TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About Putin's Russia

00:00:00.000 The reason why you think Putin is irreplaceable is precisely because he's like, you know, like a witch from the Snow White, you know, who's the fairest of them all?

00:00:11.580 Well, after you poison every Snow White in the country, you know, you're the fairest of them all.

00:00:16.280 And that's the logic of Putin.

00:00:23.580 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:26.620 I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:28.080 I'm Constantin Kissen.

00:00:29.140 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:34.940 A brilliant guest we have for you today, all the way from the motherland itself.

00:00:38.940 He is a political activist, a campaigner, politician, Russia's most prominent libertarian, Michael Svetov.

00:00:44.320 Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:46.140 Thanks for having me. Hi, Konstantin. Hi.

00:00:48.700 Yeah, there you go. Well, I mispronounced your name or I pronounced it in the English way to start with after you spent five minutes training Francis to pronounce it correctly.

00:00:57.160 But listen, welcome to the show.

00:00:58.600 Before we get into the conversation, tell everybody a little bit about who you are.

00:01:02.780 How are you where you are?

00:01:03.720 Because you're not actually in Russia at the moment.

00:01:05.660 What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us?

00:01:10.040 Well, I'm Russia's most prominent libertarian, as you mentioned before.

00:01:13.700 And I've been really active in Russian activist circles for a couple of years now.

00:01:19.200 And I've organized some of the most successful rallies in Russia.

00:01:23.000 Not many people know that the Libertarian Party of Russia organized a rally of 60,000 people in Moscow just a couple of years ago, two years ago to be exact, in defense of free speech online, in defense of privacy of conversation, in defense of telegram.

00:01:37.540 It was a big news in the international media as well, and I played a major role in organizing those rallies.

00:01:44.380 I'm also famous for reading lectures about libertarianism, and my biggest accomplishment

00:01:50.940 is that I actually toured Russia from Kaliningrad to Yuzhno-Sakalinsk, that's the far east

00:01:57.240 of Russia, reading lectures in over 70 cities of Russia.

00:02:01.640 All of them were very successful, and that's my biggest accomplishment, something I'm most

00:02:05.620 proud of, apart from lectures.

00:02:07.700 And the other thing I'm really proud of is I organized a lecture by Hans Hermann Hoppe

00:02:12.600 in Moscow.

00:02:13.100 It was the biggest lecture read by a libertarian in the world.

00:02:20.660 Over 1,600 people attended.

00:02:23.120 It took place in the big concert hall.

00:02:25.920 The recording is available on my YouTube channel.

00:02:28.620 And nothing like this, at least as far as I know, has never been done anywhere else.

00:02:33.520 I mean, 1,600 people listening to a lecture read by a philosopher and economist, that's something.

00:02:39.500 So whenever people act surprised that Russia has a libertarian party and it's been quite prominent for the last several years, I always act surprised in return because, you know, we did things that seem impossible even in the U.S. and seem ridiculous in Europe.

00:02:57.920 So that's something I'm really proud of.

00:02:59.380 Well, it's great to have you on. And I think we'll get into some of your work a little bit further on. But I think it's impossible to discuss anything about Russia, particularly for a Western audience, which is mostly who we have without contextualizing a little bit, because most people, I know this for a fact in the West, don't really understand what's happening.

00:03:19.200 to be honest with you, I wouldn't even claim to necessarily know the ins and outs of what's going

00:03:24.420 on. So can you give people, first of all, a broad perspective of where Russia is today?

00:03:31.340 What has happened? Who is Vladimir Putin? How has he been in power for so long? You know,

00:03:37.560 all the electoral shenanigans that are going on and all of that. Can you just give people a big

00:03:41.900 picture view before we get into everything else? Well, yeah, Russia is in a very difficult place

00:03:46.160 right now. We just had elections two days ago, and they were fraught with falsifications, with

00:03:54.380 ballot stuffing and things like that. And basically, United Russia, that's the Putin's

00:03:59.100 party, claimed victory, even though they didn't gather enough votes to actually win properly.

00:04:04.600 But there's nothing civil society can do. So there's no rallies because most of the activists

00:04:09.180 has been jailed. Like the last nine months were spent just jailing every single dissident in

00:04:16.540 Russia. So the biggest story you probably heard about is the story of Alexei Navalny, who's been

00:04:22.180 poisoned by Novichok last year. He survived. He found people who attacked him. He dared to come

00:04:29.060 back to Russia and he was apprehended and put to jail right in the airport when he boarded off

00:04:36.020 the plane. So that's the situation we've been struggling with in the past months. And I myself

00:04:43.220 had to leave Russia because most of my team, like the people who made the successes that we'll be

00:04:47.840 talking about today, possible last year, two years ago, three years ago, most of them were

00:04:53.240 dispersed. Some of them are under house arrest right now. Some of my closest allies are under

00:04:58.080 house arrest. Most of my allies had to flee Russia. I left Russia myself as well, not because of the

00:05:03.740 direct political prosecution even though just three months ago I was in jail three months ago

00:05:08.800 I had another house search my house searched again so that's the kind of pressure we're living under

00:05:14.560 and Russia's been very very difficult place to do any kind of political activism but and it's

00:05:20.700 getting worse unfortunately. It's interesting that you're saying it's getting worse because

00:05:25.560 hasn't Russia always had this history of you know powerful leaders crushing down on you know the

00:05:33.160 individuals and the people who live in Russia. Yeah, but we had this window of freedom 20 years

00:05:40.400 from early 90s to, let's say, to the late noughties that felt freer than ever before. But now that

00:05:48.880 Putin cracked back on the civil society, now it's getting really bad again. So Russia today is very

00:05:56.760 different from Russia two years ago. As I mentioned, the kind of work I've been doing in Russia for the

00:06:01.960 past years is impossible today. Like the biggest example, two years ago, I opened the first

00:06:08.120 libertarian club in Russia called New Sincerity, and it felt like a good idea just two short years

00:06:13.420 ago. But then the whole thing with Navalny happened, the poisoning, his survival, his return

00:06:18.140 home, and his incarceration. And now it's something that's impossible to imagine. I had to close it

00:06:24.000 down. Police raided several times. They forced us to close for several months, and it's impossible

00:06:29.820 to hold a place of conversation anymore even though a kind of conversation was possible

00:06:35.940 just recently even less than a year ago it was still possible really the things turned to the

00:06:41.480 worst nine months ago when Alexei Navalny came came back to Russia and why is that why is this

00:06:48.360 sudden crackdown happening is it because Putin has felt that his power is being threatened that

00:06:53.480 he's not as strong as he used to be therefore he needs to introduce more draconian measures

00:06:58.840 Well, he's as strong as he used to be.

00:07:01.060 The reason why he's cracking down is because he saw an example of Ukraine.

00:07:04.880 He saw an example of Belarusia.

00:07:06.360 I think that's what triggered him mostly.

00:07:09.140 He saw that people flooded the streets and he wanted to act in advance.

00:07:12.940 He wanted to prevent them from happening.

00:07:14.460 You're talking about the protests in those countries.

00:07:16.920 I'm talking about the protests in Ukraine.

00:07:18.920 I mean, Ukraine had a proper revolution.

00:07:20.640 Belorussia had an attempt at revolution which failed thanks to the draconian measures of

00:07:28.640 Lukashenko. You probably heard about it as well. So Putin wanted to act in advance. He wanted to

00:07:34.780 not allow this kind of protest to happen, to shake his power. So he cracked down on any

00:07:40.320 kind of person who dared to say something against the party. So he's a smart tactician. I think what

00:07:49.480 people don't realize about Putin is that he's a very smart politician. He's bad for the Russian

00:07:54.780 people. He's bad for the country. But he's very smart in the way he deals with power. And that's

00:08:02.620 why he's been staying in power for over 20 years now. Mikhail, let me take you back to my earlier

00:08:07.800 question because we didn't get a chance to get into it. Put your historian hat on for us. Let's

00:08:13.260 go back to 1998, when you and I were both quite young still. Explain to people the entire process

00:08:21.880 since, because most people in the West don't know how Vladimir Putin came to power. They don't know

00:08:28.240 how he managed to serve more terms than was originally allowed by the constitution. They

00:08:33.700 don't understand the whole situation with Dmitry Medvedev. Just give us a brief history of the

00:08:41.480 last 20 years? Because I think that would be very helpful for any conversation. Okay, well, Putin has

00:08:45.780 been appointed as a successor of Yeltsin, Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia. Nobody knew who

00:08:51.120 he was back then. They felt like he can be easily controlled. That's why all the oligarchs,

00:08:58.020 Russian oligarchs, backed him as well. But when he rose to power, he emerged as this kind of strong

00:09:04.060 man, quite popular at the time with the general public, because he was cracking down on oligarchs

00:09:09.540 and nobody liked oligarchs.

00:09:10.840 So he basically cracked down on the same people

00:09:13.120 who brought him to power,

00:09:14.760 and that gave him a very great measure of support

00:09:17.960 in his first eight years when he was in power.

00:09:21.020 Then he sort of surrendered the presidential post

00:09:25.120 to Dmitry Medvedev, who was his closest ally.

00:09:28.180 And at the time, everybody was talking about

00:09:30.900 how Dmitry Medvedev can prove to be a liberal shift

00:09:34.460 in the politics of Russia,

00:09:36.060 how he was different from Putin's,

00:09:37.560 But to me, it always felt ridiculous because I remember the interviews that Putin gave in 1999 when he was first appointed as a prime minister back then, before he became president.

00:09:49.580 One of the first interviews he gave, he was asked, you know, other people you trust, you can trust 100 percent, other people you can rely on.

00:09:59.200 And he named one person who nobody knew at the time, whose name country didn't learn for another eight years.

00:10:06.020 and that was Dmitry Medvedev, he said, that's the person I can rely on 100%.

00:10:10.280 So when they made the switch rule, when Medvedev became president,

00:10:15.240 I was sure that, you know, that's basically the same party, the same person ruling the country.

00:10:20.380 And it proved to be correct when they switched back four years after that,

00:10:25.200 when Medvedev seceded the presidential post back to Putin again.

00:10:30.640 And after that, after that, things turned more authoritarian.

00:10:34.460 So, in the first eight years, Putin generally was a very liked president.

00:10:39.820 Like, I didn't like him, most of dissidents didn't like him, but it was hard to argue that he was really popular.

00:10:45.700 After that, the Ukrainian war happened, the annexation of Crimea, and that gave him a different kind of boost,

00:10:54.320 a different kind of boost of popularity than he had before.

00:10:58.220 The patriotic sensibilities rose,

00:11:01.940 and he rode this wave for several years again.

00:11:04.920 Now it's a different story.

00:11:06.380 He doesn't have a success story anymore.

00:11:08.660 He's burdened by the mistakes,

00:11:11.280 and he's burdened by the economic stagnation,

00:11:14.560 but he's driven by will of power,

00:11:18.800 and his closest allies,

00:11:20.840 the circle of people that's been with him for 20 years,

00:11:24.500 It's so tight and so well organized that there's really nothing you can do to fight against it, unfortunately.

00:11:37.140 And the last development was the whole thing with Alexei Navalny in Belarusia.

00:11:43.280 Alexei Navalny got poisoned.

00:11:44.740 Belarusia had attempted revolution, which gave Putin this historical sense that revolution is something he had to prevent in Russia.

00:11:53.180 and that's what he's doing right now, and yeah.

00:11:56.260 And would you say that he is a good leader,

00:11:59.000 not in terms, obviously, of human rights,

00:12:01.340 where Russia's human rights record is abysmal,

00:12:04.460 but in the way that he runs a country,

00:12:06.820 the way he runs it fiscally, etc.?

00:12:09.780 You see, there's a difference between good leader and competent leader.

00:12:14.940 He's a competent leader.

00:12:16.180 I don't think he's a good leader.

00:12:17.560 I think he's driving country to the ground,

00:12:19.480 but he's been doing it very competently,

00:12:22.180 and he didn't allow any kind of dissent during his five terms in power now.

00:12:31.140 And why is it that he's been allowed to serve five terms

00:12:34.000 if, as Constantin alluded to, there was a set limit?

00:12:39.420 Well, there is a limit on consecutive terms.

00:12:42.860 So you can't stay president for three consecutive terms, only two consecutive terms.

00:12:47.900 But if you make a switcheroo, the kind of switcheroo that he did with Dmitry Medvedev, then you're allowed an extra two consecutive terms.

00:12:55.740 And then we had this referendum. Well, it wasn't really a referendum.

00:12:59.220 It was a plebiscite where he asked people if it was all right for him to change the constitution to allow him to stay in power pretty much indefinitely.

00:13:08.180 And that's happened last year, the big plebiscite. So now there is no limit whatsoever.

00:13:12.760 And the one thing that we think of Putin in the West is that his ruthlessness, particularly when it comes to his enemies and particularly when it comes to the use of poison, why does he do that?

00:13:27.220 Why? And particularly, why is it always poison?

00:13:30.980 Because it works. I mean, the question you should ask yourself is why shouldn't he do what he does?

00:13:36.760 because it allows him to reach the goals that he sets.

00:13:40.640 So the ends justify the means.

00:13:43.160 He deals in real politics,

00:13:44.720 so he doesn't really have an ideological agenda.

00:13:47.500 That's what people in the West don't really realize, I think.

00:13:50.400 And he does whatever works.

00:13:52.140 So the poison works, so why not use poison?

00:13:54.820 It's less messy than hiring an assassin.

00:13:57.480 It's less troublesome than dealing with people politically,

00:14:00.660 and he's not as acute in public politics as he is in real politics.

00:14:05.940 and real politics works.

00:14:07.140 So whatever works, he's willing to do.

00:14:09.480 But hang on, surely, like, you know,

00:14:11.300 if you look at the case of Alexander Litvinenko,

00:14:13.760 which happened around 15 years ago,

00:14:16.360 the Salisbury poisonings,

00:14:18.120 I mean, that's been condemned

00:14:19.260 by everybody around the world, practically.

00:14:22.180 Surely that isn't an effective tactic, is it?

00:14:25.040 Doesn't that just alienate everybody?

00:14:27.080 Well, of course it is an effective tactic.

00:14:29.320 Okay, he's been condemned,

00:14:30.620 but what did the West really do to Putin?

00:14:32.860 I mean, there hasn't been really

00:14:34.360 any meaningful sanctions. There hasn't been any meaningful backlash. When he annexed Crimea,

00:14:39.240 you know, all the West did is said, well, you shouldn't really do that. So he feels like he's

00:14:44.760 been doing everything exactly the way it should have been done. And I understand this will be a

00:14:51.380 difficult question for you to answer, but let me ask you anyway. Liberal-minded people like you and

00:14:55.980 I, I think, of Russian background or who lived in Russia, I think we're in the minority, wouldn't

00:15:01.400 you say? Isn't it not fair to say that most people in Russia support what Vladimir Putin is doing?

00:15:07.840 I mean, I would argue, and I've argued many times in the past, and, you know, feel free to argue

00:15:11.900 with me, which I think you will. You know, Russia's never been a democracy. There's never been a

00:15:16.420 single democratic transition of power, truly democratic transition of power in the entire

00:15:21.380 history of our country, going back centuries and centuries and centuries. Isn't Vladimir Putin

00:15:27.080 just one of those, you know, Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, you know, whatever, just a typical

00:15:33.780 Russian leader. And Russian people love that. Well, he definitely likes to think of himself

00:15:39.380 that way. But I think people never had a chance to actually develop this kind of tradition. So

00:15:45.520 there is always a moment in time where, you know, democracy emerges out of unfree society.

00:15:51.060 And Russia had the chance, you know, if the leaders allowed that for that, you know, this tradition could have emerged.

00:15:58.280 We've seen the same thing happening in the Eastern Europe, for example, after the period of the Soviet occupation.

00:16:04.200 You know, they developed healthy democracies.

00:16:06.420 In Russia, we were never allowed that.

00:16:08.280 So I think it's an unfair question to ask.

00:16:11.080 You asking if Putin is really, you know, his means are justified, if he's really popular,

00:16:18.620 because we don't know, really.

00:16:20.720 There is no freedom of speech.

00:16:22.220 There is no freedom of association.

00:16:24.260 Any kind of political organization is being crushed

00:16:27.340 once it reaches any kind of success.

00:16:30.100 So the kind of institution that could have developed

00:16:33.380 in the past 20 years,

00:16:34.840 that could have become a backbone of a new free society,

00:16:38.620 were crushed.

00:16:39.200 So, of course, right now there is no alternative to Putin.

00:16:42.060 But the only reason there is no alternative to Putin

00:16:44.680 is because Putin did everything in his power

00:16:47.300 to make it so. I think it's what all tyrants and all dictators do, really. They destroy any

00:16:57.280 meaningful opposition and they come to the public and say, well, look, there is nobody except me.

00:17:02.760 And that's exactly what Putin did. So how popular do you think he actually is? Because

00:17:07.460 you make a very good point. For example, Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator, he had a 93%

00:17:13.100 approval rating the day before he was taken out and shot, right? So he was obviously not that

00:17:19.480 popular, but in dictatorships, I take your point, the popularity rating, according to polls, is kind

00:17:26.620 of irrelevant. So how popular do you think he actually is in Russia? I think he was very popular

00:17:31.680 throughout most of his time in power, but I think it changes right now. And the last election we had

00:17:37.280 just two days ago, showed that his party, United Russia, couldn't achieve the success that they were

00:17:44.960 hoping for. So they had to use tough ballots. They had to falsify the elections in order to

00:17:52.880 secure the seats that they needed. There's a really clear evidence that the last election

00:17:59.420 was heavily falsified on both ends, on offline ballots, real-life ballots, and on the digital

00:18:06.060 election front as well. We have this digital election system based on blockchain that's

00:18:11.980 been used to actually swing the election in favor of United Russia.

00:18:16.920 Mikhail, wouldn't you say that actually Russia needs a Putin? Because it's a country that is not

00:18:25.420 particularly stable. It's large. And if you have a democracy, wouldn't that therefore mean that

00:18:32.300 there'd be certain parts of it that want to become independent, and it would be fundamentally

00:18:36.760 unstable as an entity? Well, I think people should be given a chance. There will never be an

00:18:43.780 alternative to a dictator as long as there is a dictator in power. So we will never know what

00:18:48.540 other options are. So we have this, well, he's an opposition leader, we call him that, Alexei

00:18:56.140 Navalny, the man I mentioned earlier. And he managed to gather a serious support in Russia.

00:19:02.880 He had chapters of his organization in every major city in Russia. He ran for mayor of Moscow

00:19:11.200 and almost won several years ago. And he hasn't been allowed to participate in elections ever

00:19:17.240 since so uh the the the reason why you think putin is uh uh irreplaceable is precisely because he's

00:19:25.940 like uh you know like a witch from the snow white you know who's the fairest of them all well after

00:19:31.240 you poison every snow white in the country you know you're the fairest of them all and that's

00:19:35.740 the logic of putin and has his reign been undermined is coronavirus playing a big factor in

00:19:42.060 that go for it yeah well i think uh the whole thing with coronavirus is just uh uh it's been

00:19:50.840 so depressing not just in russia but in the entire world as well in russia it's being used

00:19:54.940 exactly the same way it's been used in the u.s and in australia right now basically every time

00:20:00.500 it's convenient you know you crack down you say that there's a quarantine uh you have to stay

00:20:05.520 home. There is this whole criminal case against activists right now who are basically being

00:20:12.040 framed for spreading the coronavirus by means of organizing a political rally. So it is being used

00:20:18.140 for political means whenever it's convenient, but whenever there is a big prestigious event like

00:20:24.980 the European football match that took place in St. Petersburg a couple of months ago,

00:20:33.660 You know, all the quarantine measures are being lifted whenever there is an election.

00:20:38.140 And that was very, very funny as well.

00:20:40.480 We had elections that I mentioned two days ago and all the quarantine measures were lifted.

00:20:44.580 And once they were over, the government came in and said, well, you know, you can't have rallies.

00:20:50.160 You can't oppose the election results because we have coronavirus and actually we're bringing back your codes as well.

00:20:56.140 So it is being used by a tyrannical government to reach its political means.

00:21:02.680 Yeah. And Mikko, the other thing that people in the West often associate with Russia without really understanding the full meaning is people describe Russia as a kleptocracy, which I know is another thing, one of the things that you would be concerned about as an as an opposition activist.

00:21:18.200 Can you explain to people in in a kind of broad brush detail what that actually means?

00:21:24.040 Because I think, again, in my experience, people in the West have absolutely no idea what what we're talking about.

00:21:31.560 Well, kleptocracy basically is when you have the ruling class and Putin and his closest

00:21:36.720 associate dealing with using the government budget as their own piggy bank.

00:21:41.100 And that's what they've been doing for the past 20 years.

00:21:43.800 Every single friend of Putin's became extremely rich in the past 20 years.

00:21:48.280 And the kind of crippled down economy that you usually took in the West, it works in

00:21:54.480 the nepotism kind of way in Russia.

00:21:56.600 If you know someone who knows Putin, you will be well off.

00:22:00.680 If you manage to suck to the government, you'll be well off.

00:22:04.200 But there is no really a fair economy.

00:22:06.900 There is no really market economy anymore because everything relies on if you have connections, then you can do business.

00:22:13.060 If you don't have connections, like Pavel Durov, for example, he was the one, he was the only real capitalist we had.

00:22:20.140 He created Vkontakti Social Network, which is the biggest rival of Facebook's in Russia,

00:22:26.300 and it occupies a major part of the market.

00:22:28.900 And it's been basically stolen from him by Putin's oligarch, Aleksha Rosmanov.

00:22:34.700 So he had to flee Russia, and he created Telegram.

00:22:37.680 And Telegram became the biggest messaging platform in Russia as well.

00:22:40.700 But it's not based in Russia anymore because it's dangerous.

00:22:43.640 And Pavel Durov, basically country, turned back to his home country under threat of arrest.

00:22:49.240 so basically whatever Putin's cronies want they take and there's no repercussion because there's

00:22:56.300 no fair trial there's no justice system everything is corrupt and everything is for grabs if you're

00:23:03.320 in power and Michael when I was in China there was a very sort of similar system in many ways

00:23:10.640 however for the average Chinese person if you don't get involved in politics if you don't

00:23:16.840 question authority. If you just want to go about and live your life, life is actually not bad. In

00:23:22.200 fact, it's pretty good. Is that the same in Russia? Well, I actually argue about that in regard to

00:23:28.640 Russia and China as well, because you never know what may become politics tomorrow. And there's

00:23:33.900 this huge case happening right now in Russia, the case of Yuri Kovansky, who was a blogger. He

00:23:40.580 reviewed the food, you know, junk food and stuff like that, apolitical whatsoever. But 10 years

00:23:46.200 ago, just think about 10 years ago, he sang a song about a terrorist act that happened in Moscow.

00:23:51.420 It was a satirical song. It was made in bad taste, but it was a satirical song sang by someone who

00:23:57.800 was never involved in politics in his life. And just a couple of months ago, he was brought to

00:24:03.660 trial. He's tried as an extremist and a terrorist. He's actually in the same list as a ISIS terrorist

00:24:11.380 right now has been put in the same list by the Russian government for singing a song 10 years

00:24:16.580 ago. So you never know what may become politics. You never know when you may become inconvenient.

00:24:22.000 And it's been spreading like a rash in the past months because once the thing with repressive

00:24:29.020 machine is that once you get rid of real enemies, or at least some people you perceive as real

00:24:35.660 enemies, you still need someone to oppress because you need to prove your worth to the government,

00:24:40.200 to the people that are paying you money,

00:24:42.200 to the people that decide that you are still useful.

00:24:45.680 So you have to invent enemies.

00:24:47.080 And once the real political activists are out of the picture,

00:24:51.460 they start to prosecute innocent people.

00:24:53.860 And that's what happened to Yuri Kovansky,

00:24:55.500 my good friend Maria Matuzna.

00:24:57.200 She's been in the Western News as well.

00:24:59.300 She was in the list of extremists and terrorists as well

00:25:02.160 for sending a meme in her private message to a friend

00:25:06.320 when she was living in a tiny city in Russia.

00:25:09.920 So she was not a political activist back then.

00:25:12.320 She is now because of the story she went through.

00:25:14.560 But she was not a political activist back then.

00:25:16.680 And still she was tried as a terrorist simply for sending a meme.

00:25:21.540 And there are stories like this happening all the time.

00:25:24.680 The biggest one out of three is the case of Ruslan Sokolovsky, who was a blogger as well.

00:25:30.720 He recorded a video catching Pokemons, playing Pokemon Go inside a church.

00:25:35.820 And for posting that video, he's been put in the list of terrorists and extremists, the same kind of list where people who actually bomb and kill people are being put in.

00:25:46.980 And it took us over a year to help him get out of trouble.

00:25:51.720 So, no, it's not enough. It's not good enough if you're not interested in politics because politics will get interested in you.

00:26:02.440 And when it happens, there's nobody left to help you.

00:26:05.820 And Mikhail, you mentioned something that I think is actually very important, something that, you know, I haven't lived in Russia for over 20 years now.

00:26:13.560 But the one thing I really do associate very strongly with is Russian culture, Russian literature, Russian, the whole cultural sphere, which, you know, Russia has produced some of the greatest poets, the greatest artists, the greatest writers, a little bit depressing.

00:26:30.240 But nonetheless, the greatest writers in history, even during very difficult, oppressive times.

00:26:37.140 What has been the impact of the last 20 years on the cultural life of Russia, on the ability to produce the great satirists?

00:26:45.320 I know that, for example, one of the people I really used to respect, like Viktor Shondorovich, he's not able to really be a satirist anymore.

00:26:52.720 He's become a sort of dissident commentator because he can't actually make comedy shows on TV as he used to.

00:26:58.840 and other things like that.

00:27:00.480 Has all of this stunted the cultural aspect of Russia

00:27:03.760 or has actually spurred it on

00:27:04.920 as it has done sometimes in the past?

00:27:07.260 No, no, it's stunted the Russian culture as well

00:27:09.440 and it ceased to be international.

00:27:11.640 Like the kind of authors you're referring to,

00:27:14.160 the Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy,

00:27:15.480 they were all in the past

00:27:17.280 and the Soviet era during the Soviet times.

00:27:19.620 We have this saying that Stalin,

00:27:21.640 he took Russia with great Russian literature

00:27:23.920 and left Russia with the literary society.

00:27:28.840 and it sounds better in Russian anyway.

00:27:30.800 It does, yeah.

00:27:32.180 It does, it does.

00:27:33.460 But the point is, the point is that we don't have strong culture anymore

00:27:39.100 because culture needs freedom.

00:27:41.440 And the much better example, to be honest, is what happens in China.

00:27:46.940 I've always been fascinated that China managed to become this economic juggernaut.

00:27:51.700 You know, they have these factories and they import pretty much all the consumer goods to the world.

00:27:57.240 but there hasn't been a single decent movie coming out of China in 20 years.

00:28:02.080 There hasn't been a single good song coming out of China in 20 years.

00:28:05.660 Sure, they produce local culture, but there hasn't been any cultural success,

00:28:11.020 international cultural success coming out of a country of almost 2 billion people.

00:28:15.820 They haven't had a Gangnam style.

00:28:18.220 Yeah, well, Gangnam song is Korean, you know.

00:28:21.380 That's the point I'm making, you know.

00:28:22.860 You know, Korea, they have K-pop and they have the movies, you know, the Parasite was a great movie.

00:28:30.680 The Korean cinema is on the rise.

00:28:32.820 You know, Japan, they had the anime and manga that took world by storm.

00:28:36.860 And that's the country of, what, 150 million people.

00:28:39.820 And a country of 2 billion people didn't produce a single decent cultural product.

00:28:45.980 That tells you something about how freedom affects the society.

00:28:50.020 So it's the same thing in Russia.

00:28:51.340 But Russia doesn't have its intellectual freedom anymore.

00:28:54.800 And when you have no intellectual freedom, you have no culture, unfortunately.

00:28:59.740 That's such a good point about freedom.

00:29:02.180 And Mikhail, one of the things I wanted to ask you, and I think a lot of our audience would be curious to know.

00:29:07.300 I know people often are interested, in my opinion, about things as an outsider.

00:29:10.800 But you are sort of much fresher off the boat, if you like, in terms of leaving Russia much more recently.

00:29:16.700 What do you see in the West as an outsider in terms of, you know,

00:29:21.880 I think a lot of people in Russia would look at the West often as a place where there's a lot of freedom.

00:29:27.120 Maybe some people in Russia would think there's too much freedom, but nonetheless.

00:29:30.980 What do you notice as a person who's been forced to be in different parts of the world?

00:29:36.900 You've been to all over the place, New Zealand, Brazil, etc.

00:29:40.580 What do you see as an outsider?

00:29:42.180 that? Well, the biggest problem the West faces today is the loss of moral high ground. And I've

00:29:49.040 been writing about it incessantly, is that the U.S., during the Cold War, the U.S. was this

00:29:54.000 shining beacon of hope, you know, of freedom, an example we were striving to follow. But now it's

00:29:59.260 much harder to make that case because there is no more moral high ground left. And the biggest blow

00:30:05.480 to my ideology, like libertarian ideology, came from the U.S. It came from the ideals that founding

00:30:11.520 fathers were talking to, the ideas of classical liberalism, the ideas of individual freedom,

00:30:17.820 the ideas of just law. But when Julian Assange was first put under house arrest in the Ecuadorian

00:30:27.580 embassy, and now he's under proper arrest in the UK, to me, that seems unthinkable. I can't defend

00:30:35.100 the freedom of speech as efficiently as I used to be able to, because now every time I bring up,

00:30:41.200 you know, the Western media, there is always this case of Julian Assange. That's basically a person

00:30:46.080 who's been incarcerated for doing editorial work. He was working as a journalist. He never had access

00:30:51.500 to secret documents. He never had access to government secrets. So why is he in jail? Nobody

00:30:57.140 can, there is no good explanation. The other big blow was, of course, what happened to Edward

00:31:02.960 Snowden. And again, there's much better case that can be made against Edward Snowden that he actually

00:31:07.440 did commit a government crime, it was for the good, he was a whistleblower, but there was an

00:31:12.600 actual crime taking place. But I was fascinated that the only country that Edward Snowden found

00:31:18.740 refugee in was Putin's Russia. That tells you something. He couldn't go to Merkel's Germany,

00:31:23.720 he couldn't go to France, he couldn't go to Netherlands, he couldn't even fly through Europe

00:31:28.720 because there was a threat that the plane will be landed somewhere and he will be extradited

00:31:35.640 back to the U.S. So he had to seek refuge in Putin's Russia. And that was a huge win for Putin.

00:31:42.640 That was a huge win for his prestige, I think. And I think that's something the West should

00:31:49.220 really reflect on, because the loss of moral high ground has been this red threat that's been going

00:31:56.100 through Western politics in the last 10 to 15 years. And it's getting worse day by day. And I

00:32:02.280 understand that this whole justification of, you know, a noble lie, you know, we have to do that

00:32:07.920 to prevent the catastrophe from happening. But that's what brings about a catastrophe. Like what

00:32:14.480 happened during the elections of 2020 in the U.S. for it divided the country. It was, let me

00:32:23.600 rephrase myself. So politics became global, right? So whatever happens, whenever something happens

00:32:29.120 in the US, whenever something happens in the United Kingdom or in Europe, it's being interpreted

00:32:35.140 by the government and by the governments and by the civil societies of other countries and

00:32:40.260 of Russia as well. And when we saw what happened during the 2020, when Donald Trump was banned

00:32:47.160 from all social media, just think what kind of message it sent to Vladimir Putin. Hey, here's

00:32:54.420 this platform, you know, Twitter, Facebook, Google, whatever, YouTube, that claims to be a platform of

00:32:59.860 free speech, yet they banned the most powerful person in the world who was to become the biggest

00:33:06.620 opposition leader in the U.S. because they can, because it's politically convenient. So they're

00:33:11.780 not protecting freedom of speech anymore. They're using it to sway elections. They're using it to

00:33:18.140 silence the dissent. I will do the same in Russia, not just because they're doing the same,

00:33:25.080 but because them controlling who gets to say what on Twitter is direct threat to Russian politics

00:33:32.560 within Russian society, because everyone in Russia uses Twitter as well. And just think what

00:33:38.520 it means in terms of election. Just think what it means in terms if Google was to ban someone from

00:33:45.220 united Russia from its feed. It can sway elections in Russia. And that sort of drives Putin's,

00:33:54.060 that sort of drives his distrust to the West. And it drives distrust of the civil society as well,

00:34:00.580 because we see these things happening in the West. And now we doubt if it actually can be better.

00:34:05.900 So the biggest weapon the U.S. had during the Cold War was its moral high ground, was its

00:34:13.500 respect for values, even when it was inconvenient. But now that it lost that,

00:34:20.900 it's really hard to distinguish between Putin and Biden, for example. Because, yeah, there are

00:34:27.420 nuances and there's no moral equivalency yet. But it's looking much greyer and the distinction

00:34:35.380 is much less pronounced than it used to be just 10 years ago.

00:34:39.700 hey constantin do you love trigonometry of course incredible interviews hilarious live streams

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00:35:42.800 Isn't it also as well, Mikhail, is that at one point you saw America as a unified country, whereas you look at America now, it seems to be a country at war with itself.

00:35:54.600 Oh, yeah, but it's America's problem.

00:35:57.340 So America always had dissent within its borders. And I think it's quite normal for a democracy, for a liberal democracy to disagree with each other. But what I think is not normal is having the kind of Putin-esque censorship that's taking place in social media.

00:36:14.160 And I know there is this this fig leaf of explanation that, you know, well, it's a private property, so they can ban whomever they want.

00:36:23.360 But we saw the leaks from the White House that, you know, the White House actually helps Facebook and helps Twitter to create white lists of people who it will not ban.

00:36:31.920 We saw the conversation that the tech oligarchs had with the Democratic administration just before the election.

00:36:38.560 So it all raises red flags. And I think this is a much bigger story.

00:36:43.780 I agree with you.

00:36:45.060 But to summarize what you said,

00:36:46.860 and I think I really want people to get the point that you're making,

00:36:51.060 which is when we in the West fail to live up to our stated goals and ideals,

00:36:57.800 not only are we undermining our own society,

00:37:01.000 we are giving power to dictators and tyrants around the world

00:37:05.980 because they can point at the West and go,

00:37:08.040 well, look, they're not doing freedom.

00:37:10.480 Why would we?

00:37:11.080 I want just to precise your point a little bit. It's not just about pointing in the other direction and saying, why can't we do the same? It's also about real politics. And I mentioned real politics before, is people in other countries use Western social media.

00:37:26.600 And when Western social media is being censored in favor of a political party or a political force in the US, it triggers every single other country to, you know, to defend itself because it feels like the same kind of private censorship, call it what you will,

00:37:46.680 will be used in local elections as well to sway the elections in favor of a different country,

00:37:52.860 of a country that controls Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or Google or whatever.

00:37:58.140 So in terms of real politics, it's a much graver situation.

00:38:01.260 So it's not just ideology. It's not just moral high ground.

00:38:05.200 It's real politics that changes it all.

00:38:08.680 So the reason why Putin became so aggressive in censoring Western social medias in Russia

00:38:15.000 is because he feels that the Western social media

00:38:17.980 can be used to interfere in Russian elections.

00:38:20.740 The same thing is being felt in Hungary.

00:38:22.580 The same thing is being felt in Poland.

00:38:25.900 And to be fair, the same thing is being felt in France as well

00:38:29.900 because, well, you remember the reaction of Macron

00:38:33.580 and Angela Merkel in Germany when Donald Trump was banned.

00:38:36.960 They didn't endorse it one bit

00:38:38.300 because they felt that the same kind of instrument

00:38:40.440 can be used to sway elections in their own constituencies.

00:38:44.580 Well, they're smart then, because this is the point I've been trying to make to British politicians as much as I can.

00:38:51.160 You've got to understand, these people are going to have the power to decide whether you get re-elected or not if you allow this to continue.

00:38:58.200 And not enough people, I think, grasp that.

00:39:01.500 So with that in mind, what about the sort of the stuff that you and I talked about when I was on your show,

00:39:07.040 the culture war, if you like, the cultural debates, the cultural, I mean, it's not debates, really.

00:39:13.860 it's war at this point, I think, that we are seeing here in the West, all of the discussions

00:39:19.320 about sort of reshaping society. Is that happening in Russia? Or is that a thing that sort of

00:39:27.800 Westerners, rich and bored as we are, can get involved with? No, it is being discussed in

00:39:34.600 Russia as well, primarily because everyone in Russia uses Western social media, and that's

00:39:38.980 being interpreted by Putin as a kind of a cultural war, especially after everything that we just

00:39:46.460 discussed, after the censorship started to take place, etc. So it is a factor. It's not a major

00:39:51.480 factor because the grasp of traditional media on Russian audience is still quite strong, stronger

00:39:58.520 than it is in the West, I think. But it is being discussed. And I think one other factor that is

00:40:03.780 rarely discussed, and I'm going to put it in the most mild words possible, is that, well,

00:40:10.760 the reality of politics in the world is that whenever you have an opposition, the opposition

00:40:17.100 seeks whatever support it can get. And it seeks support in other countries as well. And the U.S.

00:40:23.960 is the country that is most generous with its support. And its support is conditional. So

00:40:28.880 So whenever it starts to help a certain political group within Russia, and I'm not naming names and I'm not going to tell who I'm referring to, but it happens all the time.

00:40:40.480 They condition their support with a certain cultural agenda and Democratic Party is much more willing to give money for this sort of activism.

00:40:50.680 So, what you get is that the political opposition within borders of a country, Russian borders, for example, gets colored with a certain cultural agenda.

00:41:04.420 And that, in my opinion, that really, whomever accepts this kind of support shoots themselves in the leg.

00:41:12.560 Mikhail, I'm going to interrupt you. I'm very sorry. I'm just very sorry.

00:41:15.880 I know what exactly you mean, but let me state it as Russianly and bluntly as I can.

00:41:22.680 You're talking about, I imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, the U.S. says, here's some money for your opposition efforts, but you've got to focus it on LGBTQ+, blah, blah, blah, which will automatically discredit you massively in the eyes of ordinary Russian people.

00:41:43.100 Absolutely. That's exactly what is happening.

00:41:45.460 And I think the most obvious example of that we saw in Afghanistan.

00:41:49.340 You saw the videos flowing from Afghanistan.

00:41:52.060 They had gender studies being taught in Kabul.

00:41:55.200 They had, you know, people talking about feminism.

00:41:57.120 And I mean, OK, those those are values that I understand you feel like you have to defend those values.

00:42:01.880 But you also have to take into consideration, you know, the kind of culture that country has, you know, and work within that culture.

00:42:08.220 because otherwise you'll never achieve the kind of ends

00:42:12.300 of building a functional society that you were striving for in Afghanistan.

00:42:18.360 That's what I think brought the war to the fiasco that it had.

00:42:23.460 In Russia, the same thing happens as well.

00:42:25.280 The reason I didn't want to put it as bluntly as you did

00:42:27.620 is because I have a lot of friends who will be watching this show

00:42:31.160 and they'll take it personally and I didn't want them to take it personally.

00:42:35.420 Well, now they will.

00:42:36.480 Now they will.

00:42:38.220 No, look, I'm not making any judgments about it.

00:42:43.040 I'm just trying to tease out the point that you're making, I think.

00:42:47.120 Yeah, and that makes sense to me as someone who understands Russian culture from the inside.

00:42:51.660 I don't think it would be accurate to say that Russia has progressed quite as far as we have in the West

00:42:58.220 in terms of accepting people for who they are,

00:43:00.900 and therefore to make an additional extraordinary emphasis on these marginal issues of sexual identity or whatever

00:43:09.200 would be very off-putting to the ordinary Russian person

00:43:12.420 and therefore would quite likely undermine the effectiveness of an opposition.

00:43:17.320 Yeah, yeah, well, that happens as well.

00:43:19.820 It also shifts the power balance within the opposition

00:43:22.820 because basically whomever has support from the US or from the UK or from Europe,

00:43:26.980 you know, they have money, they have support of Western media

00:43:30.360 and the kind of people who get the support of Western media

00:43:33.540 are not necessarily the kind of people

00:43:35.700 who will be successful within domestic politics.

00:43:38.820 And it brings all kinds of chaos

00:43:40.480 into domestic politics straight away.

00:43:43.420 Mikhail, look, this is a question

00:43:44.840 that a lot of people are going to want answered

00:43:46.980 because we've had a very insightful,

00:43:49.480 very interesting conversation.

00:43:51.160 But you're talking to us from Georgia.

00:43:53.280 Why are you in Georgia at the moment?

00:43:55.620 Well, I'm in Georgia in the moment

00:43:56.900 because during the elections,

00:43:58.360 there was this serious crackdown

00:43:59.640 on all kinds of opposition.

00:44:00.920 And I mentioned that just three months ago,

00:44:02.540 I've been in jail.

00:44:03.340 I spent 10 days in jail.

00:44:04.560 It was my fourth time that I was arrested.

00:44:07.100 I had my house searched.

00:44:08.620 I had my friends threatened

00:44:10.300 and a lot of my allies had to leave as well.

00:44:13.020 I'm in Georgia right now

00:44:14.220 because I came here just for two weeks.

00:44:16.620 I spent the last three months in South America, in Brazil.

00:44:18.740 I came to Georgia to see some of my friends

00:44:20.940 who are not as well off as I am,

00:44:23.420 who are living here right now

00:44:24.900 and who have no way to come back

00:44:27.780 because once they return, they'll be arrested the same way that Alexei Navalny was arrested,

00:44:32.760 the same way Andrei Pivovarov, a good friend of mine, he was actually took off the plane

00:44:37.460 out of Russia. So he was about to leave Russia. He went through all the controls,

00:44:43.500 the passport control, etc. But they took him off the board of the plane and put him in jail

00:44:48.340 just for being a political activist. So it's dangerous to do politics in Russia today.

00:44:54.560 Do you think you're going to be able to go back?

00:44:56.300 I definitely hope so. I don't consider myself a political immigrant because I don't like the kind

00:45:02.940 of stigma that it has. But my hope is that I will be able to return. I'm just not sure when.

00:45:11.740 And in the West, we tend to paint Russia almost as the enemy. Do you think Russia

00:45:20.140 is a serious threat to the West, or do you think not really, that is an exaggeration by the Western

00:45:27.840 media trying to create a bogeyman, etc., etc.? I think Russia is the most convenient bogeyman

00:45:34.840 possible because it's incapable of really posing any kind of serious threat. Just look at the GDP

00:45:42.100 that Russia has, look at the state of economy, look at its, well, it has a decent defense budget,

00:45:49.820 But still, it's a local empire.

00:45:52.540 It's not a global empire like it used to be during the Soviet era.

00:45:55.860 But it's much more convenient to prop up Russia as this big enemy

00:46:02.200 because China is scary and ruining relations with China.

00:46:07.160 Nobody can afford to ruin relations with China,

00:46:09.740 but pretty much everyone can afford to ruin relations with Russia.

00:46:12.940 And that gives you an idea that Russia does not really pose a serious threat

00:46:17.520 Because when someone does pose a serious threat, you don't deal with it the same way that Russia has been dealt with by the West.

00:46:27.080 Well, the last time the Soviet Union posed a genuinely serious threat that we had to, well, the West had to react to was the Cuban Missile Crisis when, you know, the West America pulled out all the stops to prevent Russia from having its nuclear missiles right on its border.

00:46:43.660 and I guess what you're saying is the passive response to the poisonings of people in western

00:46:49.880 countries the invasion of Ukraine etc etc shows you that the west isn't really that bothered about

00:46:56.240 what Russia is doing because it's kind of local affairs they killed off a few Russian guys in

00:47:00.840 London whatever who gives a shit really yeah yeah exactly that right so Russia does its thing and

00:47:06.840 it can like poison a politician in London if it really wants to but it will be a Russian politician

00:47:11.360 It doesn't have a real sway in the European election and the whole Russiagate that happened in the U.S. just felt so ridiculous, like watching from Russia.

00:47:20.880 You know, nobody could have done a better PR campaign for Putin than the Democratic Party did because they basically created this kind of, you know, demigod, you know, who rules the American elections, who rules the European elections, you know, who has his hand pretty much in every single crisis in the world.

00:47:37.540 And that's, I mean, yeah, Putin has been flattered by this kind of coverage.

00:47:43.100 And it did a lot to raise his prestige within Russia.

00:47:47.480 Because if you remember in the 90s, it was a decade of humiliation.

00:47:52.880 A lot of Russians felt that, you know, Russia's been humiliated by the term of Boris Yeltsin.

00:47:59.040 And when Putin came back, he said, well, you know, from now on, Russia will be respected.

00:48:03.280 And the kind of, you know, Russiagate stories and the propping up Putin as a boogeyman, as a worldwide boogeyman, is actually, it feels like respect when you live in Russia.

00:48:17.560 It feels like, well, now, you know, they're afraid.

00:48:19.700 And if they're afraid, you know, they respect us.

00:48:22.180 So I think it did more harm than good in terms of creating a functional political system in Russia.

00:48:29.280 because a lot of people, every time there is another Russiagate happening in the US,

00:48:34.080 a lot of people see it as a sign of strength of Putin's regime.

00:48:39.340 It's very interesting that you say that because, you know, we've been fed this lie again and again.

00:48:44.900 You know, the reason Trump came to power was because of the Russians.

00:48:49.200 The reason Brexit happened was because of the Russians.

00:48:52.620 I mean, you tried to get Jeremy Corbyn in it.

00:48:55.160 Don't, don't, don't you fucking start.

00:48:57.500 Don't start with that shit.

00:48:58.920 We did not try to get Jeremy Corbyn elected, even if we are not that stupid.

00:49:03.700 But if the Russians aren't the real threat to Western democracy,

00:49:09.200 you intimated that it's actually China.

00:49:12.980 Is that fair, or have I put words in your mouth, Miguel?

00:49:16.000 Well, just look at the scale of the country.

00:49:19.480 I'm not saying that China is the enemy.

00:49:21.440 What I'm saying is that if you're looking for an enemy,

00:49:24.940 China is a much better candidate for this role because of the scale of its economy, because of its population, because of its ambitions.

00:49:33.160 Look at what happened to Hong Kong.

00:49:35.000 And by the way, if we're talking about the prestige of the West, you know, it's humiliating to see the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, you know, deleting the tweet that the U.S. will stand with the people of Hong Kong.

00:49:50.540 It hasn't been forced.

00:49:52.020 Why would you delete it?

00:49:53.000 at least have guts to stand by the words, even if you're not going to do something.

00:49:57.940 So if you're looking for an enemy, China is a much better candidate because it has means to do harm.

00:50:05.280 Russia has no means. So why would you even pay attention to it?

00:50:10.440 Mikhail, we're coming to the end of our time. I know we've got our final question as usual,

00:50:14.420 but I actually feel like, is there something about Russia we should have discussed that we haven't

00:50:19.160 so far today? I wish we discussed more the kind of global politics that we mentioned just once,

00:50:26.240 because politics has become global. A lot of Russians speak English, a lot of Russians consume

00:50:31.560 Western media, and whenever you have these blunders, like the Russian gate, whenever you have

00:50:36.500 censorship, like what happened with Trump or Milo Yiannopoulos, you know, there are YouTube channels

00:50:42.340 that have translated lectures by Milo Yiannopoulos that have millions of views, and whenever he's

00:50:49.000 being banned from the social media, it resonates far beyond the Anglosphere. It resonates far

00:50:57.020 beyond the US. We see that, and we see how it's similar to what's happening within our own

00:51:03.220 countries. And we mentioned Alexei Navalny, for example, and there was this huge discussion

00:51:06.980 when Alex Jones was banned from Twitter and YouTube, etc., that, you know, well, Alex Jones

00:51:12.460 is being banned, but Alexei Navalny is still allowed a platform on the same media when the

00:51:18.020 same case can be made against Alexei Navalny for having his own channel removed from YouTube,

00:51:24.160 for example. And Alexei Navalny realized that himself when Donald Trump has been banned on

00:51:30.200 Twitter, he wrote an article basically saying that's an unacceptable act of censorship because

00:51:36.060 he understood that the same logic can be applied to any kind of dissident, to any kind of opposition

00:51:42.900 leader in other countries as well. So global politics is the reality. And you have to

00:51:50.500 think twice when you do something locally, especially in the Anglosphere, because everyone

00:51:56.300 speaks English nowadays. It's going to resonate far beyond what you think is possible. The same

00:52:02.240 goes, the same applies for Brexit. You feel like Brexit is this local story that doesn't affect

00:52:08.340 anyone except the Brits. But the truth is, when we were looking at the referendum and the attempts

00:52:14.540 to rerun the referendum, the whole world's been following that. The whole world's been following

00:52:19.680 the Trump re-election. The whole world read about Hunter Biden's laptop. And the whole world saw

00:52:24.880 that the same articles that got you banned on Twitter just a year ago are being reprinted by

00:52:31.140 Politico today, for example, by saying, hey, you know, there's been some truth to that. Let's look

00:52:36.700 into it. Now that the elections are gone, it's safe to discuss it. The same has happened with

00:52:41.460 the coronavirus, but we're not going to get into that. So the biggest point I'd like to make is

00:52:47.420 that politics is global, especially in the Anglosphere. Whatever happens in your district,

00:52:53.040 you know, we're discussing in Russia, we're discussing politics of Florida today, of

00:52:57.440 California, because the cultural victory that the United States and United Kingdom achieved in the

00:53:04.020 past hundred years has also made you a target, have made your domestic politics a target of

00:53:11.320 international attention. And that should leave an imprint on how you deal with it, I think.

00:53:20.040 And what do you think is going to be the future for Russia moving forward?

00:53:25.060 I think it's grim. I don't see any kind of solution to the kind of situation that Putin

00:53:31.180 created today. I think the only choices are either through a proper junta or through a

00:53:38.080 revolution. I don't see any other ways forward. I may be wrong, but that's how it seems right now.

00:53:44.920 Well, on that happy note, Mikhail, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a real

00:53:50.240 pleasure. And I think a very valuable perspective, actually, not only on Russia, but also on the

00:53:55.440 West and how we ought to be thinking about some of the decisions that we make and some of the

00:54:00.360 conversations that we have. So I know that our audience will have really appreciated it. We both

00:54:04.600 certainly do. And with that in mind, before we ask you a couple of very special questions from

00:54:09.080 our fans on Locals, our last question is always the same. What is the one thing we're not talking

00:54:14.360 about that we really should be? I think I already answered that, is that politics is global today,

00:54:20.180 especially politics in the Anglosphere. We should talk about it more. And we should talk about the

00:54:26.420 loss of moral high ground by the West. It makes the world a worse place. Whatever issues you think

00:54:35.400 you're solving by losing the moral high ground, you're not solving it. You're making it much,

00:54:40.680 much worse. Without the West, as an example, it's much harder for people like myself to fight for

00:54:46.960 freedom in countries like Russia. And I'm sure as hell that it's the same in China. It's the same

00:54:52.220 in India. It's the same in Africa, et cetera, et cetera. So we need an example. And the lack

00:54:58.340 of example will bring the whole world to a much darker place than it is now.

00:55:04.960 Mikhail, thank you so much for coming on the show. If people want to find you online,

00:55:08.820 what is the best way to do that?

00:55:11.860 Well, I have a Twitter. It's msvetov, but it's in Russian. And I have a YouTube channel that

00:55:15.880 actually has some English language videos. I had a conversation with Hans-Hermann Hoppe,

00:55:20.460 a very prominent libertarian.

00:55:22.040 I had a conversation with the director of FEE,

00:55:28.720 Lawrence Reed, and other prominent libertarians.

00:55:31.700 So you can watch that.

00:55:33.300 It just has Russian subtitles, but it's in English.

00:55:36.280 Mikhail, thank you so much for coming on.

00:55:37.960 And thank you all for watching and listening at home.

00:55:40.700 We really appreciate you spending this time with us.

00:55:43.020 We will see you very soon with another brilliant interview

00:55:45.480 like this one or Raw show.

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TRIGGERnometry - September 30, 2021

The Truth About Putin's Russia - Mikhail Svetov

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