Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine | Lex Fridman Podcast #286

Lex Fridman 0:00 If you could talk to Vladimir Putin once again, now, what kind of, wha- what kind of things would you talk about here? What kind of questions would you ask? The following is a conversation with Oliver Stone. He's one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, with three Oscar wins and 11 Oscar nominations. His films tell stories of war and power, fearlessly, and often controversially, shining a light on the dark parts of American and global history. His films include Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, Scarface, JFK, Nixon, Alexander, W, Snowden, and documentaries where he has interviewed some of the most powerful and consequential people in the world, including Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin. And in this conversation, Oliver and I mostly focus our discussion on Vladimir Putin, Russia, and the war in Ukraine. My goal with these conversations is to understand the human being before me, to understand not just what they think, but how they think, to steel man their ideas, and to steel man the devil's advocate, all in service of understanding, not derision. I have done this poorly in the past. I'm still struggling with this, but I'm working hard to do better. I believe the moment we draw lines between good people and evil people, we'll lose our ability to see that we're all one people in the most fundamental of ways, and we'll lose track of the deep truth expressed by the old Solzhenitsyn line that I return to time and time again, that the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. Oliver Stone has a perspective that he extensively documents in his powerful controversial series, The Untold History of the United States, that imperialism and the military-industrial complex pave the path to absolute power, and thus corrupt the minds of the leaders and institutions that wield it. From this perspective, the way out of the humanitarian crisis and human suffering in Ukraine, and the way out from the pull of the beating drums of nuclear war is not simple to understand. But we must, because all of humanity hangs in the balance. I will talk to many people who seek to understand the way out of this growing catastrophe, including to historians, to leaders, and perhaps most importantly, to people on the ground in Ukraine and Russia. Not just about war and suffering, but about life, friendship, family, love, and hope. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Oliver Stone.

Lex Fridman 2:54 You're working on, uh, a documentary now about nuclear energy.

Oliver Stone 2:58 Yes.

Lex Fridman 2:59 So it's interesting to talk about this. Energy is such a big part of the world, about the geopolitics of the world, about the way the world is. What do you think is the role of nuclear energy in the 21st century?

Oliver Stone 3:11 Good question. And first of all, obvious- everyone's talking about climate change, right? So here I wake up to that a few years ago, and c- clearly were concerned, huh? Uh, I, uh, picked up a book by Josh Goldstein and his, his co-author who's Swedish, those two wrote a book called Bright Future, A Bright Future. It came out a few years ago, and I lapped it up. It was a book, fact-based, w- clear, not too long, and not too technical. And, uh, it was very clear that they were i- in favor of all kinds of re- uh, renewables, renewable energy, yes. They hated, uh, made it very clear how dangerous oil and, uh, gas were, methane, and made it very clear to the layman like me, and at the same time said that this renewables can work so far, but the gap is enormous as to what, how much electricity this count- the world is gonna need in, uh, 2050 and beyond. Two, three, four times, we don't even know the damage. But we have India, we have China, we have Africa, we have Asia coming onto the scene wanting more and more electricity. So they address the problem as a global one, not just as often in the United States you get the ethnocentric United States point of view that we nee- we, w- you know, we're doing well, blah, blah, blah. We're not doing well. But we, we, we, we sell that to people that we're comfortable, we spend more energy than anybody, this country, per c- per capita, th- than anybody. And at the same time, we don't seem to understand the global picture. So that's what they did, and they made me very aware. So the only way to close that gap, the only way in their mind is nuclear energy. And talking about a gap of building a huge amount of reactors over the next 30 years, and starting now. Uh, they make that point over and over again. Uh, so o- obviously this country, the United States, is not gonna go in that direction, because it just is incapable with its, of having that kind of will, political will. And fear is a huge factor, and still a lot of shibboleths, a lot of myths about nuclear energy ha- have, uh, confused and confounded the landscape. The environmentalists have played a huge role in outdoing good things, many good things, but also confusing and confounding the landscape, and making accusations against nuclear energy that were exaggerated. So taking all these things into consideration, we set about making this documentary, which is about, uh, finished now, almost finishing. It's an hour and 40 minutes, and that was the hard part, getting it down from about three and a half hours to about this, something more manageable. And-

Lex Fridman 6:01 Is it interviews?

Oliver Stone 6:02 It's interviews among others, but essentially we went to Russia, we went to France, which is the most perhaps advanced nuclear country in the world, Russia.... and the United States. We went to the Idaho laboratory and talked to the, uh, the scientists there as well as the Department of Energy people that are handling this. Idaho is one of the experimental labs in the United States. It's probably one of the most advanced. And they're doing a lot of advanced nuclear there. We also, uh, we studied, uh, well, Russia gave us a lot of, uh, insight. The, uh, were very cooperative because they have some of the most advanced, uh, nuclear, actually the probably most advanced nuclear reactor in the world in Beloyarsk in the Ural Mountains. So we, we did an ex- investigation there. And, uh, in France they have a, they have some very advanced, uh, s- nuclear reactors. And they're building. Uh, now they're building again. Uh, they had a little p- the Green Party came into power and just, not into power, but became a factor in France. And there was a motion. When Hollande was president, they started to move away from it. Actually, they were s- beginning to just abandon, uh, uh, uh, they let n- not complete, uh, their, uh, their, in other words, let, close down some of the nuclear reactors. There was talk of that. But thank God, France did not do that. A- and, uh, Macron came in and recently reversed it. Uh, reversed it, and they're building as fast as they can now, especially with the Ukraine war, uh, going on. There's a w- an awareness that Russia will not be providing w- may not be providing the energy Europe needs. So th- and then China is the other one too. That's the other factor. I'm ca- talking about the big boys. They have, doing tremendous work and fast, which is very hopeful. But of course, China is building in all directions (laughs) at once. Uh, the coal continues to be huge in China, and, uh, methane too. But, uh, basically coal there, coal in India, in China, are the biggest users of coal. Um, and we kno- as you know, Germany went back to coal, uh, a few years ago. So all these factors. It's a fascinating picture globally. So we try to achieve a, a consensus that where nuclear can work, and where it will be working, whereas in, it will be used more and more. The question is, how much carbon dioxide China and, uh, Russia will be putting out. France is the only one that's not putting it out. The United States has not changed with all the talk and all the nonsense about renewables and the new lifestyle and all this. It's, it's great for your guilt complex, (laughs) but it doesn't do anything for the total cumul- uh, accumulation of carbon dioxide in the world.

Lex Fridman 8:48 Who's gonna lead the way on nuclear, do you think? You mentioned Russia, France, China, United States. Who's gonna lead?

Oliver Stone 8:54 Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be a uni- United Nations kind of thing, because the world doesn't seem capable of uniting. We don't, we go to these conferences, uh, Kyoto, and we talk, and we agree, (laughs) but then we don't actually enforce. So I don't think it can happen that way. I think it's gonna be an individual race with countries. They're gonna just be, do it for their own self-interest like China is doing it. China, uh, the, the c- the thing is, if it works, and I'm praying that it will really work on a big scale, China will back away from coal naturally. The same thing will be true of India. They will see the benefits, because if you go to India, you see the cities, the pollution, and you walk around in that stuff, and you know, you get, y- it's, it's not, i- there's no hope in this, and you sense it. So people will move in this direction naturally because nuclear is clean energy. And the amount of casualties of nuclear is the lowest on the industrial scale for energy producing from coal down to oil, everything. The lowest casualty rate, uh, very lowest, .002 or something is nuclear. So, uh, not that many people have died from nuclear, not that many. I think, uh, 50 people at, at Chernobyl, which was the worst accident. Nobody had died at, uh, Fukushima. Nobody died at Three Mile Island, and that's what you hear all over and over again. These, these accidents, uh, th- uh, the environmentalists have sold us the idea that they're dangerous. Uh, and it's, a lot of environmentalists, thank God, are changing. Uh, they've come off that routine and they've saying, "This, we were wrong. We've done a lot of good work." Greenpeace did a lot of good work. Whale, whale saving this, saving that. But they admit themselves, not, they don't, but, uh, s- people who have been in the organization have said, "We were wrong." In 1956, we show the, uh, the articles in the New York Times that came out. The Rockefeller Foundation, uh, which of course, is a big, um, producer of oil, uh, the Rockefeller family, and the foundation came out, uh, with a, uh, study, (laughs) uh, which was weighted. The s- they tipped the scale, uh, put a thumb on the scale.

Lex Fridman 11:13 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 11:13 But it was a scientific e- expose of radiation, uh, in the, uh, in the, in the, in the study that came out in the, printed in the New York Times, because the New York Times publisher, Sulzberger, was on their board. He was one of th- met- board members. So they got a lot of strong publicity condemning, uh, radiation from which killed, started the process of doubting nuclear energy. The radiation levels that they pointed out were very minor. And of course, if you go into a scientific analysis of this now with what we know, it's just not true. But it ha- it tilted the scale back in the '50s, '60s, and started to question, questioning the nuclear, uh, business.

Lex Fridman 11:56 Do you think that was malevolence or incompetence?

Oliver Stone 11:59 No, I think it was competition. I don't think it was conspiracy as much as it was a sense that we don't want this nuclear, nuclear energy is gonna end the, the dominance of oil. Absolutely. And it will.

Lex Fridman 12:10 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 12:10 And it will anyway, because it's the only sane way for the world to proceed. But the world will have to learn through adversity.So, in other words, the situation could get worse, uh, m- much worse. And, and certain countries are just gonna have to adapt, like we always do. When things become too hard, you've got to go, you have to change your thinking.

Lex Fridman 12:33 And humans are pretty good at that.

Oliver Stone 12:35 Yes. Talking about human nature, they're very adept at that. Germany, for example. I mean, they were... When the Fukushima happened, they went out of the nuclear business. That was shocking to me. Uh, they just pulled out. And they destroyed, uh, destructed several of their nuclear reactors that were still functioning, and put up coal, or, or, uh, yeah, put up coal, and oil replaced it. And as a result, Germany, uh, drifted into this place next to France. Their cons- their electricity bills went up, and France's stayed the same. They don't have that mo- they have a different system in Europe, but, you know, more or less, no question that France was doing a lot better than Germany. And, uh, now, when, with this Ukraine issue, it's a very interesting fulcrum point whether, uh, Germany is go- what f- what direction they're gonna go now. How can they? How can they keep going with coal? They just can't.

Lex Fridman 13:31 What's the connection between oil, coal, nuclear, and, and war? Sort of energy and conflict. Do you s- when you look at the 21st century, when you were doing this documentary, were you thinking of nuclear as a way to power the world, but is it also to avoid conflict over resources? Is there some aspect to energy being a source of conflict that we are trying to avoid?

Oliver Stone 14:04 I, uh, don't have the energy, history of energy at the f- at my f- at my fingertips, and it's a very long history here. But I d- I would say, in my... Apparently not. It, it does seem that if individually, each country can answer its needs if... By building. And up until now, we haven't had conflict except in this issue of Russia supplying Europe. The, uh, the, uh, the, obviously the pipeline Nord Stream 2 has been closed, and Nord Stream 1 is also probably gonna be phased out. And the c- the concept of Russia supplying gas to Europe is now up in the air. And who knows what's gonna happen. I just don't see how Europe can get away, uh, uh, from using Russian gas. But Russian gas is not the solution, because it's methane too, and it goes up into the atmosphere. Methane is in the, in the short term, is just as, is worse than coal. Worse. There's all, all kinds of charts we show in the film. We try not to be too over-factual. But, uh, methane is not the answer. It's a short-term answer. The, uh... "Will countries go to war over energy?" is a, is a question that I'm trying to think of all the wars that happened.

Lex Fridman 15:24 (laughs)

Oliver Stone 15:24 Uh, you could say Germany, of course, during World War II needed oil very badly, and they... It s- it, it dictated their strategy-

Lex Fridman 15:32 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 15:32 ... with Romania, et cetera, and getting the oil fields open. But, uh, I don't really c- I can't, I'm not, I haven't thought that one through. I'd have to make a documentary on it to really understand how energy and war interface.

Lex Fridman 15:47 It's always part of the calculation, but it's a question of how much.

Oliver Stone 15:51 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 15:51 Right? That's

Lex Fridman 15:52 the question. You've, uh... I, I just have to ask 'cause you mentioned your mom was from France. You've traveled for this documentary, and you traveled in general throughout the world, in Russia, Ukraine. Um, what are the defining characteristics of these cultures? Let's-

Oliver Stone 16:08 Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 16:08 ... let's go with, with Russia. So, I, you know, as, as I told you, I came from... I'm half Ukrainian, half Russian.

Oliver Stone 16:14 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 16:14 I came from that part of the world. What are some interesting beautiful aspects of the culture of Russia and Ukraine?

Oliver Stone 16:21 I can't really speak honestly of Ukraine. I was there only in 1983, when I visited the Soviet Union under the communism. And I, uh, Kiev was beautiful, and it was one of the nicer places I went. But they were very much st- st- stultified by the communist system. They all were. The best places to visit in Russia were always in the south, w- whether Georgia or, uh, or the, uh, the, uh, A- Muslim countries. It was always a better culture in terms of comfort.

Lex Fridman 16:52 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 16:52 But communism was rough, and that was the end of it, pretty much. Brezhnev regime, and then Andropov. Gorbachev was just three years in the future when I was there. So, I can't a- talk about Ukraine, but... And they've, they have not been friendly to me since I s- of course, since I made their Putin interviews, you know, Ukraine has banned me, I believe. They've, they've, they've been very tough on people who are critical. I think the Russian people have been very special to me. I, and I'm... Perhaps because of my European upbringing, but I, I enjoy talking to them. I find them very open, very generous. And they appreciate support. They appreciate people who say, "You know, I understand why your government is doing this or this or this." This is... I've tried to stay open-minded and, and listen to both sides. The thing that I have seen as an American is, of course, this American enmity towards Russia from the very beginning. I grew up in 1940, uh, '46, I was born. In the '50s, it was, uh, it was so anti-Russian. They were everywhere. They were in our schools. They were in our State Department. They were s- spying on us. They were stealing the country from us. That was the way the American right wing... Not even the right wing. I'd say the Republican Party-

Lex Fridman 18:08 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 18:08 ... pictured the Russians. They were actively e- engaged in infiltrating America and changing our thinking.

Lex Fridman 18:15 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 18:15 And, uh, television shows were based on this. It was very much the J. Edgar Hoover mentality that communism was even behind, uh-... the student protests of the 1960s. This was the direction in which the FBI and the CIA were thinking. So I grew up with, with a prejudice. And it took me many years... My father was a Republican, uh, and he was a stockbroker, and he was a very intelligent man. But even he, because he was a World War II soldier, uh, c- he was a colonel, had fallen under the influence. Y- it had... In order to be successful in American business in the 1950s, you had to have a very strong anti, uh, anti-Soviet line, very strong. You wouldn't get ahead if you expressed any kind of, "Let's end this Cold War," any kind of activity of that nature. You'd be cast aside as a, as a pinko or somebody who was not completely on the board with the American way of doing business, which was capitalism works, communism doesn't.

Lex Fridman 19:16 And i- in particular, communism as embodied by the Soviet Union, um, is the enemy. So hence, hence-

Oliver Stone 19:26 Yeah, that's the way you would-

Lex Fridman 19:28 ... the narrative behind the Cold War.

Oliver Stone 19:30 That's correct. And it ba- (laughs) it basically lasted. I mean, you saw the ups and downs of it. Uh, when Reagan came in, I was... Well, first of all, we had the crisis of 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. And Kennedy proved himself to be a, a warrior for peace. He resolved that with Khrushchev. That was a big moment, huge moment. And people don't give him credit enough for, for really saving us from a war that could've, could've affected all of mankind.

Lex Fridman 19:59 But it still didn't avert-

Oliver Stone 20:02 No, because the moment he was killed, ob- honestly, there was a lot of... And we can talk about that. As you know, I've made a film f- uh, JFK Revisited is a documentary we released, uh, this year about the movie I made in 1991. But the moment he was killed, I would argue that Lyndon Johnson went back immediately to the old way of thinking and the old way of doing business, which was the Eisenhower/Truman way since we... Which we ch- which we had adapted since World War II. That was an interim. You have to think about it from Roosevelt dies in '45. Roosevelt has an interim of 16, 15 years where he, m- he, he has a... He has more of a democratic regime, more liberal. He establishes... He recognizes the Soviet Union for the first time since the revolution, and he actually has a relationship with them. He sends ambassadors who are friendly, and he wants... He has a relationship with Stalin, et cetera, and, uh, at Yalta, and, uh... Or no, at Tehran, rather, is where he had the relationship.

Oliver Stone 21:07 Uh-

Lex Fridman 21:08 Do you think if JFK lived, we would not have a Cold War?

Oliver Stone 21:10 No, absolutely not. I... And we go into great depth on that in the, uh, film, and I urge you to see it because it goes into all the issues around the world. Kennedy was being very much an anti-imperialist, it turns out. And many people just don't understand that, but you have to look at all his policies in Middle East. With Nasser, he re- had, had a relationship. With Sukarno in Indonesia. Uh, with Latin America, he made a big effort with the Alliance for Progress. And, uh, when Africa, above all, with Lumumba, he was very shocked at his death, and tried to def- defend the f- the right, the integrity of the Belgian Congo with Dag Hammersholt of the UN. He made a big effort. Unfortunately, it didn't work out because they were both... Dag Hammersholt was killed, and then Kennedy was killed. And Congo descended into the chaos of Joseph Mobutu's dictatorship. But Kennedy was very active in terms of... As a Irishman, not as an Englishman. He was an Irishman. And I say that because... Well, we'll come back to that, because Mr. Joe Biden is an Irishman, but it's a different kind of an Irishman. They're both Catholic Irish, but Kennedy really made an effort to change the imperialist mindset that, uh, is still, was very strong in America and Europe. And Lyndon Johnson changed back to the old policy, and we were never able to really keep détente going with the Russians. Briefly had it with C- Carter, but then Zip- b- b- Brzezinski came in. Brzezinski was his national security advisor. He was put there by Rockefeller. And Brzezinski was a Pole. He got revenge for the Poland. Poland has always been attacking Russia, as far as I remember, back to another century. I mean, the two world wars that occupied Russia and so tragically, uh, e- entry points were always through Poland and Ukraine. Uh, so, uh, Brzezinski got his revenge, and Carter ended up being an enemy of the Soviet Union, and creating ye- as Brzezinski took pride, and then he created the atmosphere or the trap for the Soviets to go into Afghanistan in '79. That trap was set, he says, he said, in 1978. Um, so there w- there was never, except for brief moments, uh, periods of détente with the Soviets.

Lex Fridman 23:33 (sighs)

Oliver Stone 23:33 And I grew up, uh, under that. I didn't really know anything of this, uh, going on 'cause I was, I was learning. I was educating myself as I was going, learning movies and trying to, trying to be a dramatist and this and that. So I wasn't thinking about this. Then, uh, when Reagan came in, I was worried again because it was a, it was a beat of the old beat, which was they're the most evil empire. I mean, it does... It goes on in American history. It doesn't end. Reagan got a lot of points for that. And of course, when the, when uh, Gorbachev came in, it was a beautiful moment for the world. It was a great surprise. It was probably the best years of, for America, from, at least from my point of view, in terms of this relaxation in the mood. 1986 to 1991 were great years in terms of ability, uh, to believe once again that there could be a peace dividend.... but the world changed again in 1991, '92. There's an internal mechanism. Who knows? You could blame, you can blame, uh, the United States. You could blame Russia for, e- e- it- Gorbachev was perhaps not the right man to try to administer that country at that point. He had great visions. He was a man of peace. But it was very difficult to hold together such a huge empire.

Lex Fridman 24:50 So vision is not enough to hold together the Soviet Union?

Oliver Stone 24:53 I think, uh, the details are interesting. I followed up on that a little bit, 'cause I was recently in countries like Kazakhstan. Talked about, uh, the- the negotiations that were going on, and i- the breakup of the Soviet Union. It's a very interesting story, because it involves everything. Ukraine, of course, everything that's going on now. Some, what is it, 30 million Russians were left outside of the Soviet Union when it collapsed. They had no home anymore. There were homes in other countries, such as in Ukraine. Uh, so it's an interesting story, and with repercussions today.

Lex Fridman 25:29 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 25:30 Kazakhstan is a per- is a good example of keeping the balance, keeping it neutral.

Lex Fridman 25:35 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 25:36 H- he played both sides. And he- he- because, uh, Yeltsin wanted, uh, him to join, uh, the c- the Russian Confederation in a certain way where, uh, he'd be supporting, uh, b- against Gorbachev. There's a whole in- inward battle there. Uh, I think the- the Ukraine came along with, uh, Yeltsin as well as, uh, you'd have t- I don't- I'm sorry, I don't remember now. But two other, two other regions came with him. And, uh, that was the block that broke up the, uh, the Soviet Union. It was Yeltsin's, uh, plan to ... and it wasn't ... make the Russian Federation, and they did.

Lex Fridman 26:15 I would love to return back to JFK eventually, 'cause he's such a fascinating figure in the history of human civilization. But

Lex Fridman 26:24 let me ask you, fast forward. In 2000, Yeltsin was no longer president, and Vladimir Putin became president.

Oliver Stone 26:32 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 26:32 You did a series of interviews with Vladimir Putin, as you mentioned, over a period of two years, from 2015 to 2017. Let's- let me ask the high-level question. What was your goal with that conversation?

Oliver Stone 26:49 Oh, uh, came out in 2017. I guess I started them in 2014. At that point, the Snowden affair had happened and I was working on a movie on Snowden. That happened in '13. U- uh, Ukraine, uh, happened in '14. And, um, one thing after another. By- by '14, P- Putin was enemy number, again, becoming a- a wanted man on the American list. He was enemy pr- he was certainly in the top five, or, uh ... and but, th- the animosity towards Putin had been growing since 2007 at Munich. I remember that speech when he made it. Uh, it's in my documentary. There's a four-hour documentary. Four different conversations. I mean, we talked over two years, two and a half years. But I remember that image of him at Munich making a very important speech about world harmony. About the balance necessary in the world. And I remember the sneer, the sneer on John McCain's face. He was in Munich, obviously eyeballing Putin and hating him. And it was so evident that McCain had no belief whatsoever that the, that this... he was almost treating him like this, or the communists are back. And we know that Putin was not a communist. We know that Putin is very much a market man. And he made it no- he- he made it very clear, and tried to keep an open climate. A new relationship with Europe. But the United States always- certain people in the United States always saw that as a threat, like, "Putin is trying to take Europe away from us," as if we own it. As if we have the right to own it. But Putin was making the point, it's very important, about sovereignty. And sovereignty for countries is crucial to- for- for this new world to have balance. That's sovereignty for China, sovereignty for Russia, sovereignty for Iran, sovereignty for Venezuela, sovereignty for Cuba. This is an idea that's crucial to the new world. And I think the United States has never accepted that. Like, uh, i- sovereignty is not an idea that they h- can allow. They- you have to be o- obedient to the United States' idea of so-called democracy and, uh, freedom. But the- it's- uh, much more important is sovereignty for these countries. And the United States has not obeyed that, has not o- has not even a- acknowledged it. And it never comes up.

Lex Fridman 29:13 So from the perspective of the United States when power centers arise in the world ...

Oliver Stone 29:18 Yes.

Lex Fridman 29:20 You start to oppose those.

Oliver Stone 29:22 Uh-

Lex Fridman 29:23 Be- bec- not because of the ideas, but because they have p- merely because they have power.

Oliver Stone 29:28 Isn't that at the heart of the doctrine of the, uh, neoconservatives? In the new- the Pact for the New American Century, they wrote down in 1996, '7, they said, "There shall be no emergence of a rival power." It was very clear it was about power. And they have a- and they've stuck to that doctrine. Which is, if you h- if you start to get dangerous in any way or have power, we're gonna knock you out. Now that won't work, but ... and I- I don't believe it can work. And that is unfortunately a po- a policy the United States is following. And, uh, the neoconservatives group, which is very small, but it's very strong apparently, and their idea has resonated. It was- it was behind the George Bush's invasion of Iraq. It was part of not only Iraq, but cleaning out the whole world, draining the swamp, going to Afghanistan first, and then although Iraq had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda's attack, going after Iraq. And of course 60-some other countries that where terrorism had some, had some, uh, signs of-They wa-... W- wherever America judged would be a dangerous country, we had the right. You're either with us, or against us. That, that is a disastrous policy, and led to one thing after another. The Iraq war never learned a lesson. The neo-conservatives were never fired, never thrown out of office. The people who prosecuted that war are still around. Many of them are still around. And they're, they're obviously guiding America now.

Lex Fridman 31:00 Let me return to th- this question of power.

Oliver Stone 31:03 Don't forget the, the sneer that I saw there.

Lex Fridman 31:06 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 31:07 That emblemized the United States' reaction. Also, there were several other American representatives who were laughing, kind of mocking, uh, Putin, who was very serious. I, I felt there was a divide there. So, uh, th- and since then, I mean, in a certain sense, the Europe reaction to Putin is crucial. And they were, they were more with him back then.

Lex Fridman 31:30 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 31:31 And, uh, a big thing for America was always to keep NATO, to keep Europe in th- in its pocket as a satellite. And with this recent war, of course, they've succeeded in, in au- beyond their dreams. The, um, the Russians have fi- fulfilled the fantasy of the United States-

Lex Fridman 31:45 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 31:45 ...to finally be this aggressor that they have pictured for years.

Lex Fridman 31:49 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 31:50 We can talk about that later.

Lex Fridman 31:51 But at that time, there was, uh, Europe had significant support for Putin.

Oliver Stone 31:58 Yes.

Lex Fridman 31:58 And the United States was sneering at Putin. Was-

Oliver Stone 32:01 That's correct, you can say that.

Lex Fridman 32:03 And then s- so there's this, um... It wa- it was, um... There was uncertainty as to the direction, as to the future of Russia. And that's exactly when you interviewed Vladimir Putin.

Oliver Stone 32:17 I wanted to know what they thought, because we couldn't get... The, the, the in- the information war that the United States was fighting against Russia was in evidence back then. It was full out. The, uh, the condemnation of Russia on all fronts. Uh, I never saw a positive (laughs) article about Putin and... Although when I traveled in the world, and I traveled a lot doing documentaries, it was very clear in the Middle East, in Africa, in other... in Asia, there was respect for him. That he was a man who was getting job, his job done in the interests of Russia. He was, as I said in the documentary, a son of Russia. Very much so. In a, in a, in the positive sense. A son, a, a son of Russia. Not that he's out there trying to, uh, destroy the interests of other c- of other countries. No. That he was out there to sell... To promote the interests of Russia, but at the same time, keep a balance. Keep it, keep it, keep the world into a harmony. This has always been his picture. Peace was always his idea. In other words, he always referred to the United States, in all these interviews, as our partners. Uh, and I said, "Will you stop using that word? They're not."

Lex Fridman 33:26 Well...

Oliver Stone 33:26 And he was a little bit slow in waking up to, uh, what the United States was doing.

Lex Fridman 33:31 Well, that said, he's one of the most powerful men in the world. He was at that time. And let me ask you the human question. As the old adage goes, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Did you see any corroding effects of power on the man? Forget the political leader. On just the human being that carries that power on his shoulders for so many years.

Oliver Stone 33:59 Keep in mind that he's been i-... Un- unlike most modern leaders, he's been in office off and on, 'cause of... there was... Me- Medvedev was president, and-

Lex Fridman 34:09 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 34:09 ... and he was not literally in charge. He was, he was, he was, uh... He took another appointment at that point. And he... But he was still very much involved. But for 20 years more or less, he's been at the administrator of the state, the protector of the state. And he's apparently done a good enough job that the Russian people have kept him there. Because contrary to what many people think, I really believe that if the Russian people didn't want him, he would be out. I firmly believe that. I don't think you can let... You can go against the will of the people. Now, it expresses itself in many ways. At the ballot box and so forth. But also in other ways in Russia. There's a strong currents of opinion. So contrary to what the, th- th- the position of him as a dictator, he wouldn't last if he was unpopular, number one. Number two, Russia is much more divided than people know. There's other factors in Russia. He is... There's, there are always tensions in the, in, in... around the Kremlin. Who, who has power? Who doesn't have power? That's been going on for 100 years. Uh, but the, the factions in Russia are s-... very much there. So when people refer to Russia as Putin, they're, they're mistaken. When... And they do this regularly in the New York, uh, papers, and all this. They say, "Putin did this, Putin did that." (laughs) "Putin's doing this." But it's Russia that's doing it. And that's what... Uh, there's a distinction there that I... It's changed. In the old days, uh, I would read about Khrushchev, but it was never Khrushchev personally. It was about the Soviet Union. Uh, there was respect for a country. And now, when it started to get personal with Putin, it, it changed. And, and our thinking changed in a, in a negative way. We, we no longer respected him as a country. We were seeing him as a man, and the man we had trashed repeatedly, repeatedly as a poisoner, or as a murderer. None of which has ever been proven, but which has always been repeated and repeated to the point at which it becomes like, an Orwell mantra. It becomes like, he is, of course, a bad guy.

Lex Fridman 36:13 Can I just ask you as a great filmmaker, and as a human being, what was it like talking to one of the most powerful men in the world?

Oliver Stone 36:23 H- honestly, and I'm not naive. I've talked to a lot of powerful people, esp-... In the movie business, there are powerful people.

Lex Fridman 36:30 Yes.

Oliver Stone 36:30 And many of them are corrupted. I've talked to many people in my life. I've been in the military. I'm, I've seen... I've had other jobs. I have to say, I found him to be a human being. I just found him to be reasonable, calm.I never saw him lose his temper. (laughs) And I mean, you have to understand that most people in the, most people in the Western way of doing business get emotional. I don't see that. I saw him as a balanced man, as a man who had studied this, like you have. There's a calmness to you that, it comes from studying the world and having a rational response to it. His, his... It's interesting, his two daughters, one of them is very scientific, and the other one's doing very well in another profession. But they, they, they're thinking, they're a thinking family. His wife too, was. Uh, I can't talk for the new wife 'cause I don't know about it, but he's, he kept his family with great respect. He's raised his, his daughters right. He served Yeltsin... The way he looks at it, he served Yeltsin well. And he, and he st- and he never trashed Wel- uh, Yeltsin. Certainly a lot of people did, but, you know, I asked him repeatedly, you know, "Was he an alcoholic?" Or this or that, but he wouldn't even go that far. Just respect. And this man, Yeltsin, was ind- uh, was, uh, in many ways, um, ridiculed, but in, by the Russians. And he turned over the power because he felt like he was overwhelmed. He turned over the power to this man because, why? How many people had he fired before him? Several, several prime ministers, this and that. Why did he turn power over to Yelt- to, uh, Mr. Putin? Because he respected him for his work ethic and his balance, his maturity. And that's what I can say is, I saw in him. A s- a y- a poor person, a poor, from a poor family, who worked his way up through the KGB. Americans keep saying he's a (laughs) KGB agent, but I... It's, it's like saying, you know, George Bush was a CIA agent, but, you know, he became a pre- You grow, you grow in your life. And he went from this KGB to this technocratic position. He re- he dealt with many, uh, problems, incl- including the Chechnyan War, which was a w- a very difficult situation, as well as the Russian submarine pro- Uh, several things happened early in his- that balan- that gave him a lot of experience, and he handled them all pretty well.

Lex Fridman 38:49 Do you think he was an honest man?

Oliver Stone 38:52 I do. Now, of course, the question of money, I've... The charge is that he's the richest man in the world are ludicrous. Uh, certainly doesn't live like it or act like it. If you're rich, I... I've, I've been around a lot of rich people in my life.

Lex Fridman 39:05 (laughs)

Oliver Stone 39:05 You probably have too. In America, you run into them. So many of them are arrogant.

Lex Fridman 39:08 I'm actually, uh, good friends now with the richest man in the world.

Oliver Stone 39:13 Oh, yeah, of cour- I saw your interview with Mr., uh-

Lex Fridman 39:16 (laughs)

Oliver Stone 39:16 ... Musk, who I, I appreciate. At least he speaks freely. I, I, uh, um, I'm positive about him owning Twitter because Twitter has become censorship city, as has all the major tech. I mean, the censorship that we are now seeing in the United States is so un-American and shocking to me.

Lex Fridman 39:34 And he's a resistance to that, that is true.

Oliver Stone 39:36 Yeah, I like, I like Musk for that, just for that only. But I also appreciate him, his adventuresome, his nature, and his desire to, to, to explore the world and to ask questions.

Lex Fridman 39:49 Yeah. There's certain ways you sound when you speak freely.

Oliver Stone 39:53 Hmm?

Lex Fridman 39:54 There's certain ways you sound, a man sounds when he speaks freely.

Oliver Stone 39:58 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:58 And he speaks freely, and it's refreshing.

Oliver Stone 40:02 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 40:02 No matter whether you're rich or not, it doesn't matter. When you speak freely, it's a beautiful thing.

Oliver Stone 40:07 Actually, uh, Moscow... (laughs) Uh, uh, and a major point on nu- going back to nuclear energy, you know, he was, he never believed in it at first, apparently.

Lex Fridman 40:15 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 40:15 Uh, he was going for batteries, right?

Lex Fridman 40:17 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 40:17 And he did a l- put a lot of money into batteries. (laughs) He made them bigger and bigger batteries, but it just w- As Bill Gates has said, it's just, it, it's not gonna get us there.

Lex Fridman 40:25 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 40:26 And, uh, now I think Moscow's on another path. He understands the need for nuclear.

Lex Fridman 40:29 Yeah, he's a supporter of nuclear. (sighs) We're jumping around.

Oliver Stone 40:35 Putin never asked for one thing, never... It was an interview, it was freeform, "Ask anything you want, no, no restrictions, no rules." (sighs) A- as with Castro, frankly. (laughs) Castro did the same thing, as did Chavez. So I've had good luck in interviewing free-ranging subjects, people willing to express themselves. He's much more guarded than Castro or, uh, K- Chavez, because, as you know, he, he's, he's setting government policy when he speaks. And anything he says is, can be taken out of context.

Lex Fridman 41:04 But there was no restrictions on what to talk about?

Oliver Stone 41:07 No.

Lex Fridman 41:07 None of that?

Oliver Stone 41:07 Nor any desire to see anything before we published it. No need to check it with them. Uh, uh, it was, uh, completely... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 41:17 Do you think he watched the final product?

Oliver Stone 41:20 Yes, I do. But I don't think he made judgments on it. I think he was pleased. Um, he doesn't go either way, you see? (laughs) He's very... It's, he's pleased. I mean, it went well, and he's happy for us, and...

Lex Fridman 41:30 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 41:30 But I don't think he had great enthusiasm, uh, expressed it to me. And he trusted me, and you can see the way he dealt with me each time, he warmed up to me, uh, the four times. You know, the first time, I might have been a little stiff. Uh, you're asking a... You don't know what, who you're dealing with and so forth.

Lex Fridman 41:47 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 41:47 I understand that. But he's used to it now. He's, he's done a lot of press. The worst press he's done, frankly, has been the American press. And not because of his fault, but because of the way they have treated him. If you look at the interviews, they're awful. They put... First of all, I, I noticed one thing as a filmmaker, right away, they use a dub, an overdub. They put a Russian speaker-

Lex Fridman 42:10 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 42:10 ... for everything he says, who's much harsher. He speaks Russian in a much harsher manner than actually Putin does.

Lex Fridman 42:16 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 42:16 Who's very... If you... On my interview, I left him in his original language-

Lex Fridman 42:20 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 42:20 ... with translator, and I think that's important because he expresses himself very clearly and calmly. The r- (laughs) the r- Uh, when you listen to the American broadcast, it's a belligerent person who looks like he's about to bang his shoe on the table. Uh, and secondly, the questions are highly aggressive from the beginning. There's no, there's no sense of rapport. There's no sense of... Well, it's, "Why, Mr. Putin, did you poison this person? Why, Mr. Putin, did you kill this person? Why are you a murderer?" I mean, he's... It's blunt.... blunt, negative television.

Lex Fridman 42:52 Yeah, it's not just aggressive. So I s- obviously speak Russian, uh, so I get to appreciate both the original and the translation. And, um, it's not just aggressive, it's very shallow.

Oliver Stone 43:04 Oh.

Lex Fridman 43:04 They're not looking to understand.

Oliver Stone 43:06 No.

Lex Fridman 43:06 To me, aggression is okay if that's the way you wanna approach it. But it should be, there should be underlying kind of empathy for another human being in order to be able to understand. And, and so, the, the, some of the worst interviews I've ever listened to is by American press of Vladimir Putin. So NBC-

Oliver Stone 43:26 I agree.

Lex Fridman 43:27 ... uh, and all those kinds of organizations. It's very painful to watch. Um...

Oliver Stone 43:32 And you saw the reception to the Putin interviews in America was hostile without seeing it. So many people, uh, criticized, uh, my series without having seen it. Even, even, I w- I went on a show, a television show with this famous, uh, Colbert. You know, he's very famous in America. And I was shocked on the show to find out that he hadn't seen anything of the four hours. He was just attacking Putin, and through me. I was complicit, therefore I was a, I was a Putin supporter, and he ... The show, the show was a disaster. (laughs) It's, it's one of my worst television shows I l- actually, I had to, to shut up and get off the air. I mean, at some point it was embarrassing.

Lex Fridman 44:13 (laughs)

Oliver Stone 44:13 Uh, because the audience too was clapping for Colbert on anything he said.

Lex Fridman 44:17 Well, as an interviewer in that situation, because between you and, and Vladimir Putin, there was camaraderie, there was joking, there was...

Oliver Stone 44:27 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 44:28 Are you worried? Do you put that into the calculation when you're making a film with somebody that could be lying to you, that could be evil? Uh, if we talk about Castro, you talk about ... So are you worried about how y- how, uh, charisma of a man across the table from you can, uh, delude you?

Oliver Stone 44:52 Oh, I take that into account. I absolutely take that into account. I know Ca- ... I mean, doing Castro is a c- uh, he's a wonderful speaker. He's charismatic, so is Chavez.

Lex Fridman 45:00 Yes.

Oliver Stone 45:01 Look at, look at those interviews. I took it into account. But C- Putin doesn't play that game. He doesn't charm you. He doesn't try to overwhelm you with his, um, bonhomie at all. He just says, "Okay, ask your question, I'll give you my answer straight. Here it is." This, and he analyzes it. "This is the history of NATO. This is the history of our relationship with the United States. How many times have we tried to talk to them about such and such, and such and such? And each time, we get nowhere." In fact, it's a very ... I would like to get along with the United States so much. He's saying it, he's saying it so clearly in all his words.

Lex Fridman 45:38 So to play devil's advocate-

Oliver Stone 45:40 But he's not making a big deal about it.

Lex Fridman 45:42 ... but there is a charisma and a calmness.

Oliver Stone 45:44 Yes, there is.

Lex Fridman 45:45 So like, "Let's just calm everything down, it's simple facts." That, you can s-

Oliver Stone 45:51 Yes.

Lex Fridman 45:51 ... you can, you can call, um ... So there's like the Hitler thing, which is screaming, being very loud, charismatic, strong message and so on. And then there's a Putin style ... I'm not comparing those two.

Oliver Stone 46:04 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 46:04 There's the Putin style of communication of calmness.

Oliver Stone 46:07 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 46:07 And, and that, at least to me, my personality, that can be very captivating, is bringing everything down, "The facts are simple." But then when you say the facts are simple, you can now start lying, and you don't know what's true and what's lies.

Oliver Stone 46:21 Well, it b- it behooves you to do some research-

Lex Fridman 46:23 Yes.

Oliver Stone 46:23 ... and frankly, when it comes to research, you're gonna have a problem because if you l- (laughs) go to the Americanized versions of Russian history, you're gonna run into a problem, and, and that includes even Wikipedia. They will tell you, uh, things that are just not factually supported. So it was a problem in terms of if you read all the books (laughs) in the American, the library about Putin, there's nothing positive about it. Uh, they're awful. They're awful. And a lot of them, uh, I sp- I had a good relationship with Professor Steven Cohen who's the most in- I think one of the most informed men on Russia. He'd done a lot of research all his life, and, uh, knew Gorbachev very well, and was very ana- analytical about all these situations that happened before his death in, uh, tw- 20, uh, 19. I'm not quite sure when Steven died, but I knew him well. And, uh, he was the ... He gave me the best information I could get. I would go to Steven and I'd say, "I'm confused here. Wha- tell me the history of this, uh, accusation of poisoning against this person and so forth." And he'd explain it to me in, I think, very, the clearest ways that I understood. And he said to me once, he said, "Most of these people who go to Russia and write this stuff about Putin are going off the internet. The internet has really been a f- a source of a lot of fractured facts here." Uh, he said, "Pure analysis. You have to go back to the texts, all the documents, and to really fully understand." But he under, he l- he spoke Russian. And his wife and him, uh, Ekaterina, uh, Ekaterina van Hoovel, who's a editor, publisher of, uh, The Nation magazine, would go to Russia several times a year and talk to their friend Gorbachev. And Gorbachev's an interesting character. I've talked to him, interviewed him. Not interviewed him but talked to him at length, and I like him very much. And I saw the divide as you saw in the Putin interviews between Gorbachev and Putin early on. In the interviews you sense Putin doesn't particularly care for G- Gorbachev because he, in his point of view, he screwed up the administration of, of Russia and is responsible for so much of the disaster, of leaving all those people outside the Soviet Union. Uh, so, so i- r- these are problems that continue into the future. But he, at the h- they see each other at the ... Or he sees, he knows he's there at the May Day parade. I, I, I, we filmed, and, uh, he's, he's, h- he, his attitude is funny, it's very human.... he says, "I..." You know, he's welcome. He's got his, he's got, he's pension, he's a pensioneer. He's done his duty. He's, there's no, uh, there's no, uh, animus towards him. Even when Gorbachev, in the early days, as you remember, criticized him for his manners in terms of democracy, but I don't know that that, uh, you know, that becomes a quarrel. But frankly, by the, by the end of the situation, uh, it's very clear that Gorbachev has now moved closer and closer to the... He says that Russia is now really under attack. This is, he sees it. He sees where the United States has made a concerted effort to undermine Putin. And he does... And he's, he's repeated this several times about Ukraine. I think you've seen what he said. You can quote it. And Gorbachev is a, uh, we have no respect for Gorbachev even, even at this juncture. When can you see Gorbachev's ideas printed in most American newspapers? Very rarely. Very rarely, and not... And recently, not at all. So Gorbachev, who was our hero back in, he was the American hero back in 1980s, '80s, has now been condemned to the garbage can, so to speak, of history.

Lex Fridman 50:03 Well, in this complicated geopolitical picture you just outlined, um, can we talk about the recent invasion of Ukraine? So you, you wrote on, um, Facebook a pretty eloquent analysis.

Oliver Stone 50:17 Yes.

Lex Fridman 50:17 I th- I think on, uh, March 3rd. Le- let me just read a small se- section of that, just to give context, and maybe we can talk a little bit more about both Russia and the man Putin. You wrote, "Although the United States has many wars of aggression on its conscience, it doesn't justify Mr. Putin's aggression in Ukraine. A dozen wrongs don't make a right. Russia was wrong to invade. It has made too many mistakes. One, underestimating Ukraine resistance. Two, overestimating the military ability to achieve its objective. Three, underestimating Europe's reaction, especially Germany upping its military contribution to NATO, which they've resisted for some 20 years. Even Switzerland has joined the cause. Russia will be more isolated than ever from the West. Four, underestimating the enhanced power of NATO, which will now put more pressure on Russia's borders. Five, probably putting Ukraine into NATO. Six, underestimating the damage to its own economy, and certainly creating more internal resistance in Russia. Seven, creating a major readjustment of power in its oligarch class. Eight, putting cluster and vacuum bombs into play. Nine, and underestimating the power of social media worldwide." And you go on f- for a while giving a, a much broader picture (sighs) of the history and the geopolitics of all of this. So now, a little bit later, two months later, um, what are your thoughts about the invasion of Ukraine?

Oliver Stone 52:05 Well, it's very hard to, uh, be honest in this regard, because the, the West c- the West has brought down a curtain here, and anyone who questions, uh, the invasion of Ukraine and its, uh, consequences is, is, is an enemy of the people. (laughs) It's, it's become so difficult. Uh, we... I've never seen in my lifetime, ever, such a wall of propaganda as I've seen in the West. And that includes France too, because I was there recently, and England. England is, of course, really, uh, vociferous. It's, it's, it's shocking to me how quickly Europe moved in this direction, and that includes Germany. I have German friends who express to me their shock over Ukraine. I have Italian friends, same thing. And Italy, of course, has been the, perhaps the most understanding and compassionate of countries. So it's, it's quite evident that there's a united, uh... And this attests to the power of the United States. And of course you have Finland, and S- Finland, which has g- g- generally been reasonable, jumping in,, y- talking about joining NATO, and Sweden too. Generally, there's been some more restraint in the, in the West, in Europe, and that's what surprised me the most, Europe, their... How quickly they fell into this NATO basket, which is very dangerous for Europe, very dangerous. This goes back to my idea, what I was saying earlier about sovereignty. (sighs) These countries have, don't really give me a sense that they have sovereignty over their own countries. They don't feel... Uh, to me, I'm-

Lex Fridman 53:48 The European nations?

Oliver Stone 53:50 ... I'm, I'm obviously intuition here is working. I just don't feel that they have freedom to say what they really think, and they're scared to say it. Uh, when, uh, when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, I remember with great ha- in a sense, satisfaction, that at least France, uh, Chirac, who I had not really known much about, stood up and said, "The United States, we're not gonna join you in this expedition," basically into madness. Schroeder in Germany, same thing. Of course, Putin condemned the, uh, invasion, and Putin had been an ally of the United States since 9/11, if you remember correctly-

Lex Fridman 54:29 Yes.

Oliver Stone 54:29 ... and had called Bush, and they, they were getting along. So even Putin said, "I won't go. I, no, don't go into Iraq. This is, this is not the solution." He didn't oppose Afghanistan, but he opposed Iraq. So Chirac...... and Schroeder stood for the old Europe. I'm, I remember de Gaulle, (laughs) Charles de Gaulle. He was independent of the United States. Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO because he saw the dangers of NATO, which is to say, you have to fight an American war. When they say, and they put nuclear weapons on your territory, in England, in France, and, uh, Italy, and, uh, Germany, when they do that, you're, you're, you're hitched to this superpower, and you have no say in what they're gonna do. If they declare war from their... and they use your territory, you're gonna be involved in a, in a major conflict. I'm talking about sovereignty. Where is that sovereignty? They don't have it. And that has influenced their mindset for years now, since 1940, since the... well, de Gaulle was the '60s. He was... he actually reversed the whole flow, and he was... it was... I think it was, uh, Sarkozy who put France back into NATO. And, uh, now, it's Macron. I w-... I hope, because he was talking to Putin, would at least have an independent viewpoint that could be helpful here. But he... so he rolled it up. He, he may have told Putin something else, but within days, he had rolled it up and gone along with the United States' position, which was enforced by the United States in a very fierce way. The propaganda, as I say, I don't know how much time you spent in America, but it was vicious, and everything was anti-Russian. Russia were killing all these people, were, uh, shooting, uh, down, uh, uh, civilians, although there was no proof of it. There was just, these are the accidents of war. But all of a sudden, there was a campaign of criminality, and they were talking about bringing Putin into war crime trial. Well, why didn't they talk like that when (laughs) Iraq was going on, and Bush was killing far more people? Or for that matter, why were they not talking about the, the killings in Donbas and Lugansk during that 2014 to 2000, uh, '22 period? That is what is... it's a crime. There were so many people who were killed, uh, many of them innocent, many of them innocent.

Lex Fridman 56:51 So, wh- what would be the way for Vladimir Putin to, uh, stop the killing in Donbas without the invasion of Ukraine?

Oliver Stone 57:02 Yeah, that's a very good question, and I've asked that several times, and I don't have the... I have not talked to him since about two years now. Uh... it's a very good question.

Lex Fridman 57:13 What's the mistakes... what the human mistakes and the leadership mistakes made by Putin?

Oliver Stone 57:18 It's a very good question. You see, what the American press has not said, and the Western press has not said, is that on February 24, was it? That was... uh, on that day, when they invaded, there were... the day before, if you check the logs of the, uh, European organization that was u-... supervising, uh, the f-... was in the field in Ukraine. These are s-... neutral observers. They were seeing heavy, heavier and heavier artillery fire going into, uh, uh, into Donbas, uh, from the Ukrainian side. So they had a-... apparently, Ukraine had 110,000 troops on the border. They were about to invade Donbas. That was the plan. That's what I think. Russia, as a r-... as, uh... because of the buildup on the border of Donbas, brought 130, they say 130,000 troops to the area, uh, near, uh, uh, Donbas, right? So you have a buildup of forces on both sides, but you wouldn't know that from reading the press in the West. You would be... you'd believe that the Russians suddenly put all these men into, into the situation with the, uh... with the idea of invading Ukraine, not only Donbas, but invading all of Ukraine, and getting rid of the, uh... decapitating the government there, which is all assumption. We don't know what they were intended to do.

Lex Fridman 58:36 But you, at the time, as did a lot of people, thought that the... all the talk of the invasion, Russian u-... invasion of Ukraine, is just propaganda. It's never... it's not gonna happen. It's very likely to happen.

Oliver Stone 58:50 Well, we thought... I think many of us thought that the United States is building this up into an invasion.

Lex Fridman 58:54 Yes.

Oliver Stone 58:54 In other words, that's... that is the nature of, of false flag operations. When you, you create this propaganda, "They are gonna invade, they are gonna invade." And then when they invaded, they were... United States was completely ready, and all their allies were completely ready for the invasion, correct? So why did Putin do that? He fell into this, theoretically, into this trap set by the United States, that here you're telling all your allies across the board, "They're going to invade." But

Oliver Stone 59:20 you-

Lex Fridman 59:21 Why do you think he did it?

Oliver Stone 59:23 (sighs)

Lex Fridman 59:23 Do... so, here... is it madness, or is it calm-

Oliver Stone 59:26 No, no, it's not madness.

Lex Fridman 59:27 ... strategic calculation?

Oliver Stone 59:28 Perhaps. Uh, this one, I cannot answer you faithfully, because first of all, we don't know what he was told, if he was indeed getting the right intelligence estimates. From what I said earlier in that art... in that ar-... uh, in that essay I wrote, uh, you would think he was not well-informed, perhaps, about the degree of cooperation he would get from the Russ-... the Ukrainian Russians in, in, in, in, in Ukraine. I... that would be one factor, that he wasn't... uh, he didn't assess the s-... operation correctly. Remember this. Mr. Putin has had this cancer, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:00:08 (laughs)

Oliver Stone 1:00:08 ... and he's, I think he's licked it. But he's also been isolated because of COVID. And some people would argue that the isolation from normal activity, which he was... uh, he was meeting people face-to-face, but all of a sudden, he was m-... meeting people across a table, uh, 100 yards away or whatever, 10 yards away. It was very hard to... perhaps he lost touch, uh, with contact with people.

Lex Fridman 1:00:30 So it's not just power. It's the very simple fact that you're-

Oliver Stone 1:00:34 I... as I say, I'm speculating.

Lex Fridman 1:00:35 ... just distant from humans.

Oliver Stone 1:00:35 I don't know. I'm... I see that, and I also... perhaps he thought in his mind that there would be a, (coughs) uh, a faster resolution that the Ukrainian... because the evidence had been that the Ukrainian, uh, Russians-... that the Ukrainian army had folded so many times in the... And that they were only backed up, and they were stiffened by the resistance of the Nazi, uh, or, or Nazi-oriented Azov battalions. That was a factor, of course. And that is a big factor for the Russians, because these people are very tough. They're Rus-... See, what people don't understand is that Ukraine, since 20- 2014 has been a terror state. They've been run... Any time a Ukrainian has expressed any, uh, any, uh, understanding of a Russian, of the Russian-Ukrainian position, they've been threatened by the state. I- from 2014 to 2022 there's been a set of hideous murders that people don't even know about in the West. Journalists, people who speak out, liberals, people who, uh, I in- I interviewed Viktor Medvedev, who they make out to be some kind of horrible person, but Medvedev was s- was a very important figure in the administration of Kuchma, the first, uh, Ukrainian prime minister in the 1990s, and he did a great job on the economy. He was a very thoughtful man. If you'll see my interview, it's called Ukraine Revealed-

Lex Fridman 1:01:58 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 1:01:58 ... he's very thoughtful about the future of Ukraine. He doesn't want to go back and join Russia. He wants it to be an independent country. Ukraine is independent. And he wants it to be a functioning economic democracy, more or less, a democracy, if you can get that, but between... That exists in a neutral state, a neutral state, which Ukraine used to be before 2014. It was neutral from '90, '91 to 2014, neutral. Very important. Under Por-Poroshenko it just w- immediately went into an anti-Soviet, Cold War position as an ally of the United States. And, uh, uh, my point was that it was a very dangerous place, uh, Ukraine. I- people were being killed. Death squads were out there. Medvedev, they stripped him of his television stations, uh, very suddenly. This is Zelenskyy, the new president. Said he, Zelenskyy was elected on a peace platform. Remember that. He w- 70% of the country was for him to make peace with Russia. He, did he ever have, even try to make peace with Russia? Did he attend any of the Minsk II, um, uh, agreements? Did he, did he visit, did he pay any attention to Putin? Did he go to Russia? No, not at all. The moment he got into office, I'm convinced that the, the, uh, the, uh, militant, uh, uh, the militant sector of the Right Sector parties of the, uh, of Ukraine let him know that you will not make a deal with Russia. There'll be no concessions to Russia. This is very dangerous. This is where this attitude, this very, very hostile to Russia has hurt us. The whole world is being hurt by this. And no, no one calls them out. No one calls them out. Zelenskyy backed off from, uh, his platform as, uh, running for president, and as president has been ineffective, did nothing to promote... On the contrary, went the other way, and seemed to support the, uh, the Ukrainian aggression.

Lex Fridman 1:03:56 Well, he found his support in this war. You've revealed through your work some of the most honest and dark aspects of war.

Oliver Stone 1:04:04 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:04:05 Nevertheless, this is a war, and there's a humanitarian crisis. Millions of people es- uh, um, refugees escaping Ukraine. What do you think about the human cost of this war initiated by-

Oliver Stone 1:04:21 It's hor- it, it's horrible.

Lex Fridman 1:04:21 ... whoever, just as you write, whatever the context, whatever NATO, whatever pressure, as you wrote, Russia was wrong to invade. Uh-

Oliver Stone 1:04:33 Okay, yeah, but you, let's get back to that original question. You said, "What was he thinking at that time?"

Lex Fridman 1:04:38 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 1:04:38 We ne- we never answered that.

Lex Fridman 1:04:39 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 1:04:40 Now, it, it... By the way, uh, you know, you, among those people who are te- uh, who have been, um, ruined by this war, you have to include the four, 2014 to 2022-

Lex Fridman 1:04:52 Yes.

Oliver Stone 1:04:52 ... Ukrainian Russians. 14,000, uh, uh, were, were killed, not necessarily by, uh, som- some of them by maybe accident and this and that, but certainly a large number of that is, is responsible to the Ukrainian military, and the, uh, the Nazi-related battalions, who have done a good job of death squatting that whole area. And remember, I did a film about Salvador. I know a little bit about death squads and how they work, and I know about paramilitaries, because in South America they're all over the place. America supports, hates Venezuela, go- goes on about Venezuela. But do they t- do they tell you anything about Colombia, its next door neighbor? Colombia for years has been plagued by paramilitaries that are right wing, and the United States has said nothing about them, except occasionally there's a newspaper report now. So this is a... This support of death squads by the United States is all over the world. It's not just in South America and Central America where we see, uh, eh, plenty of evidence of it. It's here too. And this is what's horrible about this whole thing, this hy- hypocrisy of America, that they can support such evil, such evil. Now, going back to your l- larger question about, uh, yeah, it's a terrible refugee disaster. But again, we have to get the numbers. Let's get the numbers and get evidence, because y- I, I would ask you, I'm not sure at this point whether more civilians were killed before 2022 in Donbas than have been killed in this latest.

Lex Fridman 1:06:15 So we can't talk about this without, we can't talk about the invasion of Ukraine without considering the full war between Russia-

Oliver Stone 1:06:22 That's correct.

Lex Fridman 1:06:22 ... and Ukraine since 2014?

Oliver Stone 1:06:24 That's correct, absolutely. And take the toll on both sides, and, um, you might be surprised by the result. Uh, I think the Russian military, of course, I'm not there, and I'm not... This could be, this is speculation. The Russian military has slowed down, and part of that reason is not to, to keep the civilian corridors open. And I think that the Ukrainian military has made it more difficult on purpose, especially some of these battalions that are death squad battalions have gone out of their way to keep the civilians locked into these cities in danger, because it, it's in their interest to do so.So there's no reason why Ukrainian military, ha- would- who have killed Ukrainian civilians for years, would change their policies. They would have no compunctions about wiping out, for example, people with white arm bands in Bucha. Okay. Uh, as to what Putin was thinking at the time, I- I wondered this, and I still do. I said, okay, so Putin can say, "When Don-" let's say, uh, the Ukrainian government wants to now invade Donbas. This is on February 23. And they have artillery. They're peppering the whole place. They're gonna go in, and they're gonna get Donbas back. What do you do? Y- and you- you have Russian, uh, separatists who are R- Russian Ukrainians who are on- who are gonna fight. How far do you go in supporting them? Can Russia at this point say, "Well, we can't help you. You have to get along. You have to somehow- you have to be absorbed by, uh, the Kyiv. You're gonna be absorbed by them, and they're gonna be- they're not gonna give you autonomy, and you have to live with 'em. And there's gonna be a price to pay." You could do that, and you can also say, "Well, we open our borders to Donbas. You can come in to our cont- you can leave, and we will help you to- to resettle." And that's- that would be a reasonable approach. So you take it to the next stage, is Putin's thinking. You take it to the next stage. You- you stall. It harder for your- and people- of course, you know, there's pressure on Putin from inside his own government to say, "What are you gonna do? I mean, you can't do this to our-" and there's a lot of nationalists in Russia. They would certainly bring- he- it would be to his- they'd say Putin is weak, and that's the biggest rap you can ever give a Russian leader is, "You're weak. You can't get anything done." So there would have been some damage. But let's say he goes with that, and he says, "Okay. We know what the United States intention is. It's to get rid of me, regime change, and to get another Yeltsin in. That's what they want. And they will go to any ends. They will d- destroy Ukraine if necessary, but they want regime change in Russia. And then w- after they do that, of course, they'll go after China, but that's the ultimate policy of the United States." This is a country that has no compunctions about going all the way, and it will use hypocrisy and all the news propaganda in the world to get what it wants. This is the equivalent, frankly, of Germany's g- uh, uh, goals in World War II. Uh, world domination. There's no question in my mind. But we're going about it in our way as opposed to Hitler's way.

Lex Fridman 1:09:29 Do you-

Oliver Stone 1:09:29 So just to finish your thought, where do they go? What's stage two? Okay. You- y- let's say they take- Ukraine takes back Donbas. Let's say people get killed i- in- in large quantities. So we now to the next stage. We're finished with the Minsk II agreements that were never adhered to. So what does Russia do? They wait for the next aggression, which is gonna come in one form or another, p- perhaps in Georgia, per- I don't know what would happen, what the US is thinking. But they would have a- uh, the US cannot say, uh, "Russia i- is- has done anything. They have not used violence to stop Donbas from belonging back to, uh, Ukraine," right? So you're in a new setup now. It's a whole thing rearranges. Now, you have- but you still have nuclear weapons, and you still have Russian nuclear weapons, and they're serious weapons. They're very well developed. Crude, but n- not as refined as the American nuclear force, but powerful. That becomes another game. Then you open another chess board, and no one- you still haven't been condemned. The sanctions haven't been imposed. That's a new- it's a new game. Could he have done- could he have lived with that? That's the question I ask myself.

Lex Fridman 1:10:39 So you see ultimately Ukraine today as a battleground for the proxy war between Russia and the United States?

Oliver Stone 1:10:45 The United States would have then NATOized- NATOized Ukraine, or p- certainly put more weapons. And, you know, the United States has already done a lot in Ukraine with intelligence, with, uh, training, advisors. The, uh, the intelligence aspect of the Ukrainian army has been raised enormously by the United States contribution.

Lex Fridman 1:11:04 Is it possible for you to steel man, to play devil's advocate against yourself, and say that, uh, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is fighting for the sovereignty of his nation, and in- in a way against Russia, but also against the United States? It just happens that for now, the United States is a useful ally. But ultimately, the man, the leader is fighting for the sovereignty of his nation.

Oliver Stone 1:11:29 I would think s- he thinks so, yes, and he could be- he could say that. But he's not acknowledging that the sovereignty of his nation was stolen b- in 2014 when the- with the coup d'état that brought, uh, that brought this se- this Right Sector into power, and they have controlled the country since then. It's- it's his- it's thuggery what they've done. The- the Medvedev case is a- a case in point. They just take what they need. They go to a house, and they- they have a- how many people have been killed? Uh, serious people, uh, journalists killed by the- the- these, uh, battalions. That's what people don't realize. In other words, you can't speak out. You can't- a person like me would have been on a death list on day th- day five. (laughs) Uh, you don't- y- there's no opposition to Zelenskyy, so he doesn't have a real sovereignty. It was a stolen sovereignty.

Lex Fridman 1:12:17 Do you think, uh, President Zelenskyy would accept an interview with you today?

Oliver Stone 1:12:24 Actually, from- s- since I made Ukraine on Fire, (laughs) a documentary which perhaps you've seen-

Lex Fridman 1:12:29 Mm-hmm.

Oliver Stone 1:12:30 ... which, uh, records all the, uh, the incidents of 2014 and the- and the Maidan, uh, demonstrations, and shows you the dishonesty behind it, no. I think that they've been very, uh, negative, and th- they would kill me if- if I was in Ukraine. I mean, they don't have any, uh... Th- these people are very tough. The- these are as rough as they come in my opinion, and I've seen rough in my life. I mean, these guys are not playing with- fair at all. They- they- they- d- these are death squads.No, I don't think... And Zelensky would have nothing to do with it. But of course, it would be dangerous for me. And, and they've been very hostile in their, in their policies to any bo- any Ukrainians abroad are also threatened. Uh, in other words, you could be in Paris, but if, if you're, if you speak out too much, you... I think Ukrainians know that they're gonna be targeted. And I think that's part of the reason they don't talk. A lot of them sh- you know, you have to take the anti-Russian line. But I think a lot of them are divided.

Lex Fridman 1:13:26 So you think you would be killed and Zelensky wouldn't even know about it. So there is-

Oliver Stone 1:13:32 Well, I'd be kill- I don't think... I don't... If I was killed, certainly abroad. No, they wouldn't kill me abroad. I think they'd figure out a way-

Lex Fridman 1:13:37 No, no, no, no. If you travel to Ukraine, I mean. Well, I guess w-

Oliver Stone 1:13:40 Then I wouldn't get in. I wouldn't get in. Unex- except through Donbas, I'd come th-

Oliver Stone 1:13:44 There are some Americans in Donbas who are reporting on the war there. And I read their reports, actually. They're pretty interesting, because they show you the cruelty of what's going on. But never mentioned in the West. Never. That's what's so strange about this, this, this is the modern world that we're living in. Yet, this information is not coming out to the mass of the people. And on the contrary, the United States has c- closed down all the, all the prop, all the RT, all the, uh, all the information centers that are possible alternative news getting to the American people. They've seriously made an effort. And the BBC, English, I- a- and France. I was shocked when France, uh, closed RT down, because RT is actually pretty good. They... Yes, they may... You

Narrator 1:14:25 (whistles)

Oliver Stone 1:14:25 ... make this call, there are distortions. But you know as well as I do, because you hear, you speak, uh, that RT has done a very brave job of putting correspondents into the field, in very dangerous positions. And they've gotten great footage of some of the violence that's going on.

Lex Fridman 1:14:40 Well, given the wall of propaganda in the West, I also see the wall of propaganda in Russia.

Oliver Stone 1:14:47 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:14:47 The wall of propaganda in China, the wall of propaganda in India. What do we do with these walls of propaganda? I talked to-

Oliver Stone 1:14:54 Yes, let's talk about Russia, 'cause I... You, you would know more about it. But my last experience there, newspapers. It was more interesting, there's m- a- wha- put it this way. When I went to Venezuela, the U- United States was saying back then that Chavez controlled the press. (laughs) I get to Venezuela, and there's nothing but criticism of Chavez in the press. It was owned by the, the oligarchs of Venezuela, and who hated him. So it was across the board. That's why Chavez opened the, uh, the state television, oh, spent more money on it, and advertised his p- point of view through state television. But this, in Russia, uh, there is, uh, what I saw was criticism. I met with the publisher who got the Nobel Prize of that, uh, famous newspaper. And his point of view at that time, when I spoke to him a few years ago, was, "We're operating, where there is criticism of him." But you know, we, you can't call for the overthrow of the government, nor in Venezuela, nor in the United States for that matter. If you call for the overthrow of, uh, the government of the United States, you're gonna be in deep trouble.

Lex Fridman 1:15:55 Well, all right. So to push back on that, it's interesting. It's so interesting, because w- mentioned Elon Musk, and there's a way that people sound when they speak freely. When I speak to... I have family in Ukraine, I have family in Russia.

Oliver Stone 1:16:11 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:16:11 When I speak to people in Russia... Let's put my family aside. When I speak to people in Russia, I think there's fear.

Oliver Stone 1:16:21 (sighs)

Lex Fridman 1:16:21 I think they don't... (laughs) Um, sometimes when you s- call for the overthrow of government, that's important. Not because you necessarily believe for the overthrow of the government, but you just need to test, test the power centers, and make sure they're, uh, responsive to the people. And I feel like there's a mix of fear and apathy, uh, that is, has a different texture than it does in the United States. That worries me, because I, I would like to see the flourishing of a people in all places.

Oliver Stone 1:17:01 Well, as I said, uh, my impression was that there's far more, uh, freedom in the press than was, was pictured by the West. And, uh, and that means different points of view. 'Cause the Russians are always arguing with themselves. I've never seen a country that's so contentious.

Lex Fridman 1:17:14 (laughs)

Oliver Stone 1:17:14 There's more, there's more scr- uh, intellectuals in Moscow and-

Lex Fridman 1:17:18 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 1:17:18 ... the cities than, than you can believe. And, and the... You know the Russian people there. They've been fighting government for years, befa- back from the 1870s, czarist times, they're always plotting (laughs) against the government. And the intelligentsia is known through history as being contentious and anti-government in many ways. And, uh, we see the same thing, educated people turning against Russia. I don't appreciate those people, because I think they're very spoiled, and they don't understand some of the stuff that's going on in the West. But we have a lot of Russians in, in, um, in the Europe and America that attack, uh, Russia, and sometimes don't understand that they are under pressure from the United States, and they don't understand the size of the pressure. And it... That's why Putin connects with the people, because he r- he represents the common, more the common man, who's, who's saying to you, "Your interests are threatened. Russia is threatened. We are representing only the interests of Russia, not... We're not an empire. We're not gonna expand." He, he has no em- empire intentions, although the West pai- paints it as empire. Uh, I ha- I see no evidence of it. Uh, why didn't he do something in all these years? Nothing. He did nothing except defend the country on, in Georgia and in Chechnya.

Lex Fridman 1:18:31 So the imperialist imperative is coming more from the West then?

Oliver Stone 1:18:34 It's the imperialist, it's the imperialist agenda. Going back to, um, I'm sorry, where we left our discussion off. I mean, I was gonna go on with America not only being censored, has closed down now, closed down. And you say it's n- it's not fear. Well, it is fear. I am scared. Because if you get your Facebook page suspended, (laughs) or your YouTube, your, your Twitter account thrown off, a lot of good people are getting their th- thrown off.You can't say, you can't speak out, it affects your business. It goes back to the 1950s when my, my father's world, when you could not express any sympathy for, uh, uh, Soviet Union without endangering your job, without basically being not trusted. You had to be part of the program to get along, to go along. Same thing when UK, United Kingdom, I mean, for all their talk this Boris Johnson is an idiot (laughs) . But all their talk about... Do you remember with their policies with the IRA in Ireland, when Ireland was threatening them? They cut off the IRA completely. Gerry Adams, who was their... A wonderful guy, I met him, was not allowed to even be heard in Britain d- during certain years. In France, uh, all constantly through the Algerian War, the Algerians were not allowed to be heard. T- the Algerian War for Independence d- divided France greatly. You could not even show Paths of Glory, a World War I film, uh, in France for, uh, I don't know, 20 years after it came out. Uh, censorship is a way of life. When democracies also feel threatened, they are much more fragile than they pretend to be. A healthy democracy would take all the criticism in the world and shrug it off and say, "Okay, that's what's good about our country." Well, I'd like to see that in America. It used... There are times that it's been like that, but it's, it's so scary now. So it is scary, that's, that's what I was trying to say. It's not un-scary to me. Um, in China, I would say to you, yes, it's much scarier to me, because there is the internet wall that they cut off. And I got i- problems in China too, because I said something in, in... years ago about, "You have to discover your own history. You have to be honest about Mao, you have to be... You have to go back and, and let's make a movie about Mao." That upset them, you know, and show his negatives. So China has been much more sensitive than Russia about criticism, much more. And it's, it is a source of problems. But on the other hand, China has a lot of grievances, a lot going back to the 19th century and the British imperialism of that era, and American imperialism.

Lex Fridman 1:21:02 If you could talk to, to Vladimir Putin once again now, what kind of, wha- what kind of things would you talk about here? What kind of questions would you ask?

Oliver Stone 1:21:13 Huh. Well, I... One thing I would certainly ask is what you were thinking on February 23. And I would ask him to reply to my question about, "What if you took this to phase two? You, you surrendered in Donbass, you... No, no ego about it, you just surrendered. It's in your interest of your country, and you invited all the refugees from Donbass into Russia, as much as they can. What would you do now? What's the, what's the US next move? And, in your opinion, how are you gonna... Okay, where are we gonna go?" That's... That would be the key question, because it's... But he didn't go that way, he chose to take the sanctions and, uh, and to go this way. Why he did that is a key question for our time. Uh, perhaps it was a mistake, perhaps it was his judgment. Perhaps, as I said... But I don't... Knowing the man I did, I don't think so. I think it was calculated.

Lex Fridman 1:22:09 Now, this is projection and speculation, but there is something different about him in the past several months. It could be the COVID thing, the isolation that you mentioned.

Oliver Stone 1:22:19 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:22:20 I've listened to a lot of interviews and speeches in Russian.

Oliver Stone 1:22:23 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:22:24 And there's, um, there's something about power over time that can change you, that can isolate you. And-

Oliver Stone 1:22:30 Well, when I was there... No, uh, he'd been in office for s- already 15 years. He had power. He didn't misuse it, in my opinion. He was very even. I saw him go on television and talk to his fellas the same way he always talked to them.

Lex Fridman 1:22:43 Yeah.

Oliver Stone 1:22:44 He grew with it. He grew in intelligence, in knowledge, because he had deal- he had dealings with s- the whole world now. People had come to him. He was very well known in Africa, in Middle East, certainly Syria. And (sighs) I, I just never saw misuse of his power. I saw humility in him, actually.

Lex Fridman 1:23:03 So perhaps there was a calculation, and he calculated wrong, in terms of what happens if he doesn't invade. Perhaps there was a calculation.

Oliver Stone 1:23:14 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:23:14 Perhaps he had a calm and clear mind, and he calculated wrong.

Oliver Stone 1:23:18 Well, th- he also made the point that he ha- there were t- t- the talk of Zelenskyy saying, uh, nuclear weapons were gonna come into Ukraine. There was talk about that right before the invasion too. And certainly that would have set off alarms. Uh, you know, the United States is already kind of doing that, b- by not only putting its intelligence and its heavy weaponry into Ukraine, but you've got to deal with the question, the next question that comes up. The most immediate question is, "Is the United States gonna start..." And I'm, I'm saying (laughs) this is going... They, they're making a lot of noise in the United States press about Russia using nuclear weapons and chemical weapons. That's a lot of noise. Again, going back to my analogy f- when the United States starts that, it starts the conversation going. It's in the interest of the United States for Russia to be pinned with any kind of chemical or nuclear a- uh, incident. Is tha- for example, it'd be very, not simple, but it would be possible f- to explode a nuclear device in Donbass, in Donbass and kill thousands of people. And we would not know right away who did it. But of course, the blame would go right to Russia, right to Russia. Even if it didn't make sense, if there was no motivation for it, it would just be blamed on Russia. The United States might well be the one who does that false flag