Oliver Stone - The Putin Interviews

OS:Well, you have the “propaganda” law.

VP:There is a law that prohibits propaganda about homosexuality among minors. And the reason behind this law is to provide children with an opportunity to grow up without impacting their consciousness. A child, or juvenile adolescent cannot make a decision of their own, and unless you’re not trying to exert any pressure over him or her, and once he or she grows up, they can make any decision as to how they are going to organize their life, including their sexual lives. And once they become adults at 18, there are no restrictions whatsoever.

OS:I believe you. But there is a tradition, a macho tradition in Russia—a strong one. I mean, I don’t know if any of these guys would say if he had been gay all this time, in-the-closet so to speak, would come out and reveal it openly to his teammates? I don’t think so.

VP:Well, to a certain extent you might be right. But in Russia we still don’t have a situation like they have in certain Islamic states where there is the death penalty threatening homosexuals. In Russia, our society is liberal-minded to a great extent, and if someone were to declare that they are homosexual, that wouldn’t be a tragedy. Sometimes I visit events where people who publicly declare that they’re homosexuals, these events are attended by such people and we communicate and have good relations.

OS:Is that true in the military as well?

VP:There’s no restriction.

OS:No restriction in the military? I mean, if you’re taking a shower in a submarine and you know he’s gay, do they have a problem with that?

VP:[laughs] Well, I prefer not to go to the shower with him. Why provoke him?

OS:Well, it’s a traditional thing about it. You know, it’s hard for some men to accept that the guy in the shower with his dick hanging out may have designs on me and all that stuff.

VP:But you know, I’m a Judo master so…

[laughter]

OS:Also, I noticed that lesbians are not—the Russians don’t care about female/female sex because the tradition again is that babies have to be vital and babies have to be born and man/woman is a natural, Biblical relationship and that gives the child the strength and the vigor to be a citizen of society. So there is no interest in the female who is not interested in being fertilized.

VP:That’s true indeed. We have this tradition. I’m not trying to offend anyone but we highly appreciate that these traditions exist, we hold them dear. And I can tell you this that, as head of state, today I believe it’s my duty to uphold traditional values and family values. And why? That is because same sex marriages will not produce any children. God has decided so and we have to care about birth rates, in our country we have care for the health of our citizens, for families. We have to reinforce families. This is a natural stance any authorities should take if they want to strengthen the country. But that doesn’t mean that there should be any persecutions against anyone and in Russia there are no persecutions.

OS:May I just point out that even in a society where there’s some malfunction there will be many orphans and some of those orphans could be adopted by same sex couples.

VP:Yes, that’s possible. I cannot say our society welcomes that, and I’m quite frank about that. Incidentally I’d like to draw attention to the fact that many who are homosexuals are themselves against the right to adopt children by same sex couples. Do you understand why that is happening? There is not the same position in all of the gay community that same sex couples should have to have the right to adopt children. A child, I believe, will have more freedom once they grow up if they are brought up in a traditional family. Then they have greater choice.

OS:Good point. As we draw to a close, I mean our time is limited. We are coming to a close this trip. I have one more day with you on Thursday. I’ve looked at all the footage and I have to ask you some questions again just to clarify. Because sometimes I was not so sure about the answer and I had to ask again. And I also had to raise some concerns that are raised by Foreign Affairs magazine which I consider—not mainstream, but more like the official government viewpoint. This is the Council on Foreign Relations, which is very powerful. They publish this and they have all these experts who come in and they write on their fields in Russia. So some of these questions are raised by them.

VP:Someone, you know, dreams and someone wants to think this about me. These are only dreams, something they want. But that is not the reality and those who write about that know about that.

OS:I understand. This is an official point of view and therefore it is listened to in Washington and this is what you have to deal with.

VP:You know, there are different people in Europe and the United States—different people with different opinions. There are people who look 25, 30 years forward, they think about challenges that will emerge in the future. And they have a different attitude towards Russia.

OS:I’m not going to argue that.

VP:And there are some who would live from election to election and they only think about their own self-serving political interests.

OS:You have to understand my next question—most Americans think that Russia is certainly as bad as the US when it comes to surveillance—as bad. That’s just an assumption. Because of the old KGB.

VP:We are not better than the United States because we do not have the capabilities the United States has at its disposal. If we had, we would probably be as good as you. [laughs]

OS:You’re serious about that? You don’t think you’re as good technically? I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about technically.

VP:The US has great funding for special services—we cannot afford that. And their technical equipment that’s been developed. You know, after the Soviet era, after complete authoritarianism in our country, we have certain dislike for special services if they have too much power. We don’t like that. And we have this internal repulsion and the authorities have to take that into account.

OS:Is Russia collecting any bulk communication in any form?

VP:No, and I can assure you of that.

OS:Everything is sort of targeted?

VP:Absolutely. Special services are working with a targeted approach, but we do not collect bulk communications with the subsequent selection. That’s not what’s happening.

OS:I’m just talking about collection. Not reading it, just collecting it. Just using all the phone systems and all the Internet.

VP:No, we’re not doing that on a mass basis. We don’t have this network.

OS:It’d be nice if you said to me, if you made the point and said to me: “Not only are we not doing it, but we have found a way to do selective targeting without picking up a mass like the US.” In other words technically we have solved that problem.

VP:No, this is not about the technical side of the issue. This is about operational maintenance. Our special services work based on who they consider a suspect, based on their connections. We are not trying to take bulk information to search for suspects.

OS:15 percent of the population is Islamic in Russia. [143] Background Information: See, “In Russia, how one mainly Muslim region beat back radicalism,” Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor (August 22, 2016). Retrieved at: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2016/0822/In-Russia-how-one-mainly-Muslim-region-beat-back-radicalism That’s what I’m told. And many of them are in Moscow, so you’re telling me that there is no bulk collection on Muslims.