In this interview, TNI Editor Jacob Heilbrunn speaks with the prominent Russian television host Vladimir Soloviev. Soloviev presides over the most popular political show on Russian federal television and also has developed a significant YouTube following. He is well-known in Russia and the West for his outspoken views which appeal to many and offend others. In this interview, Heilbrunn and Soloviev cover a wide range of territory, from the implications of the Stalin era on the present to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, from American sanctions on Russia to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. It provides a window into a leading Russian figure's views about contemporary politics and history.

Jacob Heilbrunn: In 1995, a prominent Russian author wrote that “The restoration of the Russian empire, in its previous or near previous borders, is only a matter of time. Sooner rather than later, regardless of who will be head of state.” That was of course written by you in your biography of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The words today look rather prophetic. So do you believe that, in fact, your prediction will become wholly true? Are we looking at a full-fledged restoration of the Russian empire under Vladimir Putin?

Vladimir Soloviev: I’m not sure that it’s somehow connected just to the name Vladimir Putin. It’s much more complicated than that, if you look at the history of our country, you can see that Russia is a very unique type of empire. It’s a breathing empire. We are sort of inhaling and exhaling, where it gets larger and gets smaller. Let’s say in 1917, we almost came to nonexistence, when we became an extremely small part of what used to be the Russian empire. And, our schools, they used to cover this little area that was covered in this red color. And it was called a Russian tree surrounded by an enemy forest. And then it grew up to be a mighty, mighty empire under the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It’s more of what a Russian language, Russian culture, Russian way of life, Russian feeling of justice is about. Sooner or later are getting back what we think is ours. Not necessarily by force, but mainly by this idea of unity that does exist in Russian culture and in this very specific Russian subconscious.

JH: And your answer presupposes that there is a special Russian essence?

VS: Exactly.

JH: There has always been one?

VS: There has always been one.

JH: But there have also been the Westernizers under Peter the Great.

VS: Of course.

JH: So why not open up to the West?

VS: We are extremely open. We couldn’t be more open to the West. Actually, if you have a chance to come to Russia and speak with Russians, we are extremely open. And if we’re talking about educated people, and there are a lot of educated people in Russia, all of them speak at least a couple foreign languages, and they’re well acquainted with foreign culture...the French, British, and American and books. We are extremely open to the West. We are not closed in any sense. Actually vice versa. But we do understand the concept of diversity, it’s not a problem for us to admit that West is West and East is East. Not following Rudyard Kipling, but basically, we do not accept the concept of the burden of the white man. We just don’t think that we have to be colonized. It’s a little bit more complicated. Even Peter the Great was not the Western in the Russian Empire. Yes, he took whatever he could from the West, but at the same time he was an extremely Russian emperor, very Russian. Actually, look at what happens with a lot of people that came into power. As with Catherine the Great. There was definitely zero Russian blood, you could not find even one drop of Russian blood in her, but she became extremely Russian.

It is more of a unique territory that gives a completely different perspective of who you are. Every time Western ideas are coming into Russia, they have this sudden twist, and they become Russian ideas. Even with industrialization, the industrialization of the twenties and thirties in Russia was mainly done with great help of the Americans. There were more than 400,000 Americans working in Russia at the times of awful Stalin. They came to Russia with all modernized principles of industrialization that existed in the United States. And they built a lot of extremely important plants that later were used for the Russian military industry.

JH: Right.

VS: So, we accepted every idea we could.

JH: Including Ford Motor Company.

VS: Including Ford Motor Company. You name them, they worked in Russia. But even Marxism is not Russian. We became communist, but those were exactly Western ideas by Marx and Engels. It was hard to admit, but they were not Russians, not by even a single blood. But we gladly took their ideas.

JH: You’ve mentioned Stalin several times. Do you think that there are positive lessons to draw from that era? Because in the West we look upon that era as a disaster.

VS: Well, and how do we look at Franklin D. Roosevelt? You know, four times President of the United States at the time when rights of the black minority did not exist in the sense that we understand them now. So definitely lots of human rights violations. We can talk about concentration camps for American citizens of Japanese origin, we can talk about great hunger and all the awful things during the era of Roosevelt and before him. Should we consider Roosevelt to be as bad as Stalin? So, Stalin is definitely a dictator, definitely a lot of things no one can be proud of. Definitely his hands are in blood of innocent Russians. But the amount of those people that were killed, not tens of millions, some twenty millions, so every historic leader has to be judged by the laws of his time.

JH: Why not tens of millions? That number is widely accepted.

VS: Because that is not true. Because if you look at this, we know exactly how many people were killed. It’s like 900,000, and that is a lot. But if we start exaggerating we lose the historic truth. That’s why it’s one of those things, there are documents, and we have to go with document. If we go to the documents, we will still have awful numbers but not tens and hundreds of millions. It’s still awful, it doesn’t matter, you know, every single innocent person killed is an awful tragedy for the family. But we have to judge them by the laws of this time. And I’m not one to say that Stalin was some great hero of Russia, no, I’m not this kind of person. But I’m just saying that we have to be realistic. At this time it will be extremely difficult to find angels in the world politics. We will see dictators who were ruling in their countries all over the world. Starting with the British. Let me remind you that Winston Churchill was probably personally involved in events in India that killed hundreds of thousands of people. That was his decision, his political decision that led to this famine in India.

JH: But there is a difference between Stalin and Churchill.

VS: Also a difference that we would not consider Indian people as people? Or that we should forget that it was still part of the British Empire?

JH: The difference with Franklin Roosevelt is those were detention camps, not concentration camps. No one was being actively murdered in those camps, and the United States has acknowledged its culpability.

VS: So has Russia.

JH: We can’t reflexively compare these leaders like that.

VS: No of course not. Again it’s not true. We are trying to evaluate the bad and goods, the pros and cons of each country. We still remember so-called Soviet arks, when Russian Jews that were considered to be Social Democrats were deported from America to Russia back to mother Russia after World War I. We still remember the participation of the United States in the July 1938 Evian conference that was actually quite cruel to the Jewish people of Germany. We still remember all the Nazis and all the anti-Semitic sympathizers that were in the United States before the Second World War. We still remember this awful manner of bombing in Dresden. We do remember what Americans did with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Don’t try to find saints in this world. Stalin’s criminal activity was quite happily discussed after his death in Russia. That was why he was thrown out of the mausoleum. So it’s not that Stalin is in any way considered to be a hero of Russia. Well, it’s criminal activity that he did. It’s not just camps; he moved entire populations from the places where they lived. It’s not that we’re saying Stalin is our hero. Definitely not. But we’re just saying that we have to admit that Stalin was the person that was in charge during the Second World War. And whether you like it or not, he was the one who created the new world with Churchill and Roosevelt. And by Churchill—and by Roosevelt—he was considered to be a legitimate political leader with whom they sat down and signed all necessary agreements. In their remarks, and in the letters, and in their memoirs, they have a very high opinion of him. Basically, extremely complimentary. It’s a different world. It’s easy to judge the world sitting in the twenty-firsty century. To be exact, Stalin is not my hero.

JH: I hope not.

VS: Not at all. But I do realize what he did and there are a lot of positives, but the amount of negative was quite huge. But again when you consider like Oliver Cromwell, was he evil or was he a good guy? We have to realize that the Russian civil war really ended only with the great patriotic war. Russia was in turmoil. Where brother was trying to kill brother. We lost ten million people in the civil war. So that’s why it’s extremely difficult just from our perspective to feel like these people felt in this specific time. But at the end of the day, as a Jew, I know that it was Stalin, it was the Russian army that managed to finish awful Nazis and save my people.

JH: Well, we could debate Stalin all day long. Let’s flash forward to the present. Donald Trump is seriously making plans to potentially run for reelection again in 2024 against Joe Biden. Do you have a personal favorite? Would you like to see Trump reelected in 2024?

VS: Honestly I couldn’t care less. From the journalist standpoint, he’s fun. It’s always interesting looking at him, listening to what he has to say. He makes a show all the time. But let’s say, ‘what’s good for mother Russia?’ It doesn’t really matter if it’s Trump or Biden. I do realize that an anti-Russian course is now the mainstream of American politics. So it doesn’t really matter whether it’s Trump, it’s Biden, unfortunately relations between our two countries are not getting better. And if Trump is a sweet talker and Biden is not, it’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is, what is important, is what kind of goodies they have in the box for the coming holidays. And definitely, none of the goodies they have are ones we are going to like. The answer is definitely not what we are going to like. I actually used to meet with both Bushes. I met with George Bush back in 1990 and I had an interview with his son back in 2000 something. So I met them both and I spoke with them both, and it was extremely interesting. Well you know it’s extremely interesting to have the chance to interview the president and of course it would be extremely interesting to talk with Donald Trump when he was president or with Mr. Biden. Both of them, they have pros and cons, and if someone is in charge of a country like the United States of America they are definitely very important and it’s definitely a challenge to interview them, to talk to them.

JH: You are on the sanctions list proposed by Alexei Navalny and his associates. Does that bother you at all?

VS: Yes, it does. First of all, it would be the first time in the United States’ history when a journalist is on a sanctions list. Because usually journalists are considered to be part of this great American attitude toward freedom of speech. Second of all, what bothers me is there is no procedure where you can present your point of view. Navalny is a Nazi, he’s well known for his nationalist views, his anti-Semitic views. Whether people in the United States accept it or not, there are lots of facts to prove it.

And I am Jewish, and he has had a beef with me for quite some time. Mainly because I do not accept him as a democratic leader at all. I view him as an anti-Semite, a Nazi, and I remember where he came from. And let me remind you that he was kicked out from what is considered the oldest democratic party because of his nationalistic views. So when someone comes to the Congress with his list based on whatever Navalny thinks of them, that is not the America I used to know. It’s not America that is fighting for what America believes. So it’s all a bit strange. So yes, it does bother me a lot, even though I don’t have any real estate in the United States, but I used to work in the States and lived for a while, and I love the States. My daughter was born in the United States when I worked at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

JH: Given all your extensive experience in the United States, today you’re seen, at minimum, a determined adversary of the United States by your critics and detractors. What accounts for the shift in your views of the United States over the decades.

VS: First of all, I’m not working for the American audience. I don’t have an international show that I hold. I’m a journalist, and on my shows, you have all possible points of view presented. We have severe critics of Russia in my show, from the United States. I had on my show a former Ambassador John Herbst who was in Ukraine, had American citizens many times—and others that quite heavily criticize mother Russia. We have nothing against the American people. Actually, we always remember our mutual history of victory in the Second World War, we have open eyes. But when they say we have anti-American views, that’s not true at all. It just is not there. Of course, I will certainly criticize political moves that are against my country. But it doesn’t mean that I do not respect American history. But it doesn’t mean that I have to be blind to all the minuses of American history as well as all the plusses of American history. It’s an objective view if anyone can be objective. So it’s not a shift. What happened in America is another question. It’s a shift in what America became, if you look at the 1990s compared to the 2010s. Is it the same country?

JH: Today according to opinion polls, Russian youths, or those under thirty, are quite dissatisfied by the current state of affairs in Russia. So what accounts for that?

VS: It’s all over the world. If you talk with American youth you’ll see the same statistic almost. Youth is basically never happy with what is going on. Plus you have to consider the coronavirus and the mood in the world. Can you imagine a year, two years ago, that America will be coming through this turmoil? Can you imagine, let’s say a year ago that there will be something like your election. And the whole world will be looking as Trump was accusing Biden of corruption. And Biden was accusing Trump family of corruption in front of the whole world. They’re both accusing each other, and then you have half the population of the United States saying ‘I don’t believe this election.’ And the other half of the population saying ‘who the hell are you to say this election is not democratic and transparent?’ And then they’re saying ‘You should be banned. We should kick you out of Twitter and Facebook.’ And Trump is saying the election is cooked, and Biden is saying ‘don’t listen to Trump’ but he used to be your President. Half of your population do not believe in their own election, Black Lives Matter is still marching on, and they have a lot of issues. And then you have this January 6, this girl is killed, and you tell the world ‘come on, we have to fight for human rights.’ Great, I love human rights, but what about Afghanistan, do they have human rights? What happened there? What happened with those poor kids that were killed? ‘Oh well sorry that was an awful mistake.’ Really? Is it enough? Are there any sanctions? Come on, be real. We love the United States, but let’s separate when we are talking about American people and the American government.

JH: No one is denying that the United States has severe problems, but on the other hand we don’t have a wave of emigration, especially among the elites as you are experiencing in Russia.

VS: Oh, you want to solve our problems, we saw how you solved problems in Afghanistan for twenty years when you were in charge of Afghanistan. Yes, the country has their problems with our intellectual people, some want to go abroad. Yes, we lost millions after the great October revolution, millions fled the country. Yes, it’s an awful problem, some are looking for a better life. Some are looking for a better education and then coming back. There are a lot of people who emigrated to Israel and now they came back and work in Russia. There are lots of people who went to Germany and got back to Russia. The same in the United States. Things are moving now, they don’t want to stay in one place. It’s perfectly fine, it’s perfectly normal because they are not losing Russian citizenship. They think it will be much better if they work in the States? Fine. I’ve been there, I worked in the United States and then I came back to mother Russia. It’s not a problem, it’s an open world. At least it used to be before COVID. It used to be an open world. And it’s okay if young guys—we are not saying that Russia is perfect—Russia is facing a lot of problems and we realize that. Some people flew out of Russia, a lot of people are trying to get into Russia. Whether it’s good or bad we will see. It’s a very dynamic process.

JH: Related to this, there’s a big story in the Washington Post that’s now circulating around the world, around the Pandora Papers which suggest that many in the Russian elite are investing in the West at the same time that they decry it as decadent. Why?

VS: Why decadent? We do not consider the West to be decadent. We see forces in the West that may be, but we see lots of traditionalistic movements that are not decadent at all. Russia has always been extremely open-minded, Russians used to buy a lot in France. It’s perfectly normal. We never expected that America suddenly becomes so anti-Russian. We were the first ones that called President Bush and offered our help to fight terrorism. After this awful tragedy of 9/11, Putin was the first to call. We were always eager to help, to fight hand in hand against international terrorism. But at the same time as you call them ‘rebels’ in Chechnya? Right.

JH: Well there’s a long list of grievances on both sides.

VS: But none from us. We don’t have a problem. We have zero problems with the United States. You have problems with us. We are just saying, it’s your life, you live it your way, it’s up to your people, your election, it’s your headache. Nowadays, we have sanctions against Russia for interfering in your elections.

JH: But why do we keep getting hit by hacking assaults from Russia?

VS: Do I know? Who told you they’re from Russia? What makes you think they’re coming from Russia. Let me remind you, that your political leaders, many times state that Russia is not more than just a gas station, the Russian economy is ruined, Russia is on the wrong side of history, Russia has nothing but gas or oil. According to what you just told me, all the smart guys from Russia already left Russia—are already living in the United States. How come we are so stupid that we cannot keep our own youth in Russia, but are still managing to hack the greatest, the best, the most progressive country in the world, as portrayed by your media.

So it’s either/or. Either we have those abilities or we don’t have them. If you consider us to be that smart, we are not hitting you. Even Trump didn’t believe that, he’d say maybe it’s a 300-pound guy on his couch that is hacking. What makes you think all these hacking attacks are coming from Russia. During the Russian elections, how many attacks came from the territory of the United States to Russian election systems?

JH: It looks to me like you had your election system in pretty good order.

VS: Yes, our election system is in pretty good order.

JH: Very good order.

VS: Yes, because we are extremely progressive. We have cameras, video 24/7. No problem.

JH: Let’s be honest, from our perspective the opposition was shut out from the beginning.

VS: What opposition?

JH: Well that’s a good question.

VS: From our perspective, just live by the book, live by the law. If you go by the law, you don’t have any problems. If you don’t go by the law, you don’t have any problems. That’s the question. Either you accept Russian law or you don’t. If you are a Russian citizen, you can’t accept the American view on Russian law. You have to live by the book. Let’s say you call opposition Mr. Navalny—sorry, but he, you have to admit he’s a criminal whether you like him or not. According to the Russian judicial system, he has a sentence, not for his political activity, but for his criminal activity. For fraud with a French company. It has nothing to do with politics. You may believe it, you may not believe it. You can’t just ignore Russian systems, that’s not right. From the Russian point of view, what happened with your election is extremely, let’s say, unusual. With the amount of votes by post.

JH: What’s wrong with the postal system?

VS: Come on, it’s the twenty-first century, postal office? When you have people that voted that were born in 1852? 160-year-old guys. It’s not Russian propaganda. Your political leaders, they are not happy with your election system. It’s not my point of view, it’s the point of view of let’s say thirty percent of Americans. That they are not happy.

JH: What about the Pandora Papers, do you take them seriously?

VS: What have you seen?

JH: I’ve seen what I’ve read.

VS: But that’s different, have you seen the actual papers, have you seen documents?

JH: I have seen excerpts, I have not seen the original papers, no.

VS: Exactly. Here’s a question for you, can you take those papers to an American court?

JH: I don’t know, I’m curious what your view is.

VS: I’ll explain my view. But can you take them to an American court? At the moment, when you take them to the American court, there will be a question—how did you get them? How did you get them? Can they be considered as valid evidence in court?

JH: Well, there’s always a court of opinion as well, which is where I think they’re more significant.

VS: Well, well, well. You know, let me remind you that there is a person named Julian Assange, who is now being prosecuted for a much more important deed than the one that we see with so-called Pandora Papers. Twelve million documents—cool. Can we see them? Can we get that basis? Can we see them? Tell me, where is the wrongdoing on Pandora Papers? If there is wrongdoing, pass it to the criminal system, to the justice system. France, Hungary, Britain, Ukraine, Russia, United States. Let them prosecute. Let them investigate. It’s extremely important. Are they whistleblowers? Cool, let’s do it.

How come that all these transactions nowadays are easily investigated by the American authorities? They can see every single dollar floating. How come that they do not stop them? Is it criminal, or is it legal? Pandora Papers, by whom? By George Soros and his guys? Fine. But tell me, what happened with a couple of big companies that definitely should be there? Let’s say we can see accounts of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. What about Americans? What about the renowned political leaders of the United States of America? How come there are no members of their families? How come there is a so-called company Burisma in Ukraine that used to deal through those offshore companies? Where are they?

JH: I thought I was asking the questions here. I have one for you on Ukraine.

VS: Well, come on. You know, it’s not that, Jacob. You know, don’t, don’t fight yourself. You know you can. You can answer my questions.

JH: I try not to fight myself on Ukraine.

VS: No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. Tell me why so? Isn’t it fun just to communicate, to be in a dialogue, to look through? Well, where it’s so damn easy. If that money has been stolen from people of Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, whatever, if it’s criminal activity, give it back to the people of those countries.

JH: Well, they are investigating in some areas.

VS: Like what? Like after Panama Papers?

JH: In the Czech Republic. We’ll see what happens.

VS: Well, the guy already made the point that, you know, I used to be at this time, I used just to be a businessman. It’s perfectly legit.

JH: We’ll see.

VS: What happened after the Panama Papers?

JH: Very little.

VS: Exactly.

JH: But it was a public relations fiasco.

VS: It’s all public relations fiasco when the system is not transparent. It’s all a fiasco when it cannot go by the book, if you know exactly that there is a criminal activity—fight it, fight it. It’s so damn easy nowadays. All money is transferred from one point to another. Easy to trace. Give the money back to the people if you think that they were stolen from people. But which banks are profiting from having this money? Banks in the United Kingdom, banks in the United States, or banks in Russia?

JH: Would you like to incorporate all of Ukraine into Russia?

VS: Not my choice. It’s a choice of the Ukrainian people, what they like, how they see. It’s their choice like what happened with Crimea. Back in 2013, I mentioned that we will not fight for Crimea, and we never fought for Crimea. It was the free choice of people who lived in Crimea. They wanted to come back to Russia. But every time when we talk about Ukraine, you know, it’s an extremely hard topic as far as I’m concerned because my family suffered a lot from Stepan Bandera. His followers killed six members of my family. They buried them alive during the Second World War just because they were Jews. And when now I see Nazis in Ukraine?

JH: But is it any worse in Ukraine than it is in France, Russia, Germany?

VS: Are you kidding me? Now, Jacob, is this question for real?

JH: Sure.

VS: Yeah? Can you tell me at least once when the president of France, president of Russia, president of Germany, or prime minister of Germany would in any form glorify any of Nazi collaborators?

JH: What about the prime minister of Japan?

VS: I don’t care about the prime minister of Japan. They are not bothering right now me. What bothers me is the Ukrainian prime minister and the Ukrainian president. When the Ukrainian president saying it’s okay if Bandera is a hero.

JH: What about the fact that Zelensky’s Jewish?

VS: Well, who cares? He is Jewish, he’s Jewish by what? By blood or by what he has to say? The way he behaves himself is not the Jewish way. He does not respect his grandfather, who fought against the Nazis and Bandera during the Second World War, the Great Patriotic War. Being Jewish by blood is not enough. You have to fight for what you believe, and I feel sorry for Zelensky.

JH: So, do you think that Russian foreign policy is too conciliatory towards Ukraine?

VS: I would say that Russian foreign policy is extremely realistic. I think that we made a big mistake when we accepted this Nazi turmoil in 2014. Because former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was a legitimate president. And that’s why when the opposition signed an agreement with Yanukovych, the Americans accepted it. But then suddenly, when those people from the streets decided to go and kill Yanukovych, Americans changed their point of view in a day. What's her name? Victoria Nuland. Nuland knew exactly who’s going to be president of Ukraine, prime minister of Ukraine, and mayor of Kiev. How fascinating isn’t it?

JH: Do you think she’s that powerful?

VS: Haven’t you heard the phone conversation that became available?

JH: I did.

VS: Do you have any comment on that? Oh, sorry, I forgot you’re the one that's asking questions. Yeah, right. And you'd prefer to say on that.

JH: Well, you know, I don’t want to intrude upon your, upon your views in any way.

VS: Jacob, that’s fine, don’t you worry.

JH: I’m not worried.

VS: Too bad. Emotions never hurt.

JH: What are your views on Russian oligarchs?

VS: I hate oligarchs. I think that we should fight oligarchs in any way we can. I hate oligarchs. I think that Khodorkovsky is not just an oligarch. Well, I do remember a lot of accusations of him being a bloody murderer.

JH: But aren’t oligarchs inevitable in any society?

VS: Well, we have to define what oligarch means. We can live without them.

JH: So, what would you change in Russia to get rid of the oligarchs?

VS: We already did. We don’t have any.

JH: Oh, you already did?

VS: Sure.

JH: You got rid of them all?

VS: No, no. We have extremely rich people, but they cannot interfere in Russian politics, not anymore. Well, there is an attempt of guys like Khodorkovsky and others from abroad to buy some part of Russian opposition, that’s for sure. But inside Russia, you will not find even one rich person who is involved in everyday politics or in everyday political decisions.

JH: With Navalny in jail and the emasculation of opposition parties, doesn’t it concern you that there is no release valve for opposing views or dissent in Russia right now? That it’s becoming more conformist?

VS: Right now, during elections there were fourteen different parties with different views. Why are you concentrated only on Navalny? Do you know the views of his party? Of him personally? The amount of people that support him? You know, when the West is every time talking about Navalny, the question is how come the person who considers himself to be a political leader got involved into, let’s say, business-style activity that led up to a criminal scheme of extortion money from an international company?

JH: Well, let’s put aside Navalny for a second. What about the growing sentiment on the left of Russian society?

VS: That’s fine. It’s always been like this. Russian society has always been extremely leftist. We have had socialist and communist ideas ruling in the country for hundred years.

JH: Do you think the communists will make a comeback?

VS: Not modern-day communists, definitely not, but left ideas, they are definitely extremely popular right now in the whole world. And that’s what America is facing nowadays. That’s what Europe is facing nowadays. And of course, there can be left ideas like Sanders or even more leftish up to the point of being, you know, close to Trotsky's ideas. But probably that’s to Miss [Alexandria Ocasio-] Cortez.

JH: So, there’s a quote that’s floating around from Lenin, I think, in July 1916, where he says there won’t be a revolution in Russia for decades and, of course, the country erupts. Do you expect to see another uprising in your lifetime?

VS: Well, in what country?

JH:  In Russia.

VS: You know, who am I to make predictions like that? I would say that I would never imagine that there would be an uprising like the BLM uprising in the United States. I could never imagine that the United States will be facing all the turmoil that they’re facing right now. I could never imagine that there will be sanctions against journalists. I could never imagine that America suddenly not would only decide to become extremely anti-Russian but up to the point of putting sanctions on the Russian prime minister. That basically can be considered, as you know, the act of war. I could never imagine that in the American legal system, the American government, the American Congress will pass a law, and consider Russia to be almost an enemy—adversary, definitely. I could never imagine that.

You are talking about Navalny, but what about those people that believe in Trump's ideas? You are talking about political prisoners, but what happened with those guys that came to the Capitol on January 6? Who are they? Domestic Taliban? They are terrorists, they are freedom fighters, they are political opponents. Why has America become so turbulent? With all his past criminal activity, of course, it was awful death, and nothing can justify that. But how come that young American woman Ashli Babbitt was killed in Capitol, and she was unarmed? Was it necessary to kill her?

JH: We can catalogue the deficiencies of the United States all day, but I have a somewhat related question.

VS: Sure, of course.

JH: The U.S. has been, has had warm and frosty relations with Russia over the past century and in this century, but one thing that’s been constant, the U.S. was quite powerful both at home and abroad. Is the only thing that would be more dangerous for Russia today than a strong America is something new, a weak America?

VS: Absolutely, and I made this point on my show many times. That’s the worst scenario that can happen to Russia—a weak America, America in turmoil. It’s definitely against Russian national interests, of course. Stated it many times. That’s why my show is so popular in Russia because we have different points of view, and everyone has a right to express his opinion. Whether he likes Russia, he hates Russia—welcome, speak openly. On my show, it’s a chance. But well, after, you know, if those sanctions will be implemented, probably some Americans will be scared to come to the show of the person who is on the American sanctions list.

JH: Even if we didn't solve the Pandora Papers, maybe we opened up a Pandora’s box of questions here.

VS: But I’d love to see all those documents, you know? I think that what they should do, those investigative journalists, as they call them, they should publish all those papers. They should give free access to everyone who is interested in them. I think that would be the right way. And, of course, if there’s wrongdoing, people who are involved in the criminal activity have to be punished. It doesn’t matter what their political position is—it doesn’t matter how influential they are.

JH: Thank you for the interview.

Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of the National Interest. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons