Prime Ministers Of Russia

"Putin has a weak hand and he's bluffing, successfully; the West has a strong hand and has no idea what to do with it."

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

"Throughout the day before the summit in Helsinki, the lead story on the New York Times home page stayed the same:“Just by Meeting With Trump, Putin Comes Out Ahead.” ... The Washington Post...editorialized that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is “an implacably hostile foreign adversary.” ...Contempt for diplomacy with Russia is now extreme... A bellicose stance toward Russia has become so routine and widespread that we might not give it a second thought..."

"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.""

"Somehow we have to learn that we don't have to be number one. We can be partners with the world.That's what I think Putin sees, very clearly. And he's trying to counter it in every way he can to keep his own region alive. He's in jeopardy. I mean, we have had our sights on him heavily since 2007 or 2008."

"In January 2018, the experts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight, where it had stood during the darkest days of the Cold War, from 1953 to 1960. The latest move of the hands was precipitated by the recklessness in Trump’s nuclear thinking and the deepening crisis over Korea. Acting like a hegemon, the United States, starting in 1999, took advantage of Russian weakness and broke its promise not to expand NATO, eventually adding 13 countries, the last of which was Montenegro, in 2017. When Bush announced plans to incorporate Georgia and Ukraine, Putin drew the line. Following the US-backed Ukrainian coup, he took back Crimea and made clear that there are limits to his toleration of NATO expansion."

"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 West used to have "puppets", not independent leaders or officials in any other countries and that's their problem with Putin, they demonize Putin because he can say no and he wants to be independent; because the West, especially the United States don't accept partners, they only accept "followers" even Europe is not part of the United States, that's to be very frank with you, so this is their problem in Syria they need somebody to keep saying yes, like puppet and marionette and so on, somebody you can control from...by remote control"

"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.""

"Trump's cavalier attitude toward the Russian security threat has had a predictable yet devastating consequence. Moscow has not been deterred from attacking American interests. It has been emboldened. They continue to take advantage of the United States, around the world and on our own soil. Former director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified in January 2019 that Russia was still sowing social, racial, and political discord in the United States through influence operations, and several months later, Robert Mueller said the same. "It wasn't a single attempt," he testified to Congress. "They're doing it as we sit here. And they expect to do it during the next campaign." This should be a national scandal, a cause for outrage and action against the Russian government. Instead, it's being ignored where it should matter most- in the Oval Office. Reporters asked Trump about Mueller's assessment days later and quizzed him again on whether he'd pressed Putin on the topic. "You don't really believe this," he shot back. "Do you believe this? Okay, fine. We didn't talk about it." Then he boarded Marine One. The person he does believe is Putin. According to a former top FBI official, Trump at one point rejected information he received regarding a rogue country's missile capability. He said the Russian president had given him different information, so it didn't matter what US spy agencies said. "I don't care. I believe Putin," the official quoted him as saying."

"...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."

"One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. To hate Russia has become dogma on both sides of the political aisle... the United States is engaged is fighting multiple wars against make-believe enemies while the country’s infrastructure rots and a host of officially certified grievance groups control the public space."

"Vladimir Putin’s government has also been accused of downplaying the severity of the outbreak. Officially, there have been 2,337 cases in Russia—very low by international standards—but low testing rates make it hard to know for sure. Critics suggest that a suspiciously nationwide uptick in pneumonia cases in recent weeks actually consists of undiagnosed COVID-19 cases. Aggressive measures put in place to punish the spread of “false” information on the outbreak online may also be preventing media outlets from publishing accurate information. After moving much more slowly than other governments to order lockdowns and social distancing measures, Russia is finally implementing new rules as the number of cases has grown rapidly in recent days. Putin, who was highly visible while touting the government’s efforts to contain the disease’s spread early on, was conspicuously absent when it was time to deliver the bad news. The impending crisis has not stopped Russia’s government from scoring a propaganda coup by shipping medical supplies to other countries—including the U.S."

"There was a strange aftertaste to many of the calls for grand social reform in 2020. As the coronavirus crisis overtook us, the left wing on both sides of the Atlantic, at least that part that had been fired up Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, was going down to defeat. The promise of a radicalized and reenergized left, organized around the idea of the Green New Deal, seemed to dissipate amidst the pandemic. It fell to governments mainly of the center and the right to meet the crisis. They were a strange assortment. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States experimented with denial. For them climate skepticism and virus skepticism went hand in hand. In Mexico, the notionally left-wing government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador also pursued a maverick path, refusing to take drastic action. Nationalist strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Narendra Modi in India, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey did not deny the virus, but relied on their patriotic appeal and bullying tactics to see them through. It was the managerial centrist types who were under most pressure. Figures like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the United States, or Sebastián Piñera in Chile, or Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, and their ilk in Europe. They accepted the science. Denial was not an option. They were desperate to demonstrate that they were better than the 'populists.' To meet the crisis, very middle-of-the-road politicians ended up doing very radical things. Most of it was improvisation and compromise, but insofar as they managed to put a programmatic gloss on their responses—whether in the form of the EU's Next Generation program or Biden's Build Back Better program in 2020—it came from the repertoire of green modernization, sustainable development, and the Green New Deal."

"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."

"In the early days of the war on Ukraine, tens of thousands of Russians protested an invasion launched in their name. This was encouraging. Americans could content themselves with the possibility that Russian citizens might take matters into their own hands, challenging and weakening their president, Vladimir Putin. In recent weeks, however, such protests have become rare. This is in no small part due to the criminalization of opposition; publicly contesting the Kremlin’s war propaganda carries prison terms of up to 15 years. But fear is only a piece of the story. Russians also appear to be rallying behind their president, raising the question of whether ordinary citizens are partly to blame for their regime—and perhaps even morally culpable. If Putin’s regime and the Russian people are more intertwined than they initially appeared, a presumption of innocence becomes harder to sustain. According to the Levada Center, the closest thing to an independent pollster in Russia, Putin’s favorability ratings jumped from 69 percent in January to 83 percent in late March, a month into the so-called special military operation. Perhaps more ominously, Russians appear to be informing on one another in growing numbers, condemning friends, neighbors, and colleagues for insufficient support of the war effort. One hard-line member of Parliament noted that a “cleansing” was inevitable. In a speech, Putin himself colorfully praised his fellow Russians’ ability to “distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths.”"

"We had a moment in history, between 1988 and 1991, where we could have worked with Mikhail Gorbachev to make his vision of perestroika succeed. Instead, we allowed him to fail, without any real plan on how we would live with what emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Save for a short period of time during the Second World War where we needed the Soviet Union to defeat Germany and Japan, we have been in a continual state of political conflict with the Soviet Union. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, we viewed the Russian Federation more as a defeated enemy that we needed to keep down, than a friend in need of a helping hand up. Yeltsin’s Russia was useful to the US and NATO only to the extent that we could exploit it economically while controlling its domestic politics in a manner that kept Russia in a perpetual state of weakness. The Obama “reset” was simply a ploy to remove Vladimir Putin, who rejected the vision of Russia projected by the west, and replace him with Dmitri Medvedev, whom Obama believed could be remade in the figure of Yeltsin. The fact that Putin believes in a strong Russia has upset the plans of the US, NATO, and Europe for post-Cold War hegemony, predicated as they were on a weak, compliant Russian state."

"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."

"It is clear that Putin is systematically targeting civilians, whether it’s hospitals or train stations or maternity wards. This is one of the reasons why Canada was one of the first countries to call on the International Criminal Court to look into Putin’s war crimes."

"It is clear that Vladimir Putin is responsible for heinous war crimes."

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

"I admire president Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people for their courage, and how the continue defending their country in the unprovoked and illegal war of Putin. I look forward to the meeting with Zelenskyy, where my message will be that Denmarrk continues helping Ukraine. The West stands together in supporting the Ukrainian people."

"There can be no way back to business as usual with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's Russia. Our aim should not be to do business with war criminals."

"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."

"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.""

"Mother of God, Drive Putin Away."

"I repent and ask for forgiveness for bringing Vladimir Putin to power. I should have seen, but could not see in him the future of a greedy tyrant and usurper, a man who trampled freedom and stopped the development of Russia. Many of us did not recognize it then, but that does not excuse me. I'm sorry."

"Vladimir Putin wants to restore the old Russian empire. He cannot stand a free, democratic, prosperous Ukraine, because sooner or later the people of Russia would want to have that kind of lifestyle as well."

"Putin told several Western leaders, “I want Saakashvili’s head.” If they want my head, for me it’s more funny than troubling."

"Russia is a new phenomenon in Europe: a state defined and dominated by former and active-duty security and intelligence officers. Not even fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union – all undoubtedly much worse creations than Russia; were as top-heavy with intelligence talent ... There is no historical precedent for a society so dominated by former and active-duty internal-security and intelligence officials; men who rose up in a professional culture in which murder could be an acceptable, even obligatory, business practice... Those who operated within the Soviet sphere were the most malevolent in their practices. These men mentored and shaped Putin and his closest friends and allies. It is therefore unsurprising that Putin's Russia has become an assassination-happy state where detention, interrogation, and torture; all tried and true methods of the Soviet KGB; are used to silence the voices of untoward journalists and businessmen who annoy or threaten Putin's FSB state."

"Ich glaube ihm das, und ich bin davon überzeugt, dass er das ist."

"Putin’s intimidating aura is often reinforced by his controlled mannerisms, modulated tone, and steady gaze. But he can get quite animated if he wants to drive home a point, his eyes flashing and his voice rising in pitch... “You Americans need to listen more,” President Putin said as I handed him my credentials as ambassador, before I had gotten a word out of my mouth. “You can’t have everything your way anymore. We can have effective relations, but not just on your terms.” It was 2005, and in the ensuing years I would hear that message again and again, as unsubtle and defiantly charmless as the man himself..."

"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."

"[In 2000] Vladimir Putin had the intelligence, energy and stamina the country needed to get Russia's economy on track and handle its complicated politics."

"…this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition. You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women. You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people."

"This guy is a KGB guy. This guy issues a law allowing the Russians to kill opponents abroad. So they kill opponents abroad. This is absolutely logical. Why did they issue this law? For what? Because this is Russia and nobody agrees to kill without the signature of somebody more important who gave the order."

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."

"Putin’s control of the media is becoming more and more comprehensive. What is left over, that ownership does not ensure, self-censorship increasingly neuters. The Gleichschaltung of parliament and political parties is, if anything, even more impressive. The presidential party, United Russia, and its assorted allies, with no more specific programme than unconditional support for Putin, command some 70 per cent of the seats in the Duma, enough to rewrite the constitution if that were required. But a one-party state is not in the offing. On the contrary, mindful of the rules of any self-respecting democracy, the Kremlin’s political technicians are now putting together an opposition party designed to clear the bedraggled remnants of Communism — liberalism has already been expunged — from the political scene, and provide a decorative pendant to the governing party in the next parliament."

"Under Russian Federation President and former career foreign intelligence officer Vladimir Putin, an 'FSB State' composed of chekists has been established and is consolidating its hold on the country. Its closest partners are organized criminals. In a world marked by a globalized economy and information infrastructure, and with transnational terrorism groups utilizing all available means to achieve their goals and further their interests, Russian intelligence collaboration with these elements is potentially disastrous."

"I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a 'K', a 'G', and a 'B'."

"Now we are forced to create a security zone along the border. We're not planning to take Sumy. But I do not rule it out."

"Russians and Ukrainians are one people. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours. There’s an old rule that wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that’s ours."