Oliver Stone - The Putin Interviews

VP:Certainly I did expect this kind of reaction. But before making this decision, we had conducted a very deep social research in Russia, and the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens—around 80 percent or more—when responding to the question whether it was possible to re-unify Crimea with Russia, even though that would mean a deterioration of relations with the West and other countries of the world, they said yes they thought it was possible. So when making this decision, I was guided not by the preferences of my counterparts from other countries. I responded to the sentiment of the Russian people.

OS:And the Crimeans as of this date, are they grateful? Or are they pissed off?

VP; There are many problems in Crimea, but on the whole, people support the decision which was taken. The best estimate of that support was the poll that was recently conducted in Crimea because the Kiev authorities tried to set up an energy blockade of the peninsula. The overwhelming majority—I’m talking about the same figures—the overwhelming majority re-affirmed the decision they had made earlier on joining Russia.

OS:And Donbass? Well, this is a real problem, I guess, in terms of the thorn that doesn’t go away. How do you get out of this one?

VP:Certainly, I think the Minsk Agreement has to be implemented.

OS:But it doesn’t seem like Kiev has any intention of doing so.

VP:I do have all the plans, and the Russian leadership as a whole, we have these plans. But the key components of the Minsk agreements are the political components, and the main political component is to make amendments to the Ukrainian constitution. It should have been done, not by us, but by the Kiev authorities, by the end of 2015. And a law on amnesty has to be adopted and it has to have force. It has been adopted, but it has not been promulgated by the president. A special status law in these territories has to be enforced. This law has also been adopted. It has been voted on by the Ukrainian parliament but it has not been enforced. We cannot do that for them. But I’m hopeful that in the end this is going to be done. And the conflict is going to end.

OS:So we should maybe look at some film? We’ll adjust the lights and darken the room. You can sit there and we can talk about the scenes afterwards.

OS:Thank you for indulging me by watching “Dr. Strangelove.” I thought the Russian Premier was very good.

VP:Thank you. There are certain things in this film that indeed make us think. Despite the fact that it’s all just imagination—the things that we see onscreen—there are certain serious issues, things that make us think about real challenges, real threats that exist. I think from a technical point of view, he anticipated many things.

OS:The concept of “nuclear winter’—the end of the world—that was the hydrogen bomb. Scientists talked about this after the war and Truman went ahead anyway. This was about communication. The Russians have The Doomsday Machine , the US goes ahead with a unilateral attack and all of the planes are recalled except for this one pilot who is very clever and manages to elude the radar system.

VP:The thing is, since that time, little has changed, honestly. The only difference is that modern weapon systems have become more sophisticated, more complex. But this idea of a retaliatory strike and the inability to manage these systems, yes, all of these things are relevant today. It will become even more difficult and more dangerous.

OS:I believe that. Should we finish our conversation? The next question has a few parts to it. It has to do with the economy, it has to do with the oligarchs. No question that under you, Russia has seen a period of great growth in overall living standards. But the US criticisms are essentially that you have created a system of centralization, authoritarianism, and what they call “an oligarchic state capitalism.” Which they say is similar to the old styles of Tsarism and communism. On the other hand, they were quite pleased with the 1990s Russia, where the oligarchs thrived, before you came in. And then you knocked out or derailed some of them—you told me that story in our first meeting—that you had a meeting with them in Moscow and you made a point in this meeting that there was a responsibility to the people and the state.

So the Western elite says that you have put your oligarchs into power in the last 15 years, whereas these older oligarchs are sitting in places like London. That’s the situation as phrased by the West. I have to say, I have friends in London and when I go there, there’s incredible stories and many of the oligarchs in England tell people that they have accumulated great wealth, but they say that you led them to the wealth and that you shared in it. It’s clear that these people are trying to deflect the heat from themselves by blaming someone else. But what amazes me is the intelligent people I know in London who truly begin to believe this story over the years—that you are, in fact, the single richest person in the world. [161] Background Information: Speculation about Putin’s wealth is rampant. Oliver Stone asks Putin about claims that he is “the single richest person in the world.” Putin replies that he does not have such wealth as attributed to him. In the realm of public opinion, the question appears to remain unresolved. We provide two references to this claim. See, “Is Vladimir Putin hiding a $200 billion fortune? (And if so, does it matter?),” Adam Taylor, Washington Post , (February 20, 2015). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/20/is-vladimir-putin-hiding-a-200-billion-fortune-and-if-so-does-it-matter/ See, “Former Kremlin banker: Putin ‘is the richest person in the world until he leaves power,’” Elena Holodny, Business Insider (July 28, 2015). Retrieved at: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-kremlin-banker-putin-is-the-richest-person-in-the-world-until-he-leaves-power-2015-7 Not since Rockefeller, or Morgan, or Onassis—[Putin laughs] you may laugh, and I appreciate it, but as a leader, of your people, like Chavez or Castro or many other people who have been accused of corruption, is there some way you could make your personal wealth clearer.

VP:Well, to be honest, I do not have the wealth they attribute to me. To make it clear, this phenomenon of oligarchy, we have to remember what was going on at the beginning of the 1990s in Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, regrettably, democracy began to be abused by many people who were seeking to gain money through political power. This democracy began to be seen as all-permissiveness. I remember when I moved to Moscow from St. Petersburg, I was astounded and shocked by how many of them had gathered here in Moscow. And their behavior was so astounding I couldn’t get used to it for a very long time. Those people didn’t have any scruples at all. What is oligarchy? It is the integration of money and power, with a view to influencing the decisions that are being taken, and the final aim to continue to accumulate wealth.

Back in the 1990s we had this notion of seven bankers. [162] Background Information: The seven bankers refer to Russian tycoons, who financed Boris Yeltsin’s campaign for re-election as president. The nickname, semibankirshchina, or rule of the seven bankers, refers to a group of seven noblemen, who ran Russia in the 17the century for a brief period. See, “Russia bows to the ‘rule of the seven bankers’,” Irish Times (August 29, 1998). Retrieved at: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/russia-bows-to-the-rule-of-the-seven-bankers-1.187734 Many of them were saying that the Russian economy was too small to allow additional players. They said that seven to ten players were enough. And in order to change the situation that was noted by many in the West to be a corrupt system, and many of those who live in Moscow today or in other parts of the world were forbidden to enter Western countries—they were not granted visas. But once we started fighting against these oligarchs, they started to turn into a sort of internal opposition. And the Western attitude toward them, these ruling classes, started to change drastically. These oligarchs started to get support. When necessary, they got asylum abroad, despite crimes they had committed before—very serious ones. I don’t know who manages to say they got money thanks to my help. If they did get money thanks to my help, what are they doing in London? Well, probably it’s not as simple as that. When the emblematic figures of the oligarchic community, a person who’s no longer with us, as Mr. Berezovsky, at the end of his life wrote a letter to me asking my forgiveness and for a chance to get back to Russia. Certainly one conversation was not enough with whomever that might have been. We had to stick to a consistent harsh policy so as to dissuade people who had managed to enrich themselves through power from influencing this power. And I did that step by step. But it was a consistent policy. Just to make it clear how it was implemented from the very beginning, let me cite an example. One of the employees of the President’s administration back then, once he got into office, he was approached by the head of one of our largest companies. And that person said he would be in charge of whatever that employee was going to do. He would help him with administrative issues as well as with his financial situation. And indeed some of these people are now hiding abroad. My task was to differentiate between power and money. And to prevent people from influencing power through unconstitutional means, either in economy or in politics. On the whole I think I’ve managed with some success in this regard. As for those who have accumulated their capital over the last decade, indeed there were many people like that. Some of them I had been acquainted with before I became president, some of them I became acquainted with while serving as president or prime minister. But all of them have gotten their money honestly and fairly. And they don’t have any connection to the power or any capacity to influence the decisions that are being made. I think that’s the key element to fighting this oligarchic system of power. But the most important thing is, starting from 2000, we have increased almost two-fold our national economy, and during this time many enterprises have risen including private companies. Certainly the main emphasis is being made on the people that I know personally, but when this emphasis is made it is only a tool for manipulating public opinion and using it for political purposes, primarily by those who were ex-communicated from that power. But this doesn’t mean at all that we have managed to address all of the issues related to abuse of power or corruption, and we are going to continue this work in the future.