Transcription
We just witnessed one of the craziest conferences in Kremlin history. It went so horribly wrong for Vladimir Putin that the transcript of this conference has been now deleted from Russian president's official website.
You see, during a recent human rights day meeting, a respected Russian director, Alexander Shukurov, did the unthinkable. He didn't ask Putin softball questions about his health or about his hard work. Instead, he launched into a 11-minute point-by-point public dressing down of the Russian leader while the whole country was watching. To Putin's face, the director condemned the invasion, criticized the widespread corruption, and called the current Russian regime worse than the Soviet Union. He warned that this spot that Putin is on would lead to the collapse of the Russian Empire, just like the Tsarist Empire collapsed.
Now this director is internationally acclaimed. His films have won many awards bringing international prestige for Russia and this is exactly why Putin really couldn't do much. He was cornered while in public. He could not interrupt without looking insecure. Nor could he punish the director without confirming the repression the director is complaining about. But the fact that the Kremlin deleted the transcripts and the video recordings from their official website tells us everything we need to know about the panic that was inside the building. So, let's get into exactly what happened. Why Putin was just forced to erase this whole interview.
Now, as I said, this whole thing was around 11 minutes long, just the question, by the way. And then Putin took another 10 minutes to answer to some of the parts of the question. Now, I'm not going to show you guys the whole thing in one go. So, what we'll do is break down the questioning in segments and then look at Putin's answer to that specific segment. That way, it makes more sense. Here's the first part.
>> What is the reason for banning the showing of my film? No explanation was given. Back when I went through this under the Soviet system, they always explained to me why my film wouldn't be shown. The same thing was explained to Tarkovsky why his film wouldn't be shown in the Soviet Union. Not a single work ever banned by the state, be it music, literature or architecture, not one of these bans has stood the test of time. All these bans were lifted because any prohibition directed against artistic creativity is doomed from the start. We didn't know how then and we don't know how now to hold political discussions with young people or students. We are afraid. The country is afraid. There is a lack of a process to discuss events in the country openly, calmly without hysteria. The absence of this process, the lack of any serious opposition sentiment or discussion of it deals in my view a very serious blow to the lives of so many people, including the talented and capable.
He just publicly said that Russia had better transparency under the Soviet Union. I bet you guys did not think you would ever hear those words. But it gets much, and I mean much worse from here.
But before we get into all the questioning, I want to give you guys a little bit of context about who this director is and why Putin could not really do much while he was being questioned. Now, as you guys probably guessed from his question, this guy has lived under the Soviet Union. In fact, he was born in 1951 and a lot of his early career as a director was under the Soviet regime. Now, a lot of his movies were published, but they were also banned by the Soviet government. And that's important because that tells us that this guy has been part of the Russian culture for a very long time. That means he's not some pro-Western guy who hates Russia or who hates Putin. In fact, he's very pro-Russian, and we can tell that if we just look at the movies he has published. But one thing he does not want is that he does not want Russia to go back to the times of the Soviet Union or go back to the times of the Tsars. And that's why his movies are very focused on dictators who had taken over their countries and basically led the country to ruins. He has made movies about Hitler, Lenin, the Japanese emperor and many more figures like these.
Then in 2011, he made one of his most successful movies yet. It's called Faust. This is basically a movie inspired by the famous Russian legend where the leader of a country trades his soul for absolute control over the state. This movie is basically meant to portray power as a corrupting bargain, especially absolute power. Meaning anyone who has total power over any state is usually not someone who's a moral person, but rather someone who just wants control at any cost. I'm guessing you guys can see why Putin may not like this movie. But unfortunately, this movie is internationally acclaimed. In 2011, it won the Golden Lion Prize at the Venice Film Festival, which is a huge deal for movies. And this was a huge deal for Russia, too, because it increased Russia's prestige and Russia's soft power on the international stage. And because of that, this guy is very important inside Russia, inside the Kremlin, and also all around the world. In fact, his movies are still being studied in many important film schools around the globe. So clearly this guy is not someone Putin can just send to the gulags.
Well, this all brings us to 2022 when Putin launched his 3-day special military operation. Well, later in that same year, Shukurov launched another film called Fairy Tale. This film was very well-received around the world, but inside Russia, this film was banned. Now, of course, Putin never gave a reason as to why he's banning this movie. But how about this? Let's play a game. I'll give you guys the plot of the movie and then you guys tell me down below if you can pinpoint the reason why Putin banned the movie. Okay, let's start. So, as you know, the movie is called Fairy Tale. And in this movie, we have dictators and wartime leaders like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Winston Churchill. They all meet in purgatory and they are basically discussing their legacy. They're trying to make sense of how they are portrayed in the world right now. So they are in the afterlife and they're trying to basically figure out if their portrayal, how the world sees them now is fair or not. So a lot of the leaders are basically arguing for most of the movie. They're trying to rationalize their decisions. And some of the leaders are basically saying that it's unfair that the world is blaming them for World War II. They're arguing that history is misunderstanding their actions. History is getting them wrong because it wasn't just their fault that World War II was started. It was usually other guys' fault who are in the room and they were forced into the war because of actions of these other guys.
Now, I'm sure some of you guys can guess who I'm talking about. Hitler. Hitler specifically talks a lot in this movie and he's trying to explain his actions by saying that he had to do what he did. He had to start World War II to protect the German people who were being persecuted in other countries. Then Hitler goes on to say that Germany was the victim of all this. Germany was being humiliated on an international stage. Germany was cornered and it was misunderstood by the world. And that's why Hitler says it's not fair to put the responsibility of all the deaths that occurred in World War II squarely on him. He's calling history unfair.
Now, does that reasoning sound familiar to anyone here? Is that a reasoning someone else is using to basically invade Ukraine to protect the Russian people all the while bombing those Russian people that he's trying to protect and killing them basically now? I guess that would depend on if you're pro-Russian or not. Right? So, you guys let me know in the comments if you have figured out why Putin banned this movie, 'cause he doesn't give a public reason.
Now, the big problem for Putin, especially with this movie, is that it's not really Western propaganda because Winston Churchill is in this movie and he's not really portrayed as like a great figure in the movie. Churchill himself is trying to justify the German bombing that the British Air Force carried out during World War II. He argues that it was a necessary step to stop the war and put pressure on Germany. And this is why for Putin, it's very hard to basically defend his ban saying that, hey, this is just Western propaganda. It's an anti-Russian movie because the movie itself is criticizing pretty much everyone involved pretty fairly. And on top of all this, we cannot forget that the movie is made by someone who likes Russia, actually who loves Russia and he wants to make sure that Russia doesn't repeat the mistakes of the former dictators that are part of this movie. The message of the movie coming from the director himself is basically like, power ends, but history remains. And that's a message that's not very comforting for someone like Putin.
Now, I know we got on a little bit of a tangent talking about the movie, but to me, it was really interesting. So, I want to share it with you guys. But let's get back to the conference that took place. Because at this conference, Putin defends the ban of the movies, saying, "Hey, we're not banning all movies. If you want your movies not getting banned, just make movies that are positive of the SMO, which is the special military operation in Russian." And then he tells the director directly that, hey, maybe you give me a call later tonight and we can talk about which movie that has been banned and I'll see what I can do.
But all that aside, this was not the only problem that the director had. Like I said, it was an 11-minute long question and he had more complaints unrelated to his own movies. So let's listen to what the next thing is.
>> Every week we watch with alarm who again appears as a foreign agent. These definitions are horrifying. My compatriots who are suddenly labeled foreign agents. I understand that this is a political category, but they simply label someone, vaguely outline a list of grievances, and that's it. The ball starts rolling and then comes their fate and it is unclear what to do next. In my view, this is the wrong decision. It humiliates the human being, the citizen and denies them the chance to develop or even exist.
Now this is something we have covered in our previous videos. You see at the beginning of the war in 2022, Russia had this foreign agent law that Putin was using to silence anyone who was against his invasion. Putin would just label them as foreign agents. And because of that label, these people just could not live a normal life like a normal citizen in Russia. They were kind of treated like subhuman because of the Russian system. Because in Russia, if you're labeled a foreign agent, people like your friends and even your colleagues start treating you weirdly. They don't want to associate with you. They don't want to deal with you. They don't want to work with you. And on top of that, even the government treats you separately from a normal citizen. They tax you at a higher rate just because you have this label. And on top of that, the government forces other publicly funded businesses to not work with you. They force TV shows to not have you on as a guest, and just a lot of problems you would have if you get labeled a foreign agent. And because of this, a lot of people who get this label end up moving overseas so they can live a normal life. And this kind of gives Putin more ammunition because once they move overseas, Putin goes, "Hey, look, that guy is living overseas. I told you guys he was a foreign agent." And that's why he hates Russia. So it kind of becomes like you label someone a foreign agent and then you get evidence to basically back it up that they are a foreign agent. And again, I'm not saying like someone living overseas is evidence, but to Putin, it is evidence.
Now, as I said, this was happening towards people who were against the war at the beginning, right? But over the last year, maybe in 2025, the same method has been used to basically silence people who are pro-war. Now, I'm sure everyone here already knows this, but it was supposed to be a 3-day special military operation, but it's still going on 3 and 1/2 years later. So there are some people in Russia who are pro-war but are criticizing the military for failures that are happening on the front lines. They are very pro-nationalist. They are very pro-Russia and they actually a lot of these people don't believe that Ukraine should exist. But in a system that Putin has built, any type of criticism is not tolerated. So even though these people are not directly criticizing Putin, they're criticizing people around him, especially the military leadership. The system is fighting back against this criticism and that system is now labeling all these people who are pro-war as foreign agents and because of that, these people's lives are kind of ruined. And guess what? This is a repeat of what happened under Stalin during the USSR because back then, once the Stalin's repression machinery started, it cannot stop. So at first, it was going after political enemies, but slowly it started going after the people who supported the political system. And now the same thing is happening again. The political system that Putin has built is now going after people who support the political system. And that's exactly what this guy is calling out on national TV.
But anyways, let's continue with the clip from the conference because we have a lot more complaints. It appears the state is attacking its own citizen. The citizen founded an organization called the state. He is the founder. And after a while, the state starts to oppress its own founder. First from one side, then from the other. It is unnatural, counterproductive and it absolutely does not lead to the development of artistic creativity. In many art schools, people simply walk around with their heads down because they realize this isn't allowed. That isn't allowed. It is like living in a sealed box. Try to shoot a ballet of a soldier today. The film would be banned immediately and what would happen to the author is unknown. This is a fundamentally important situation. We must decisively change the tone of the relationship between the state and the artistic community. If we don't change how we work with young people, we won't get far. It will be a total dead end, an absolute regression of the entire state system. We must love the youth. We must work with them. We must cherish them. We need to create all the necessary conditions for them to realize everything they want to achieve. And of course, a very important final point. You once said, why do we need a world if there is no Russia in it? Why do we need a state where there is no opportunity to get an education? What do we need it for?
As you can tell, Putin was not the biggest fan of what had just happened. But did you see that smirk at the end? That's because the director is using Putin's own words against him. If I remember correctly, I think back in 2015, Putin said that why do we need a world if there is no Russia in it? And now the director is using the same logic and saying, why do we need a state if there's no opportunity to get an education? And that's why Putin is kind of smirking.
But the Kremlin was not too happy about this whole thing that went down. That's because if you go to the Kremlin website where they have a website for the president of Russia, that's what the website is called. And this website basically records everything Putin does publicly, who he meets, what he says, what he listens to, anything you want, you can look at it here. Everything is transcribed too. So you have like a word-by-word record of everything Putin has experienced publicly. Well, if you go to December 10th, we can find the event that just happened, the human rights event. But if you search the transcript for this event, you don't actually see the clips that we just watched. That's because the Kremlin has just deleted this whole part of the conference because they did not want the Russian public finding out about this. But unfortunately for Putin, in the age of the internet, and hopefully this video will live on forever. So be sure to share it with as many people as you can share it with, 'cause I'm sure this is kind of historic. But that's all I have for you guys. My name is Sam. I'll see you guys in the next video.
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