Latest / The Fourcast / Russia Victory Day: will Putin ever be toppled? | Vladimir Kara-Murza

Transcript

Russia Victory Day: will Putin ever be toppled? | Vladimir Kara-Murza · The Fourcast

0:00
It's shocking. It's shameful and despicable to
0:01
see the administration of the United States of America
0:03
basically parroting the Kremlin's propaganda narrative.
0:06
Every dictatorship ends. Every autocratic regime falls.
0:09
Were you not afraid that they were going to kill you?
0:11
I was certain I was going to die in that Siberian prison.
0:13
Fear is a natural human sentiment, but this is what
0:16
feeds these dictatorial regimes. I have absolutely no doubt that
0:19
Russia will be a democracy. I have absolutely no doubt that
0:22
I will be back in my home country.
0:24
And I think it's going to happen much sooner than people may
0:27
think about it today. Hello and welcome to the
0:33
forecast. This week, Russia is celebrating
0:36
Victory Day, commemorating the Soviet Union's past in the
0:39
defeat of Nazi Germany 80 years ago.
0:41
But is President Putin about to enjoy his own victory if the US
0:44
pulls out of peace negotiations in effect over the war in
0:48
Ukraine? Well, one man who thinks
0:50
President Trump is doing everything in his power to make
0:52
that happen is the writer and activist Vladimir Karamuza, who
0:56
has in the past been poisoned and imprisoned for his anti
1:00
Kremlin campaigns. And he was released in a very
1:03
dramatic prisoner swap quite recently.
1:06
The last time we spoke, it was March 2022.
1:10
Ukraine had just been invaded. I was speaking to you from
1:13
Ukraine and I, I didn't honestly think we would speak again
1:18
because you were arrested quite shortly afterwards.
1:23
What is it like to be here ahead of a Russian victory parade that
1:29
is going to be used for all the propaganda it normally would be?
1:34
Well, I didn't think that I would ever speak to anyone.
1:36
Also, to be completely honest, I was certain I was going to die
1:39
in that Siberian prison and that exchange that freed 16 of us, 16
1:43
people from the hell of Putin's day.
1:45
Putin's modern day gulag last year was a miracle.
1:48
That's that's the only way I can describe it.
1:50
But it was in so many ways a human made miracle because it
1:52
was made possible by so many good people in democratic
1:56
nations who never stop fighting, never stop advocating for all
1:59
those who are locked up in Putin's prisons for having
2:02
spoken out against this dictatorship and having spoken
2:05
out against this horrendous war. And today in Russia, we have a
2:09
record number of political prisoners, more than during the
2:13
post Stalin era in the Soviet Union.
2:14
The Memorial Human Rights Organization recently published
2:17
a list of known political prisoners and and that's more
2:20
than 3000 people. There are many who are unknown
2:22
who are not on anybody's list, not on anybody's radars.
2:24
But even that number is shocking to hold.
2:27
The Soviet Union in the mid 1980s had around 7-8 hundred
2:30
political prisoners. The Soviet Union was 15
2:32
countries put together. We are only talking about Russia
2:35
Today, more than 3000 people. And of course the fastest
2:38
growing category on that list are those Russian citizens who
2:41
are speaking out against Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine.
2:44
It is a criminal offense to speak out against it.
2:47
And to your second question about the victory parade, look,
2:50
there's hardly a family in, in our country that hasn't been
2:53
touched by the Second World War. My own grandfather was in a war
2:57
from the summer of 41 when the Soviet Union was invaded by, by
3:00
Hitler up until Victory Day in May 45.
3:04
He he was in the Battle of Stalingrad.
3:05
He was a highly decorated military officer, but he never
3:09
liked talking about it, just like he never liked talking
3:11
about the Gulag, which he also survived under Stalin in the
3:14
1930s. Because just as there's hardly a
3:17
family in in our country that's not been touched by the war,
3:20
there's also hardly a family in our country that's not being
3:22
touched by communist repression, by the collectivization, by the
3:26
purges, by the gulag. And, you know, for, for people
3:31
who really do remember this, these were horrendous tragedies.
3:35
And, and to the end of his days, my granddad never talked about
3:37
either the gulag or the war. It's an enormous contrast, you
3:42
know, to these Putin supporters who drive around Moscow with
3:46
bumper stickers in a car saying we can repeat, We can repeat.
3:49
No, for people like my grandfather who actually saw
3:51
this war, it was never again as opposed to we can repeat.
3:55
And, and, and so of course, victory days is a very important
3:57
day. It's a sacred day for a lot of
3:58
people, not just in Russia, but here in the UK, in the US, you
4:01
know, in all our allied countries who defeated Hitler
4:04
together. But when it comes to the Putin
4:07
regime, we'll see that, you know, these people just use this
4:10
as a propaganda gimmick. Yeah, I mean, history has been
4:13
twisted and and, and the modern comparison of defeating the
4:17
Nazis in Ukraine as as Putin and his acolytes say.
4:23
Well, if we actually draw real comparisons, and I'm a historian
4:25
by education, well, the present day Hitler, the present day
4:28
aggressor in Europe is Vladimir Putin himself.
4:30
And the war that he has waged now for more than three years,
4:33
the full scale war against Ukraine is the largest military
4:36
conflict on European soil since the end of the Second World War.
4:40
And the aggressor here is Vladimir Putin.
4:42
When you were arrested, the United States stood with Ukraine
4:47
and it was very clear about who the aggressor was.
4:50
Now the American President Trump believes that Russia was
4:54
provoked by the actions of the West, and he has effectively
4:59
backed the Russian narrative. Well, it's shocking.
5:02
It's shameful and despicable to to see the administration of the
5:05
United States of America basically parroting the
5:07
Kremlin's propaganda narrative. And that goes for Donald Trump
5:10
personally. I mean, he's blamed Ukraine for
5:11
the start of this war. He referred to Zelanski as a
5:14
dictator without elections. That's, that's a, a description
5:17
that was perfectly fit Vladimir Putin, but not Vladimir
5:20
Zelanski. As you know, the United States
5:22
recently voted against Ukraine, together with Russia, Belarus,
5:26
North Korea, Eritrea and other similarly democratic countries
5:29
at the United Nations General Assembly on the 3rd anniversary
5:32
of the of the full scale invasion.
5:35
Trump has invited Putin back into the G8.
5:37
I mean, I don't know where to stop here.
5:38
But what's important also, it's not just about words, it's also
5:42
about actions. I remember when, after the
5:45
shameful scene of the White House, the the the sort of the
5:48
verbal. Humiliation.
5:49
Against Zelanski, Yes. At the end of February, the
5:51
United States imposed a so-called pause on military aid
5:56
to Ukraine, which included a pause in intelligence sharing.
5:59
And that led to hundreds of casualties because Ukraine was
6:03
left without intelligence, for example, about where the
6:05
missiles were coming from, hundreds of casualties,
6:07
including civilian casualties. And those are now not only, you
6:11
know, in the conscience of Putin, but also the conscience
6:13
of Mr. Trump. And we've seen in the last few
6:15
weeks the United States administration essentially
6:18
dismantling the system of international assistance of
6:21
foreign aid. And Ukraine was the largest
6:23
recipient of the humanitarian assistance programs in the US,
6:26
but also the destruction of assistance in all the other
6:28
countries. And we've seen a dismantling of
6:30
the US system on international broadcasting, you know, radio
6:34
stations and, and, and media companies like Free Radio Free
6:36
Europe or Voice of America. Margarita Simonyan, who's the
6:40
head of the Kremlin's propaganda TV channel Russia Today.
6:43
RT was boasting a few weeks ago on Russian state television that
6:47
this is an awesome decision by the Americans.
6:48
You know, we meeting the Kremlin couldn't do anything with these
6:51
media companies for decades and decades.
6:54
And now look, the Americans have killed them themselves.
6:56
It's a total propaganda victory, but the but the American plan,
7:00
such as it was, hasn't worked. You know Trump's peace in 24
7:04
hours has not been delivered. Or 100 days.
7:07
Putin is showing no signs of doing, you know, a peace deal.
7:14
Does that in a way give you hope the the Trump strategy has
7:18
failed so far? Well, first of all, it couldn't
7:22
not fail because we know for almost a century now what the
7:26
appeasement of an aggressor leads to.
7:28
It never leads to peace. It leads to more wars.
7:30
We saw this in the 1930s in Europe.
7:33
And this country should have particularly learned lessons of
7:36
this because it was British Prime Minister at the time,
7:37
Neville Chamberlain, who sort of spearheaded that policy.
7:39
And that was a policy that ended in complete disaster and that
7:42
ended in the Second World War. Because appeasing and aggressive
7:45
never leads to peace. It leads to more conflict, more
7:47
blood, more, more catastrophe. The only language that regimes
7:52
like Putin's understand is language of strength.
7:54
And when they see weakness and even more than that, when they
7:58
see active support, because that's how I would describe the
8:02
current U.S. policy towards Vladimir Putin's regime.
8:04
It is support because what Donald Trump is doing is
8:08
effectively re legitimizing Vladimir Putin on the
8:12
international stage by sending envoys, by opening talks, by
8:15
inviting him around the table again, by inviting him into the
8:17
G8, which he did publicly a few weeks ago.
8:21
I think it's important to to to recall that just last year, two
8:25
largest parliamentary bodies in Europe, 1 is the parliamentary
8:29
senator, the Council of Europe. The second is the European
8:31
Parliament overwhelmingly passed resolutions recognizing Vladimir
8:35
Putin for who he is, an illegitimate dictator.
8:38
In your introduction, Christian, you referred to him as President
8:41
Putin. And I sort of automatically, you
8:44
know, reaction to that, yes, because he's not president.
8:46
He's a dictator. He's been in power for 25 years.
8:49
We haven't had a free and fair and democratic election in
8:51
Russia for 1/4 of a century. And this is not my opinion.
8:54
These are the conclusions of international observers from the
8:57
Council of Europe and the OSCE. Vladimir Putin flagrantly
8:59
violated not only election standards.
9:01
You know, we haven't, as I said, we haven't had a re election in
9:03
years. But he even violated the very
9:05
clear constitutional term limit on the presidency that we have
9:08
in Russia. It's supposed to be two terms
9:10
only. He's been in power for 1/4 of a
9:12
century through these pseudo legal maneuvers that he is, that
9:16
he's implemented. Well, I'm very happy that the
9:19
European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the
9:21
Council of Europe called a spade a spade finally called Putin an
9:24
illegitimate usurper, which he is.
9:26
But what we see from the other side of the Atlantic is complete
9:29
opposite of that. Trump is really legitimizing, or
9:31
at least trying. I hope Europe doesn't fall for
9:33
that, but trying to really legitimize Putin on the
9:36
international stage and this is shameful.
9:37
I mean, what Trump says and has said all along is he's just
9:40
trying to stop the killing. You know, that the Biden
9:43
administration failed in this war and it, and it did.
9:47
I mean, that's, that's clear. I mean, the Americans didn't
9:50
supply Ukraine with enough weapons or the weapons that they
9:53
they wanted. And that he's being a realist,
9:57
you know, that that territory can't be retaken.
9:59
Crimea can't realistically be retaken.
10:01
Even Zelensky says that. I mean is is there no merit at
10:05
all in his argument and desire to in his term stop the killing?
10:11
If we were having this conversation with you in 1937 or
10:15
38, perhaps, you know, you would make at least some sense to, to,
10:19
to, to have this conversation, to debate this.
10:22
I'm sorry. But after everything we know
10:24
from history, after the Munich agreement, after the, after the
10:28
results of 25 years of Western appeasement of Vladimir Putin,
10:32
this is where it LED us. Because for years and years and
10:34
years, while Putin was already destroying democracy in Russia,
10:38
shutting down independent media, jailing his opponents, rigging
10:41
elections, turning parliament into a rubber stump, you know,
10:45
violently dispersing peaceful opposition rallies and so on,
10:48
Western leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, that doesn't just
10:50
go for America. That goes for leaders of Europe
10:52
as well. Tony Blair, for example, you
10:54
know, courted Vladimir Putin for a long time.
10:57
Western leaders continued to do business and as usual with this
11:01
dictator, I suppose, in the hope that they could find some sort
11:04
of a modus operandi with him on international stage, by
11:07
ignoring, by turning a blind eye on the repressive abuses at
11:10
home. But apart from being
11:12
impractical, apart from being immoral, excuse me, this policy
11:16
is very impractical. Because one thing we clearly
11:19
know from the history of Russia is a domestic repression and
11:22
external aggression are two sides of the same coin.
11:24
A regime that does not respect the rights and freedoms of its
11:27
own people is not going to respect the civilized norms of
11:31
international behaviour. And So what is happening today,
11:33
this, this horrendous war in Ukraine is partly a result of
11:36
years and years of Western enabling, Western appeasement of
11:39
Vladimir Putin instead of the policy of principle that they
11:42
should have conducted. How is more appeasement, more
11:44
enabling going to help that? How do you think the Trump
11:47
perspective or narrative can be turned around?
11:50
I mean, we're seeing, you know, some Republicans contradicting
11:53
him. We're seeing Mike Pence
11:55
contradicting him. The Democrats are very clear
11:59
where they stand. What do you think can be done to
12:03
change his his position or or is it Putin who will ultimately do
12:07
that by humiliating him? Well, first of all, I think it's
12:10
very important to state that with everything that the current
12:14
U.S. President is doing, the United
12:17
States of America has voluntarily renounced its role
12:20
as the leader of the free world, as it has been known for decades
12:22
and decades. And so I believe it's now really
12:25
incumbent on Europe to take up that mantle, to take up that
12:27
role and to lead on the position of principle.
12:31
Nothing I don't. I mean, Europe can lead on
12:33
principle, that can't lead on money and hardware and clout.
12:37
Well, well, first of all, European assistance to Ukraine
12:39
put together is bigger than American assistance that that's
12:42
that, you know, the the Americans are trying to say the
12:44
opposite, but that's not true. But I think ultimately what it's
12:48
very important for the free world to understand and
12:49
primarily for Europe, because, you know, the largest European
12:52
country is Russia. We all live in the same
12:54
continent. We are neighbors.
12:56
I think it's very important for European countries, including
12:58
the UK, to understand that the only way to really solve this
13:02
crisis, the only way to really end this war, the only way to
13:06
really ensure long term peace, stability and security, not just
13:09
for Ukraine, but for the European continent as a whole,
13:12
is for Russia to become a normal democratic country.
13:16
Because as we know very clearly from our history, internal
13:20
repression and external aggression go hand in hand.
13:22
For as long as Putin remains in power, for as long as we have
13:25
this authoritarian, dictatorial, autocratic, repressive regime in
13:29
the Kremlin that will disregard and trample upon the rights and
13:33
freedoms of our own people, it is always going to remain
13:36
aggressive in its foreign policy goals.
13:38
It's always going to remain dangerous for our neighbors and
13:40
for other countries. The only long term strategic
13:42
solution is to have a democratic Russia.
13:45
That should be the goal. It's important to set that goal.
13:47
Do you remember in Alice in the Wonderland and Lewis Carroll,
13:51
there's a scene when Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which way
13:55
should I go, and the Cheshire Cat responds?
13:58
Well, that very much depends on where you want to get to.
14:00
I think that is the goal that should be absolutely clear to
14:02
everyone because for now, and I'm very dismayed by this
14:05
question, and I have to say we have these two polar extremes
14:09
when it comes to Western approach to Russia.
14:11
One polar extreme is the one that we're discussing with you.
14:13
It's sort of the Trump Orban Fizo line.
14:16
You know, let's go back to business with Putin.
14:18
Let's make deals with him. Let's bring him back to the
14:21
international arena, which, you know, for all the reasons we've
14:23
been discussing is completely unacceptable, shameful and
14:25
immoral and also very counterproductive.
14:28
But there's another polar extreme that, that I sometimes
14:30
hear from some European Union politicians that, oh, you know,
14:34
all these Russians, they're genetic slaves.
14:36
They've always lived under autocracy.
14:37
You know, they, they can't do democracy That let's just let's
14:40
just, you know, sort of dismiss them all.
14:42
This is what I'm, I'm sorry, First of all, this is insulting,
14:45
but secondly, this is not true because no nation is genetically
14:50
inside. I mean, it's, it's, it's really,
14:52
it's really enraging that in the 21st century to be hearing
14:55
arguments like this. And this is borderline racism
14:58
and both of these polar extremes are unacceptable, both the
15:00
enabling and the appeasement of Putin and this sort of anti
15:03
Russian bigotry, not anti Putin, but anti Russian that we hear
15:06
from some people in the West. And I think the right way and
15:10
the only way if we do want to see a Europol free in a peace
15:13
Monday is for the Western world, for the free world to be sending
15:16
a message to Russian society, to those millions of people inside
15:20
of Russia who oppose Putin, who oppose this war regression, that
15:24
we hear you and that our fight is not with you, the Russian
15:26
people. Our fight was this aggressive,
15:27
murderous Kremlin dictatorship and that there will be a place
15:31
around the table for a free and democratic Russia and that life
15:33
for the Russian people will be better after and without Putin
15:36
than it is today. This is what leaders like Ronald
15:39
Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, those are the messages they sent
15:42
to people living behind the Iron Curtain and in the Cold War
15:44
times. But that is not unfortunately
15:46
what we're hearing today. I mean, the trouble is that the
15:48
the Western democracies do not have a great track record of
15:52
taking democracy anywhere and people are scarred by that.
15:57
And they also know that Putin has got popular support amongst
16:02
the sector of Russian society. And whether the elections are
16:05
rigged or not, he does get votes.
16:09
I'm sorry, Christian, I mean, I know you're a journalist and you
16:11
have to ask these questions, but seriously, we're talking about
16:14
supporting elections in a dictatorship where you go to
16:16
prison for opposing the government.
16:18
Really. How can you measure support?
16:20
The last time we had anything approaching on free and fair
16:22
election was in 2000. Now we're speaking with you in
16:24
2025. We have a whole generation that
16:28
has grown up in Russia, not once seeing what a real election
16:31
looks like. And again, that's not my
16:32
personal view. Go and read the reports of
16:34
international observers from the OSU or the Council of Europe.
16:36
This is their verdict. How can you talk about elections
16:40
when the two main leaders of the opposition, Boris Nemtsov and
16:42
Alexei Navani, have been murdered by Putin?
16:45
How can we talk about elections when even cautious anti war
16:48
candidates, somebody like Boris Nadezhdin who tried to run in
16:52
the presidential election last year and we saw hundreds of
16:55
thousands of people all over Russia standing in long queues
16:58
at his campaign offices to sign the ballot petitions to get him
17:01
on the ballot. We saw this, this sort of
17:03
amazing awakening that destroyed all the lies constructed for so
17:07
long by Putin's propaganda, who tried to persuade the whole
17:09
world that, as you just said, that yes, Russians support
17:12
Putin, Russians support the war. But is it practically
17:15
deliverable? I mean, you've been making this
17:16
argument for a long time. You went back to Russia to make
17:19
this argument and you were imprisoned.
17:22
Yes, many people are in prison and, and you know, there are
17:24
many people who are in prison today and there are people who
17:26
are in prison in the Soviet system.
17:27
And then that system collapsed in three days in August 1991.
17:32
And, and, and, and, and, you know, we know again, I'm a
17:34
historian by education. The arc of history, you know,
17:37
may not bend as fast as we'd like, but it does bend towards
17:39
liberty. There's absolutely no question
17:41
about it. If you look at the map of
17:42
Europe, let's say 40 years ago, which is nothing by historical
17:45
status, it's like yesterday morning, you will see that half
17:48
of the countries on the European continent, we're living under
17:51
some sort of authoritarian, autocratic, dictatorial regimes.
17:55
Fast forward to today, you look at the map of Europe, there are
17:57
only two dictatorships left, it's Putin's Russia and
17:59
Lukashenko's Belarus. The trend is clear, The trend is
18:02
unmistakable. Of course, Russia will be a
18:04
democracy. It's not a question of if, it's
18:05
a question of when. But I think it is incumbent on
18:08
all people of goodwill, both in Russia but also in the free
18:11
world, first of all, to have that goal, to have that
18:14
objective as in reference to to Lewis Carroll, and also to work
18:17
towards it and to do, for example, exactly the opposite of
18:21
what Donald Trump is doing by destroying the system of
18:24
international democracy assistant, by destroying these
18:27
media companies that were, you know, the last sources.
18:30
Of the trend, I mean, you say the trend is, you know, the,
18:33
the, the, the, the, the curve is always towards democracy.
18:36
The curve right now is towards populist leaders you know, all
18:40
around the world who do not necessarily respect democratic
18:43
norms. Well, I think this this is what
18:45
distinguishes politicians from historians and, and I'm
18:48
fortunate to be both because historians have much longer
18:52
periods of time that they judge. Yes, we have seen in the last
18:55
few years unquestionably the rise of the populist movements,
18:59
including here in the UK where these local elections have just
19:01
happened. But if you look at the way
19:03
history marches, history moves. So it's 2 steps forward, one
19:07
step back, 2 steps forward, one step back.
19:09
Always, always, always, whatever country we'll look at, whatever
19:11
period of time we'll look at. I'm talking about modern
19:13
history, of course, the last few centuries, not the Middle Ages.
19:16
So this is the step back. But we still know that two
19:20
forward and one back. That's still progress that still
19:22
goes forward. And, and there's absolutely no
19:24
doubt on my mind that Russia will be a democracy because no
19:26
people, you know, are genetic slaves because no people is
19:30
destined to live under autocratic, dictatorial rule.
19:33
But it's a question of the free world standing in solidarity
19:36
with all those people in Russia who want that different vision,
19:39
just like people of the generation of Ronald Reagan and
19:41
Margaret Thatcher did. They never dismissed people
19:44
living behind the Iron Curtain as genetic slaves.
19:46
In fact, President Reagan speaking here in London, his
19:49
famous Westminster address in 1982, he said it is cultural
19:53
condescension or worse, worse, meaning racism to suggest that
19:56
there's a single nation on the South that would voluntarily
19:58
choose dictatorship of a democracy.
20:00
That is, that's true today. As it was 4 decades ago.
20:02
And we should hear more of this from the free world, from the
20:05
leaders of the free world, instead of hearing calls either
20:08
to go back to business as usual with an aggressive dictator,
20:12
Vladimir Putin, or dismissing, you know, the whole Russian
20:15
people supposedly that they all support the war, that they all
20:17
support Putin. Both of those ways are
20:19
completely wrong. They should be something in the
20:21
middle. Can we talk about your own
20:24
experience? And when I spoke to you last
20:28
year, you had already been poisoned twice.
20:34
You know, these have been serious attempts on your life,
20:38
and yet you were going back. You must have known that you
20:42
were taking your life in your hands at that stage.
20:45
Look, I'm a Russian politician. A politician has to be in his or
20:48
her own country. Can't work any other way.
20:50
What moral right would I have to call on my fellow Russian
20:53
citizens to stand up to the Putin dictatorship if I was too
20:56
afraid to to do this myself? I do believe that those people
20:59
who aspire to be political leaders, those people who aspire
21:02
to be the public faces of the democratic movement, have a
21:05
level of responsibility that frankly outweighs considerations
21:09
of personal comfort, of personal safety.
21:11
And, and I've always felt this way.
21:12
And I also think, and I fundamentally believe, and this
21:15
is actually to me, this was the most important lesson of the
21:19
Soviet dissident movement, that fear at the end of the day is a
21:23
personal choice. Yes, regimes like the Soviet
21:26
regime, like the Putin regime, they will seek to rule by fear.
21:29
They will seek to instill fear that this is this is how they
21:32
stay in power. But at the end of the day, it is
21:36
up to each individual person to decide whether he or she chooses
21:41
to be afraid or not. And I do believe it is important
21:44
that when people are starting to be afraid, that politicians have
21:49
to come in, stand next to them and say, here I am, I'm not
21:53
afraid. How?
21:54
How were you not afraid? How did you control your fear?
21:56
I was afraid. I'm, I'm a, you know, I'm a, I'm
21:59
a live human being. I'm not a robot.
22:00
I'm not a Superman. But as, as a Great American
22:03
leader, Senator John McCain once said, courage is not the absence
22:06
of fear, it's the ability to act despite our fears.
22:08
We all are afraid. I think the, you know, Soviet
22:10
dissidents were afraid when they spoke out against the Soviet
22:13
regime and went to prison for it.
22:15
This is, you know, fear is a natural human sentiment, but
22:20
this is what feeds these dictatorial regimes.
22:22
They rule by fear. They feed on fear.
22:23
They survive in power because of fear.
22:26
And yes, I do believe that at the end of the day, it's each
22:29
individual person's choice whether or not to be afraid.
22:31
And those of us who are the public faces of the opposition
22:34
movement, who are The Who are the politicians in Russia, we
22:37
have to show by personal example that we must not be afraid.
22:40
And so there was never even a question of leaving Russia for
22:44
me, just as there was no question for Ilya.
22:46
Yashin, for example, was in the same exchange with me last year.
22:49
And when they kicked us out of the country in this exchange
22:51
last August, nobody asked for opinion once.
22:53
They just herded us all on the plane like cattle and threw us
22:56
out into Turkey. How did you deal with your fear
22:59
in prison once you've been locked up?
23:02
Oh, in prison, the fear goes away because, you know, you know
23:06
that you're right. This was really important.
23:08
You know, many years ago, 20 years ago now, I made a
23:11
documentary film about Soviet dissidents, which was called
23:15
They Chose Freedom. I wanted to show the story of
23:18
these remarkable, amazing people who had the strength and the
23:21
courage and the conscience to stand up to this repressive,
23:24
dictatorial criminal regime. And one of the people I
23:27
interviewed for this film was Vladimir Bukovski, a legendary
23:31
Soviet dissident writer who spent many, many years in a, in
23:34
a Soviet gulag. And I asked him what helped him
23:38
survive in prisons and labor camps and psychiatric prisons
23:42
that he was in in the Soviet times, too.
23:44
And I was expecting, you know, some sort of a long and drawn
23:47
out response, but just looked at me and said I knew that I was
23:50
right. I knew that I was right.
23:52
And at the time, I thought they just, these are just nice
23:54
sounding wars. And of course, I put them in the
23:56
film because they sounded good. But having gone through prison
24:00
myself, I can appreciate just how important that is, the
24:04
knowledge that you're right because you know, whatever words
24:07
were written in these indictments and in these
24:09
sentences and all these so-called official documents, at
24:13
every moment of every day that I spent in that prison, at first
24:16
in Moscow and then in Siberia, I knew that I was right and the
24:21
people in the Kremlin are wrong. I knew that the real criminals
24:24
are those people who are sitting in the Kremlin who have started
24:26
this war, not those of us who are in prison because we had
24:30
opposed it. And that knowledge that you're
24:33
right is very, very important. When you know that you're right,
24:36
the doubt and the fear just go away.
24:38
Were you not afraid that they were going to kill you?
24:42
You can, again, you keep sort of going back to this notion of
24:45
being afraid. You can't afford to be afraid in
24:47
prison because you're not going to survive.
24:48
You have to just collect yourself.
24:52
And again, the knowledge that you're right really helps.
24:54
And you cannot show weakness and it cannot show emotion.
24:57
I mean, there's been tons of but.
25:00
There's what you show and there's what you feel and, and
25:03
obviously as a politician you don't show fear, as you
25:05
explained, but of course you feel it.
25:07
And surely in prison, knowing what that regime has done to
25:12
others, people who are close to you, knowing what they've done
25:15
to you, you must have thought they're going to do it again as.
25:21
I've said at the beginning of our conversation I was certain I
25:23
was never getting out of that Siberian prison.
25:25
Yes, but I also knew that I was right.
25:28
I also knew that there are many people in Russia who think like
25:32
we do, who support what we do. I I received thousands of
25:36
letters from all over the country when I was in in prison,
25:39
from all over the world too, but from all over Russia, from
25:42
people I'd never met, from cities and towns I'd never been
25:46
to. Some of them I haven't heard of
25:48
people who took the time and who took the risk to write to a
25:51
political prisoner through the official prisons correspondence
25:53
system, because that's the only way you can write to prisoners
25:56
to say that they feel the same way as I do about this regime,
25:58
about this war. And this public solidarity was
26:03
very important. The solidarity of people in the
26:06
free world, including so many members of Parliament here in
26:08
Britain from different political parties who, you know, stood up
26:11
in Parliament and asked questions and made statements
26:13
and then and, and, and submitted resolutions.
26:17
This may not sound like a big deal for somebody who just, you
26:19
know, walks on his own on the streets.
26:21
But I have to say that when you sit in this 2 by 3M cell in
26:25
solitary confinement at a maximum security prison in
26:27
Siberia, it's really important to know that the free world
26:29
stand in solidarity with us. And so every time I have an
26:33
opportunity to speak before Western Parliament, as I'm have
26:38
this opportunity here now on the strip to London and, and, and
26:41
any other, you know, Western capital, I always urge, I always
26:48
plead with Western political leaders to please continue
26:52
talking about political prisoners in Russia, about
26:54
political prisoners in Belarus, about political prisoners in
26:57
countries where speaking out against the government is a
26:59
criminal offense. Because as Irving Kotler, the
27:01
former justice minister of Canada, one of the world's
27:04
foremost advocates for human rights, once said, the worst
27:06
nightmare for a political prisoner is to be forgotten.
27:10
And whatever else I felt when I was in prison, not for a second
27:13
did I think I was forgotten. This was important for survival.
27:15
And we have to make sure that the political prisoners,
27:17
thousands of political prisons remain in Putin's gulag today,
27:20
are not forgotten, that people stand in solidarity with them,
27:23
that people talk about them. And very importantly, that any
27:27
coming ceasefire agreement in the Ukraine war includes a
27:30
provision on the release of all the captives of this war.
27:33
Meaning thousands of Ukrainian civilian hostages have been
27:36
captured by Russian forces, meaning thousands of Ukrainian
27:39
children who've been abducted by Russian forces, and meaning
27:42
Russian political prisoners who are only jailed because they
27:45
have opposed this war. All these people have to be part
27:48
of any cease-fire agreement because all we hear about now,
27:51
you know, are assets, territories, sanctions, rare
27:55
earth, minerals, what, whatever. But we're not hearing about
27:57
people. And people are the biggest
27:59
victims of this war. We cannot bring back the
28:01
hundreds of thousands of lives lost because of Putin's war
28:04
regression in Ukraine. But it's still possible to save
28:06
the 10s of thousands of lives who are captors of this war,
28:09
both Ukrainian and Russian. And these people have to be
28:11
saved. How much did you know at the
28:13
time? I mean, it's sort of surprising
28:16
that you knew what was going on and that you knew you were not
28:19
alone because you would think they would want to isolate you.
28:22
I had snippets, I was isolated, I was in solitary confinement.
28:24
I couldn't speak to anybody. I couldn't, you know, I could
28:26
only get out of my cell for one hour a day and that.
28:29
And that was just this small exercise yard, which was not
28:32
much bigger than a cell, except instead of the ceiling, you had
28:35
the metal bar. So it was possible to see a
28:37
little bit of the sky. That was the only difference.
28:39
And it was total isolation. And I have to say it's, it's
28:42
really difficult because, I mean, there's a reason why
28:44
international law, United Nations rules on the treatment
28:47
of prisoners, stipulate that 15 days or more in solitary
28:50
confinement is officially considered the form of torture.
28:54
And I spent nearly a year in solitary confinement.
28:55
Other two and 2 1/2 years I've been in prison.
28:58
So it was isolation, but I had letters, as I said, and I
29:00
obviously these were censored by the prison authorities.
29:03
And often I'll get letters with whole lines blacked out.
29:06
Very often the letters wouldn't get through and my responses to
29:08
them wouldn't get through, but many did.
29:11
And it was a very important source of moral support.
29:14
And, and so that's why I always, you know, ask people, please do
29:18
not forget, Please remember, please write to political
29:20
prisoners. I think only somebody who's been
29:22
through this experience can appreciate how much hope and how
29:26
much warmth and how much light they can be in that small piece
29:30
of paper that the prison guard hands you through the feeding
29:32
slot in in your cell door at 4:00 PM every day.
29:34
While you were in prison, your wife Eugenia came in here and
29:38
everywhere and spoke for you. Did you?
29:42
Did you have any sense of that? Do you think that she would have
29:45
done that? Oh, I, I, I had no doubt you've
29:49
done that because, you know, we've been together for more
29:51
than 20 years and we finish each other's sentences, as it were.
29:53
We, we know each other better than everybody else knows us.
29:56
And I'm very fortunate to have not just a wife, but my best
30:00
friend as well. And she was, of course, I didn't
30:05
have the full scope of, of what she was doing, but I knew she
30:07
was, she was doing everything that she could.
30:10
I don't know how good she is. And you know, that having
30:13
interviewed her, she's amazing. She was the one who got me out.
30:14
It was the tireless advocacy was going around the world while I
30:19
was in prison, you know, campaigning, speaking, giving
30:21
interviews, meeting these members of parliaments and
30:24
members of governments, which of course, also meant that our
30:27
three children basically had no parents for, for 2 1/2 years
30:30
because I was in prison. And she was always on the road.
30:33
But she was the one who got me out along with so many people of
30:38
good faith, of goodwill who never stopped.
30:41
But now she, she taught me recently, you know, she's, she's
30:43
also really tired of all this. So she said, I go, you're out of
30:46
prison now you go and do it yourself.
30:47
So here we are talking with you. Yeah, and you are doing it
30:49
yourself. I see a lot of people in your
30:51
position might have said, OK, I've I've done it and I can't
30:55
put myself and my family at risk anymore.
30:58
But you're carrying on. Look, the goal is a democratic
31:01
Russia. The goal is a peaceful,
31:02
civilized, democratic European Russia that would respect our
31:06
own people and that would be a peaceful and predictable and
31:10
secure neighbor to all other European countries.
31:13
And obviously this goal is still not achieved to to put it
31:16
mildly, and I'm never going to stop for as long as we continue
31:20
this work. But the Russian states has
31:22
killed people in this country. It reaches well beyond its
31:26
borders. What impact does that have on
31:29
your life? I just don't think about this.
31:31
That's a sure road to paranoia and that's certainly not the way
31:33
I want to go. So I just, I just not, don't
31:35
think about this. I know again that what I'm doing
31:37
is right. I know that what I'm doing is
31:39
necessary. I know that I'm doing is
31:41
supported by a lot of people in Russia and around the world and
31:45
I'm just going to carry on doing it regardless.
31:47
And do you believe you'll go back?
31:49
I'm certain that I will go back. I have absolutely no doubt.
31:53
It's only a question of time. Every dictatorship ends, every
31:56
autocratic regime falls. The Russian people aren't no
31:59
worse and no better than any other people in the world.
32:02
They're just as capable of living in a democratic state as
32:05
people in this country and, and, and so many other countries
32:07
around our planet. And I have absolutely no doubt
32:10
that Russia will be a democracy. I have absolutely no doubt that
32:14
I will be back in my whole country, in my home country.
32:17
And I think it's going to happen much sooner than people may
32:20
think about it today. Do you have a sense of the
32:22
mechanism now? I mean, at the moment, Putin has
32:24
control and he has the geopolitical support,
32:28
effectively of Trump. He's back in the tent.
32:31
So what is the mechanism for Democrats in Russia?
32:35
Well, look, the Russian Empire also had control, and then and
32:37
the Soviet Union had control, and then both collapsed in three
32:39
days. Literally both the czarist
32:41
regime in March 1917 and the communist regime in August 1991
32:45
collapsed in three days. Literally not a figure of
32:47
speech. This is how things happen in
32:48
Russia. Nobody has ever predicted major
32:51
political change in our country, let alone the mechanism by which
32:53
it would happen. It's it happens.
32:55
It's a snap of a finger. And so the most important task,
32:58
as I see it, for us in the Russian democratic opposition
33:01
today is be preparing ourselves for the day after Putin.
33:05
And that's also a very important task, in my view, for Western
33:08
leaders. Because there isn't a democratic
33:09
culture. There is this is.
33:12
This is absolutely a false statement because.
33:13
The culture is the wrong word. What I mean is there are not
33:15
functioning political parties in Russia that can operate.
33:19
Absolutely. But we do have a history of
33:21
democracy. This is absolutely false to
33:23
suggest that Russia never had democracy.
33:24
In fact, if we look at the history of Russia, let's say for
33:26
the past five centuries or so, we would see a constant conflict
33:31
between the autocratic tradition, which is certainly
33:34
there and nobody's denying that, but also a constitutional
33:37
democratic tradition which raised its head, you know, as
33:40
early as the 15th century under Czar Ivan the 3rd.
33:43
And then again, of course, with the Saltikoff Constitution in
33:46
the early 17th century, where the December stop rising in the
33:49
early 19th century. And of course, the
33:50
constitutional monarchy, parliament, political freedoms
33:53
we had in the early 20th century, in the 1990s with the
33:56
period I grew up in. And I saw what it's like to have
33:58
competitive elections. I saw what it's like to have a
34:00
real parliament in Russia. I saw what it likes, what it's
34:02
like to have independent Free Press.
34:04
So we do have those traditions just as we have autocratic
34:07
traditions. But the point is that because
34:09
political changes in Russia happen so swiftly and so
34:12
unexpectedly, as they always did before, nobody's prepared for
34:16
that. And and by nobody, I mean our
34:18
own society, but also people in the outside world.
34:21
And that is why so many mistakes were made in the 1990s, both
34:26
domestically and internationally, the mistakes
34:30
that led us to the point where we are today.
34:31
And so every time as these last few months since my release from
34:34
prison, I've had meetings with, you know, heads of state and
34:37
government on both sides of the Atlantic, including with Prime
34:39
Minister Starmer here in London. I've always started this
34:43
conversation with the issue of political prisoners.
34:45
And I always ask Western leaders not to forget and to stand in
34:48
solidarity with those people in Russia in prison because of
34:51
their opposition to the war and to Putin.
34:53
But the second issue in all these conversations was always
34:55
that it is important to be preparing for the day after
34:58
Putin. It is important to have a plan,
35:00
a road map, a strategy for the day after Putin, because none of
35:04
us knows when it's going to happen.
35:06
None of us knows how it's going to happen.
35:07
What we do know, judging by our past experience, is it's going
35:10
to happen quickly and unexpectedly.
35:12
And when it does happen, it's going to be too late to start
35:15
thinking and reflecting and preparing.
35:16
We have to have those plans in place now because Russia's too
35:21
big, Russia's too important. What happens in Russia effects
35:24
everybody, as I think the world sees very clearly in the last 3
35:26
1/2 years. And so it is in everyone's
35:28
interest that the next time we have a window of opportunity for
35:31
Democratic Change in Russia, it is successful, that democratic
35:34
transition is successful, and that Russia does finally become
35:38
a normal, peaceful, civilized, democratic European country.
35:41
It's not going to happen on its own.
35:43
There's going to be a lot of work to be done and we need to
35:45
be preparing for that work now. And when it comes to Ukraine,
35:47
you said Europe needs to step in where America has stepped out.
35:52
In practical terms, that means a huge amount of money needs to be
35:56
replaced, that America could stop spending.
35:59
So what? What case do you make to British
36:03
politicians and the people who are struggling, whose own
36:08
economy is in a mess still, when you say actually you need to
36:12
invest in this? Because it affects everyone,
36:15
because we all live in the same planet and we also live in the
36:18
same continent. Yes, I know the UK is an island,
36:20
but you're still very close and you're still a European country.
36:23
And we know that what happens in one part of Europe effects
36:26
everybody, especially when it's something as significant as the
36:30
largest conflict on European soil since the Second World War,
36:33
which this which this is and what I'm talking about, Europe
36:37
stepping up and leading opposition of principle.
36:40
I'm talking first and foremost about making sure that any
36:44
ceasefire deal which looks very likely to be concluded in the
36:47
next few months. But you know, if we just entrust
36:51
that to the American administration, they're not
36:52
going to care about principles, they're not going to care about
36:54
values, they're not going to care about people.
36:57
So it is a for Europe to ensure, including the UK to ensure that
37:00
any such deal, I'm not going to, I'm not calling it a peace deal
37:04
because there there will only be real peace once Putin's out of
37:06
power. This is only a temporary
37:07
ceasefire. But that any temporary ceasefire
37:10
deal includes real security guarantees, real security
37:13
provisions for Ukraine, ensuring that Putin doesn't repeat this,
37:16
you know, next year or, or in a couple of years.
37:19
And also, as we've already touched on with you, that any
37:22
such deal must include the provision to release all the
37:26
people who are held captive because of this war, both in
37:28
Russia, both Russians and Ukrainians.
37:31
This is the most important thing we can do because any deal made
37:34
while Putin's in powers, by definition temporary.
37:36
But for many of these people who are held hostage or held in
37:39
captivity, Ukrainian civilians, Ukrainian kids, Russian
37:42
political prisoners, for so many of them, it's not only a
37:45
question of unjust and politically motivated
37:47
imprisonment. It is very often a question of
37:49
life or death. And many of these people will
37:51
not survive until the end of the Putin regime, when everybody
37:54
will be released. And they have to be released now
37:57
because we know that the Americans under the current
37:59
administration will not be talking about this.
38:01
All they talk about is rare earth minerals and money.
38:05
It is incumbent for Europe to stand up on this and to lead
38:08
from position of principle. And this is what I mean, first
38:10
and foremost, to ensure that any deal includes real security
38:13
guarantees for Ukraine and includes a provision of
38:15
releasing all the captors of this war, Russians and
38:17
Ukrainians alike. For that to be a camera.
38:19
So thank you very much indeed. Thank you so much for inviting
38:21
me. That's it for this edition of
38:22
the forecast. Until next time, bye bye.