Kind: captions
Language: en
if you could talk to vladimir putin once
again
now
what kind of
what kind of things would you talk about
here what kind of questions would you
ask
the following is a conversation with
oliver stone he's one of the greatest
filmmakers of all time with three oscar
wins and 11 oscar nominations
his films tell stories of war and power
fearlessly and often controversially
shining light on the dark parts of
american and global history
his films include platoon
wall street born on the 4th of july
scarface jfk nixon alexander w snowden
and documentaries where he has
interviewed some of the most powerful
and consequential people in the world
including fidel castro hugo chavez and
vladimir putin
and in this conversation oliver and i
mostly focus our discussion on vladimir
putin russia and the war in ukraine
my goal with these conversations is to
understand the human being before me
to understand not just what they think
but how they think to steal man their
ideas and to steal man the devil's
advocate
all in service of understanding not
derision
i have done this poorly in the past i'm
still struggling with this but i'm
working hard to do better
i believe the moment we draw lines
between good people and evil people
will lose our ability to see
that we're all one people in the most
fundamental of ways
and lose track of the deep truth
expressed by the old soldier knits in
line that i return to time and time
again
that the line between good and evil
runs to the heart of every man
oliver stone has a perspective that he
extensively documents in his powerful
controversial series the untold history
of the united states
that
imperialism and the military-industrial
complex paved the path to absolute power
and thus corrupt the minds of the
leaders and institutions that wield it
from this perspective the way out of the
humanitarian crisis and human suffering
in ukraine and the way out from the pull
of the beating drums of nuclear war is
not simple to understand
but we must because all of humanity
hangs in the balance
i will talk to many people who seek to
understand the way out of this growing
catastrophe including to historians to
leaders and perhaps most importantly to
people on the ground in ukraine and
russia
not just about war and suffering but
about life
friendship family love and hope
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in the description and now dear friends
here's oliver stone
you're working on uh a documentary now
about nuclear energy yes so it's
interesting to talk about this energy is
such a big part of the world
about the geopolitics of the world about
the way the world is what do you think
is the role of nuclear energy in the
21st century good question and first of
all hobbies everyone's talking about
climate change right so here i wake up
to that a few years ago and
clearly we're concerned
uh
i
picked up a book by josh goldstein and
his his co-author who's swedish those
two wrote a book called bright future a
bright future came out a few years ago
and i lapped it up it was a book
fact-based
clear
not too long and not too technical and
uh it was very clear that they were in
favor of all kinds of
renewables renewable energy yes
they hated made it very clear how
dangerous oil
and
gas were
methane
and made it very clear to the layman
like me and
at the same time said that this
renewables can work so far
but the gap is enormous as to what how
much electricity this kind of the world
is going to need
in 2050 and beyond
2 three four times we don't even know
the damage but we have india we have
china we have africa we have
asia coming on to the scene wanting more
and more electricity so they addressed
the problem as a global one not just as
often in the united states you get the
ethnocentric
united states point of view that we need
we know we're doing well blah blah blah
we're not doing well but we we we sell
that to people that were comfortable we
spend more energy than anybody this
country per capita
than anybody and at the same time
we don't seem to understand the global
picture so that's what they did and they
made me very aware so the only way to
close that gap the only way in their
mind is nuclear energy and talking about
a gap of building
a huge amount of reactors over the next
30 years
and
starting now
uh they make that point over and over
again
uh
so obviously this country the united
states is not going to go in that
direction because it just
is incapable with its of having that
kind of will political will and fear is
a huge factor and still a lot of
shibboleths a lot of
myths about
nuclear energy
have
confused and confounded the landscape
the environmentalists have played a huge
role
in
doing good things many good things but
also
confusing and confounding the landscape
and making accusations against nuclear
energy that were
exaggerated
so taking all these
things into consideration we set about
making this documentary which is about
finished now almost finishing it's an
hour and 40 minutes and that was a hard
part getting it down from
about three and a half hours to about
this something more manageable and is it
interviews its interviews among others
but essentially we went to russia we
went to france which is the most perhaps
advanced
nuclear country in the world russia
and the united states we went to the
idaho laboratory
and talked to the
the scientists there as well as the
department of energy people that are
handling this idaho is one of the
experimental labs the united states is
probably one of the most advanced and
they're doing a lot of advanced nuclear
there
we also uh
we studied well russia gave us a lot of
uh insight
we're very cooperative because they have
some of the most advanced uh nuclear
actually the probably most advanced
nuclear reactor in the world at bellairs
the ural mountains
so we we did an investigation there
and uh in france they haven't they have
some very advanced uh
nuclear reactors and their building and
now they're building again
they had a little the green party came
into power and just not into power but
became a factor in france and there was
a motion when hollande was president
they started to move away from it
actually they were beginning to just
abandon
they let not complete their in other
words let close down some of the nuclear
reactors there was talk of that but
thank god france did not do that and uh
macron came in and
recently reversed it it reversed it and
they're building as fast as they can now
especially with the ukraine war
uh going on there's
an awareness that
russia will not be providing or may not
be providing the energy europe needs
so
and then china is the other one too
that's the other factor i'm talking
about the big boys
they have doing tremendous work and fast
which is very hopeful
but of course china is building in all
directions at once the coal continues to
be huge in china
and
methane too but to basically colder coal
and india in china are the biggest users
of coal
and we know as you know germany went
back to coal a few years ago so all
these factors it's fascinating picture
globally so we try to achieve a
consensus that where nuclear can work
and where it will be working where and
it will be used more and more the
question is how much carbon dioxide
china
and russia will be putting out france is
the only one that's not putting it out
the united states has not changed with
all the talk and all the nonsense about
renewables and
the new lifestyle and all this it's it's
great for your guilt complex but it
doesn't do anything for the total commun
accumulation of carbon dioxide in the
world who's going to lead the way on
nuclear do you think you mentioned
russia france china united states who's
going to live i don't think it's going
to be a uni united nations kind of thing
because the world doesn't seem capable
of uniting we don't we go to these
conferences
kyoto and
we talk and we agree but then we don't
actually enforce so i don't think it can
happen that way i think it's
going to be an individual race with
countries they're going to just be do it
for their own self-interest like china
is doing it
china
the thing is if it works and i'm praying
that it will really work on a big scale
china will back away from coal naturally
the same thing will be true of india
they will see the benefits
because if you go to india you see the
cities the pollution you walk around in
that stuff and you know you get
it's not there's no hope in this and you
sense it so people will move in this
direction naturally because nuclear is
clean energy
and the amount of
casualties of nuclear is the lowest on
the industrial scale for energy
producing
from coal down to oil everything the
lowest casualty rate
very low is .002 or something is nuclear
so
not that many people have died from
nuclear not that many i think
50 people at chernobyl which was the
worst accident
nobody died at fukushima nobody died at
three mile island and that's what you
hear all over and over again these these
accidents
the environmentalists have sold us the
idea that they're dangerous
uh and it's a lot of environmentalists
thank god of changing it they've come
off that routine and they've saying
this we were wrong we've done a lot of
good work greenpeace did a lot of good
work whale whales saving this saving
that but
they admit themselves not they don't but
people who have been in the organization
have said we were wrong
in 1956
we showed the
the articles in the new york times that
came out the rockefeller foundation
which of course is a big
producer of oil the rockefeller family
and
the foundation came out uh
with a
study
which was weighted they tipped the scale
put a thumb on the scale but it was a
scientific
expose of radiation
in the uh in the in the study that came
out in the printed in the new york times
because the new york times publisher
salzburger was on their board he was one
of them at board members so they got a
lot of
strong publicity
condemning radiation from which killed
started the process of doubting nuclear
energy the radiation levels that they
pointed out were very minor and of
course if you go into a scientific
analysis of this now with what we know
it's just not true
but it it tilted the scale back in the
50s 60s and started the question
questioning the nuclear
business do you think that was
malevolence or incompetence no i think
it was competition
i don't think it was conspiracy as much
as it was a sense we don't want this
nucle nuclear energy is going to end the
dominance of oil absolutely and it will
and it will anyway because it's the only
sane way for the world to proceed but
the world
will have to learn through
adversity
so in other words the situation could
get worse
much worse
and certain countries are just gonna
have to adapt like we always do when
things become too hard you've got to go
you have to change your thinking
and humans are pretty good at that yes
talking about human nature they're very
adept at that
germany for example i mean they were
when the fukushima happened they went
out of the nuclear business that was
shocking to me
uh they just pulled out and they
destroyed uh
destructed several of their nuclear
reactors that were still functioning and
put up coal
or
or yeah put up coal and oil
replaced it and as a result
germany
drifted into this place next to france
their cons their electricity bills went
up and france has stayed the same they
don't have that they have a different
system in europe but you know more or
less no question that france was doing a
lot better than germany
and uh now
when with this ukraine issue it's a very
interesting fulcrum point whether
germany is go what what direction
they're going to go now how can they
how can they keep going with coal they
just can't
what's the connection between oil
coal nuclear and and war
sort of energy
and conflict
do you see when you look at the 21st
century when you were doing this
documentary were you thinking of nuclear
as a way to power the world but is it
also to
avoid conflict over resources
is there some aspect to energy being a
source of conflict that we are trying to
avoid
i don't have the energy the history of
energy at my at my fingertips and it's a
very
long history here but i would say in my
apparently not
it it does seem that it's individually
each country can answer its needs if
by building
and
up until now we haven't had conflict
except
in this issue of russia supplying europe
the
the uh
the obviously the pipeline
nordstream ii has been closed and
nordstrom one is also probably going to
be phased out
and
the concept of russia supplying gas to
europe is now up in here and who knows
what's going to happen i just don't see
how
europe can get away
from using
russian gas
but russian gas is not the solution
because it's methane too and it goes up
into the atmosphere methane is in in the
short term is just is worse than coal
worse
there's all kinds of charts we show in
the film we try not to be too over
factual
but
methane is not the answer it's a
short-term answer
the uh
will countries go to war over energy is
a is a question that i'm trying to think
of all the wars that happened
you could say germany of course during
world war ii needed oil very badly and
they it it dictated their strategy yeah
with romania etc and
getting the oil fields open but
i don't really care i'm not i haven't
thought that one through i'd have to
make a documentary on it to really
understand how
energy and war
interface it's always part of the
calculation but it's a question of how
much yeah right that's the question
you've uh i just have to ask because you
mentioned your mom was from france
you've traveled for this documentary and
you traveled in general throughout the
world in russia ukraine
um what are the defining characteristics
of these cultures let's let's go with
russia so i you know as as i told you i
came from i'm half ukrainian half
russian i came from that part of the
world what are some interesting
beautiful aspects of the culture of
russia and ukraine i can't really speak
honestly of ukraine i was there only in
and when i visited the soviet union
under the communism and i uh calve was
beautiful it was one of the nicer places
i went but they were very much
stultified by the communist system they
all were
the best places to visit in russia were
always in the south whether georgia or
or the uh the the uh muslim countries it
was always a better culture in terms of
comfort
but communism was rough and that was the
end of it pretty much brezhnev regime
and
then andropov gorbachev was three years
in the future when i was there so i
can't talk about ukraine with and
they've they're not been friendly to me
since isis of course since i made their
putin interviews you know ukraine
has banned me i believe they they've
been very tough on people who are
critical i think the russian people have
been very special to me
i and i'm perhaps because of my european
upbringing but i enjoy talking to them i
find them very open very generous
and
they appreciate support they appreciate
people who say
you know i understand why your
government is doing this or this or this
this is i've tried to stay open-minded
and listen to both sides the thing that
i have seen as an american is of course
this american
enmity towards russia from the very
beginning
i grew up in 1940 46 i was born in the
50s it was
it was so anti-russian
they were everywhere they were in our
schools they were in our state
department they were
spying on us they were stealing the
country from us that was the way the
american
right wing not even the right wing i'd
say the republican party pictured the
russians they were
actively engaged in infiltrating america
and changing our thinking yeah and
television shows were based on this it
was very much the j edgar hoover
mentality that communism was even behind
uh
the student protests of the 1960s that
this was the direction in which the fbi
and the cia were thinking
so i grew up with a prejudice
and it took me many years my father was
a republican
and he was a stock broker and he was a
very intelligent man but even he
because he was a world war ii soldier uh
he was a colonel
had fallen under the influence you it
had in order to be successful in
american business in the 1950s you had
to have a very strong
anti-anti-soviet line very strong you
wouldn't get ahead if you expressed any
kind of
let's end this cold war any kind of
activity of that nature you would be
cast aside as a as a pinko or somebody
who was
not completely on the board with the
american way of doing business which was
capitalism works communism doesn't
and in particular
communism is embodied by the soviet
union
um is the enemy so hence
hence yeah that's the way
you were the narrative behind the cold
war
that's correct
and it
basically lasted
i mean you saw the ups and downs of it
uh when reagan came in i was well first
of all we had the crisis of
1962 with the cuban missile crisis and
kennedy proved himself to be a warrior
for peace he resolved that with
khrushchev that was a big moment huge
moment and people don't give him credit
enough for
for really saving us from a war that
could have could have affected all of
mankind but it still didn't
avert
no because the moment he was killed
honestly there was a lot of we can talk
about that as you know i've made a film
jfk revisited as a documentary we
released uh this year
about
the movie i made in 1991
but
the moment he was killed i would argue
that lyndon johnson went back
immediately to the old way of thinking
the old way of doing business which was
the eisenhower
truman way since we which which we had
adapted since world war ii that was an
interim
you have to think about it from
roosevelt dies in 45 roosevelt has an
interim of
16 15 years where he
he he has he has more of a democratic
regime more liberal he establishes he
recognizes the soviet union for the
first time
since the revolution and he actually has
a relationship with them he sends
ambassadors who are friendly and
he wants he has a relationship with
stalin etc and uh at yalta
and uh uh tehran rather that's where he
had the relationship uh do you think if
jfk lived we would not have a cold war
no absolutely not i and we go into great
depth on that in the film and i'd urge
you to see it because it goes into all
the issues around the world kennedy was
being very much an anti-imperialist it
turns out and many people just don't
understand that but you have to look at
all his policies in middle east with
had a relationship with sukarno and
indonesia
uh with latin america he made a big
effort with the alliance for progress
and uh when africa above all with
lumumba he was very shocked at his death
and tried to de defend
the f the right the integrity of the
belgian congo with doug hammershold of
the u.n he made a big effort
unfortunately it didn't work out because
they were dog hammers all was killed and
then kennedy was killed and
congo descended into the chaos of joseph
mubutu's dictatorship
but kennedy was very active in terms of
as an irishman not as an englishman he
was an irishman
i say that because well we'll come back
to that because mr joe biden is an
irishman but it's a different kind of an
irishman they're both catholic irish but
kennedy really made an effort
to
change the imperialist mindset
that it still was very strong in america
and europe and lyndon johnson changed
back to the old policy and we were never
able to really
keep data going where the russians
briefly had it with carter but then
brzezinski came in brzezinski was his
national security adviser he was put
there by rockefeller and brzezinski was
a pole he got revenge from the poland
poland has always been attacking russia
as far as i remember
back to another century i mean the two
world wars that occupied russia and so
tragically
uh entry points were always through
poland and ukraine
uh
so uh brzezinski got his revenge and
carter ended up being an enemy of the
soviet union and
creating yet
as brzezinski took pride in it he
created the atmosphere of the trap for
the soviets to go into afghanistan in
79.
that trap was set he says he said in
um
so
there was never except for brief moments
of periods of
death with the soviets
and i grew up
under that i didn't really know anything
of this uh going on because i was
i was learning i was educating myself as
i was going learning movies and trying
to try to be a dramatist and this and
that so i wasn't thinking about this
then uh when reagan came in i was
worried again because it was it was a
beat of the old beat which was there the
most evil empire i mean it does it goes
on in american history it doesn't end
reagan got a lot of points for that
and of course when uh
when
gorbachev came in it was
a beautiful moment for the world it was
a great surprise it was probably the
best years of for america from at least
from my point of view in terms of this
relaxation in the mood
to 1991
were great years in terms of ability to
believe once again that there could be a
peace dividend
but the world changed again in 1991 92
there's an internal mechanism who knows
you could blame
you can blame the united states you
could blame russia for
gorbachev was perhaps not the right man
to try to administer that country at
that point he had great visions he was a
man of peace
but it was very difficult to hold
together such a huge empire so vision is
not enough to hold together the soviet
union i think
the details are interesting i followed
up on that a little bit because i was
recently in countries like kazakhstan
talked about uh
the the negotiations that were going on
and
the breakup of the soviet union it's
very interesting story because it
involves everything ukraine of course
everything is going on now some what is
it 30 million russians were left outside
of the soviet union when it collapsed
they had no home anymore they were homes
in other countries such as in ukraine
uh
so it's an interesting story and with
repercussions today
kazakhstan
is a per is a good example of keeping a
balance keeping it neutral yeah he
played both sides
and he because
yeltsin wanted him to join
the the russian confederation in a
certain way where
he'd be supporting against gorbachev
there's a whole inward battle there
uh
i think the the ukraine came along with
uh
yeltsin as well as
uh
you'd have i'm sorry i don't remember
now but two other two other regions came
with him and uh
that was a block that broke up the uh
the soviet union it was yeltsin's uh
plan to and it wasn't
make the russian federation and they did
i would love to return back to jfk
eventually
because he's such a fascinating figure
in the history
of human civilization but let me ask you
fast forward in 2000 yeltsin
was no longer president and vladimir
putin became president
you did
a series of interviews with vladimir
putin as you mentioned
over a period of two years from 2015 to
2017.
let's let me ask with a high level
question
what was your goal
with that conversation oh
came out in 2017 i guess i started him
in 2014
at that point
the snowden affair had happened i was
working on a movie on snowden that
happened in 13.
uh ukraine
happened in 14
and uh
one thing after another by by 14
putin was enemy number again becoming a
wanted man on the american list he was
enemy
he was certainly in the top five or
uh and but the the animosity towards
putin had been growing since 2007 at
munich
i remember that speech when he made it
it's in my documentary that's a
four-hour documentary four different
conversations i mean we talked over two
years two and a half years but i
remember that image of him at munich
making a very
important speech about world harmony
about the balance necessary in the world
and i remember the sneer
the sneer on john mccain's face he was
in munich
obviously eyeballing putin and hating
him and it was so evident that mccain
had no belief whatsoever that the that
this he was almost treating him like
this or the communists are back and we
know that putin was not a communist we
know that putin is very much a market
man and he made no he he made it very
clear and tried to keep an open climate
a new relationship with europe but the
united states always
certain people in the united states
always sell that as a threat like putin
is trying to take europe away from us as
if we own it as if we have the right to
own it but pun was making the point it's
very important about sovereignty and
sovereignty for
countries is crucial to for for this new
world to have balance that's sovereignty
for china sovereignty for russia
sovereignty for iran sovereignty for
venezuela sovereignty for cuba this is
an idea that's crucial to the new world
and i think the united states has never
accepted that
sovereignty is not an idea
that they can allow they you have to be
obedient to the united states idea
of so-called democracy and uh freedom
but
the it's much more important is
sovereignty for these countries and the
united states has not obeyed that as not
al has not even acknowledged it and it
never comes up so from the perspective
of the united states when power centers
arise in the world yes
you start to oppose those
not because of the ideas but because
they have but merely because they have
power
isn't that at the heart of the doctrine
of the uh neoconservatives and they knew
the pact for the new american century
they wrote that in 1996 seven
they said there shall be no emergence of
a rival power
it was very clear it was about power
and they have they've stuck to that
doctrine which is if you if you start to
get dangerous in any way or have power
we're going to knock you out
now that won't work but i i don't
believe it can work and that is
unfortunately a policy the united states
is following
and uh the neoconservatives group which
is very small but it's very strong
apparently and their idea has
resonated it was it was behind the
george bush's invasion of
iraq
it was part of not only iraq but
cleaning out the whole world draining
the swamp
going to afghanistan first and then
although
iraq had nothing to do with al qaeda's
attack
going after iraq
and of course 60 some other countries
that where terrorism had some
had some uh
signs of
wherever america judged would be a
dangerous country we had the right
you're either with us or against us now
that is a disastrous policy and led to
one thing after another the iraq war
never learned a lesson
the neoconservatives were never fired
never thrown out of office the people
who
prosecuted that war are still around
many of them are still around and
they're they're obviously guarding
america now let me return to this
question of power
don't forget
the sneer that i saw there
that emblemized the united states
reaction also there were several other
american representatives
who were laughing kind of mocking uh
putin it was very serious i i felt
that was a divide there
so
since then i mean in a certain sense the
europe reaction to putin is crucial and
they were they were more with him back
then and a big thing for america was
always to keep nato to keep europe in
its pocket as a satellite and with this
recent war of course they've succeeded
in in all beyond their dreams if the
russians have fulfilled the fantasy of
the united states to finally be this
aggressor that they have pictured for
years yeah we can talk about that later
but at that time
there was uh europe had significant
support for putin yes the united states
was sneering in putin
that's correct you can say that and then
so there's this um
it was
um
there was uncertainty as to the
direction as to the future of russia and
that's exactly when you interviewed
vladimir putin i wanted to know
what they thought because we couldn't
get the
the in the information war that the
united states was fighting against
russia was in evidence back then it was
full out
the uh the condemnation of russia
on all fronts uh i never saw a positive
article about putin and although when i
traveled in the world and i traveled a
lot doing documentaries it was very
clear in the middle east in africa in
other in asia there was respect for him
that he was a man who was getting job
his job done in the interests of russia
he was as i said in the documentary a
son of russia
very much so in in the positive sense a
son a son of russia not that he's out
there
trying to uh destroy the interests of
other
of other countries know that he was out
there to
sell the promote the interests of russia
but at the same time keep a balance keep
it
keep it keep the world into a harmony
this has always been his picture peace
was always his idea in other words he
always referred to the united states in
all these interviews as our partners and
i said will you stop using that word
they're not
well and he was a little bit slow in
waking up to uh what the united states
was doing
well
that said he's one of the most powerful
men in the world
he was at that time and
let me ask you the human question
as the old adage goes power corrupts and
absolute power corrupts absolutely
did you see
any corroding effects of power on the
man
forget the political leader i'm just the
human being that carries that power on
his shoulders
for so many years keep in mind that he's
been un
unlike most modern leaders he's been in
office
off and on because of there was a
medvedev was president and he was not
literally in charge
he was
he was he was uh he took another
appointment at that point and he but he
was still very much involved but for 20
years more or less he's been at the
administrator of the state the protector
of the state
and he's apparently done
a good enough job that the russian
people have kept him there because
contrary to what many people think i
really believe that if the russian
people didn't want him he would be out
i firmly believe that i don't think you
can let you can go against the will of
the people now it expresses itself in
many ways
at the ballot box and so forth but also
in other ways in russia there's a
strong occurrence of opinion so contrary
to what the
the
position of him as a dictator he
wouldn't last if he was unpopular number
one number two russia is much more
divided than people know there's other
factors in russia he is
there's there are always tensions in in
around the kremlin
who has power who doesn't have power
that's been going on for
100 years but
the the factions in russia are
very much there so when people refer to
russia as putin they're they're mistaken
and they do this regularly in the new
york papers and all this so they say
putin did this putin did that putin's
doing it but it's russia that's doing it
and that's what there's a distinction
there that i
it's changed in the old days
i would read about khrushchev but it was
never khrushchev personally
it was about the soviet union
uh there was respect for a country and
now when it started to get personal with
putin
it it changed it and the our thinking
changed in a negative way we
we no longer respected it as a country
we were seen as a man and the man we had
trashed repeatedly
repeatedly as a poisoner as a murderer
none of which has ever been proven but
which has always been repeated and
repeated to the point at which it
becomes like an orwell
mantra it becomes like he is of course a
bad guy
can i just ask you as a great filmmaker
as a human being what was it like
talking to one of the most powerful men
in the world
honestly and i'm not naive i've talked
to a lot of powerful people
in the movie business there are powerful
people and many of them are corrupted
i've talked to many people in my life
i've been in the military
i've seen i've had other jobs
i have to say i found him to be a human
being i just found him to be reasonable
calm
i never saw him lose his temper and i
mean you have to understand that most
people in the most people in the western
way of doing business get emotional i
don't see that i saw him as a
balanced man as a man who had studied
this like you
there's a calmness to you that it comes
from studying the world and
having a rational response to it his
it's interesting his two daughters one
of them is very scientific and the other
one's doing very well in another
profession but they they're thinking
they're thinking family his wife too was
uh i can't talk for the new wife because
i don't know about it but he's he kept
his family
with great respect he's raised his
daughter's right
he served yeltsin the way he looked at
it he served yeltsin well and he and he
still and he never trashed well uh
yeltsin certainly a lot of people did
but you know i asked him repeatedly you
know was he an alcoholic at this or that
but he wouldn't even go that far he just
respect
and this man yeltsin who was in it was
uh in many ways
ridiculed but in by the russians and
he turned over the power because he felt
like he was overwhelmed he turned over
the power to this man because why how
many people had he fired before him
several
several prime ministers this that why
did he turn power over the outs to uh mr
putin because
he respected him for his work ethic
and his balance his maturity
and that's what i can say is i saw in
him
a
a poor person a poor from a poor family
who worked his way up
through the kgb of americans keep saying
he's a kgb agent but
it's it's like saying you know george
bush was a cia agent but you know he
became a pr you grow you grow in your
life and he went from the kgb to this
technocratic position he re he dealt
with many uh problems incl including the
chechnyan war
which was a
very difficult situation as well as
the russian submarine probably several
things happened early in his that
balance that gave him a lot of
experience and he handled them all
pretty well
do you think he was an honest man i do
now of course the question of money
the charge is that he's the richest man
in the world or ludicrous uh
certainly doesn't live like it or act
like it if you're rich i've i've been
around a lot of rich people in my life
you'd probably have too in america you
run into them so many of them are
arrogant i'm actually uh
good friends now with the richest man in
the world oh of course i saw your
interview with mr uh
musk who i i appreciate at least he
speaks freely
i i i'm positive about him owning
twitter because twitter has become
censorship
city yes has all the major tech
i mean the censorship that we are now
seeing in the united states is so
un-american
and shocking to me and he's a resistance
to that
yeah i like i like musk for that just
for that only but i also appreciate him
his adventures from his nature and his
desire to to to explore the world and to
ask questions yeah
there's certain ways you sound when you
speak freely
there's certain ways you sound a man
sounds when he speaks freely yeah he
speaks freely
and it's refreshing yeah no matter
whether you're rich or not it doesn't
matter when you speak freely it's a
beautiful actually you must
and a major point on going back to
nuclear energy you know he was
he never believed in it at first
apparently uh he was going for batteries
right and he did put a lot of money into
batteries he made them bigger and bigger
batteries but
it just as bill gates said it's just
it's not going to get us there yeah and
uh now i think musk is on another path
he understands the need for nuclear yeah
he's a supporter of nuclear
we're jumping around who never asked for
one thing never
it was an interview it was free form ask
anything you want
no no restrictions no rules
as with castro frankly castro did the
same thing as this chef has so i've had
good luck in interviewing free-ranging
subjects people willing to express
themselves he's much more guarded than
castro
or
chavez because as you know he he's he's
setting government policy when he speaks
and anything he says is can be taken out
of context
but there was no restrictions on what to
talk about none of that nor any desire
to see anything before we published it
no need to check it with them
it was a
completely
do you think he watched the final
product yes i do but i don't think he
made judgments on it i think he was
pleased
um he doesn't go either way you see he's
very it's he's pleased i mean it went
well he's happy for us and but i don't
think he had great enthusiasm uh
expressed it to me and he trusted me and
you can see the way he dealt with me
each time he warmed up to me uh
four times you know the first time i
might have been a little
stiff
you're asking
you don't know what who you're dealing
with and so forth i understand that
but he's used to it now he's he's done a
lot of press the worst press he's done
frankly has been the american press
and not because of his fault but because
of the way they have treated them if you
look at the interviews they're awful
they put first of all i noticed one
thing as a filmmaker right away they use
a dub an overdub they put a russian
speaker yeah for everything he says he
was much harsher he speaks russian in a
much harsher manner than actually putin
does yeah who's very if you on my
interview i left him in his original
language with translator and i think
that's important because he expresses
himself very clearly and calmly
when you listen to the american
broadcast is a belligerent person who
looks like he's about to bang his shoe
on the table uh
and secondly the questions are
highly aggressive from the beginning
there's no
there's no sense of rapport there's no
sense of well it's why mr poon did you
poison this person why mr putin did you
kill this person why are you a murderer
that means it's blunt
blunt negative television yeah it's not
just aggressive so i
obviously speak russian
so i get to appreciate both the original
and the translation
and uh it's not just aggressive it's
very shallow
they're not looking to understand
to me aggression is okay if that's the
way you want to approach it
but it should be there should be
underlying
kind of empathy for another human being
in order to be able to understand
and and so
the the some of the worst interviews
i've ever listened to is by american
press of vladimir putin so nbc
uh and all those kinds of organizations
it's very painful to watch
um and you saw the reception to the
putin interviews in america was hostile
without seeing it
so many people
criticized
my series without having seen it even
even i went on a show a television show
with this famous uh colbert
you know he's very famous in america and
i was shocked on the show to find out
that he hadn't seen anything of the four
hours he was just attacking putin and
through me
i was complicit therefore i was a
i was a putin supporter and he the show
was a disaster it's it's one of my worst
television shows i actually
i had to
just shut up and get off the air i mean
at some point it was embarrassing
because the audience too was clapping
for kobe on anything he said well as an
interviewer in that situation because
between you and vladimir putin there was
camaraderie there was joking
there was
are you
worried do you put that into the
calculation when you're making a film
with somebody
that could be lying to you that could be
evil
you talk about castro you talk about so
are you worried about
how
charisma of a man across the table from
you
can uh don't i take that into account i
absolutely take that into account i know
cat i mean doing castro's
he's a wonderful speaker he's
charismatic so is chavez i think look at
those interviews
i took it into account
but putin doesn't play that game he
doesn't charm you he doesn't try to
overwhelm you with his
uh
bonami at all
he just said ask your question i'll give
you my answer straight here it is this
and he analyzes it this is the history
of nato this is a history of our
relationship with the united states how
many times have we tried to talk to them
about such and such and such and such
and each time we get nowhere
in fact it's a very
i would like to get along with the
united states so much he's saying that
he's saying it's so clearly in all his
words so to play devil's advocate but
he's not making a big deal about it but
there is a charisma in the calmness yes
there is so like
let's just calm everything down it's
simple facts that you can yes you can
you can call
um
so there's like the hitler thing which
is screaming
being very loud charismatic strong
message and so on and then there's a
putin style i'm not comparing those two
there's the style of communication of
calmness
and and that at least to me my
personality that can be very captivating
it's bringing everything down the facts
are simple but then when you say the
facts are simple you can now start lying
and you don't know what's true and
what's wrong
it behooves you to do some research yes
and frankly when coming to research
you're gonna have a problem because if
you go to the americanized versions of
russian history you're going to run into
a problem
and that includes even wikipedia
they will tell you things that are just
not factually supported so it was a
problem in terms of
if you read all the books in the
american the library about putin there's
nothing positive about it uh they're
awful they're awful and a lot of them i
had a good relationship with professor
stephen cohen who's the most i think one
of the most informed men on russia he's
done a lot of research all his life
and uh knew gorbachev very well and was
very
ana analytical about all these
situations that happened before his
death in uh
2019 i'm not quite sure when stephen
died but i knew him well
and
he was the he gave me the best
information i could get i would go to
stephen and i'd say
i'm confused here tell me the history of
this accusation of poisoning against
this person and so forth and he'd
explained it to me in i think very the
clearest ways that i understood and he
said to me once he said most of these
people who go to russia and write this
stuff about putin are going off internet
the internet has really been a source of
a lot of fractured facts here
uh he said pure analysis you have to go
back to the texts all the documents
and to really fully understand but he
under he one he spoke russian
and his wife and him uh katarina
catarina
van gaal who's the editor
publisher of the nation magazine would
go to russia several times
a year and talked to their friend
gorbachev and gorbachev is an
interesting character i've talked to him
interviewed him not interviewed him but
talked to him at length and i like him
very much
and i saw the divide as you saw in the
putin interviews between gorbachev and
putin early on in the interviews you
sense putin doesn't particularly care
for governor chuck because he in his
point of view he screwed up the
administration of russia and is
responsible for so much of the disaster
of leaving all those people outside the
soviet union
so
these are problems and continuing to the
future but
he
at the they see each other at the or he
sees he knows he's there at the may day
parade i i we filmed
and uh he's
he
his attitude is funny he's very human he
says i you know he's welcome he's god
he's got he's pension he's a pensioner
he's done his duty he's there's no
there's no uh
animus towards him
even when gorbachev in the early days
you remember criticized him for his
manners in terms of democracy
but i don't know that that
you know that becomes a quarrel but
frankly by the
by the end of the situation uh it's very
clear that gorbachev has now moved
closer and closer to the says russia is
now really under attack this is
he sees it he sees where the united
states has made a concerted effort to
undermine putin and he does and has he's
repeated this several times about
ukraine i think you've seen what he said
you can quote it
and gorbachev is we have no respect for
gorbachev even even at this juncture
when can you see gorbachev's ideas
printed in most american newspapers very
rarely very rarely and not and recently
not at all so gorbachev who was our hero
back in in the american hero back in
1980s 80s has now been condemned to the
garbage can so to speak of history
well in this complicated geopolitical
picture you just outlined um can we talk
about
the
recent invasion of ukraine so you wrote
on
facebook a pretty eloquent analysis
i i think on
uh march 3rd
let me just read a small
section of that just to give context and
maybe we can talk a little bit more
about both russia and the man putin
he wrote although the united states has
many wars of aggression on his
conscience it doesn't justify mr putin's
aggression in ukraine
a dozen wrongs don't make a right
russia was wrong to invade it has made
too many mistakes
one underestimating ukraine resistance
two overestimating the military ability
to achieve its objective
three underestimating europe's reaction
especially germany
upping its military contribution to nato
which they've resisted for some 20 years
even switzerland has joined the cause
russia will be more isolated than ever
from the west
four underestimating the enhanced power
of nato which will now put more pressure
on russia's borders five probably
putting ukraine into nato six
underestimating the damage to its own
economy and certainly creating more
internal resistance in russia
seven creating a major readjustment of
power in its oligarch class
eight putting cluster and vacuum bombs
into play
nine
and underestimating the power of social
media worldwide and you go on
for a while giving a much broader
picture
of the history and the geopolitics of
all of this so now
a little bit later
two months later
um what are your thoughts about the
invasion of ukraine well it's very hard
to
be honest in this regard because the
the west
the west has brought down a curtain here
and anyone who
questions uh the invasion of ukraine and
its consequences is
is an enemy of the people
it's it's become so difficult uh we i've
never seen in my lifetime ever
such
a wall of
propaganda as i've seen
in the west
and that includes france too because i
was there recently in england england is
of course
really
vociferous
it's it's it's shocking to me how
quickly europe moved in this direction
and that includes germany
i have german friends who expressed to
me their shock over ukraine i have
italian friends same thing and italy of
course has been the perhaps the most
understanding and compassionate of
countries
so it's it's quite evident that there's
a united uh
and this attests the power of the united
states and of course you have finland
and
finland which has
generally been reasonable jumping and
talking about joining nato and sweden
too
generally there's been some more
restraint in the in the way in europe
that's what surprised me the most europe
how quickly they fell
into this nato basket
which is very dangerous for europe very
dangerous this goes back to my idea what
i was saying earlier about sovereignty
these countries have don't really give
me a sense that they have sovereignty
over their own countries
they don't feel
european nations
i'm obviously intuition here is working
i just don't feel
that they have freedom to say what they
really think and they're scared to say
it
when
the united states invaded iraq in 2003
i remember with great in a sense
satisfaction that at least
france shirak who i had not really known
much about stood up and said the united
states were not going to join you in
this expedition basically into madness
schroeder and germany same thing
of course putin condemned the uh
invasion and kupun had been an ally of
the united states since 9 11 if you
remember correctly yes and had called
bush and they were getting along so even
putin said i won't go no don't go into
iraq this is
this is not the solution he he didn't
oppose afghanistan but he opposed iraq
so
sharach
and schroeder stood for the old europe
i'm i remember de gaulle
charles de gaulle he was independent of
the united states charles de gaulle
pulled france out of nato because he saw
the dangers of nato which is to say you
have to fight an american war
when they say and they put nuclear
weapons on your territory in england and
france and uh italy and uh germany and
when they do that
you're you're hitched to this superpower
and you have no say in what they're
going to do if they declare war from
there and they use your territory you're
going to be involved in a major conflict
i'm talking about sovereignty where is
that sovereignty they don't have it
and that has influenced their mindset
for years now
since 1940s since well de gaulle was the
60s
he was he actually reversed the whole
flow and he was it was i think it was uh
sarkozy who put the france back into
nato
and uh now it's
macro i i hope because he was talking to
putin would at least
have an independent viewpoint that could
be helpful here but he so he rolled it
up
he may have told putin something else
but within days he had rolled it up and
gone along with the united states
position
which was enforced by the united states
in a very fierce way
the propaganda as i say i don't know how
much time you spend in america but
it was vicious and everything was
anti-russian russia were killing all
these people were
shooting down
civilians
although there was no proof of it there
was just these are the accidents of war
but all of a sudden it was a campaign of
criminality and they were talking about
bringing putin into war crime trial well
why didn't they talk like that when iraq
was going on and bush was killing far
more people
or for that matter why were they not
talking about the the killings in
donbass and lugansk
during that
2014 to 2000
20 period
that is what is it's a crime there were
so many people that were killed
many of them innocent many of them
minister so what would be the way for
vladimir putin
to
stop the killing in dambass
without the invasion of ukraine yeah
that's a very good question and i've
asked that several times and i don't
have the i have not talked to him since
about two years now uh
it's a very good question what's the
mistakes
what the human mistakes and the
leadership mistakes means a