My Conversation With Vladimir Putin

This sad, satirical interview challenges readers to accept some unpleasant truths about the late-stage Westphalian order.

Thank you for sitting down with me, Mr. President. I’m no Tucker Carlson, but I am happy you can chat with me.

Since you did a good job recounting Russia's history since 800 AD, what if we start with 1991? What is your issue with the West?

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the West decided that the world and all of us would permanently accede to its dictates. In 1991, the West thought that Russia would never rise after such shocks and would fall to pieces on its own. This almost happened. We remember the horrible 1990s, hungry, cold and hopeless. But Russia remained standing, came alive, grew stronger and occupied its rightful place in the world.

We were all hopeful. I remember thinking Russia would liberalize and become trading partners under a new system—growing into a peaceful market system that would check a rising China.

What happened?

[T]he West continued and continues looking for another chance to strike a blow at us, to weaken and break up Russia, which they have always dreamed about, to divide our state and set our peoples against each other, and to condemn them to poverty and extinction. They cannot rest easy knowing that there is such a great country with this huge territory in the world, with its natural wealth, resources and people who cannot and will not do someone else’s bidding.

I realize the US set up Ukraine to use as a proxy and a puppet. I mean, American functionaries such as Victoria Nuland orchestrated unrest, which meant Yanukovych had to flee, leading to Poroshenko's installation. Now Zelenskyy does the West’s bidding. But besides that, what gives you the idea that Western authorities are out to get you?

The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation. This is why total de-sovereignisation is in their interest. This explains their aggression towards independent states, traditional values and authentic cultures, their attempts to undermine international and integration processes, new global currencies and technological development centres they cannot control. It is critically important for them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.

I assume this is why the BRICS bloc was set up and is coalescing nicely. One would have thought the EU would be less of a vassal to the US. Why do you think the Europeans, for example, surrendered their sovereignty?

In certain countries, the ruling elites voluntarily agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or intimidated. And if this does not work, they destroy entire states, leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don't care. All they care about is their own benefit.

There are more than 700 military bases around the world. Does this mean the US and its allies vassals are not merely protecting the “rules-based liberal order”?

I want to underscore again that their insatiability and determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves.

Funny, this is what they are doing at home, too. But isn’t this a war of ideas, too?

They see our thought and our philosophy as a direct threat. That is why they target our philosophers for assassination. Our culture and art present a danger to them, so they are trying to ban them. Our development and prosperity are also a threat to them because competition is growing. They do not want or need Russia, but we do.

Aren’t you worried about going up against such a formidable foe as NATO?

I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience of our people. Russia will always be Russia. We will continue to defend our values and our Motherland.

Western experts argue that invading Ukraine wasn’t a means of defending your “values” or your “Motherland,” but rather naked, “unprompted” aggression. What do you say to them?

The West is counting on impunity, on being able to get away with anything. As a matter of fact, this was actually the case until recently. Strategic security agreements have been trashed; agreements reached at the highest political level have been declared tall tales; firm promises not to expand NATO to the east gave way to dirty deception as soon as our former leaders bought into them; missile defence, intermediate-range and shorter-range missile treaties have been unilaterally dismantled under far-fetched pretexts.

Notwithstanding the passive voice, this all checks out, Mr. Pres—

And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.

It’s not so much that they think you’re stupid. It is rather that too many people in Washington are paid to think they’re smarter. I think it was that old American Socialist, Upton Sinclair, who said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Eisenhower saw this in his troubling farewell address.

But you still haven’t answered my question about invading your neighbor.

It was the so-called West that trampled on the principle of the inviolability of borders, and now it is deciding, at its own discretion, who has the right to self-determination and who does not, who is unworthy of it. It is unclear what their decisions are based on or who gave them the right to decide in the first place. They just assumed it.

That is why the choice of the people in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson makes them so furiously angry. The West does not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about freedom of democracy. It does not and it never did.

Wasn’t the Iraq War about freedom and democ— Never mind.

Western elites not only deny national sovereignty and international law. Their hegemony has pronounced features of totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid. They brazenly divide the world into their vassals – the so-called civilised countries – and all the rest, who, according to the designs of today's Western racists, should be added to the list of barbarians and savages. False labels like “rogue country” or “authoritarian regime” are already available, and are used to stigmatise entire nations and states, which is nothing new. There is nothing new in this: deep down, the Western elites have remained the same colonisers. They discriminate and divide peoples into the top tier and the rest.

Well, I mean, to be fair, the US never took patronage from Japan and Germany after World War II. Indeed, they helped them rebuild and become the second and third most prosperous countries on the planet for a time.

I think that’s what they were hoping to do in Iraq.

“You’re either with us or against us.” It even sounds strange.

Yikes, okay but—

It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports to the opium trade. What they did was get entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting people like animals. This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom and justice.

The Middle Ages? With due respect, there were all manner of historical evils, East and West. Just look at the Mongols, or Russia under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Were they not occupiers?

At least the British Empire, despite its colonialism, ended slavery around the world for jurisdictions under its control.

[W]e are proud that in the 20^th century our country led the anti-colonial movement, which opened up opportunities for many peoples around the world to make progress, reduce poverty and inequality, and defeat hunger and disease.

Wait a minute, Mr. President. We who?

Never mind the Circassian genocide of 1864-1867, in which the Russian Empire expelled or killed Circassians, resulting in an estimated million deaths. What about the USSR, which—in the 20th century—violently annexed Poland and the Baltic States?

To emphasise, one of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the period of colonial conquests and forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually beneficial terms. This was achieved by creating a strong centralised state in Russia, which grew and got stronger based on the great moral values​​ of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Russian culture and the Russian word that were open to all.

I don’t know, Mr. President. Weren’t there pogroms in Russia before there were camps in the Third Reich?

There were numerous plans to invade Russia. Such attempts were made during the Time of Troubles in the 17^th century and in the period of ordeals after the 1917 revolution. All of them failed. The West managed to grab hold of Russia’s wealth only in the late 20^th century, when the state had been destroyed. They called us friends and partners, but they treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of dollars out of the country. We remember. We have not forgotten anything.

I had hoped we wouldn’t go back so far into history, but never mind.

Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through.

You might say it’s all very checkered. However, since 1945, more liberal regimes have entered the world stage. Some would argue that America’s projection of constabulary powers was a major factor in this positive result.

The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent.

What do you mean by “a precedent”?

Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world.

So, you think the Allied powers were getting ready for the Iron Curtain to come down before the war was even over?

I suppose it’s possible, but it was never taught to us that way.

Well, I was curious so I asked Claude AI, which replied:

• Truman's diary: In July 1945, President Truman wrote in his diary about using the atomic bomb as a way to make the Soviets "more manageable" in Europe.

• Secretary of State James Byrnes: He reportedly viewed the bomb as a way to limit Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and Asia after the war.

• Timing: The bombings occurred shortly before the Soviet Union was set to enter the war against Japan, potentially reducing Soviet influence in post-war Asia.)

I guess you know your history, Mr. President.

The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons.

Thankfully, those days are behind us, right?

It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour.

Really? Would the US government spy on all its allies like that? I thought that whole Angela Merkel thing was just a—

They call the orders and threats they make to their vassals Euro-Atlantic solidarity, and the creation of biological weapons and the use of human test subjects, including in Ukraine, noble medical research.

Sure, the US has a few virology labs in Ukraine, but those are just for public health and research, you know, like the one in Wuhan.

It is their destructive policies, wars and plunder that have unleashed today’s massive wave of migrants. Millions of people endure hardships and humiliation or die by the thousands trying to reach Europe.

I don’t know.

The Syrian Civil War was primarily internal, right? I’m sure the CIA’s training of Syrian rebels in 2013 was just a side issue. At least that little bit of proxy warfare helped us justify anti-ISIS campaigns that came later. Don’t you want to get rid of ISIS?

[The West is] exporting grain from Ukraine now. Where are they taking it under the guise of ensuring the food security of the poorest countries? Where is it going? They are taking it to the self-same European countries. Only five percent has been delivered to the poorest countries. More cheating and naked deception again.

In effect, the American elite is using the tragedy of these people to weaken its rivals, to destroy nation states.

More people now know you approached the negotiating table with Zelenskyy early on, and Boris Johnson derailed it at the behest of Washington.

Washington demands more and more sanctions against Russia and the majority of European politicians obediently go along with it. They clearly understand that by pressuring the EU to completely give up Russian energy and other resources, the United States is practically pushing Europe toward deindustrialisation in a bid to get its hands on the entire European market. These European elites understand everything—they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. This is no longer servility but direct betrayal of their own peoples. God bless, it is up to them.

So it would seem. I wonder why. Maybe the environmentalists in the EU are so strong that they took advantage of a way to reduce carbon emissions without legislation…. Sorry, that was a bad joke, Mr. President.

It seems incredible but it is a fact—by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who stands to gain. Those who benefit are responsible, of course.

And Europe just let it happen without so much as a peep. Why do you think that is?

The dictates of the US are backed up by crude force, on the law of the fist. Sometimes it is beautifully wrapped sometimes there is no wrapping at all but the gist is the same—the law of the fist. Hence, the deployment and maintenance of hundreds of military bases in all corners of the world, NATO expansion, and attempts to cobble together new military alliances, such as AUKUS and the like. Much is being done to create a Washington-Seoul-Tokyo military-political chain. All states that possess or aspire to genuine strategic sovereignty and are capable of challenging Western hegemony, are automatically declared enemies.

China continues to flex its muscles. Do you blame the US in this case?

We have already heard about the deterrence of Russia, China and Iran. I believe next in line are other countries of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, as well as current US partners and allies. After all, we know that when they are displeased, they introduce sanctions against their allies as well—against this or that bank or company. This is their practice and they will expand it. They have everything in their sights, including our next-door neighbours—the CIS countries.

This is backfiring, particularly in the global markets, as trading partners are losing trust.

At the same time, the West has clearly been engaged in wishful thinking for a long time. In launching the sanctions blitzkrieg against Russia, for example, they thought that they could once again line up the whole world at their command. As it turns out, however, such a bright prospect does not excite everyone – other than complete political masochists and admirers of other unconventional forms of international relations. Most states refuse to ”snap a salute“ and instead choose the sensible path of cooperation with Russia.

The US lost the petrodollar agreement with the Saudis, too, so the dollar’s exorbitant privilege just got less exorbitant. Do you think more countries are turning away from the US and the dollar hegemony?

The West clearly did not expect such insubordination. They simply got used to acting according to a template, to grab whatever they please, by blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and convinced themselves that these methods would work forever, as if they had fossilised in the past.

Such self-confidence is a direct product not only of the notorious concept of exceptionalism – although it never ceases to amaze – but also of the real ”information hunger“ in the West. The truth has been drowned in an ocean of myths, illusions and fakes, using extremely aggressive propaganda, lying like Goebbels. The more unbelievable the lie, the quicker people will believe it – that is how they operate, according to this principle.

With due respect, you sound like President Trump. Besides myths, illusions, and fakes involving the Clinton-Steele accusation of Russian election interference, the joint CIA-FBI suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, cast as “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”, denial by the Biden Administration that they were responsible for destroying Nord Stream, the narrative that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked,” and that Vice President Joe Biden had no hand in ensuring his son was installed on the board of a Ukrainian energy company—why would you make such an accusation against such honorable statesmen who are just trying to protect our democracy?

[Putin smiles and ignores my question.]

People cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can't feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can't heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can't feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can't heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.

The US subsidizes Big Ag and Big Energy, so we’ll stay fat and plugged in until the great Chinese Invasion. Europe, on the other hand…

That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home. And those who start asking fair questions like “Why is that, in fact?” are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More lies.

Europeans love self-flagellation and everything “Green.” They’re still burning gas to rescue glass. But, then again, so are the Americans.

I want to make special note of the fact that there is every reason to believe that the Western elites are not going to look for constructive ways out of the global food and energy crisis that they and they alone are to blame for, as a result of their long-term policy, dating back long before our special military operation in Ukraine, in Donbass. They have no intention of solving the problems of injustice and inequality. I am afraid they would rather use other formulas they are more comfortable with.

Americans will be happy to send them natural gas and agricultural staples. Surely, you understood this after the Nord Stream saboteurs did that deed.

[R]ecall that the West bailed itself out of its early 20^th century challenges with World War I. Profits from World War II helped the United States finally overcome the Great Depression and become the largest economy in the world, and to impose on the planet the power of the dollar as a global reserve currency. And the 1980s crisis—things came to a head in the 1980s again—the West emerged from it unscathed largely by appropriating the inheritance and resources of the collapsed and defunct Soviet Union. That's a fact.

[I]n order to free itself from the latest web of challenges, they need to dismantle Russia as well as other states that choose a sovereign path of development, at all costs, to be able to further plunder other nations’ wealth and use it to patch their own holes. If this does not happen, I cannot rule out that they will try to trigger a collapse of the entire system, and blame everything on that, or, God forbid, decide to use the old formula of economic growth through war.

People have long labored under the notion that war creates durable prosperity. It doesn’t. But even if it did—as you and most Americans believe—it would still be evil to use war to stimulate a national economy.

Russia is aware of its responsibility to the international community and will make every effort to ensure that cooler heads prevail.

That’s good to hear. I sure don’t want to be vaporized by a nuke. I have kids.

The current neocolonial model is ultimately doomed; this much is obvious. But I repeat that its real masters will cling to it to the end. They simply have nothing to offer the world except to maintain the same system of plundering and racketeering.

They do not give a damn about the natural right of billions of people, the majority of humanity, to freedom and justice, the right to determine their own future. They have already moved on to the radical denial of moral, religious, and family values.

You are no doubt an exemplar of freedom, justice, rights—and moral values. But these are America’s shibboleths. And we know it’s all bullshit and has been, more or less, since 1913.

Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves….

Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.

Touché, Mr. President.

But since I’m not surrounded by your goons and sit in the bosom of a different set of goons—which I fully expect will turn on me at any point—let me leave you with a thought: Maybe you’re all the problem.

Maybe it’s the Westphalian nation-state with its territorial ambitions, power games, and tendencies to exploit, extract, and expropriate. No, that’s hypostatization. It’s real people who are the problem. It’s sociopaths like you and those who surround you in Moscow, as well as those who surround the latest Presidential Puppet in Washington. Maybe you are both enemies of the people, and your machinations worldwide are a pretext to have and keep power at home.

So, yes, you’re right about much of what you say, Mr. President. But, despite all your differences, you belong to a global class of people united by the idea that the ends justify the means. One day soon, humanity will figure this out, and there will be a great reckoning—a purge of all the sociopaths.

I don’t know how it will happen. But it will happen.

Thank you for your time.