The interview you were never meant to see
Last week, world leaders met in Germany to discuss global issues.
Completely unreported, at least here in the West, was an interview given by Russin President Vladimir Putin to a host of journalists on Russia’s growing conflict with the current American leadership.
If Putin is to be believed, then America and Russia are headed for serious conflict in the near future.
On American missile defense:
“[W]e have removed all of our heavy weapons from the European part of Russia and put them behind the Urals. We have reduced our Armed Forces by 300,000. We have taken several other steps required by the ACAF. But what have we seen in response? Eastern Europe is receiving new weapons, two new military bases are being set up in Romania and in Bulgaria, and there are two new missile launch areas — a radar in Czech republic and missile systems in Poland. And we are asking ourselves the question: what is going on? Russia is disarming unilaterally. But if we disarm unilaterally then we would like to see our partners be willing to do the same thing in Europe. On the contrary, Europe is being pumped full of new weapons systems…
“[W]e are proceeding from common sense and think that everyone else could also use their common sense. But if this does not take place then we will absolve ourselves from the responsibility of our retaliatory steps because we are not initiating what is certainly growing into a new arms race in Europe. And we want everybody to understand very clearly that we are not going to bear responsibility for this arms race. For example, when they try to shift this responsibility to us in connection with our efforts to improve our strategic nuclear weapons. We did not initiate the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But what response did we give when we discussed this issue with our American partners? We said that we do not have the resources and desire to establish such a system. But as professionals we both understand that a missile defence system for one side and no such a system for the other creates an illusion of security and increases the possibility of a nuclear conflict.”
On oil contracts written in the 1990s:
“[The original oil contract with BP] was a colonial treaty that has absolutely nothing to do with the interests of the Russian Federation. I can only regret that in the early 1990s the Russian officials allowed such incidents to take place, incidents for which they should have been put in prison. Implementing this treaty resulted in a situation in which, for a long period of time, Russia allowed its natural resources to be exploited and received nothing in return. Almost nothing at all.”
On relations with the West:
“An arms race really is unfolding. Well, was it we who withdrew from the ABM Treaty? We must react to what our partners do. We already told them two years ago, ‘don’t do this, you don’t need to do this. What are you doing? You are destroying the system of international security. You must understand that you are forcing us to take retaliatory steps.’ They said: ‘okay, no problem, go ahead. We are not enemies. Do what you want to.’ I think that this was based on the illusion that Russia would have nothing to answer with. But we warned them. No, they did not listen to us. Then we heard about them developing low-yield nuclear weapons and they are continuing to develop these charges. We understand in the rocks where bin Laden is hiding it might be necessary to, shall we say, destroy some of his asylum. Yes, such an objective probably exists.
But perhaps it would be better to look for other ways and means to resolve the problem rather than create low-yield nuclear weapons, lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons, and thereby put humankind on the brink of nuclear catastrophe. But they are not listening to us. We are saying: do not deploy weapons in space. We don’t want to do that. No, it continues: ‘whoever is not with us is against us’. What is that? Is it a dialogue or a search for compromise? The entire dialogue can be summed up by: whoever is not with us is against us.”
On targeting Europe with nuclear missles:
“[I]t is clear that if part of the United States’ nuclear capability is situated in Europe and that our military experts consider that they represent a potential threat then we will have to take appropriate retaliatory steps. What steps? Of course we must have new targets in Europe. And determining precisely which means will be used to destroy the installations that our experts believe represent a potential threat for the Russian Federation is a matter of technology. Ballistic or cruise missiles or a completely new system. I repeat that it is a matter of technology.”
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