Transcription
[Music] Let me ask, let me just go back to Ukraine for a minute. I got sidetracked with some interesting things I wanted to ask you about. But, obviously, there's a desire on the part of the Trump Administration to end the war. Trump has said that during the campaign; he said that over and over and over again. He's saying that now as well. The question, of course, is how. Such a war. Right? End NATO. From the beginning, they defined victory in a way that always seemed to me designed to ensure Russia's humiliation: we want every Russian troop out of every inch of what had previously been recognized as Ukraine, including Crimea. It seems obvious now that's not going to happen. Pete Hegseth, the new defense secretary, said we're never going to go back to the pre-24 borders. There was a lot of anger that he said that, but it seems true.
There are a lot of people in the West who still think that the motive for the war, Putin's goal, is not only to take all of Ukraine but to exert pre-1989 authority over large parts of Eastern Europe as well. And then there are a lot of people who say no; it seemed like what Putin and the Russians want is some buffer zone to ensure safety between NATO and encroaching NATO moving Eastward and Ukraine. So how do you see the real Russian goal, the longer-term Russian goal when it comes to Ukraine and Eastern Europe?
I think that, to consider the real capacity of Russia, of modern Russia, to, for example, put Eastern Europe under control as was the case in the Second World War, we arrive immediately, after serious consideration, at the conclusion that it is absolutely impossible. Maybe it was desirable; maybe we would have done everything to accomplish that for strategical and historical reasons in order to reinforce our security, but that is absolutely out of our capacities. So, nobody in Russia could say that we are able to do that. Maybe we will be obliged, put in a situation of necessity, to fight with Europe, with NATO, and maybe this war will give some positive results, but that is a very, very small possibility. People in Russia recognize that.
Absolutely no, no, that is common opinion. For example, few would say that we would desire that, but all would agree that we are not capable. More than that, it is now very difficult for us to establish full control over Ukraine, and we see that. But we would prefer to have at least a neutral Ukraine—neutral, not hostile, not friendly, but just neutral, as was the case under Yanukovych, walking with the West, having good relations with us. We would leave Ukraine alone, with Crimea, with Donbas. We didn't want that; our government tried to avoid military intervention. So, and that is absolutely clear. But we could, when we started a more powerful way to keep Ukraine back under our control, there was this war. And in this war we see some absolutely certain points. First of all, NATO, as you have said, could not overcome Russia. So the goal to liberate, so-called liberate Crimea or the Eastern part of Ukraine, is impossible on the level of powers. We stand strong against all the sanctions, all NATO weapons given to Ukrainians, and we will stay in that and maybe progress until the end, until the last Russian. We are very decisive on that. But at the same time, we see how difficult it is for us to progress. So we would satisfy, at least now, with keeping back these territories, assuring that Ukraine is not going to become a member.
When you say "keep back," do you mean that—and I realize you're not necessarily negotiating for the government, or even if you were, you wouldn't do it with me—but is there a scenario, do you think, in which Russia would be willing to give back to Ukraine some or all of the land it has come to occupy over the last three years? It's absolutely zero chance for that. Why is that? By… first of all, we have paid a big price for that, and nobody in Russia, in Russian society—no warriors, no people who have lost their children, their people, the parents—they would accept that. Putin has said that, because otherwise their loss of their children would be for no reason. In other words, the people who lost their… because that was a kind of patriotic Great Patriotic War, and it is continuing, and Putin has put his authority on the scale of the victory. So without victory, no legitimate historical legitimacy of what is victory. That depends, in my opinion; there are different scales. It could be control over Ukraine, with putting some, all of Ukraine—putting some not pro-Russian, but neutral figure on top, dismantling military potential and Nazi ideology, Russophobia, this hatred of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian language. That would be maximal victory. If we liberate what we call Novorossiya, the territory that includes four regions we have already taken, and all the way the provinces in Eastern Ukraine that you… as well. So these four provinces and new four provinces around Odessa, Kherson, Nikolaev, and Berdyansk, but that could be annexed to Russia and it could be victory as well. So if we manage to do that, or to take Kyiv, to divide Ukraine in two parts, Western and Eastern, and the less… the smallest victory that we could maybe afford—I'm not sure, but maybe it is in the plans—is to keep the territories, the provinces we have already under… in Russia, and Crimea obviously, and to give the other… all the Ukraine, all the rest of Ukraine, to accept that and to demilitarize and promising not to enter NATO. But I think that that, as well, this smallest victory could provide a huge reaction from the population. A normal victory, the victory that will immediately satisfy everybody here, and that is very important to the future period because we need to assimilate, to integrate these new territories into our history, old earths. So that will be accepted by everybody. The smallest victory that is inconceivable for the West, for Zelensky, and I think maybe for Washington now, that could create critical turmoil inside of Russia. So it will be very, very, very difficult to present as victory, maintaining what you have.
Yes. Let me ask you about that, because there's a lot of times, in Western propaganda, a kind of cartoon version of Russia that's presented, which is that Putin is not just, as you call him or described him, maybe the father figure of the country, but he's a totalitarian leader; only his will rules everything; there's no dissent; there's no opposition; there's no questioning permissible. My sense, following Russian politics as best as I can from a distance, is that there's actually been a lot of disagreement in Moscow and in political circles about what this war ought to achieve. You're obviously laying out different views of that, people have, of what it is. Is there a certain kind of political pressure on President Putin inside Russia not to give away too much?
I think that is not so much political pressure from concrete political groups, but rather the general opinion, a kind of mood of people in the front, the people here in the country. So the patriotism is now a kind of common, common position of the absolute majority of the Russians, and patriotism that is sociological, cultural, ideological, psychological, absolutely, and that creates much more pressure on Putin than any fraction around him. And what is interesting, there are people who are in tune with this patriotism and close to Putin, but they are still not the absolute majority. Many representatives of Putin's elite still believe in the end of the conflict and restoration of the pre-war relations with the West. So they accepted this patriotic line of Putin and the majority of the population, but they still have second thoughts. And I think they are making pressure on Putin in order to stop as soon as possible the war. So the pressure on Putin is not from the side of the pro-war, "take all of Ukraine," yes, yes, yes, but from "stop it immediately, stop it in any way, and accept any…"
Who are those people? How would you describe people with those views? I'm calling them the "sixth column." There is a fifth column; there are liberals, pro-Western, who openly, openly protested and protested against Putin. Now they are mostly outside of Russia. If they are here, they don't show themselves because it is over with them. So the fifth column doesn't exist here.
Is that because they've been suppressed, or imprisoned, or just driven out because of public opinion, or a combination of both? A combination of both. Not too much repressed, but not too much, and despised by the majority of the population, but not until the moment to beat them, to hit them, to aggress them. So they preferred to run away before the real repression, in their opinion, would start. So they, they, they have fled the country. So we could not know whether it would be repressions or not, severe or not severe, because they, they, they are now outside. But there is a sixth column. So they are liberals, the representatives of this 1990s Yeltsin-time oligarchs, some bureaucrats who really hate patriotism, who hate our people's sovereignty. They had a very good life during this… these good relations with the West, and they still keep the same, the same, the same mood, the same attitude. But instead of… in spite of the rebellion against Putin, they, they, they prefer to be on his side, and they, they because they keep their influence that way, but not really share the vision. Sixth column, so they now advocate for Putin, but they dream about stopping the war and returning to the pre-war period. So that was… I think that is a very interesting situation. They are powerful; they try to influence Putin; they try to make pressure on him, and they are part of this globalist network. Maybe they were paid by the USA, because now it is manifested that the USA has helped to write the Russian Constitution. We are living under a USA product, and many other norms and laws in the beginning of the 1990s. So we… Russia was part of this network, and the people from this USA-paid network, at different levels, now many of them are part of, or people close to, our elite, close to Putin. So they weren't purged because Putin, he is very, very mild, to say the truth, very, very gentle. He prefers to convince someone than to fire or to punish him or her. So he is very, very humanistic, and he has conserved almost all the core of this, of this pro-Western liberal elite. Only the most radical were fired or put outside. But that is the real danger, because the mentality of this liberal sixth column is much more like Scholz, Starmer, and not Trump. So they want… now they are in a very awkward position. They want peace with the West, but they don't like Trump absolutely, because in Trump they see maybe their fate. They do… if Putin would start something like a Russian Dodge, they will be first to [Music] suffer. Thanks for watching this clip from System Update, our live show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern, exclusively on Rumble. You can catch the full nightly shows live or view the backlog of episodes for free on our Rumble page. You can also find full episodes the morning after they air across all major podcasting platforms, including Spotify. And all the information you need is linked below. We hope to see you there.