"At one point our secret services simply detected direct contacts between militants from the North Caucasus and representatives of the United States secret services in Azerbaijan," Putin said in the film, released by Rossiya 1 TV channel on Sunday.
"And when I spoke about that to the then president of the US, he said... sorry, I will speak plainly, he said, "I'll kick their asses", Putin recounts his conversation with George W. Bush on the issue. A few days later, he says, the heads of Russia's FSB received a letter from their American counterparts, which said they had the right to support opposition forces in Russia.
"Someone over there, especially the West's intelligence services, obviously thought that if they act to destabilize their main geopolitical rival, which, as we now understand, in their eyes has always been Russia, it would be good for them. It turned out, it wasn't," Putin muses, saying he had warned the West about the possible dangers of supporting terrorists.
Another juicy tidbit.
Putin also discussed the challenges he faced when he first became President. When the interview's host suggested that a group of oligarchs was in charge of Russia in the end of the 1990s, Vladimir Putin did not contradict. "They came to my office, sat in front of me and said, "Do you understand you will never be the real president?" We'll see, I told them", he recalls. When asked about it, he didn't elaborate on how he dealt with the oligarchs in the end, simply saying he "used various means."
Too bad US presidents just roll over before the US oligarchs, even if they had thought of bucking them in the first place. Probably never consider it considering where the money for campaigns comes from.
Putin accuses US of backing North Caucasus militants
Also
A controversial Ukrainian website publishing personal information about ‘enemies of the state’ appears to have been run by a NATO cyber center in one of the Baltic states. The website went offline on Saturday following public pressure.
NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence – СCD-COE has been exposed as providing technical support for Mirotvorec, a website of Ukrainian nationalists running ‘enemies of the state’ database.NATO trace found behind witch-hunt website in Ukraine
Supporting terrorism and fascism.
Does anyone really think he's dealt with the oligarchs? Igor Sechin, Kovalchuk, Timchenko, Arkady, Rotenberg...to name just a few. They're all part of Putin's inner cirlce and oligarchs themselves.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he dealt with a few, like Khordakovsky and Berezovsky, but that's about it.
The Russian oil sales and gold purchases go straight to the oligarchs' coffers. So do rate hikes and austerity.
The way I understand it Putin laid down some rules for the oligarchs to follow, basically outlawing Mafia-like behavior. Most of the oligarchs agreed to the terms. Those that didn't got their wings clipped, were pushed out, or axed.
ReplyDeletePutin was not powerful enough to do this alone and the oligarchs though that they could roll him. But the deep state (security services or siloviki, military and the top level of government or nomenklatura) intervened, and it was over for those oligarchs that didn't get that this was coming.
This has increased since the US proxy war with Russia. The deep state is asserting itself based on national security, and the power of the oligarchs is in decline, since the Russian command structure is treating NATO military expansion toward its borders as preparation for war, if not yet war time.
Obama's plan to put pressure on the oligarchs, who would then pressure Putin was ill-conceived and has failed. Instead, we have a hostile Russia that rearming as quickly as it can and ramping up for another Great War.
Europe is getting the signal loud and clear is freaking out since that is where the war will be fought between Russia and NATO and it would almost certainly go nuclear, at least tactically. But it would likely go strategic, too, with intermediate range missiles targeting NATO bases and logistics. Russia has said that it will not target nations for nuclear attack that don't permit nuclear weapons on their soil. That do can expect to be in in the crosshairs.
Oligarchs out, 'siloviki' in? Why Russia's foreign policy is hardening.
Why didn't the West pay more attention to Russia during the Yeltsin years? They could have manipulated their transition to capitalism so as to bury the cold war once and for good. Could've had them join the EU. Could've had them haplessly arguing about austerity while their country is systematically plundered. It could've been profitable - as much as having another arms race.
ReplyDeleteDomination-submission.
ReplyDeleteActually it was on the way to happening when the oligarchs ran Russia. The deal was to turn the keys over to the US and they could pillage with the best of the Westerners.
Putin and the deep state put an end to it and the West decided that they needed to take the game back.
Now it's a fight to the death, and Russia decided to bring nuclear weapons to the threat of conventional war. Take that, smarties.
Indeed, but Yeltsin handed over the keys in 2000. Someone dropped the ball.
ReplyDeleteIt was under Yeltsin that the oligarchs came to power. They expected the free ride to continue under Putin and so did the US. That Putin went all "illiberal" on them.
ReplyDeleteIf one of the oligarchs had succeeded Yeltsin, things would be different and Russia would be US vassal state dutifully providing natural resources.
But Putin became president. Putin was a silovik connected with the deep state. When the deep state caught on to the US game plan, they backed Putin's imposing some rules on the oligarchs in order to protect Russian integrity and took care of those oligarchs that balked. This would not have been possible without the deep state being on board.
It was a huge miscalculation on the part of the US. It would have been relatively simple to integrate Russia into the Western economic and security system at the time, which is what they expected and were surprised when it didn't happen.
If it had happened then the West would have had a powerful ally on its eastern frontier, giving it leverage over a rising China. Instead, the West drove Russia into the Chinese orbit, giving these two powers control over the Eurasian land mass.
Now the chessboard is set up for another match, and all sides are gearing up for it.