Oliver Stone - The Putin Interviews

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.

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] Claim: “On many occasions, repeatedly, I told the US, the European partners, the Georgian leadership—I asked them to prevent the escalation of this conflict.” Supporting: In his editorial in the Financial Times, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister, Sergei Lavrov, notes that “hours before the Georgian invasion, Russia had been working to secure a UN Security Council statement calling for a renunciation of force by both Georgia and South Ossetians.” See, “Why Russia’s response to Georgia was right,” Sergei Lavrov, Financial Times (August 12, 2008). Retrieved at: https://www.ft.com/content/7863e71a-689e-11dd-a4e5-0000779fd18c 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] Claim: Referring to Georgian President Saakashvili, Putin remarks that his counterparts were saying “What do you expect, he’s mad?” Supporting: See, “I Would Call Saakashvili Insane,” Benjamin Bidder, Spiegel Online (May 14, 2009). Retrieved at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/georgian-opposition-leader-zurabishvili-i-would-call-saakashvili-insane-a-624807.html 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.