Oliver Stone - The Putin Interviews

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.

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.