A Quote by Joe Manchin
We've got oligarchs. There are certain people that benefit in the Russian sphere if you will. The oligarchs who basically feed Putin, they've got to be hurt without hurting the people. The people are hurting bad enough in Russia, and they're very skeptical of what's going on and all of the corruption goes on in Russia. Russia is not our ally. Russia is not our friend. And to treat Putin as an ally and a friend is wrong.
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I don't look at Putin as a friend. I don't look at Russia. And I am very skeptical of what they're doing, their intentions. There are a lot of good people in Russia that don't have any say whatsoever. And they're starting to basically express their frustration, and starting marching, and hopefully getting their point across. So we've got to make sure that we put the hurt on the oligarchs, all the money, the way the money flows through Russia, and the people that benefit by it.
People take the lazy way out, and do not regard Putin and the Kremlin as the real enemy. They create a long but erroneous chain in their heads. Putin is the leader of Russia. Putin does X, therefore Russia is doing X, and Russia is our enemy. And so, we introduce sanctions, for example, against Russia.
Vladimir Putin hates America, he wants to hurt us. Suddenly Vladimir Putin is a good guy, Russia is okay, no it's not. Russia is evil, Russia is our enemy.
Putin described Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. These - the Russian people view Ukraine as an extension of Russia. And so there is a sense that Putin really will do whatever it takes, even in the face of overwhelming, diplomatic, and economic pressure to defend what he sees as Russia's vital interest. And I think when we're trying to understand what's going on in Ukraine we have to keep that in mind. This isn't a simple case of Putin agitating for a fight.
The mission is to demonstrate that Russia is not Putin, that we're ready for cooperation, and that there are a lot of people in Russia who want the U.S.-Russia relations to be improved and that we don't view the United States as our enemy.
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.
Tillerson, at ExxonMobil, brokered multibillion-dollar deals with Russia, meeting with Putin multiple times. In 2013, he received the Order of Friendship award from Putin himself. But Tillerson today said he'd support continuing sanctions against Russia for now. He also implied his intimate knowledge of Russia meant he understood its strategy, and could anticipate its moves, to America's benefit.
Donald Trump himself has financial ties to oligarchs in Russia who are close to Putin.
Putin is backing Assad - a person that's truly an evil person. And I think it's very bad for Russia. I think it's very bad for mankind. It's very bad for this world. And I really think that there's going to be a lot of pressure on Russia to make sure that peace happens, because, frankly, if Russia didn't go in and back this animal, you wouldn't have a problem right now. He was going to be overthrown.
I never met Putin. This is not my best friend. But if the United States got along with Russia, wouldn't be so bad.
Russia went into Syria basically to support President Bashar al-Assad. And the Western allies have said Russia's really done very little against ISIS. For his part, Putin said Russia's open to stronger cooperation, and he supports Frances's effort to build a strong anti-terror coalition.
Putin imagined it would be different. So, like many Russian leaders before him, he imagined that Ukraine was basically Russia, but they speak with a funny accent. Actually, it's not Russia; it has a different identity. It has a very different language. Russians don't automatically understand Ukrainian. And, in particular, the way Ukraine has developed over the last two decades is different from the way Russia has developed.
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.
Vladimir Putin doesn't really gain anything economically from annexation of Crimea. It's more a gain of power. It's a gain of what he can say to his home population about what he's accomplished as president. And so it's really much more an individual gain for Putin politically than for Russia as a state, because over the long term, Russia is not going to particularly benefit from this.
The mistake we make with many people - not just Russia - is that we believe we have the model, and there is a sort of a condescension in our dialogue with other societies, which was especially painful in several administrations to Russia. I think in Russia, the Yeltsin period is not considered a period of great achievement, but a period of corruption and humiliation.
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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