Dr Yuri fortinsky is a prominent author historian and journalist and expert on Russia and the forat Soviet Union he has appeared in hundreds of Print TV and radio interviews worldwide and is widely known as co-author of the book blowing up Russia with Alexander liena a former lieutenant colonel in the FSB who was poisoned with Radioactive bonium in London in 2006 his latest book blowing up Ukraine the return of Russian Terror and the threat of World War II was researched before the invasion of U
kraine but is one of the first comprehensive investigations into the lethal meth methods Russia used since 1999 to take over Ukraine and of course we are talking today in the wake of another huge terrorist atrocity in Russia and as ever things do not uh turn out perhaps as simple as they seem on the surface we're going to be diving into what we know so far about that event welcome to Silicon curtain podcast please like subscribe and definitely comment on the videos to help people discover the in
credible speakers and their insights um yorri I'm delighted to welcome you back to the channel because you you've been on a couple of times and if people enjoy this interview then I advise them very strongly to look at the other interviews and of course to check out your books which are extraordinarily insightful thank you well let's start with the terror act I mean we've got lots of stuff going on and and some of it may actually be connected with this things like the elections and the death and
nalian Som we come to those in a minute let's start with similar Terror acts and there's a universal question we have to ask if you look at Bean or the atrocity at North OST the theater that happened uh in the uh early 2000s the key question always is is it incompetence on behalf of the security forces that that these events you know reach such a terrible scale of tragedy or is it intentional that seems to be a Common Thread of discussion well this is a question of course for which uh we are lo
oking for an answer it's probably too early to come to conclusions uh what we know at this point that on 7th of March the US uh government or officials uh basically War warned the the FSB that uh a terrorist act probably might be happening in mos in the near future uh of course after this uh Putin uh gave a speech to the collegium of the FSB this is is kind of Po of the ruling structure right the Communist Party had pober the the FSB has collegium it's an old structure it was created in 1918 by
Felix drinski uh we do not really know about this structure too too much we we know who who is included but we do not know what they discuss so basically Putin was saying that this is a provocation and this is the attempt of the United States to you know destruct uh people's uh focus on elections Etc and we should ignore it I think after 24 years of puting in power uh people around him know that if you're are incompetent you would survive but if you are not loyal uh you will be forced out so I d
o not think that after again 24 years well 25th year in power somebody would question Putin's opinion and if he said that this provocation and we shouldn't pay attention to this I think no one paid attention to this and then as we know the terrorist act took place now it took place in a place where uh Trump organized his Miss Universe uh event in 2013 so it's a well-known place outside mosow uh you're not able to to you know to have a terrorist to to have an operation there to organize terrorist
act there if you are not local this is impossible so the statements which we have from the Russian government so far that all people who were arrested in connections to the terrorist act foreigners uh is mid misleading they are probably foreigners but they might be in places in from countries like Tajikistan usbekistan you know former Soviet republics so they are foreigners technically speaking but um if you plan to have a terrorist attack uh in crocus City Hall you have to know Moscow you have
to know that particular building so uh the the help probably was organized from inside uh we we were named several people who seems to be again people from former Asian Soviet republics meaning they're not Russian they they're definitely not ukrainians so the attempt of the Russian government to to start to claim that Ukraine has something to do with this uh is is a fiction Ukraine has nothing to do with this and if well if ukrainians would organize this kind of operation they probably would at
tack a tanina or some you know other buildings in in Moscow like Ministry of defense or Luan building so this are no this had nothing to do with ukrainians of course uh now the question is if the FSB was involved in preparation of this uh terrorist attack uh again this happened before this happened uh prior to the first chesan war and then how the first chesan war was you know announced and started claiming that chin were chin were involved in Terrorist acts in Moscow in 1994 that's how the seco
nd chesing war was started it started with terrorist acts uh of September 99 in Russia and uh after this of course Putin announced the second Chan War uh and came to power as the president on the wave of this kind of patriotism or whatever the the unity of Russian people behind the government and I I think by by now it's clear to everybody that churchs had nothing to do with those terrorist acts of September of 99 and indeed this was the FSB which was behind and uh again there are some we wrote
a book with Alexandra Len about this but this is not the main argument and the main you know main proof that this was done by the FSB the main proof that this was done by the FSB was presented by FSB itself uh because CH were not involved in that terrorist attack even if you trust fsb's conclusion even according to their investigations CH were not involved not a single CH was involved and then of course the was started the day when two uh FSB operatives were caught a red hand in resign uh with t
he attempt to blow up a building another apartment building uh in in resign so I think we have enough proof to claim that this CH second CH war was started after the you know Terr conducted by the FSB but what I'm saying is this it's too early to say it's too early to claim we have to see how the Russian government would use if they plan to do this this terrorist uh attack uh uh in their own interest for example if we will see in the near future like a week from now two weeks from now an attempt
of the Russian Parliament to uh introduce a sentence for terrorism then we would know like 100% we would know that this was done by the Russian government in order to return death penalty because there were several statements by Dmitri mid former president and former prime minister in his telegram Channel where he basically saying that the fact that Russia doesn't have death caly prevents the and fight fight you know successfully against enemies uh both local domestic and foreign so if we see s
omething like this this would be an indication for us that the terrorist attack probably was organized by the FSB uh if if we see that the group of people involved uh might be huge and might include some Russian you know names right or uh then uh there is a possibility again that this was done either by the FSB or by some extremist within military structures or State security structures who who would like to well to wake up Russians living in Moscow because you see the irony is that Russia is in
volved in a war which is very expensive in terms of life as well uh by all by all calculations uh you know we're talking about hundreds of thousands people killed and Moscow is kind of artificially left aside and lives normal life and when when you talk to mosites they basically explain you that nothing is happening they do not feel this war they're not part of this war and it's not by chance until uh yesterday morning I believe uh it was uh prohibited to call this Invasion a war uh I I think uh
just now discov for the first time use the war describing what's happening in in Ukraine right so but Russians are contining to go to concerts to to go to restaurants to go to to visit exhibitions as if nothing is happening so this is a way up call for Moscow as well of course and I'm sure that now a lot of people in Moscow understand finally that that well something is going on around right that it's it's not business as usual but but again it's too early to say whether this is Isis or not bec
ause it's it doesn't look like a typical Isis operation because in a typical Isis operation teres do not really think about surviving during the attack they are mainly thinking about killing more and more and more and more people and in this case we obviously see terrorists who are not you know trained enough who are trying to to escape who are living the place even before they they you know end to kill as many people as they could uh so everything is possible I guess Al the Isis never I believe
never organized operations in places like Russia there are still questions how those people obtain automatic weapons because it's not very simple in today's mosc which is you know which exist in in a format of War still right and taking into account that Americans you know warned them about possibility of the terrorist acts it's it's difficult to believe that this was organized from abroad it was not it was not uh so we have to see how many locals were involved and what kind of locals this are
but but mainly we have to see if the government would try to use it this is why yeah this is why the timing of the terror act uh if if if there indeed is intentional timing behind it and we don't know uh if it's planned or not it's probably going to become clear uh through more details but also the reaction of the regime to it is it possible that this could be used as a kind of rag moment a moment which allows Putin to escalate uh even further than he already has the kind of violence and aggress
ion that he's injecting out into Ukraine and possibly into into other places whether or not he had involvement in the planning execution and the timing of it it is nonetheless something that can be utilized um especially coming after the election it would have been perhaps be been far more damaging during or before the election um it's happened after the election and it's happened to the point where it's being acknowledged this is a war and where it's quite clear that if Russia is going to make
any kind of further gains it is going to need to mobilize on a substantial scale not just the economy that's already mobilized for war but as you say gather a lot more Cannon meat or fodder to move forward well first of all uh you you're you're correct I I I think if this would be if this this would be traditional terrorist act organized by terrorist whatever with certain political goals of course this would be uh happening either during the elections or before the elections because then you act
ually obviously trying to you know to to damage Russian stability prior to elections of Putin when we do this after elections it's kind of too too too late it doesn't make any sense but uh is we we are going to see and I think we will see it very very soon uh if the Russian government would try to use these terrorist acts for for certain uh political or or practical uh objections to mobilization of the Army is a serious matter uh ukrainians are struggling uh now in a situation when Americans sto
pped uh assistance unfortunately and uh it doesn't look that Biden would be able to break uh this situation and to to to change it and to to you know to come with assistance I think Republicans who are operating under Trump instructions uh which I'm seriously saying this by the way absolutely which I'm sure came from Kremlin came from Putin to Trump and I think this was one of the reasons that Carson went to Moscow to conduct interview from Putin and I think this is one of the reason uh Victor O
rban visited Trump uh recently this way this was a way uh to to have this conversation between Putin and Trump which is probably not very easy to do uh now under all this attention which is paid by by media to to B Trump and and Putin uh so um if there's no American help uh ukrainians will be in in difficult situation and if Russia would be able to mobilize additional 100,000 troops again you you need to train them you need to equip them it's not so easy it's not so quick this are not this is no
t going to be 100,000 of profession well trained troops but nevertheless uh uh they have so far probably 600,000 people fighting in Ukraine so this additional 100,000 still is is a lot um ukrainians will be under pressure and uh what what Putin is saying is if you remember what Putin was saying during his interview with uh Carlson that if uh the West stops the assistance to Ukraine he will take it within you know within several weeks uh I I do not of course think that that's how it's going to be
but what important is that Putin believes that if it's not for uh assistance uh then Ukraine will be taken you know within weeks that's why it's important for him to stop this assist by any means that's why he's frightening Europe and the world with nuclear strikes that's why he's uh you know asking Trump to stop this assistance by any means Because he believes that this is the key to his uh Victory and if he is victorious in Ukraine then again his uh his mind uh tells him that well if the West
loses Ukraine then of course all other countries will surrender without fight because now they would know that it's impossible to fight against the Russian Federation which is ready to fight forever if it's necessary so that's the that's what the problem uh is and um and and unfortunately I I do not uh I do not see any you you know light at the end of tunnel uh at least in the near future I I I believe that at the end uh Russia will widen the front and they will try of course through a Desa to
get to malova uh to to have a similar war in malova and malova of course is much weaker than than Ukraine uh I even was thinking that probably the the easiest way to avoid Russian invasion into malova is for mova to unify it with Romania because for those people who who doesn't know this is this is the same language the same people the same country it just kind of artificially was divided into two uh but uh but if mova would find the way to un ify with Romania then they will become automatically
members of NATO as a part of Romania and this probably would prevent the War uh but but again for this you need a very uh quick and tough political decisions you probably would have to conduct referendums in mova referendums in Romania you know I mean Europe should be forid the United States should not oppose but but this is the way uh you know this is the way uh to prevent a war because look looking back looking back at the at the history of the Second World War you know historians usually fin
d several beautiful ways to stop it right in time and the same could be said about the the invasion of 22 uh in Ukraine into Ukraine there were ways to stop that war before it started but um and it seems to be very simple usually when you when we look at this as historians so so the the the to prevent a war of Russian Federation war against malova is a kind of simple but it's an unconventional way to deal with it um but but that's the the the time I believe the time changed after 24th of Februar
y 22 we we started to live in different world and we we have to understand this and we have to uh to behave differently and uh marron's uh Evolution from a person who was calling to Putin every other day when the war started asking him to to stop the war right to to to find other ways to talk to the ukrainians to you know to when he was macron was hoping probably that Ukraine would agree to capitulate or to give part of territories to avoid the war right uh to uh for him now to say that he's thi
nking about sending NATO troops into Ukraine I mean it's it's a long road it's a long road but this an indication for was uh that uh 24th of February 22 uh changed many things for Europe and uh we we need to do everything we we have uh to stop another war in Europe because we we know that both Wars in Europe first and second one were absolutely devastating for for for Europe as for continent and and we have to stop it and we still have to we still have chance to stop it right but for this we hav
e to uh to to make very extraordinary decisions you know to think out of box and uh we we have to do it we have no choice otherwise we will have a full scale war in the near future and already we see Putin uh trying to point the finger towards Ukraine although some of the evidence coming out and the apparent admission by ISIS K that it was their strike their Fighters Etc seems to uncut that message of Putin this is this is potentially interesting isn't it because we always think of Putin's regim
e as a as an absolute vertical with him controlling everything that goes on and being in some ways omnicient and pulling all of the strings and of course it is a kind of vertical hierarchy but at the same time it has been argued that Putin is often very slow to make decisions he's cautious in some ways um even in the lengthy war in Don Bas there were people urging him to throw more resources and more scale at the problem and to an extent he outsourced war and Terror um to girkin and his forces a
nd didn't fully commit and he has been described sometimes as being fairly indecisive rather than the sort of strong leader is is there at all the possibility that if this was not a so-called sort of organic genuine terror attack then it may be a way of putting pressure on Putin to go for the full mobilization to go for full War which is something he has visibly avoided doing in two years of the fullscale military operation well this is already what's happening right so uh again we do not know i
f there is a direct connection with the terrorist act or not but number one pesov uh named the aggression in Ukraine a war uh number two it was announced that Russia would need additional 100,000 people uh mobilized uh for for the war in in Ukraine so uh it's uh it's a lot I mean 100,000 people is a lot it's a lot for Russia and for Russian economy because last time when it was announced that Russia would mobilize 300,000 people initially to for the war in Ukraine uh not only those 300,000 peopl
e of course were mobilized but additional 300,000 people or maybe more left the country to avoid the draft uh we should expect something similar now uh especially because MOS stopped to be a safe town you see uh the Russian government purposely uh doesn't draft uh people from MOS from s Peterburg uh because they do not want these two cities you know to feel the war and if you start to draft people from those cities and bodies are coming back then people in MOS St pet start to feel the War uh I d
o not know if this would still continue this uh tactics maybe they still would avoid to draft young people from Moscow but but the fact that MOS just you know witness a terrorist attack and a very blendy one uh indicate that mosc is not a safe City anymore so what I'm saying that in addition to 100,000 people from there would try to draft uh we probably will see another 100,000 people immigrating from Russia because the border is still open now these are people these are young men who are taken
from the Russian economy and Russian economy as we know is working 24 hours 7 days a week to support the war so this this probably this might be noticed by by by population by country by economy this is not going to be a free walk uh so it's it seems to be that after elections Putin is going to to apply more pressure for for the population right to you know to to to to support the his War activity and his War policy um he doesn't he doesn't fight for popularity he doesn't care he really doesn't
care how many people are killed and historically unfortunately Russia is usually losing in in any War more than any other participant and usually we are talking about Millions Putin is not there yet so he has still you know a a road to follow uh following like Stalin for example if if this is his ideal and probably is but um but it's questionable if uh if Russia would be able to hold uh this increase of uh pressure uh we will we will see of course we will see it's I'm skeptical about the uh abil
ity of uh Russia to change the regime uh you know through internal opposition or internal Uprising I do not think that's what we are going to witness I think all those people who who are against the regime actually left the because that's what you know that's what probably practical approach should dictate you to do because it make no sense to fight against futin because you may fight with him only with weapons in your hands and look what happened with Naval who was you know trying to fight with
the regime peacefully and uh and weapons of course are only in hands of uh three structures uh you know the FSB the the so-called Ross guia and that's another structure created by Putin like his personal guards and and the Army but Army traditionally doesn't play any politics in in in Russia and the FSB of course is under Putin's control so there are no forces um in Russia to oppose Putin he knows this that's how they will you know building this since 2000 so the reality is that there is no opp
osition and they may do whatever they want and unfortunately what they want is to have this permanent war against the west and that's what they plan to do they they're not going to stop they're not going to change they they going to proceed with the speed which is allowed by by events again when they invaded Ukraine in February of 22 the plan was that Ukraine will be taken or capitulate in in a week or two and then Russia would proceed further in malova and then to the Baltic states but as we kn
ow ukrainians are holding for for more than two years now and the speed with which Russia is preceding the invasion of course is much much slower than it was expected but instead of changing the goals of the foreign policy for the Russian Federation they basic they not changes those and they just are changing the the tactics that well then instead of Blitz Creek we are going to have permanent War but we will win at the end or if not we will kill everybody because we are nuclear power and then if
we are not able to win we just destroy everybody so that this is the approach and this is the approach which is kind of um proclaimed To Us by both uh Vladimir Putin and Mitri mvv who is very outspoken in in his telegram Channel and I actually ask everybody who would like to understand what Russia is thinking about the rest of the world to read those texts they they extremely cruel but very useful for understanding um so this is a serious war and so it's it's not by chance pcco finally agreed t
o call it a war uh this is a war and I think the I think the the open full scale war between NATO and Russia is inevitable unless and I do not think that that's what going to happen unless US government would change strategy strategy immediately and instead of um instead of uh having as a strategy situation when Russia is not losing the war and Ukraine is not winning the war would change it to Ukraine winning the war and Russia is losing the war all you need uh for this is to give ukrainians wea
pons and permission to strike against the Russian Federation including Moscow and then this war would be WN very very quickly otherwise we are risking a full scale open confrontation between NATO and the Russian Federation in the near future now 25 26 well there are so many questions that come from that I think we'll tackle panar of and the um the nonvegetarian approach to tackling Putin if we characterize naval's peaceful approach based on uh dreams almost romanticism of a future Russia we have
P Marv and other forces who are one would assume under the control of uh of Ukraine um making incursions into ksk and bilg oralists um and it seems to me that this makes the US extremely uncomfortable and yet these incursions are potentially one of the few ways in which it could persuade perhaps PU 's regime that the the risks of this war are raising on their side um while the war is being fought on Ukrainian territory um is it not the case that there is really no risk whatsoever to Russian sta
tehood to the vertical structure to the syvia key to Putin himself it's only by taking the fight to Russia on its territory and significantly harming its economy that you might Force any kind of rethink uh this is true of course entirely true and again at this point uh ukrainians not only they not getting from from uh Europe and the United States everything they would like to have but in addition to this they not uh allowed to use uh foreign weapons uh even machine guns in their operations condu
cted against the Russian Federation uh they are allowed to strike against their own uh territory occupied by Russia this is allowed and this is kind of I mean this would be a joke uh but unfortunately we are talking about a very serious situation so they allowed to strike against um black U Russian black uh sea Fleet they are allowed to strike against uh Crimea but not against the Russian Federation so uh the uh the atts of uh Russian Uh Russian anti-putin forces to invade the Russian Federation
uh from Ukraine there is nothing wrong with those uh attempts and I mean it's a good thing to do uh except that they do not they're not too powerful they do not have enough troops for very serious military operations and again unfortunate since Russia is a country of one city Moscow Putin really doesn't care about K or belr so what's important is mosow and and and this is so so the the the ukrainians of course should concentrate uh on on their ability to strike against Moscow and the situation
when Russia is striking regular against Kev and other major cities of Ukraine but but against K as well and Ukraine is not allowed to touch Moscow this is a ridiculous situation there is no way you're going to win a war without striking uh the territory of Russian Federation and mainly again MOS because as I said Putin doesn't care about KK and about belg and he doesn't care about Russia Russians every everything in Russia is concentrated in MOS everything all businesses are there all all money
is there the richest people are there politicians are there the ruling class is there I mean it's mosow only nothing else so that's that's what you should do you should strike against the Moscow if you plan to win the war if you do not plan to win the war and plan to continue business like it was done for the last two years I guess in a certain way it's it's it's fine from European point of view or especially from American point of view because Americans are uh very far away except except that w
e we Ukraine is a much smaller country than Russia and unlike Russia Ukraine cares about people which is losing in the war and the the amount of those people in is not Unlimited in Russia in a certain way it's Unlimited in Ukraine it is not and uh Ukraine speci basically is not able to conduct this war as a permanent War unlike Russia which you rebuilt its economy and at this point is able to contact this war Forever both from economic point of view from the point of view of weapons from the poi
nt of view on Manpower and psychology because as again as mid claimed in one of his text if we need dozens of years to to destroy Ukraine we will fight dozens of years but we will destroy Ukraine so this is not of course the Ukrainian approach and it shouldn't be and then uh the if if if Europe loses Ukraine as a barrier which prevents Russian invasion then the situation would become worse for Europe not not better and then in addition to everything we have of course elections in the United Stat
es which are coming in November and we still do not understand who might be the president and if this President is Donald Trump we know what's going to happen on 21st of January January 25 uh he withdrew the United States from European affs not just from assistance to Ukraine uh this would be uh you know a terrible decision but but Ukraine would survive this and Europe would survive this he would withdraw the United States from European in FS period and then uh the nuclear balance in Europe will
be destroyed because Americans you know Europe would lose an American nuclear umbrella and then having nuclear weapons in belus becomes a very risky uh situation because then uh Putin would I think inclined to stri with nuclear weapons from Belarus uh you know kind of conducting kind of hybrid War hybrid nuclear war in in Europe uh with understanding that no one would retaliate against Russia in this case and it's questionable if you may retaliate with nuclear weapons against Belarus because it
's a small country and radiation would you know go across the borders uh so that's that's what I think might be very risky situation so indeed taking into account that there is a chance that Trump would become a president I would prefer this war to be WN before 21st of January 25 but for this you have to give ukrainians weapons and permission to use it and I'm afraid this is not what's happening we'll come back to that a minute because dbass and crier are pable to Ukrainian victory and yet there
seems to be a certain issue with uh letting Ukraine uh take those back um but let's pick up that theme on losses because it seems as well to me that a lot of the thinking in Washington Berlin particularly is projecting a certain kind of geopolitical um rationality or our rationality which doesn't exist there is perhaps the assumption that if uh Russia and Ukraine are engaged in an attritional struggle at some point sense will prevail and Russia in some ways cares about the losses economic losse
s losses of Personnel in the way that that we might maybe it's slightly skewed but it seems the thinking is still to project our values onto Russia you're saying however that there perhaps is no limit to what Putin is prepared to waste and annihilate in order order to get his aims and this is perhaps a fundamental misreading of the mindset of the Kremlin and those surrounding Putin by the Western powers and probably the main one you see everybody was thinking or hoping that as soon as Russia wou
ld understand that Ukraine is not going to surrender that Ukraine is going to fight that this decision is very you know know serious and Russia is looking for full scale War again Putin would change this strategy and say all right guys okay you do not want to surrender well let's talk about something else right but that's not what happened and uh you know Stalin Stalin was losing in all wars which he conducted and he conducted many Wars including of course was is the second world war as well uh
Stalin was losing millions of people millions of Russian people and according to public opinion polls in in the Soviet Union and in post Soviet uh Russia he is one of the most popular politicians because uh what what uh counts in Russia not how many people you killed or how many people you know were killed but uh how many victories uh you achieved and uh that's what Putin I think uh believes that it's not really important how many people are killed and that Russians uh indeed do not really care
if they killed or not and traditionally Russian life is very cheap almost cost nothing uh but what's important is uh if you are bringing new territories and become and you know helping Russia to become an Empire and uh this was so by the way the the idea that Russia should be an Empire that Russia should exist as an Empire uh this was easily so to to public and uh you will not find too many Russians uh including those who are against Putin and against war in Ukraine who would tell you that that
they do not believe an Empire that they do not really believe that Russia has to exist as an Empire I mean these are nice people educated people they do not want to have a war but uh but openly or deep inside they still believe that there is nothing wrong for Russia to exist as an Empire while for everybody else uh it's a wrong approach and and I I will give you an example I mean not an example but what's actually is happening when Putin is saying that the collapse of the Soviet Union is geopoli
tical catastrophe and a major tragedy for for Russians and they that Russia has to exist as an Empire everybody is considering this I mean it's not that everybody's happy about this but everybody is considering this I mean well do Russia has this claim to to have Ukraine I mean they they had it for for some centuries I mean maybe there is something here right maybe some other republics actually should should belong to the Russian Republic because they they always were I mean we are discussing th
is as if this is a normal claim let's say for the sake of the argument that a king of Britain would say tomorrow that the collapse of the British Empire is a major geopolitical catastrophe and tragedy for for the British people and he would like actually to re you know rebuild the Empire to return to Empire status what would be reaction for this in the Great Britain and outside what if what if erdogan tomorrow would say that the collapse of the Ottoman Empire uh was a major geopolitical catastro
phe for Turkish people and he would like you know to rebuild his Empire we would think that this ridiculous but when Putin is saying this we are discussing it as if this is a normal claim so this is the problem which is not just Russian it's also a problem of of the the the other world right other countries looking at Russia as if it has the right uh to to claim what other countries are not allowed to claim basically right and uh so partially in what's happening uh the the the you know civilized
world is guilty as well because in 2006 during uh economic uh conference in St peterb where all heads of the states in in well major States at least of Eur were present uh Putin actually said that they would like to have Belarus and Ukraine back and and not a single voice uh you know was raised against this statement then in 2007 of course in Munich Putin basically was saying that he's unhappy with the United States trying to build uh you know one polar world uh and Russia actually would like t
o to to have a multipolar world indeed it's all the opposite the United States uh is building multipolar world where all you know different regimes and different kind of governments exist while Russia is trying uh to to have of course everybody under Russia's uh control so so that's how it started it starts with with claims it start with the ideology is it starts with rhetoric but then this rhetoric becomes reality and then Russia tries to invade Georgia in 2008 and basically no one one is oppos
ing and then it takes Crimea and again no one is opposing and then of course it starts a full scale full scale Invasion into Ukraine now for the first time since 2002 of course uh there is a real opposition to what Russia is doing um but but again appro unfortunately we are talking about unique situation when for the first time in history a major State uh nuclear State uh is controlled by the state security not by political parties not by monarchs or dictators but by State security as the instit
ution and these people were you know formed in 1917 in December of 1917 uh in order to to you know to kill in order to to take in order to fight and that's what they are trying to do and that's what they are doing without any political control in the Soviet Union KB was existed as well of course this was similar the same you know kind of structure uh but but it had political control in a form of Communist party this was not the best political party in the world world of course but at least they
had this conception of uh peaceful coexistence with the West unlike the the KB uh which is now the FB has new conception formulated by Putin that Russia could win a nuclear war and this is completely opposite to the theory of peaceful coexistence which secured the world well until recently I would say uh so that's that's what the problem is that we are dealing we are dealing not with a with political parties which are ruling Russia not with normal government which is ruling Russia we are dealing
with the FSB and it's not by chance that Putin mentioned twice in in two documentaries one was made well by his old of course about the invasion of 2014 and he was saying that the decision to invade was taken by three uh Chiefs of the FSB Putin as former uh director of the FSB partnerhip as former director of SB and bortnikov the current director of SB of the FSB and the decision to invade in 22 was made by same three people Putin by MIP in bortnik so these are people who rule Russia and this i
s not the Russian Parliament which basically doesn't exist this is not the cabinet of ministers which which is just a technical help but but three trium verat uh from three uh directors of stb and uh these people are trained to to kill they are not trained to to negotiate they're also trained to lie one of the questions that I wanted to ask is one of the features of not just Russian propaganda but public figures Public Communication that behavior is then copied down through you know the Z Pat an
d so on but is's almost a pathological need to lie continuously and lie on a scale that gobbles would have been I think impressed at what is the source of this use of vano or lies as an instrument of coercion aggression well we are talking about a country uh which uh and I do not really want to to go too much into history but we're talking about a country which was absolute monarchy until 1917 uh Communist dictatorship until 1991 had very short and very very troubled period of attempts to become
part of Europe and to become democracy in a period between 91 and 99 and then became again h a dictatorship under the the FSB so the the uh Democratic period of Russia has a short history of nine years and even those nine years were not ideal and uh the freedom of press which existed in Russia probably existed between 1990 and 2000 uh from the day when Putin became president they started to shut down and to confiscate uh oppositionist newspapers and the first Empire which was unfriendly to to P
utin was uh Empire of Vladimir ginski who had his uh well-known Channel and TV with which was well respected and they shut it down then they started to close his newspapers etc etc uh in 2003 they arrested Michael kovski who posed himself as an independent businessman with the attempt to influence Russian politics and they ruined his company yukus uh you know they they just in the recent weeks by the way yukus won finally criminal case against well civil case I probably should say against the Ru
ssian Federation and now the Russian Federation is obliged by International Court to pay uh you know owners of ukas um $50 billion I I actually would like to see how this is going to happen but but anyway after 2003 even oligarchs stopped to exist in Russia they became just uh rich people on the condition that they allowed to be reach as long as they support the government so this is a very short history of freedom of democracy uh in Russia and and this is the answer to the question why it's ver
y easy to lie because that's how Russian people lived for generations and generations and generations and again taking into account that life is very cheap in Russia and Russians are very cynical because of this and they do not really expect to die of natural for natural reasons they expect that something would happen to them um that's why you see uh you know except for small percentage of people people who immigrated who are not happy with you know what's happening in Russia and choose to immig
rate but the entire country cannot immigrate this has never happened in in world's history so the majority of people of course either supporting what's going on or basically do not care right kind of neutral and uh that's why uh you have this Russian propaganda which is oneway Street there is no return connection right there is no really connection between a TV set which produces some information and listeners on the other end uh they do not care whether people believe them or not there is there
are no public opinion pools which you know collect information about this we do not really know how popular Putin is and he doesn't care if his popular not uh beyond the fact that it's officially said that he had like 87% of support what is ridiculous he couldn't I mean and that's more than the previous elections isn't it it's actually gone up with each election the prop it's going up and that I think what was happening you see after annexation of Crimea the the Russian uh State media was sayin
g that um 86% of Russian supported occupation of Crimea and I mean I do not know if this was 86 but it was true that the majority of Russians speaking about imperialism and the the uh you know the desire to become an Empire supported the occupation of crime especially because it was you know conducted without Bloodshed and without real war and just one person was killed uh so uh we we could believe that majority of Russians supported the occupation of Crimea but but those people who were thinkin
g uh what percentage they should uh you know right for Putin knew that they couldn't go below 86 because then the conclusion would be that Putin lost some votes because of War because of real war in Ukraine so they decided to go higher but just a little bit so you know people would kind of believe this and so they came with 87 Point whatever 2.4 but but you know but the problem is that in Russia uh by law the the Electoral computer which you know calculates the votes is controlled by the FSB thi
s is a joke but I mean this could be a joke but this is by law officially and they also introduced some time ago a uh remote voting system uh which would be great I mean in a places like Russ huge country where there are no roads sometimes and people would need to travel who knows where to to V to to be allowed to vote remotely this would be great except that in Russia uh this of course gives the government the opportunity to add to a favorite candidate uh those uh votes of those people who didn
't come to vote and that's precisely of course what's happening that's why uh the elections unlike any others not only they conducted them for three days instead of one day but they also of course claim that more people participated in this election than in any previous ones so it's it's a barely credible bar credible wow right wow complete victory for Putin of course but um uh but I guess it doesn't uh matter even for him whether this complete uh Victory or not uh uh what's important for him if
he would be able again to collect those 100, th people for for the fighting in in Ukraine and whether he would be able to continue with his War because he's not ready to stop and my last question is really um Center on that it's the lack of imagination the fact that we have um not just parted from our Imperial pasts we have perhaps forgotten the techniques that we used to coerce and control the populations that came within our Empires we we've moved on and forgotten what that was like and and w
hat we did and therefore it's difficult I think for us to imagine what Russia is capable of and difficult for us to uh understand the techniques even though they are relatively simple and they're repeated over and over if we are to stop Ukraine stop Russia and Ukraine I think it's perfectly possible uh we're not doing it because we fear they will escalate against us with nuclear weapons and so on but there are other scenarios uh for Russian Behavior one of those scenarios would be that if they a
re stopped from advancing in Ukraine well there are other territories that formed part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Empire and that is Central Asia Georgia Armenia and propagandists have been making ongoing threats to all of these places whenever they express any kind of independence from Moscow whenever they use their native languages um as opposed to to Russ and exert their cultural identity they get extraordinary threats made against them the aggression of Moscow won't go away I don't
think we appreciate that but that aggression could be directed at other places if we push it back from the frontiers of Europe do you think this is a risk and should we be imagining should we try to imagine all scenarios well no I think it's actually the the opposite you see the only problem with Russia there are a lot of people usually when when we have conferences right or discussions the question is what's wrong with Russia actually nothing is wrong with Russia and nothing is wrong with Russ
ians except that Russia has to stop about itself as if it has at must to exist as an Empire this is the only problem with Russia everything else would work perfectly Russians just have to stop to believe that Russia should exist as an Empire and that Russians are are very special if I mean if and you can just should not couldn't compare them with other nations or other countries because it's ridiculous because Russians are great while all other people are not and uh this is a sincere belief whic
h which you see every time to you start to talk to to Russians and uh even some opposition Russians I mean let's face it exception even even educational educated Russians even these who who do not believe in war and uh to those who hate Putin but uh still they would have difficulty is if you ask them if you know Russian and Chan are equal and and say well or or a t or a Ukrainian or a belarussian or any other Nation actually uh you probably will hear the same answer if you ask them if uh Russian
and Englishmen are equal probably not and the the argument which you will hear what is also very interesting uh that well look you know there is a great Russian culture you know Pushkin Lov tolto DKI chovsky brotski sjit and then you look at those people you know who are actually you know representing the the great Russian culture Pushkin was uh exiled punished and the killed uh you know during the duel lont was exiled uh punished and at the end killed uh during in a duel uh to story was excomm
unicated by the Russian Church uh doski was sentenced to death uh they went through kind of execution and at the end was not executed by sent Toto kka right to uh to to you know to to sa for for many years uh saniton was sent to concentration camps Z brotski was exiled chaikovsky actually was uh basically you you know uh killed because uh he was a gay and you know they he because of this he the society didn't accept him I mean every other you know bulgakov mik bulgakov was basically killed Manda
n was killed ahat and aat a Russian poet her husband another poet gumo was killed and her son was put in prison uh I mean you could take any person they survived and became part of the Russian culture not because of the Russian state or Soviet state but uh you know despite the uh attempts of the state to to to murder them and at the end many of them were killed so but that's what uh this is forgotten by those Russians who are arguing for great Russian culture and great Russian state and unfortun
ately they somehow think that the strongest is the state the better is for nation indeed this is a very questionable Theory generally speaking and in case of Russia this is completely wrong the weaker the state the better for people uh but but again that's not not how Russians are educated Russians are educated uh in in a way that what's what's good for the state is good for you uh again this goes against the basically the Western understanding of of of the life not necessarily what's good for y
ou is good for you and the state has nothing actually to do with this uh the state is the state and your life is your life but but that's what's wrong with Russia Russians has to accept the fact that a period of Imperial period is over I mean it was over in 1918 but it definitely was over in 1991 and they they should forget about imperialism and should think about the self as a just another you know European or Asian European uh Nation then everything would become normal in Russia but uh unfortu
nately as we know from uh the lessons of the second World War uh looking at Germany looking at Japan in order to change uh you have to be defeated in the war and this this defeat will come that's what's happening now Russia started the war uh where Russia will be defeated the problem is that we do not know how long this war would continue and what the price of this defeat is going to be for both Russia and the world this is still an open question but I'm slightly uh well nous about our future an
d of course it requires people to accept not only they defeated but for the propagandists the medor infrastructure the leadership to accept that truth rather than to spin further lies I remember drinking beer on the roof of En in 1990 with some friends and Russians and you know the question that came up is um does this country know it's lost the Cold War and we came to the conclusion back then that no it hadn't accepted that it had lost it hadn't accepted that that was over and I think it was qu
ite clear you know even before that liberal period set in that there was no such conception of Empire there was deep regret and Nostalgia for various territories uh that have been lost Eastern Europe the baltics and so on there was a high degree of resentment but no concept whatsoever that the core of the Russian Empire um uh had ceased to to to have meaning um and here we are however many years later oh precisely and also again we're talking about lessons of history or mistakes which were made
uh the the one obvious mistake uh well this was an obvious mistake but I do not want to sound uh as a person who claims that this was easy to do uh the the crimes committed by Communist party was never actually you you know discussed by by by the nation the crimes committed by the tgb was never discussed by the nation and that's why uh the Communists of course did not uh survive the the 1991 collabs but the FSB did and uh this is one of the this is the price we are paying now uh for not um you k
now not uh sentencing uh both the Communist party and the KGB for crimes committed Against Humanity During the period of 1917 to 1991 um but uh but again I do not want to say that this was easy to do this was not because the FSB uh the former KGB was in many ways in control all those years uh despite of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and uh and again uh they came back as we know very quickly and took power very quickly and historically you know this is democratic Crush existed for 9 ye
ars which is nothing right and in 2000 it was already under the control of the FSB but uh but that's what should be done and uh will it take time yes it will take time and I think we know how long we think we know how long it it took Europe to Pardon Germany for crimes committed during the second world war and I I would say that it took probably 70 to 80 years and I expect something similar to happen after this the the end of this war because you know ukrainians probably would never uh you know
pardon Russia for what Russia done and probably all those people who leave in both Russia and Ukraine would have to to be gone first and only new generations would start look differently at Russia and this probably would relate to to Europe especially if this war widens and if Russia would try to uh to attempt to invade other countries what what I think is very possible and Jans just published reports they expect this Invasion to take place in 25 uh prior to this announcement about a new 100,000
people I was thinking that Russia would not have troops for this Invasion but maybe this new 100,000 is going to be dedicated to to to fight against other European nations so we we will see but it it doesn't look it doesn't look too too bright for us it doesn't look uh very the future doesn't look peaceful and and once again I think uh Europe uh has to be ready for war we would be able to avoid it this would be great but I'm not convinced that this is possible because uh it's the aggress aggres
sor who actually decides to attack and to invade and there is nothing what you could do against this we we couldn't do anything in case of invasion of Ukraine in 22 I mean we probably could but we didn't and I do not know how much we could do to stop Putin from further invasions if he plans to to have some and the very last thought on that again it's a faure I think of our imagination because we try to look for patterns in history and because we don't see those exact same patterns we don't see t
he warning or threat um so because Russia isn't behaving exactly like Stalin's Russia or like the Third Reich um because it's following a different course of events we perhaps don't see the scale of the threat one of those of course is the gulag and it seems to me that the FSB has reestablished the gag but because it is not in the tradition place where it is in Siberia it's not on that same scale they've established the the the gulag in donbas they've outsourced it as part of the SV the special
operation and the scale of torture impunity illegality is all there on the territory of dbas and of course it's you know if they want to Exile people to their deaths um people who uh support navali went to lay flowers on the svet K stone or or do something you know more demonstrable than that they've got a very easy Gulag to send them to and that is to the special military operation where they will not survive and come back from uh again I think we fail to recognize this process of Terror that i
s uh that is unfolding well uh we uh we also have difficulties to imagine that something irrational is going to happen right uh let's put it this way in 2013 not too many people would expect that Russia would invade Crimea if 2021 not too many people were expecting that Russia would start a fullscale nuclear war we probably could say the same about the second world war not too many people were expecting in 1938 that Germany would start the second world war as a result which UH 60 million people
will end de uh so our expectations are usually much uh less uh dramatic than the reality it's probably normal for for people but um but it doesn't uh really help us uh Soviet Union exists in the format of closed borders uh and without market economy uh the the Stalin of course was killing people by millions uh today's Russia exists uh with open borders with market economy now uh this uh allows those Russians who unhappier let put it this way uh to immigrate from from Russia to some other countri
es and by the way when you travel uh in in now you you see those Russians there are a lot of them and this is the main language uh except the native one in basically every country you know in in in Georgia in in Lithuania in Poland kakan Pakistan anyway Mongolia and this is of course an indication that a lot of people were unhappy with what Putin is doing but but this doesn't uh but this allowed allows Putin to exist uh and conduct his activity without major Terror because if the border is close
d and if all those people who who are against him if they inside the Russian Federation then of course uh you have a comparatively large uh you know oppositionist movement in in Russia and probably the government would be forced of course to to you know to apply Terror to those people arrest them put them in prison there is no death penalty so you cannot execute them so you have to hold them somewhere and uh I I I think the decision was uh made by by Kremlin that it's actually safer for them for
the regime to keep the open border open so since uh the entire country could not immigrate then of course only those people who are fine with with what's happening are left in in Russia and those who are not happy and those who are in a position there are not too many of them and so course you you always could put in prisons and and we see this like several thousand people probably who were arrested and are in prison for their political uh sorts and and activity but uh but again that's that's t
his is a format in which Russia uh seems to be could exist uh forever uh because again there is no there are no internal forces which could change the regime and uh and people who are uh in charge of Russia you know they they they're not they're not going to give power away I mean this is not going to happen it's not that at one particular Point Putin would say all right fine I he's not Fran in other words uh this is not this is not a case of clever dictatorship right or or educated to Monarch r
ight uh he Lieutenant Colonel of the FSB who just happened to be president of Russia and and happened to hold this position for quarter of the century but he's still Elon colel of be nothing nothing more and we intend to forget this we we think that he is like oh well great Putin he's not great Putin he's the of the Y thank you so much for speaking to the channel it's always extremely thrilling and compelling and obviously uh dark and terrifying at the same time I think your insights are incredi
bly important at this moment in history and I hope some decision makers hear your voice and others like yours um and uh alter their strategy before uh it's too late thank you so much for coming on the CH thank you for your time brilliant
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