Presidents Of Russia

"Often the biggest lies involve what remains unsaid. For instance, U.S. media rarely mention such key matters as the promise-breaking huge expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders since the fall of the Berlin Wall... or the more than 800 U.S. military bases overseas -- in contrast to Russia’s nine... We need a major shift in the U.S. approach toward Russia...The lives -- and even existence -- of future generations are at stake in the relationship between Washington and Moscow... The incessant drumbeat is in sync with what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.""

"Putin is the most mature statesmen in the whole world right now. He's been there for four American presidents, since Clinton...He's been everywhere, met everybody. And he sees the world as needing balance. It's not a uni-polar world, dominated by the United States... He's been very clear that we need balances of regional power. Unfortunately, the United States just doesn't want to believe that...it's our military side that scares the sh-- out of me,.. as we tend to be arrogant, that's when you become very dangerous."

"President Putin has done a lot of [hypocritical and oppressive actions] against his own people, and I would describe that as anti-Russian."

"When he wanted to intervene he didn't ask anything. First, his politics based on value, this is important, the second thing they enter in common interest they are fighting the terrorists that they could fight in Russia we are fighting the terrorists that could be fighting in Europe and anywhere in some.... in world, but the different of President Putin, he could see that clearly while the other of in Europe or the Western couldn't see that, that's why the intervention is based on values and at the same time based on the interest of Russian people."

"The Khashoggi episode- made worse by weeks of presidential hand-wringing- damaged America's credibility, yet it was hardly the worst case of the president's submission to autocrats. That honor goes to Vladimir Putin. Under President Putin, Russia has reasserted itself on the world stage, challenging the United States at every opportunity and seeking to be a peer competitor. Trump, seemingly unfazed by the regime's hostility toward Americans, has applauded Putin with regularity."

"The president's obvious admiration for Vladimir Putin ("a great guy," "terrific person") still continues to puzzle us, including those on the team who shrug off his outlandish behavior. Where did the Putin hero worship come from? It's almost as if Trump is the scrawny kid trying to suck up to the bully on the playground. Commentators have speculated, without any evidence, that Moscow must "have something" on the president. I wish I could say. All I know is that whatever drives his love for Putin, it's terrible for the United States because Vladimir Putin is not on our side and no US president should be building him up. We need a comprehensive strategy to counter the Russians, not court them. But Trump is living on another planet, one where he and Putin are companions and where Russia wants to help America be successful. As a result, US officials fear they're "on their own" in fighting back against Moscow. They're right. They are. If an agency wants to respond to Russia's anti-US behavior around the world, they shouldn't plan on steady air cover from the president. In fact, officials know they risk Trump's ire if the subject comes up in public interviews or congressional testimony. "I don't care," one fellow senior leader snapped when reminded by his staff that he needed to watch his words in Senate meetings. "He can fire me if he wants. I'm going to tell the truth. The Russians are not our friends.""

"Ray McGovern: Let me just start with Putin’s major address [1 March 2018] ... It was really something. Not only did he advertise a whole new generation of strategic weaponry, which he claimed, and no one has disproved, would render the billions of dollars that we have wasted on antiballistic missile defenses useless. They’re useless to begin with, most scientists and engineers say, but these new weapons that he advertised, and some of which he said are operational, would upend that... he also said, Now, we tried to get you to listen to us. You wouldn’t listen to us. Now, hopefully, you will listen to us. Let’s get together at the appropriate time with experts and figure out how we address these problems, in other words, talks on arms control ..."

"Now, a couple days later he’s talking about the strategic relationship and somebody says, Now, Mr. Putin—this is in an interview...six days later—somebody says, Hey, listen, Mr. Putin...would you destroy the whole world? If there were a first strike on Russia, would you really respond? It would be too late to save Russia.... Look, He says, yes, this would be a global catastrophe, but “as a citizen of Russia and as the head of the Russian state, I ask, What need will we have for a world if there was no Russia?” So he’s saying, Look, you’ve got to take this stuff seriously. Yes, we would retaliate, even if it meant that the rest of the world would be blown up as well as Russia."

"...Putin’s looking at all this. He knows who “the crazies” are and he knows that Bolton has a lot of influence. So this is a very destabilizing thing, because when the Russians keep telling us, Look, we’ve got these new weapons, well, you know, the press says, Ah, they’re faking it, they’re probably faking it. You know, I don’t know if they’re faking it or not. But, my God, if we knew about all this, why is it not in the annual intelligence briefing that is given to both the House and to the Senate early each year? It’s missing. All we get is rhetoric about how bad the Russians are, just as if they were the old Soviet Union, ideologically determined to bury us..."

"Putin hadn't raised election meddling, but I certainly did, stressing there was even more interest than before because of the approaching 2018 congressional elections. Every member of Congress running for reelection, and all their challengers, had a direct personal interest in the issue, which they had not fully appreciated in 2016, with the attention on allegations of meddling at the presidential level. I said it was politically toxic for Trump to meet with Putin, but he was doing so to safeguard US national interests regardless of the political consequences, and to see if he could advance the relationship. After a few closing pleasantries, the roughly ninety-minute meeting ended. Putin struck me as totally in control, self-confident, whatever Russia's domestic economic and political challenges might have been. I was not looking forward to leaving him alone in a room with Trump."

"I would also like to address the military personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Comrade officers, Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people. I urge you to refuse to carry out their criminal orders. I urge you to immediately lay down arms and go home. The military personnel of the Ukrainian army who do this will be able to freely leave the zone of hostilities and return to their families..."

"Castro was very articulate, and so was Chavez, and so was Putin in his way, and I think I gave them a chance to talk and also in their native language. We never hear Putin speak in his native Russian, and we had a very good translator, interpreter working with him. I think it's crucial to understand Putin's point of view as it was Castro's, Chávez's. And also, Yasser Arafat, too.. It's not necessary to be their enemy. It's necessary to get them to express themselves. That's my point of view, and I guess you could say I'm a dramatist. And I think they're great stories. I'm very proud of those movies. I took a lot of heat, flack for the last one for Putin, but frankly, I'm very proud of it. It's a record for all time of a man who very few people have gotten to. Even the Russians tell me they've never seen their president so frank as he was on that interview."

"Fred had also primed Donald to be drawn to men such as Cohn, as he would later be drawn to authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un or anyone else, really, with a willingness to flatter and the power to enrich him."

"Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday compared modern Western values ​​to Bolshevik dogmatism during his speech at the Valdai club forum and called for “rational conservatism.” The president recalled that the Bolsheviks showed an “absolute intolerance” to any opinion other than his own, they tried to destroy the values ​​that were formed several centuries ago. In this sense, he stressed that “looking at what is happening in various Western countries” now, we see the practices that Russia left in the distant past."

"Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Article 51 as his authority, ordered what he called a “special military operation” against Ukraine for the ostensible purpose of eliminating neo-Nazi affiliated military formations accused of carrying out acts of genocide against the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass, and for dismantling a Ukrainian military Russia believed served as a de facto proxy of the NATO military alliance. Putin laid out a detailed case for pre-emption, detailing the threat that NATO’s eastward expansion posed to Russia, as well as Ukraine’s ongoing military operations against the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass... The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to (Charter of the United Nations) Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction. While it might be in vogue for people, organizations, and governments in the West to embrace the knee-jerk conclusion that Russia’s military intervention constitutes a wanton violation of the United Nations Charter and, as such, constitutes an illegal war of aggression, the uncomfortable truth is that, of all the claims made regarding the legality of pre-emption under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is on solid legal ground."

"MOSCOW—Surveying his accomplishments in the past month with evident satisfaction, Vladimir Putin reportedly grew pleased Thursday as his plot to ruin the Russian economy and destroy its international standing went exactly to plan. “It’s incredible that in a few short weeks, my goal to tank the ruble and humiliate the Russian military on the global stage has gone off without a hitch,” said the Russian president, adding that when he laid out his plan to his inner circle months ago, few had believed that he could make such swift progress on stalling his army outside of Kyiv against a military that was an embarrassing order of magnitude smaller than his own. “The cherry on top is that by isolating myself from every country in Europe and driving the world together in condemnation of me, I’ve essentially made us into a vassal state of China’s. So we’re basically fucked from an economic and geopolitical perspective, which is just what I hoped to get out of this war. Now if I can just a get a few more thousand of my own troops killed, I’ll have everything I could ever want.” At press time, Putin had reportedly begun devising plans to invade Estonia with the express intention of spreading his forces ever thinner across eastern Europe in an unwinnable quagmire."

"There must be a price for the unprovoked, unlawful, unwarranted, unjustified attacks and threats and intimidation that has been imposed by Russia on Ukraine. This cannot be a consequence-free action by Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime."

"Everything we see today is proof that President Putin made a wrong calculation, a wrong calculation about the decision of the Ukrainians to defend themselves, a wrong calculation about the decision of the West to make Russia pay The costs of this war, a miscalculation of the unity we have as European partners and a miscalculation of NATO’s determination in recent months are stronger than ever."

"Incidentally, US politicians, political scientists and journalists write and say that a veritable "empire of lies" has been created inside the United States in recent years. It is hard to disagree with this – it is really so. But one should not be modest about it: the United States is still a great country and a system-forming power. All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them. Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same "empire of lies"."

"We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means."

"Putin was wrong and he is, right now, failing and flailing in his response to the situation."

"We continue to ensure that we do everything necessary to make sure Putin and his cronies are held to account."

"Properly speaking, the attempts to use us in their own interests never ceased until quite recently: they sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature. This is not going to happen. No one has ever succeeded in doing this, nor will they succeed now."

"For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it."

"With NATO’s eastward expansion the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year. Moreover, these past days NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders. In other words, they have been toughening their position. We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us."

"With the situation going on in Ukraine, we have noticed that there is no possibility to trust Vladimir Putin and that he will do whatever he wants with no rationality whatsoever."

"I understand why he has to do this; to prove he's a man... He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this."

"Putin is slouching…looking like that bored schoolboy in the back of the classroom."

"The leaders of the free world keep lowering their standards and authoritarians keep taking more territory. Eventually people wake up and ask why Putin murders in the UK or hacks in the US. Why wouldn’t he? You didn’t stop him before."

"I want to emphasize again that all responsibility for the possible bloodshed will lie fully and wholly with the ruling Ukrainian regime."

"And then there is Russia. Over the past 8 years under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, threatened NATO allies, and intervened militarily in Syria, leaving a trail of death and destruction and broken promises in his wake. Russia’s military has targeted Syrian hospitals and first responders with precision weapons. Russia supplied the weapons that shot down a commercial aircraft over Ukraine. Russia’s war on Ukraine has killed thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. And in the most flagrant demonstration of Putin’s disdain and disrespect for our Nation, Russia deliberately interfered in our recent election with cyber attacks and a disinformation campaign designed to weaken America and discredit Western values. Each of our last three Presidents has had great expectations of building a partnership with the Russian Government. Each attempt has failed, not for lack of good faith and effort on the U.S. side, but because of a stubborn fact that we must finally recognize: Putin wants to be our enemy. He needs us as his enemy. He will never be our partner, including in fighting ISIL. He believes that strengthening Russia means weakening America. We must proceed realistically on this basis."

"This man thinks that you can’t criticise your government. This man thinks that if you sing and dance in an inappropriate way you get two years in prison!"

"In his March 1, 2018, Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, he went further, throwing down the gauntlet to the United States. Russia, he acknowledged, had been on the defensive since the Soviet Union collapsed, having lost substantial amounts of its territory, population, GDP, industrial potential, and military capability. It depended on the IMF and World Bank for survival. The United States ignored its appeals not to abrogate the ABM Treaty in 2002 and expanded its global missile-defense system, leaving Russia vulnerable to a US attack. But now, in March 2018, Putin was declaring that the US effort had failed. He unveiled the existence of five new nuclear weapons, all of which could circumvent US missile-defense systems. He concluded defiantly, “I hope everything that has been said today will sober any potential aggressor,” adding, “No one listened to us. Listen to us now.” Independent Russian military analyst Aleksandr Golts said that all the weapons experts he had spoken to were “in shock, as was I.”"

"Listen, there's been a campaign, a war against Russia going on for a long time. It started again in the United States around 2006, '07, when he made that speech in Munich, but I think there's no evidence really of the aggressiveness of Russia. The aggressiveness is truly coming from the NATO forces that have encircled Russia and that are also, by the way, encircling China. You know, this is a big policy point, huge, of huge importance... If you look at the reporting from all of our major networks, it's very hostile when it comes to people who we deem to be enemies, whether it's Chávez or whether it's Castro or Putin. I've never seen an interview done from the American perspective where they allow the subject to express himself in what he was seeking to do, what his purpose was."

"The images from Bucha are unbearable. Putin’s uninhibited violence is extinguishing innocent families and knows no boundaries."

"Public space frightens the Putin regime, which has worked hard, and effectively, to destroy it."

"After nearly fifteen years of systematic destruction of public space, engineered by Putin, the normal ways by which regular people absorb information about the state of their country are gone. Only a person who had lost his livelihood or half his savings would have been able to report that the economy was failing."

"Like the Soviet regime before it, the Putin government spreads fear by destroying the illusion that one can protect oneself."

"Putin went to Texas. He had a barbecue with Bush, second Bush. Bush said he ‘looked into his eyes and saw a good soul.’ There was this honeymoon. Why did they turn against Putin?... You have to ask yourself, why is it that Washington had no problem doing productive diplomacy with Soviet communist leaders... Why do we like communist leaders in Russia better than we like Russia’s anti-communist leader?... Putin said he had illusions about the West when he came to power."

"When Putin began talking about Russia’s sovereignty, Russia’s independent course in world affairs, they’re (the Washington elites) aghast... This is not what they expected... Putin was kind of the right person for the right time, both for Russia and for Russian world affairs."

"The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines — particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin — is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm."

"In 1999 the ailing Yeltsin anointed a former Leningrad KGB boss, Vladimir Putin, as his successor. The contrast was total. Putin was the epitome of a tough, communist-era apparatchik. The ex-intelligence officer had no time for the niceties of democracy, but a keen sense of the need to restore Russian pride. He would issue pictures of himself hunting and bare-chested on horseback. His court of oligarchs made sure he secured as much overseas wealth as they had. Putin’s politics, endorsed at increasingly rigged elections, made no mention of civil rights or market economics. He was a populist and a nationalist, his pledge merely to restore Russia’s integrity and self-confidence. Opponents were bribed, imprisoned or killed. The west might have felt able to humour and torment Yeltsin. It now faced the pastiche tsar of a macho state. That Russia’s economy was debilitated was irrelevant. Dictatorship thrives on poverty."

"Vladimir Putin, yeah, I met with him a lot during the presidency... I got to know him very well. I had a good relationship throughout, it became more tense as time went on... Vladimir’s a person who in many ways views the U.S. as an enemy... And although he wouldn’t say that, I felt that he viewed the world as either the U.S. benefits and Russia loses or vice-versa. I tried of course to dispel him of that notion..."

"President Barack Obama first met with Putin in Moscow in July 2009, and I accompanied him... En route to Putin’s dacha... I suggested that Obama open the meeting with a question. Why not ask Putin for his candid assessment of what he thought had gone right, and what had gone wrong, in Russian-American relations over the past decade? Putin liked being asked his opinion... Maybe letting him get some things off his chest would set a good tone. The president nodded. Obama’s initial question produced an unbroken 55-minute monologue filled with grievances, sharp asides, and acerbic commentary."

"I have had closer interactions with President Putin than with any other foreign colleagues. He is my best and bosom friend. I cherish dearly our deep friendship."

"Early on in his Kremlin tenure, Putin had tested, with President George W. Bush, a form of partnership suited to his view of Russian interests and prerogatives. He imagined a common front in the post-9/11 War on Terror, in return for acceptance of Russia’s special influence in the former Soviet Union, with no encroachment by NATO beyond the Baltics and no interference in Russia’s domestic politics. But this kind of transaction was never in the cards.... Obama struggled to stay connected to Putin, whose suspicions never really eased.... We managed a string of tangible accomplishments: a new nuclear-arms-reduction treaty; a military transit agreement for Afghanistan; a partnership on the Iranian nuclear issue."

"Putin... seemed in many ways the anti-Yeltsin—younger, sober, fiercely competent, hardworking and hard-faced... he was determined to show that Russia would no longer be the potted plant of major-power politics."

"The upheavals of the Arab Spring unnerved Putin; he reportedly watched the grisly video of the demise of the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi— caught hiding in a drainage pipe and killed by Western-backed rebels—over and over again."

"People say, "He's the most popular guy in Russia." I say: "Yeah, I'd be popular too if I owned NBC.""

"In 2010 the pro-Russian leader of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, opposed any move to take the country closer to NATO or the EU, but within four years he was ousted by pro-western parties in Kiev, precipitating an open civil war in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern provinces, the latter supported by Moscow. Tension was further increased when in 2014 Putin annexed the formerly Russian territory of Crimea, granted to Ukraine in the 1950s. Europe replied with a barrage of economic sanctions, which had no political effect beyond entrenching Russia’s siege economy and bringing Putin closer to his oligarchic associates. The economy switched to import substitution, including the manufacture of domestic mozzarella and camembert. NATO reopened its invitation to Ukraine and conducted military exercises in the Baltic countries. Russia did likewise. Europe slid back into brinkmanship mode. Misjudging Moscow had long been the occupational disease of European diplomacy. It cursed alike Swedes, Poles, Napoleon and Hitler. It now blighted a western alliance divided on how to respond to this newly aggressive Russia."