Evening with Vladimir Solovyov
Washington is suffering from yet another inflammation of Russophobia. Congress has approved three new anti-Russian bills and one resolution. The hearings of the Manafort case are over. The U.S. is trying to charge him with collusion with Moscow but the only proved fact is his collusion with Kiev. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in his acute phase. He keeps seeing energy resources and the hand of the Kremlin everywhere. He called Maduro our "Venezuelan buddy" from whom Russia purchases oil, circumventing the sanctions. Germany proved to be ungrateful. America protects it but it still wants to build Nord Stream 2.
And don't forget about Ukraine. The new U.S. budget allocates $250 million for ensuring its security because the threat is serious. It appears that Russia is planning to steal Ukraine's oil and gas resources. We have leading expert of the Atlantic Council and Forbes journalist, Ariel Cohen, live with us today.
- Ariel, could we... A lot of interesting things are happening within the United States but couldn’t we start with the news? Why did the U.S. adopt those odd bills and resolution right now? What's the purpose? And how tough are they? What can it lead to? What does that mean for Russia?
Ariel Cohen, political journalist: The process that began in 2014 continues. Since there's no serious conversation between the Kremlin and the White House and the White House is problematic as it is. Due to being under the siege of congressmen, it's very hard to escape this inertia. I consider it to be a political inertia. After being launched, these processes last years, if not decades. That's why it's so dangerous for bilateral relations. It's also bad for Ukraine. You were discussing Ukraine before our conversation. And I heard a bit, you were doing it in a very harsh tone, threatening to strip off its independence and advance towards Europe. Naturally, that troubles congressmen and diplomats. Russia hasn't spoken in that tone for a very long time. That's why it shouldn't expect any concessions or latitude in terms of sanctions. However, we must realize that in this case, American companies are bound to lose huge volumes of business. That landing of that American businessman in Russia is an example of that. That's also a major signal. Our relations are following…
- Downward?
- A downward trajectory. A bad trajectory. They keep deteriorating. Moreover, American relations with China are also deteriorating. You've mentioned Pompeo. He indeed made some statements regarding Venezuela, Germany, and Ukraine. He took a very tough stance on China, saying that China is trying to cut its neighbors off from energy resources by creating artificial islands in the South China Sea. I've said it many times on your show: China is obviously the U.S.'s main competitor, the main enemy, as they used to say during the Cold War.
- There's one thing I don't understand. They adopted a resolution on the investigation of Boris Nemtsov's murder. But the document is rather odd, to say the least. It's odd because it draws some conclusions in advance and, well... That was undoubtedly a momentous high-profile case. We're investigating it, nobody's hiding anything. The suspects have been arrested, but nobody says that the investigation's over. It's just that they bring up this murder at this particular moment against the backdrop of many high-profile murders that occurred in the U.S.'s zone of the direct influence starting with Khashoggi's murder, which Saudi Arabia got away with. Three new bills are aimed at investigating Putin's net worth. They've already tried with the Panama Papers but found Poroshenko's net worth instead and nothing about Putin. They've been searching for so many years but haven't found anything. It just looks silly at this point. Doesn't Congress have something better to do?
- I'd like to draw your attention to an article that was published yesterday, yesterday or the day before, in the Washington Post. It's the official... well, not official, but the main paper of the U.S.'s capital. Which Khashoggi used to write for. It's an article by former CIA Director General Petraeus and former Democratic Senator Whitehouse, a person whose last name is literally "White House." They write that the United States must use corruption investigations around the world as its weapon, turning it against its geopolitical adversaries. They wrote it in black and white. That seems to be the opinion of a certain group of people, influential people, if we talk about the moderate Republican Petraeus and the Democrat Whitehouse. It's the opinion of both parties. I try not to use the Turkish phrase "deep state" but the people who are interested in such global corruption investigations are perfectly aware of how strong this weapon is. Petraeus and Whitehouse talk about how many corrupt leaders park their considerable fortunes, their billion-worth fortunes, let's put it like that, here in the United States. That's how the U.S. acquires jurisdiction, same as when transactions are made in the American currency, dollars. And many deals are made in dollars. Jurisdiction also appears when money gets transferred through American banks or some American electronic payment system. The spectrum of those revolutionaries is very broad. And when there's a chance to nail them to the wall the U.S. and its law enforcement have been and will be doing that.
- When Peter the Great began fighting the terrible corruption, Menshikov politely told him "My Emperor, there'd be no one left." I'm bringing that up because the U.S. really should take a look at itself, starting with Dick Cheney, for instance, and his campaign during the war in Afghanistan. They should also consider this: There has never been a single serious inspection at the Pentagon. They should look into the American activities in Afghanistan, where, as Semyon Bagdasarov said yesterday, they de facto control drug trade. They should investigate the plundering of the national riches and major historic archeological artifacts of Iraq. If the Americans suddenly begin to actually fight corruption, how many senior American officials would suffer from that, being forced to spend the rest of their days in prison?
- Vladimir, I completely support fighting corruption. I believe that not only the U.S. should be fighting it but all countries that are ready to undertake the task seriously. Unfortunately, the current Russian law enforcement practice and institutions aren't considered transparent enough, aren't considered non-corrupt by the world community. We know about telephone justice. We know about judges getting their verdicts dictated. We know about the politicization of legal actions. That's why, off the top of my head, I'd say that the U.S can cooperate with Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and perhaps some small countries like Singapore. There's no way to cooperate with the others since there's no global legal system that wouldn't be corrupt.
- Well, that's…
- I fully support…
- I also fully support that.
- We've seen that American officials are corrupt as well. Take Manafort, for instance. He was the chairman of the election campaign of the incumbent president. He'll be serving seven years like a puppy dog.
- Like a puppy dog, that's it.
- We don’t know if Trump will pardon him after the 2020 elections. He might pardon him if he gets reelected. And if he doesn't, I believe Manafort will serve 5-6 years, and be released for good behavior.
- Speaking of telephone justice in Russia, it used to be like that here. The current situation must be assessed in detail because if we speak about the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, both the structure of the Supreme Court and Mr. Lebedyev personally are well-respected in Europe. If we study the percentage of verdicts and serious cases, we'll discover that it's not an accident that Russia has the lowest prison population in the entire history of our state, 400-something thousand people. America has the highest, by the way. Speaking of fighting corruption, it's Russia that's had a lot of governors, ministers, department managers, deputy ministers, and investigators thrown into prison. But here's the curious part. When we ask the West to extradite our fugitives, like that Deputy Finance Minister of Moscow Oblast, they drag it out and don't give us our money back. When we send requests to the UK to extradite our bankers and the money that they stole from our investors, the West, which has been happily proclaiming that it's fighting corruption, refuses to return the money stolen from Russians. That's why I believe that's an odd way to fight corruption. A very odd way. And we've done a lot in that field recently. And regarding the lack of trust, well, we don't really trust your system either. Look, everybody's knows what happened to Sarkozy and Gaddafi's money. Where are the verdicts? Where's the money? Both parties have questions. But I fully agree that we must eradicate corruption in the world.
- You are right. Unfortunately, this issue is impossible to resolve, not in our lifetime, I'm afraid that not even in the lifetime of my children. But we need to decrease it, which is possible. I've recently been to Singapore. The country squeezed out corruption, drop by drop, until it was gone. Hong Kong has also achieved very serious results. There are two ways to do that: First, the officials' salaries get a major increase. Second, when somebody gets caught, they receive crazy prison sentences.
- That's indisputable but we have another curious method, you know. In fact, it's a global method. The joint work of tax offices. It's no coincidence that Mr. Mishustin, the Director of the Russian Federal Tax Service, is considered to be one of the best professionals in this field in the world. A series of arrangements have been recently made, allowing us to see everything, all money transfers and bank operations of every citizen in every country. Now, there's almost no way one can hide their money. In this regard, our country is very open and transparent. We've made a step forward, Mishustin's done a great job.
But back to the issues of America. It seems that you're losing friends. You have vassals but no friends. You're unhappy with everybody. You're unhappy with Europe due to Nord Stream 2. You want to make them pay money for your military bases that you've graced them with, 150% of the spent sum. You're even unhappy with your own domestic situation. Donald Trump suddenly declared that the entire Democratic Party is an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic party. You've adopted a resolution, even though many congressmen, including Republicans, voted against it, that condemns antisemitism. So you can condemn antisemitism, but you can't condemn Nazism? What happened? What happened to American principles?
- You know, Vladimir, your description of the resolution is incorrect because it was a "watered-down" resolution. It didn't just come out of the blue. It was introduced because a congresswoman of Somali origin from Minnesota, who wears her Muslim headdress in the halls of Congress, made a series of anti-Semitic statements. She was condemned by everybody, including the leader of her party, the Democratic Party. But then, a curious battle broke out within the Democratic Party. In the end, this resolution, that was initially supposed to condemn anti-Semitism, transformed into a resolution that supports everything good and condemns everything evil. The latter includes Islamophobia and racism. You claim that we don't condemn Nazism. We do, when we talk about racism. Indeed, there were 23 Republican congressmen who said "Guys, we're perfectly aware of what brought about all this fuss. Why are you so afraid of condemning anti-Semitism alone, that you feel the need to add homophobia and Islamophobia to the list." They condemned everything, every form of hatred, which I'm thankful for. After that, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar opened her mouth and attacked Barack Obama for some reason. She said that he's a killer because he'd used drones to fight terrorists. You know me, I'm not a big fan of Barack Obama, but I'd perhaps even agree with Bagdasarov that drones, along with all other military means, must be used to fight terrorism. Right. We've got some crazy congressmen here. The radical left wing of the Democratic Party, the youth. It's very convenient for Trump because Trump will be building his 2020 election campaign not around fighting the Democratic Party, a part of the current establishment, but around smearing the red paint of socialism over all of them.
- Well, unfortunately, it's time to say goodbye. Still, if I understand it correctly, Trump has reinforced his positions. Pelosi's statement that impeachment is just not worth it is a mighty victory for Trump. He's managed to break them. De facto, that means that Manafort's sentence has nothing to do with Russia's interference or rather the collusion between Trump's team and Russia. It's a heavy blow against Mueller and that entire years-long scheme. It seems that the taxpayer money has been wasted.
- It seems to me that a rear-guard battle is going on. And if Pelosi said that she didn't support his impeachment, it means that she doesn’t have material basis. A person who has material basis and can push an impeachment through will always take that log and finish off their political enemy. And if she says she doesn't want it, it means that she can't.
- That's what I'm talking about. Thank you, Ariel. It's always interesting to hear your point of view. After a small commercial break, we'll discuss the KGB, since today is the anniversary of its foundation. It was considered great and terrible. The rumor is that it was the only non-corrupt body in the country. But it still couldn't protect the country.
Evening with Vladimir Solovyov
