A Quote by David Reuben

Business in Russia was not being done like in the West, with contracts. In Russia, hundreds of millions of dollars were going forward and backward by word of mouth.
The greatest business icons-it's not that they were worth hundreds of millions, or billions or trillions of dollars, it's that they moved society forward.
Russia, Russia - unwashed, backward, appealing Russia, so ashamed of your own backwardness, so orientally determined to conceal it from us by clever deceit.
We never worked in Russia. We never worked for Russia. I want to be careful, but I don't think we have any Russian employees in our company whatsoever. We just don't have business in Russia. We have no involvement with Russia, never have done.
We had in the West a very romantic vision of Russia back in 1991, when the Soviet Union died and whatever is Russia began to emerge. And we began to think of it as a democracy. We're going to bring it into the West. All is going to be wonderful. That was never in the cards.
I had traveled to Russia and met with Snowden, which was a pretty involved meeting that required encrypted communication and the like. And it was fascinating because of who he is and what he's done. And more so because what's going on between our two countries, Russia and the U.S., and to meet Edward Snowden in Russia was unforgettable.
One journalist said that everybody in Russia is miserable. Russia is a terrible place. And I'm going to end up miserable and I'm going to be a drunk and I'm never going to do anything. I don't drink. I've never been drunk in my life. And they talk about Russia like it's the worst place on earth. Russia's great.
The attitude of the West and of Russia towards a crisis like Ukraine is diametrically different. The West is trying to establish the legality of any established border. For Russia, Ukraine is part of the Russian patrimony.
We know that Russia has done things that are very much against our interests. They've done things that require us to take punitive action against Russia. That does not mean we can't work with Russia where we have a common agenda. Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; we need their help in isolating North Korea and their nuclear weapons violations. So, we still need to work with Russia. But Russia's done things that are contrary to our national security interest, and the US must respond to those types of activities.
I think that right now the West understands Russia better than before and feels a much greater wariness toward it. I think that, if anything, Russia's sinister nature is exaggerated, in that most contemporary analysts in the West can't even imagine that Russia could be different. I think it can, with a different turn of events.
Russia, Russia - unwashed, backward, appealing Russia, so ashamed of your own backwardness, so orientally determined to conceal it from us by clever deceit. So sensitive and so suspicious in the face of the wicked, civilized west. I shall always remember you slyly, touchingly, but with great shouting and confusion - pumping hot water into our sleeping car in the frosty darkness of a December morning in order that we might not know, in order that we might never realize, to how primitive a land we had come.
You know, Russia today is, what, 200 million people? In land mass, it's probably 50 times the size [of Japan], in natural resources a hundred times the size! Russia's not doing all that badly. The public there - not everybody - but they have things that the West offered, [that] were only available in the West a long time ago.
The United States genuinely sought to advance Russia's integration into the West and into international institutions. We genuinely sought to support Russia. We wanted a strong, successful Russia, not a weak and contained one.
You know, Russia brings it on. People don't want to be Russia hawk. People would like - that's what the president always says: We would like to get along with Russia. But what Russia is doing makes it really hard.
I understand why Vladimir Putin is very popular in Russia - he's probably the first Russian leader to not apologize for being Russian. People always pin it down to one man, but there's hundreds of millions of Russians of various sorts. Putin does seem to be very popular in Russia, if only because he stands up for Russians wherever they are, which is exactly what Americans do with Americans, of course.
Russia on its path has oftentimes discussed and overdiscussed what had happened earlier, instead of moving forward. The result is always the same: It is very difficult to move forward when you're looking backward.
I don`t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She [Hillary Clinton] is saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia. But it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people.
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