A Quote by Vladimir Voinovich
After all these recent events in Russia - "Crimea is ours!," Donbas, all that - I realized I could get back into the business of forecasting. Until now, I didn't feel up to it. I actually was wrong about one thing: I predicted that Putin would be forced to leave soon, but he's still there. Generally, once again - this time not in seventy years but in a very short time - the President and the Duma have reached the stage of such idiocy that they are constantly taking actions which are not simply pointless but harmful, to Russia itself.
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Russia does continue to battle us in the U.N. time and time again. I have clear eyes on this. I'm not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia, or Mr. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. And I'm certainly not going to say to him, I'll give you more flexibility after the election. After the election, he'll get more backbone.
We know that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up Putin, to support Putin, whether it's saying that NATO wouldn't come to the rescue of allies if they were invaded, talking about removing sanctions from Russian officials after they were imposed by the United States and Europe together, because of Russia's aggressiveness in Crimea and Ukraine, his praise for Putin which is I think quite remarkable.
We know that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up [Vladimir] Putin, to support Putin, whether it's saying that NATO wouldn't come to the rescue of allies if they were invaded, talking about removing sanctions from Russian officials after they were imposed by the United States and Europe together, because of Russia's aggressiveness in Crimea and Ukraine, his praise for Putin which is I think quite remarkable.
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.
We should fulfill the Minsk Protocol. The main reason for the sanctions is that Russia broke a taboo: It triggered a war in Europe. Crimea is a problem, but the most painful part of the sanctions is tied to the war in the Donbas. As soon as Russia takes real steps to prevent shots from being fired there, this part of the sanctions will be lifted.
Donald Trump praised Russia's strong man, Vladimir Putin, even taking the astonishing step of suggesting that he prefers the Russian president to our American president. I was just thinking about all of the presidents that would just be looking at one another in total astonishment. What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks America's generals and heaps praise on Russia's president? I think we know the answer.
Well, we have got to understand, for example, Russia is an orthodox Christian nation. So is Ukraine. That happened in 988 in Crimea, a place called Kievan Rus, which was the Russia around Kiev at that time. It's 1,000 years ago, but, to a Russian, it's yesterday.
On Russia, President Trump reverses the weakness of Obama, who turned a blind eye as Putin marched into Crimea and Ukraine by hitting Putin where it hurts - on energy.
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.
Seventy-five years. That's how much time you get if you're lucky. Seventy-five years. Seventy-five winters, seventy-five springtimes, seventy-five summers, and seventy-five autumns. When you look at it like that, it's not a lot of time, is it? Don't waste them. Get your head out of the rat race and forget about the superficial things that pre-occupy your existence and get back to what's important now.
I don't understand what the president's [Donald Trump] position is on Russia. But I can tell you what my position is on Russia: Russia is a great danger to a lot of its neighbors, and [Vladimir] Putin has as one of his core objectives fracturing NATO, which is one of the greatest military alliances in the history of the world.
A wonderful man came to my office a week ago. A very highly respected man and he sat down and he said, "You know it's been very unfair. From the day you have been president you've been under this little veil of Russia, Russia, Russia." And with all of this being said, I want to say this, I think it would be great if we got along with Russia. I don't think there's anything wrong with - they are a power, they're a nuclear power. I think we could have a good relationship. I think that North Korean situation would be easier settled.
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.
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.
I tried to come up with a definition of this new paradigm in six articles entitled "Russia after Putin." I would consider Russia's integration into Europe the most important element of this strategy.
If we had a relationship with Russia, that would be a good thing. In fact, it would be a great thing, not a bad thing. Because Vladimir Putin could really help us in North Korea. We have a big problem with North Korea. And China is helping us. And because of the lack of a relationship that we have with Russia because of this artificial thing that's happening with this Democratic-inspired thing, we could really be helped a lot, tremendously, with Russia having to do with North Korea.
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