the Georgian leadership—I asked them to prevent the escalation of this conflict.151 I’d like to draw attention to the fact that when I was president, I had met the leadership of the then-unrecognized republics of Ossetia or Abkhazia. I met with them because we harbored a thought that this internal conflict that had been going on for many decades, would be resolved by peaceful means. I’m not talking about what they could have achieved, about the territorial integrity, or other form of association that they could have arrived at, but through peaceful means. Instead, President Saakashvili chose to commit this act of provocation. Back then, I talked to a number of my counterparts and they were saying, “What do you expect, he’s mad?”152 I’m talking about my counterparts from the Western countries.
OS: Oh, so you talked to your counterparts in the West and they blamed it on Saakashvili?
VP: Yes, during the first days of the conflict, and I told them, “Yes, probably he is mad, but he’s killing our people. Either stop him, or we will have to act ourselves.” But no one was going to check him or they simply couldn’t, I don’t know. And that’s why we had to respond. And I’d like to draw attention to the fact that we didn’t respond immediately—it took us several days after the beginning of the aggression. We did expect someone to interfere, to make him withdraw troops from South Ossetia, to stop these actions. But nothing like that happened. So in our perspective, nothing had changed. They simply pushed us beyond a certain point and we couldn’t let anyone go beyond that line. We were provoked into doing what we did.
OS: Do you think that the US or NATO, in any way, are supporting Saakashvili to do this or told him that it was okay to try?
VP: I do not have 100% surety that someone had provoked him, that someone had been behind this. I don’t know about that. But I think that he would never be bold enough to do that on his own. In any case, no one tried to stop him.
OS: That was where the issue occurred where President Medvedev apparently delayed a day or two, and you urged him to get in, per treaty.
VP: Yes, that’s true. However, this decision was being taken. Russia showed restraint, patience, even amid an armed attack against our peacekeepers and killings of innocent people. Afterwards, I’d like to repeat that. It turned out that no one was trying to stop that agent provocateur. In the end, President Medvedev made the right decision.
OS: I heard that the Russian government realized they had to modernize their forces after that brief war—call it a war. The performance of the troops was underwhelming.
VP: They performed quite well. They were quite efficient. But it turned out that indeed modernization was required, new adjustments. These developments convinced us that we had to do it. Because no one was dissuaded from taking such actions against us.
OS: So the modernization of the army starts to really increase and the budget goes up, the machinery gets better.
VP: You know, this is not just about the Georgian development, because this was simply about the expiration date of our equipment. It had to be changed because the expiration date was approaching.
OS: Right. What about the nuclear force? What was the status of it then?
VP: Since that time, indeed, we have done a great deal of work to modernize our nuclear potential.
OS: Starting then?
VP: We had done that before we had plans. And we had been implementing those plans in accordance with the schedule we had set forth. But afterwards, after these developments, we became disciplined carrying out those plans—the financial discipline, technological discipline. And as of now, our nuclear deterrent forces are in very good shape. This is the most modernized component of the Russian armed forces, including the systems that are devised to surmount the ABM system of a potential adversary.
OS: Okay, I’d like to skip forward from 2008 into the Ukraine crisis. We’ve had this discussion before on my first visit, on the terrace, and I’ve listened to it and realized there are things I didn’t ask. And I want to go over it, just to be really clear, because this will be very important to the people who will be watching the documentary or reading this transcript.
VP: Certainly. Indeed, it requires a great deal of effort to clarify all that. Because your colleagues, your Western journalists are very talented people. They are capable of convincing people that black is white and vice versa. Just as an example—the tragic events, the assault against South Ossetia—Mr. Saakashvili publicly announced that he ordered his troops to commence that action. One of his dignitaries even spoke on television saying the same thing. I didn’t believe it when I heard it, when the media was accusing Russia of this attack. And millions of TV viewers believed that all across the world. This is just astounding, this capacity that your American and European journalists can have. You’re all very talented. But when our journalists try to protect Russian national interests, when they take a stance, they are declared immediately the mouthpiece of Kremlin propaganda—much to my chagrin.
OS: It’s a double standard. I would love to see a debate—a meeting between Mr. Saakashvili and you—it would be great to see the two of you in a room.
VP: We met on many occasions.
OS: Are you convinced he’s still mad?
VP: I have never said that.
OS: I thought you said he was mad?
VP: No, I was told by my Western counterparts that he was mad. And I could never afford to say anything like that to my counterpart, either the incumbent or the previous ones.
OS: When’s the last time you saw him?
VP: I do not remember. Certainly before the crisis in South Ossetia.
OS: Not after the war, though?
VP: No, but on many occasions I said to him, “Mikheil Nikolaevich, please do everything to prevent bloodshed. If you want to restore relations with these parts of Georgia, you have to be very cautious.” These fictions, these divergences, they had a reason a long time ago—not hundreds of years of ago—but back in 1919 when the Russian empire was splitting up. Those parts of Georgia, which incidentally had been part of the Russian Empire as independent states before Georgia became part of the Russian empire. Back then, those parts declared that they were ready, that they wanted to still be part of Russia. And back then very harsh actions, military measures were employed against them. Local populations still view those actions as genocide and mass elimination of people. In order to surmount all these difficulties, patience was required, as well as certain diplomatic art.
OS: Yeah, I understand.
VP: And that was lacking apparently. That’s what the Georgian leadership back then was lacking. Moreover, the current Georgian leadership believe that this action Saakashvili performed was a terrible crime against the Georgian people in the first place, because it has led to very grave consequences.
OS: I was shocked when Shevardnadze—hard name to pronounce—I was shocked because I really respected him as a foreign minister with Gorbachev. You may not agree, but I was shocked when he wanted to join NATO and he became corrupt, I heard.153 He was a very respected figure in the 1980s.
VP: Well, everything passes, everything changes.
OS: That’s true. But just quickly—Obama’s in office now, take it from 2008 to the Ukraine crisis and how this … nothing really major, dramatic happened, as I remember, except for the Snowden affair in 2013.154 He was offered asylum here in Russia and that upset America. But was there anything else in that period that you remember, between you and the US that was exacerbated, was argued about?
VP: Well, how can you say that nothing major happened? When President Kuchma’s term came to an end—I do not remember exactly the year—presidential elections took place in Ukraine.
And Mr. Yanukovych won that presidential election, but the opposition didn’t like that. And mass riots erupted. These riots were fueled quiet actively by the United States. And a third round of elections was announced—in violation of the country’s constitution. Per se, this can be perceived as a coup d’état. And pro-Western politicians arrived in power after that—Mr. Yushchenko and Timoshenko. I cannot say that I welcomed this way of changing the government. Nowhere is that proper, but in the post-Soviet space, especially, constitutions cannot be broken. Luckily no bloodshed took place there.
OS: Did you have a phone call with Obama about this issue?
VP: That was before Obama came to office, and yet we maintained cooperation with the Ukrainian leadership of Mr. Yushchenko and Timoshenko. I went to Kiev, they came back to Moscow. We met in third party countries. And we implemented all our plans of cooperation, but their policy, it was not well-liked by the Ukrainian people. That is why after the presidential term of President Yushchenko ended, Mr. Yanukovych won the election once again and everyone acknowledged that. It was recognized by everyone. But apparently this was not the best form of government either. Economic difficulties, together with social difficulties, to a great extent had undermined the trust in the new leadership as well. What needed to be done in order to rectify the situation? They should have organized another election. And they should have chosen people with different economic and social views. These people should have made another attempt at arriving back in power. But certainly they should have prevented any escalation to bloodshed, and what’s absolutely certain is that no one should have supported these bloody events.
OS: But you’re talking about 2014—you’re jumping ahead.
VP: Yes, in 2014.
OS: But between ’08 and ’14, there was this one election you’re talking about which is in 2012, I think?
VP: I do not remember
OS: There were so many, I mean, the Ukraine to us—we were not paying attention.
VP; Yes, well you personally might not have been paying attention, but the CIA was paying a great deal of attention.
OS: I know. It was very confusing. There was a guy with a poisoned face earlier in the century.
VP: Yes, you’re talking about Yushchenko—he said that he’d been poisoned during the election campaign.155 And yet he was elected to office. And he worked and I met with him on many occasions. Why did they need to resort to violence? That’s something I cannot quite understand. Moreover, I talked about that repeatedly and the 2014 President Yanukovych was in office and he signed an agreement with the opposition. He agreed to all the requirements that they had set forth.
OS: In the crisis, in the final days?
VP: Yes and he even agreed to hold early elections. So why do they need to perform this coup d’état? I do not understand.
OS: Okay. So we all remember, I remember you vividly on television saying—I think it was with Charlie Rose, I forgot—but you said there was much evidence and you smiled as you said it. There was much evidence—implying that a thousand eyes were upon this. You know that expression, a thousand eyes were upon this coup. It was a coup in slow motion. It was pretty evident, transparent to the Russians.
VP: Certainly.
OS: And you said that on television, but I think the American people find it difficult to understand but, by talking about the evidence and showing it, we might be able to convince the American public that they were being fooled by the Western narrative of events and that there indeed was a coup d’état that went down.
VP: That’s very easy to achieve—you simply have to look at the developments. After Yanukovych announced that he had to postpone the signing of the association agreement with the European Union, no one listened to the reasons why, to the terms, to the timetables—mass riots erupted right away after the announcement.156 These riots led to the seizure of his residence, and on the eve of that, he had signed an agreement with the opposition on settling the situation, on the possible organization of early elections, and three foreign ministers of European countries added their signatures to the agreement. Where are these guarantees? Once the president went to the second largest city of the country to attended a political event, armed men seized the residence of the president. Imagine something like that in the US, if the White House was seized—what would it be called? A coup d’état, or would you say that they have come to sweep the floors. The prosecutor general was shot at. There were so many shootings, so much violence.
OS: I had an interview with Mr. Yanukovych, so I know his version, but it was characterized in the US press as if Yanukovych abandoned Kiev, because he felt the crowd would tear him apart.
VP: Yes, that’s the version used to justify the support granted to the coup d’état. Mr. Yanukovych didn’t leave to go abroad. He was in the country when his residence was taken.157 Moreover, one day afterwards, he used our support and he relocated to the Crimea. Back then, the Crimea was still part of Ukraine. And Yanukovych stayed there for more than 10 days—at least a week in the Crimea, thinking there was still a chance that those people who had put their signatures under the agreement with the opposition would make some attempt, with a view to settling this conflict by civilized, democratic, legal means. But it never happened. It became evident that if he was taken by these people he would simply be killed by them. And, afterwards, he found himself in Russia. Everything can be perverted or distorted, millions of people can be deceived if you have a monopoly on the media. But in the end, I believe for an objective and impartial spectator it’s clear what happened. A coup d’état had taken place. All right, if this coup d’état had made some positive changes … but, on the contrary, the situation deteriorated even further. Ukraine lost territory, not due to Russia’s actions, but due to the choice made by those who are live in Crimea. These people didn’t want to live under the banner of nationalists. A civil war erupted in the southeastern part of Ukraine, in the Donbass. After that, the country witnessed a terrible drop in the GDP. The largest industrial enterprises shut down. Unemployment soared. The real income of the population, their salaries, plunged, inflation hit 45 or 47 percent. And no one knew how to address these issues, or that this would be further exacerbated by an internal political crisis, by a fight between the Prime Minister and the President. In the end, it led to Prime Minister Yatsenyuk resigning. He had actively supported, and had been supported by, the American administration throughout the crises. And what happened next? The European Union opened its borders to Ukraine. It zeroed out the tariff for Ukrainian goods. But Ukraine’s trade with the European Union decreased by 23 percent, and with Russia it decreased by 50 percent. Ukrainian industrial output is not in high demand in European markets and now they have no access to the Russian market. The agricultural produce that used to be traded successfully in Western Europe is restricted by quotas. And these quotas were introduced by the Europeans. They were exhausted during the first two months after the signing of the agreement. Right now Ukraine is fighting to get a visa-free arrangement for its citizens. Do you know why they are doing that? So they could ensure free exit from the country to find new jobs outside of the country. But the people are once again being tricked, because even if a visa-free deal were granted to Ukraine, that would not enable them to work abroad.
