Russian President Vladimir Putin: “My hope is that we will start
engaging in positive work together”
Excerpts Organized by categories (only the President’s responses) from a June 11 Interview given by Russian President Vladimir Putin to an NBC interviewer
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N |
ATO
“This is a Cold War relic…, something that was born in the Cold War era. I’m not sure why it continues to exist. There was a time and there was some talk (“now kind of forgotten”) that this organization would be transformed. … We presume that it is a military organization…, an ally of the United States.”
“… NATO… has officially stated that it considers cyberspace a battlefield, an area of military action, and it conducts exercises in that battlefield.”
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C |
YBERSPACE
Attacks
“[Y]ou have said that there is a weight of evidence of
cyberattacks by Russia. And then you went on to list those official US agencies
that have stated as much. Is that what you did?
[Interviewer Keir Simmons: Well, I’m giving you information about who said it so you can answer]
“Right.
“You are conveying information to me as to who said that. But where is evidence that this was indeed done? I will tell you that this person has said that (and) that person has said this. But where is the evidence? Where is proof? When there are charges without evidence, I can tell you that you can take your complaint to the International League of Sexual Reform (SIC).
“This is a conversation that has no subject. Put something on the table so that we can look and respond. But there isn’t anything like that.
“One of the latest attacks, as far as I know, was against the
pipeline system in the US — Right? Yes.
“As far as I know, the shareholders of this company even made
a decision to pay the ransom. They paid off the cyber gangsters. If you have
listed an entire set of U.S. special services (powerful, global, respectable);
after all, they can find whoever the ransom was paid. And once they do that,
they will realize that Russia has nothing to do with it.
“Then there’s the cyberattack against a meat processing
plant. Next time they will say there was an attack against some Easter eggs.
“It’s becoming farcical, like an ongoing, never-ending farcical thing. You said ‘plenty of evidence,’ but you haven’t cited any proof. [T]his is an empty conversation, a pointless conversation. What exactly are we talking about? There’s no proof.”
“We here in the Russian Federation have cybercrimes that
have increased many times over in the last few years. We are trying to respond
to it. We are looking for cyber criminals. If we find them, we punish them.”
“[T]he simplest thing to do would be for us to sit down calmly and agree on joint work in cyberspace; we did suggest that to Obama’s administration… in October. We started in September and during his last year in office. [A]t first they didn’t say anything. Then in November, they came back to us and said that, yes, it was interesting. Then the election was lost. We restated this proposal to Mr. Trump’s administration. The response was that it is interesting, but it didn’t come to the point of actual negotiations.”
There are grounds to believe that we can build an effort in this area with the new administration, that the domestic political situation in the U.S. will not prevent this from happening. But we have proposed to do this work together.
Let’s agree on the principles of mutual work.
Let’s find out what we can do together.
Let’s agree on how we will structure counter-efforts against the process that is gathering momentum.
- We are willing to engage with international participants, including the United States.
- You are the ones who have refused to engage in joint work.
- What can we do?
- We cannot build this work.
- We cannot structure this work unilaterally.
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T |
echnological Reach
“… [J]ust like space militarization, this is a very dangerous area. At some point, in order to achieve something in the nuclear area in terms of confrontation in the area of nuclear weapons, the USSR and the United States did agree to contain this particular arms race. But cyberspace is a very sensitive area. Today, many human endeavors rely on digital technologies, including the functioning of government. Interference in those processes can cause a lot of damage and a lot of losses; everybody understands that. And I am repeating for the third time: Let’s sit down together and agree on joint work on how to achieve security in this area.…
“In terms of what’s to be afraid of, why is it that we suggest agreeing on something? Because what people can be afraid of in America or are worried about in America, the very same thing can be a danger to us. The U.S. is a high-tech country. NATO has declared cyberspace an area of combat. That means they are planning something. They are preparing something. So obviously this cannot but worry us.…
“I repeat one more time. It is my hope that we will be able to start engaging in positive work in this area.”
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F |
OREIGN RELATIONS, SUMMITS
Allies’ Summits
“The fact that President Biden has been meeting up with his allies; there is nothing unusual about it. There’s nothing unusual about a G7 meeting.… Allies are getting together. … I don’t see anything unusual about it. As a matter of fact it’s a sign of respect to the U.S. allies before a summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents. Probably it is being presented as desire to find out their opinion on the key issues of the current agenda, including those issues that President Biden and I will discuss.
“However, I’m inclined to think that despite all of these
niceties, the United States, as far as their relationship with Russia, will be
promoting what they consider important and necessary for themselves, above all
for themselves, in their economic and military interests. However, to hear what
their allies have to say about it – probably never hurts. This is working
procedure.”
Russian-U.S. Summits
“[T]here is nothing unusual about it. … [A]s you know, he (Joseph Biden) had supported the extension of the START treaty, which of course was bound to meet with support from our side. We believe that this treaty in the area of containment of strategic offensive weapons has been worked through and thoroughly, and meets our interests, and meets the U.S. interests. So this offer could be expected.… President Biden launched this initiative.…
“We have a bilateral relationship that has deteriorated to what is the lowest point in recent years.
“However, there are matters that need a certain amount of comparing notes and identification and determination of mutual positions, so that matters that are of mutual interest can be dealt with in an efficient and effective way in the interests of both the United States and Russia…. This meeting should have taken place at some point.…”
Predictability and stability, Instability and unpredictability
“The most important value in international affairs is predictability and stability. I believe that on the part of our U.S. partners, this is something that we haven’t seen in recent years.
- “What kind of stability and predictability could there be if we remember the 2011 events in Libya where the country was essentially taken apart, broken down?
- What kind of stability and predictability was there?
- There has been talk of a continued presence of troops in Afghanistan; and then, all of a sudden— BOOM — the troops are being withdrawn from Afghanistan.
- Is this predictability and stability again?
- Middle East events
- Is this predictability and stability?
- [In] Syria —
- What is stable and predictable about this?
- What will all of this lead to?”
Case of U.S. v. Syria (another Afghanistan, Libya)
“I’ve asked my US counterparts, ‘You want Assad to leave? Who will replace him? What will happen when he’s replaced with somebody?’What is and isn’t path toward stability
“The answer is odd. The answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ Well, if you don’t know what will happen next, why change what there is?
“It could be a second Libya or another Afghanistan. Do we want this? No.”
“Let us sit down together, talk, look for compromise solutions that are acceptable for all the parties. That is how stability is achieved.Sovereignty v. Foreign Interference
“It cannot be achieved by imposing one particular point of view, the ‘correct’ point of view; whereby all the other views are incorrect. That’s not how stability is achieved.”
“What we count on is that nobody should interfere in domestic internal affairs of other countries; neither the U.S. in ours nor we in the USA’s political processes, or any other nations.
All nations of the world should be given an opportunity to develop calmly. Even if there are crisis situations, they have to be resolved by the people domestically, without any influence or interference from the outside.
“…It appears to me that the U.S. government will still continue to interfere in the political processes in other countries. I don't think that this process can be stopped because it has gained a lot of momentum. However, as far as joint work in cyberspace for the prevention of some unacceptable actions on the part of cyber criminals, that is definitely something that can be agreed upon. And it is our great hope that we will be able to establish this process with our U.S. partners.”
Sources
President of Russia official web site
Interview to NBC post data June 14, 2021— The Kremlin, Moscow — Vladimir Putin answered questions from NBC correspondent Keir Simmons. The interview was recorded on June 11 in the Kremlin.” http://en.special.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65861
The interviewer of President Putin, Keir Simmons, is an English journalist formerly with British television network’s Independent Television News (ITN) and currently has stints with U.S. television broadcasting enterprises including the NBC Today show, NBC Nightly News, and MSNBC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Simmons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITV_News
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