Oliver Stone - The Putin Interviews

VP:No, I can assure you of that 100 percent. Certainly there was violence at the end of the 1990s and beginning of 2000s due to the Chechen events. But on the whole, Russia was built as a multi-religious country. We have a certain culture of maintaining relationships between different religions. And this has been built for many centuries. The Chechen peoples, just as many other peoples of the former Soviet Union, suffered greatly during the Stalin persecutions. But they didn’t suffer as representatives of the Islamic world. They suffered for political reasons. As for conflicts between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. We’ve never had those. And this positive background is a great help to us. And besides, our Islamic community are all citizens of Russia. They have no other homeland. Russia is their motherland. They’re not migrants or migrant’s children.

OS:I’d like to go back to that right after this question. Can you tell me how much Russia spends on intelligence? The United States spends, this is published, $75 billion a year on intelligence of that $52 billion is civilian [144] Claim: “the United States spends, this is published, $75 billion on intelligence, $52 billion of which is civilian.” Supporting: According to publicly disclosed figures detailed in a report by the Congressional Research Service, Oliver Stone’s numbers are correct. See, “Intelligence Community Spending: Trends and Issues.” Anne Daugherty Miles, (November 8, 2016) Retrieved at: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R44381.pdf —CIA, FBI, NSA, and the rest is military.

VP:If the United States built good partnership relationships with Russia, especially in the field of fighting terrorism, then they would be able to at least halve the budget on intelligence. And they would make the activities of their special services far more efficient.

OS:They could halve their budget if they did this?

VP:Yes, if we cooperated on an efficient basis they wouldn’t have to spend so much. And their activities would be far more efficient than now.

OS:So you’re suggesting that Russia would be spending like $30 billion?

VP:It doesn’t matter how much Russia would spend—what’s important is that if we pooled our efforts together then we would both work more efficiently together.

OS:So you’re not going to tell me the amount.

VP:No, it’s a secret. [laughs]

OS:All right.

VP:We have some published data, but I don’t remember exactly how much. But as I’ve already told you, we spend, for these ends, much less than the United States. And as we’ve discussed, the United States spends more than all other countries in the world combined. [145] Claim: “And [as we’ve discussed], the United States spends more than all other countries in the world combined.” See, “Here’s how US defense spending stacks up against the rest of the world,” Ibid.

OS:And Russia spends 10 percent of that.

VP:10 percent of the United States expenditure.

OS:It’s amazing because of what you’ve achieved. Now, back to Chechnya for a moment. A lot of people don’t agree with you about Chechnya which has been really a hornet’s nest for 20 years now. Okay there’s a radical element in Chechnya—we know about the terrorists—and there is a very authoritarian element in Chechnya run by the leader Kadyrov, who is very loyal to you. Many Russians have been critical of that. Many that I’ve seen have written about it—not necessarily dissidents, but people who are not comfortable having this relationship with him. He’s considered a war criminal and so forth. Other people ask, you know, “Why does the Russian Federation have to include countries that are so crazy like this? Why don’t you go and unify the Russian Federation with Russian people?” I know you’ve argued that Chechnya is part of the motherland, ‘Rodina,’ but talk to me more about it.

VP:As for the developments in the Chechen Republic and in the Caucasus, I’m not going to tell you any breaking news. These developments started right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Once a great country dissolves, it’s natural that these disillusioned processes permeate all of its territory, and Russia was no exception. That’s the first point. Secondly, our economy collapsed as well as our social sphere entirely. And people were searching for a way out of the situation. And on the borderlands of Russia, people started to think how they could improve their life and overcome the difficulties they were faced with. And many, not just in the Chechen Republic, they fueled these separatist ideas. Nothing new about that. But as for the Chechen Republic, all of that was aggravated by the legacy of the Stalin repressions. People remembered the grievances that they had suffered after the Second World War. And that’s why the conflict erupted. It was developing and it followed a very tragic scenario. Do you know what was the critical turning point? Not just the military successes of the Russian armed forces. You know the conflict escalated and an attack was carried out from the Chechen Republic against the adjacent territories in Russia. There was even an attack against Dagestan, another Republic with an Islamic population, and the people of Dagestan didn’t wait for the federal center to respond, they took up arms to defend themselves. But the turning point was the realization by the Chechen authorities themselves, and the Chechen leadership that Chechnya’s development as part of Russia would be far more promising and far more beneficial for the Chechen people themselves than the aspirations for so-called independence. Traditional Islam didn’t want to submit itself to certain currents in Islam that outsiders were trying to bring to Chechnya from the Near East. There was a conflict among the local religious leaders, one of them was the father of Kadyrov, and the new religious leaders that had come from abroad from certain countries. And back then I had my first conversation with him and he told me that they were thinking about building a relationship with Russia. It was his initiative entirely. And he was not pressured into doing that. As a result, he became the first president of the Chechen Republic. And his son, the current President, fought together with his father against the federal forces. And together with his father he came to understand that the interests of the Chechen people could not be separated from the interests of Russia. Certainly, there were many people and there are still many people here that have a certain mentality—a heroic type of mentality as it were. Besides, we have gone through the tribulation of a civil war—a bloody one. Today, I’m asked to explain why Kadyrov or one of his entourage are so critical the opposition. I talked about that with him on many occasions and he promised that he would change his rhetoric. But his explanation is very simple. He says, “We’ve gone through blood and tears—we know what a civil war looks like—and we can’t afford to have anyone lead us back there.” I do not think this reasoning is correct. I do not support that. I am simply trying to tell you what his position is, what his explanation is. I believe that today he is president of the Chechen Republic and that’s why he has to show restraint and he has to abide by Russian law. And I do hope that in the end that’s going to happen. But we should not forget about his life before—about his life experience.

OS:But still, you’re supporting 80 percent of the budget of the Chechen government—it’s paid for by Russia. I forget the exact budget number.