[LIMITED TIME ONLY ⏰] Full Episode: Former Putin Advisor Andrei Illarionov: Inside the Mind of Putin

There's a unique chance to change world order in favor of tyrants, despots, authoritarian leaders like Mr. Putin, like Chinese leader, like others. So that is why they are in a hurry. Today I sit down with Dr. Andrei Illarionov. He is the former chief economic advisor to Vladimir Putin from 2000 to 2005 and Putin's personal representative at the G8. In 2005 he resigned and became an outspoken critic of Putin and the Kremlin. Mr. Putin's statements and his Ministry of Foreign Affairs statements are very clear. If they will be lucky or victorious in Ukraine, they will go further. Dr. Illarionov was one of the very few who accurately predicted Putin would invade, and he argues it could have easily been avoided. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Dr. Andrei Illarionov, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thank you very much, Jan, for inviting me. I hope you don't mind, I'll call you Andrei. It's rare that I meet someone whose name may be even a little more difficult to pronounce than my own. It's fine. Andrei, you were President Vladimir Putin's economic advisor for almost a period of six years in the early 2000s. So you're obviously very familiar with the man and, of course, Russian economic policy. You were his chief advisor, if I understand it correctly. We're going to talk about the Russia-Ukraine war. We're going to talk about many things. But for starters, I guess I just want to understand, how is it that you came to work for Mr. Putin? By accident, I met Mr. Putin first time in early or late July or early August 1998, just by accident. It was a date when he was appointed the FSB director by President Yeltsin, and he came to his best friend then, Mr. Alexei Kudrin, to the Ministry of Finance of Russia. And Alexei Kudrin was the first deputy minister of finance. And it was a coincidence because I was invited to the Ministry of Finance to discuss the probability of the financial collapse of Russia. And I discussed what actually happened three weeks later. And I made forecasts that happened to be accurate about the devaluation of Russian ruble, about default that Russia would face, about introduction of capital control and so on. And at the moment when I was at the Ministry, somebody came into this room, and everybody just shifted their attention to that person who, that person was behind my back. But I understood that some somebody important came into this hall, was very, not very tall, I would say, in a very strange, light green color suit, which was quite unusual for bureaucrat and especially for the director of FSB. That person happened to be Mr. Putin. And we had a kind of five minutes conversation. Actually, it was not a conversation, I was asked to talk a little bit about the coming collapse of the financial system of Russia, which I said what I knew. And there was no reaction at all to my story. But it was the first meeting. The next meeting was already a year and a half later in February when Putin was already acting president of Russia, and he was looking for economic advisor for himself. And I was invited to his dacha, which is a state outside of Moscow. And we spent three hours discussing issues of economic policy, and he invited me to be his economic advisor. And I refused. It was the second time. So it was several times we met. Three times all together, twice, I refused. On the third time, I said yes. I imagine he didn't get refused often. I guess at least that's my imagination. Yeah, probably you're right. Yes. So why did you refuse? Because I did not consider this too much interesting. I was working in my institute that I created, Institute of Economic Analysis in Moscow. By that time, I already had some experience in bureaucratic structures because I was economic advisor to a couple of prime ministers in Russia, Mr. Gaidar and Mr. Chairman Mergin. And I knew pretty well what does it mean to be in the bureaucracy. And I did not like very much it. And just another invitation, even by the president, was not very attractive to me. And academic work, research work is worse and is still much more interesting for me. Certainly, it's an opportunity to advise and just to have your advices being implemented. So that is why after two months, Mr. Putin was inviting me to different events, to different meetings, to visits around the country, to trips and so on. And during these two months, I understood and it was visible that he's really serious about economic reforms. And there is a possibility to use this chance to implement such an economic policy that will bring economic growth to the country. Because Russia by that time was nine years in economic crisis, and GDP of Russia contracted by more than 40%. And that is why I look, okay, maybe it's a possibility to do something with a livelihood of millions or tens of millions of Russian citizens. And I finally agreed and joined the administration. Actually, I was the first person who has been appointed to the Putin's administration, even before anyone else has been appointed. It was in April year 2000. And as you correctly mentioned, I was there for almost six years. So were your suggestions, were your policies applied? Yeah. Looks like many of my ideas and many of my economic advices have been taken. And as a result, instead of nine years of economic recession, Russia has received 10 years of unprecedented economic growth. So for these 10 years, Russian GDP doubled, Russian GDP per capita doubled, private consumption per capita increased 2.3 times in real terms. These were and still is the best period in economic history of Russia for 1000 years. So it was economic miracle on the par with other well known miracles like in China or Korea or Taiwan or many other countries. So I'm a little bit proud of that because I was part of the team who advised this economic policy, and we got these results. But after I left, and after some period of time, this policy stopped to be implemented. And we have for the last 14 years, economic stagnation in Russia. And now with a new type of sanctions and isolation, we are following, we just we entered period of another recession. And the forecasts are ranging between 10 to 30% contraction these years. So just we're going back to the 1990s or early 2000s in terms of economic size of Russia. Russia had a very clear nine years of economic contraction in the 90s, because of bad economic policies. After that 10 years of unprecedented economic growth, when the economic policies was right. After that 14 years of stagnation, because the policy was not good. And now after aggression against Ukraine, it will be another contraction. But instead of contracting within nine years, so they would get the results in one year that they got in the previous nine years. So just this textbook example that might be included in all economic and political textbooks, what kind of policies leadership is implementing, that's exactly the economic results. Why did you leave in 2005? First of all, I had a contract with Mr. Putin, I said what kind of conditions on which I would join his team, our team of this administration. And I said, as soon as what any out of three main conditions will be broken, or will not be met, I would leave immediately. Actually, there was two steps when I was leaving this position, because I was not an economic advisor, I was Russian Sherpa to G8. This is a kind of the club of most powerful democratic free nations. And I was also a person who was leading the efforts of Russian Federation to join G7. And in kind of moving from G7 to G8, because Russia became full fledged member of G8 due to efforts of myself and my team. In year 2002, in Kananaskis, in Canada, Russia has been invited to G8 club. It was just the result of my two years work in this regard. But in year 2004, Russian troops attacked school in Beslan in North Ossetia in Russia, with tanks and with flamethrowers and killed more than 330 kids, their parents and teachers. And I was a person who was in communications with Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, who announced that he would come to the school and to rescue the hostages. There were hostages in this Beslan school. And Mr. Putin said no. And he used tanks in these flamethrowers to kill all these people. And because I was not only kind of the watcher from outside, I was inside because I was in the communication line between Maskhadov and Putin. And I was the person who talked to Putin about this proposal of Maskhadov to save those people. And as soon as Putin said no, and after that he ordered to kill those people, I said to Putin that I could not be anymore his sherpa in G8. And I resigned from this position. He did not accept my resignation. And I stopped to perform my duties. And several months later, in January 2005, he fired me from this position, not explaining to the outside world why he did so. But okay, because I already announced my resignation to that. You obviously have a significant insight into the Russian president from these interactions over almost six years. One of these narratives that you see commonly in the media, Western media, Vladimir Putin as the madman. What do you think of this narrative? Absolutely baseless. No. He's one of the most rational people that I ever met in my life. And still I see, even today when I'm not there, but I see how he's rational, extremely rational, calculated, understanding what is going on around the world. And he's taking decisions based on his analysis of what's going on in the world, based on what kind of views and positions are taken by other people, including leaders of the Western countries, including the president of the United States. And his decisions, including decision to invade Ukraine, is based on his absolutely correct understanding of President Biden. Without Biden in the White House, Putin would never invade Ukraine. Okay, explain that to me. Mr. Putin is a very good psychologist. And even from the KGB files for Mr. Biden, because Mr. Biden visited Moscow in 1978 and met with the leaders of the Soviet Union, even recently in Poland, Mr. Biden reminded to the shocked audience how it was nice for him to meet Mr. Kosygin, Prime Minister of the Soviet Union. He shared with his Polish friends or Polish audience when he was in Warsaw. But what was probably a shock for Polish audience was not a shock for Mr. Putin, because he studied files for Mr. Biden. He understood that a person who would never do anything against his invasion against Ukraine. And for all these months before that, Biden did remove sanctions from the building from construction of Nord Stream 2. Biden signed Start 3. Biden invited Putin to the climate summit last April. Biden did nothing against concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border back in March and April, when there was some provocation of the Black Sea, when the Dutch Navy ship went to the kind of contact with the Russian Navy. Biden ordered US ship to leave the Black Sea, leaving Dutch ship alone, and many, many other things, including what we have seen in preparation of this invasion to Ukraine. When Putin started to mass Russian troops on the Ukrainian border last autumn, Biden dispatched Mr. Burns, Bill Burns, CIA director to Moscow. And it's for the first time CIA director spent two days in Moscow, and he discussed some issues, so-called bilateral issues with the head of Security Council of Russia, Mr. Patrushev, and with foreign intelligence chief Naryshkin, and after that talk to Mr. Putin. And after that, Putin doubled his efforts to his preparations against Ukraine. Just after this Burns visit to Moscow, Putin said, okay, our American friends suggested, offered to us to prepare documents for providing us with so-called security guarantees. And it was exactly what he did in December last year, when they have given to American side, and after that, they published the so-called two drafts, two draft treaties, one draft treaty with the United States, another draft treaty with NATO. And it was very clear that the very idea of preparation of these two drafts was given to him by Mr. Burns and by Mr. Biden. And after that, when all the world was expecting that all these outrageous demands from the Putin side would be rejected outright, no, Mr. Sadovan, national security assistant to President Biden said, oh, no, there are something interesting here. We will have negotiations. And after that, we know that in January, in Geneva, in Brussels, and in Vienna, there was a series of negotiations with Russian side, at which American side officially pronounced, okay, there are several good ideas from the Russian proposals we completely accept. For example, not deployment of troops and not deployment of nuclear missiles on the Ukrainian territory. Nobody asked for that, but nevertheless, they said it right away. They said many other things, including concerning the military drills, including the military cooperation and so on. So it showed that Biden and Biden administration are ready to cooperate with Putin on issues of security, even when Russian troops are on the Ukrainian border and ready to attack Ukraine. That can be understood only in one way. Biden administration is giving green light for Putin to attack Ukraine. And just before this attack, just last point, the Biden administration recalled American citizens from Ukraine. They recalled American instructors from Ukrainian military. They recalled part of diplomatic personnel from Kyiv. They relocated embassy of the United States from Kyiv to Lviv. And now we know that they removed US Navy from the Black Sea that was there, from Black Sea. That can be interpreted only in one way. And Mr. Putin understood these signs in exactly the right way. So just to be clear here, you're saying that it can only be understood as a green light for Russia to invade, but from Vladimir Putin's perspective? No, this is the only way to understand it. There is no other way. Let me give you two examples. Another example, just to compare what has happened over the last few months with what happened in year 2008 during the Russian invasion into Georgia. On August 11, year 2008, then President Bush Jr. ordered US Navy to move into the Black Sea and US Air Force to be relocated into Turkey and Romania. And Mr. Bush, President Bush has announced it in the late evening, August 11, year 2008. What happened after that? In 12 hours, Russian invasion into Georgia has been stopped. Has been stopped immediately because they understood this signal from the US President. If the United States President now in year 2022 sends very different, very opposite signals, removing Navy, removing diplomatic personnel, removing embassy, removing instructors, removing American citizens, how all these signals should be understood in one way. This is a green light. Moreover, as you remember, Biden has announced that he's putting more troops into so-called border states, into Poland, Romania, other places. How Putin should understand it? Only in one way. He's not going to be involved in Ukraine, and Ukraine is his easy prey. We all watched many times Magnificent Seven. This is a great movie. When this band was attacking Mexican village, and these Mexican peasants asked for protection, they asked cowboys to do it. What did all these Magnificent Seven cowboys did? They went to this Mexican village. They didn't go to the neighboring villages. If they would go to the neighboring villages, it would be very clear sign for the bandits to attack this particular village without any problem, because it would be very clear signal that this is an easy prey. Mr. Biden did exactly that. He has shown to international bandit Putin that this village under the name Ukraine is easy prey, that so-called international policemen in the shape of the US administration would do nothing to defend this particular village. Moreover, even after this attack started, what Biden did, he proposed, he offered Mr. Zelensky, President Zelensky of Ukraine, to leave Ukraine, for which Mr. Zelensky provided his now famous answer, I need munition, not a right. And it was not what Mr. Biden was expecting from the Ukrainian president. I mean, fascinating. You know, almost nobody in the West that I'm aware of really believed that Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine. And I know you thought he would, by the way, following your work. Why was everybody so wrong? Because Western leaders, some Western leaders, not all, but many Western leaders would prefer to live in their fantasy world. They forgot that the current world, the modern world, is not the world of only those who graduate from the Oxford University. There are some other people in the world, there are some despots, there are some tyrants. They are attacking their own people within their own states, and they're attacking other states. They prefer not to see that, they prefer to be blind. And from this point of view, they are much less realistic than Putin. Those people who would like to have a business as usual with Mr. Putin, or with many other tyrants, they prefer not to see obvious. One of the common things I hear is that Russia is responding to NATO aggression. What do you think? It's not true. It's just basically, factually, it's incorrect. In year 2000, year 2001, year 2002, the main motto of Mr. Putin, I would like to join NATO. It was the official position of the Russian administration. It was the official position of Putin himself. He said that many times publicly and privately during negotiations. Even today, you can go to the Kremlin, or site of the Kremlin, or whatever, just the presidential site of Russian president, and you find all these speeches of Putin, of his first three years in administration. Putin said, I would like Russia to join NATO. There was no any fear of Hispanic NATO. Year 2003, it was a press conference of Mr. Putin and Mr. Kuchma, president of Ukraine. Journalist is asking, Mr. Putin, could you tell us what would be your reaction to potential membership of Ukraine in NATO? The answer of Putin, it's fine. It's up to Ukrainian people and up to Ukrainian government, whether to join or to join NATO, we have no objections. In year 2004, there was an expansion of NATO with a number of countries joining NATO. What was the official position of the Russian administration? Fine. Please do it. We have no objections. This attitude of Putin has changed by year 2007, when he, for the first time in Munich, during the Munich conference on security, all of a sudden announced, okay, we are not happy with NATO expansion. And that is why the real question would be, what has changed in the period between year 2004 and year 2007? It was in year 2008 that Russian foreign policy decree has proclaimed sphere of privileged interests, never before. And this very idea of spheres of interests, whether privileged or not. Spheres of influence, right? Spheres of influence is an old concept, but they have so called modernized name for that. It's called spheres of privileged interests that never existed. I've spent, as you mentioned, almost six years in the administration, that term never been used, neither publicly nor internally. And after that, Mr. Putin prepared these two draft treaties with the United States, with NATO, with a request to return NATO to 1997 division line, with a clear mentioning country that should not be NATO members. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria. They have repeated this list of countries in this ultimatum in December 21. In the conversation in Geneva, Brussels, Vienna in January, in the statement of deputy ministers of foreign affairs of Russia, Grushko and Rybkov in January, year 2002. In February 22, in the written response of Russian minister of foreign affairs to the United States on February 17th, exactly one week before the attack on Ukraine. And an official statement from the Russian minister of foreign affairs on March 8th and March 9th, already two weeks after the attack on Ukraine. Same approach, division line in Europe of 1997, de-NATO-ization of those countries, Baltic countries, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria. That is exactly this goal that has been proclaimed in all those documents. I think a lot of Americans might not fully grasp why these countries that you just named want so badly to be part of NATO. Those people who live in those countries, they understand very well, because they were living for decades under threat from attack, invasion and occupation from the former Soviet Union, and now from Putin's Russia. And that is why they see the membership in NATO as the only chance to deter this attack and invasion. And we see that for the whole period of NATO existence, there was not a single, not a single case of an attack of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev or even under Stalin on any NATO countries. And during Putin's time, not a single case of attack of any NATO members. But those countries that happen to be not within NATO have been attacked regularly by the Soviet Union and by Putin's Russia. Whether it is Czechoslovakia, whether Hungary, whether it was a threat to Poland, whether it is an invasion into Afghanistan, whether it's an invasion into Georgia, whether it's an invasion in Crimea, Donbass, whether it's an invasion in Ukraine, whether it's the presence of Russian troops in Moldova, attack in Syria, and so on. There's a very clear cut distinction. If any country was in NATO, it's a guarantee for security and peace. If this country is outside of NATO, there's a very high probability to be attacked by Putin's Russia. It does seem perplexing that while, of course, there has been a response, there's been sanctions, there's been freezing of central bank assets, there certainly wasn't nothing. But at the same time, Russia is this broker, continues to be the broker in the Iran deal. And I guess you're saying that they stand to benefit financially from that. So that's a whole other question. I believe it was December last year when Secretary of State Blinken was meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Lavrov. And many people outside were thinking and saying that the main topic would be Ukraine and the concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian borders. But when that meeting happened, we found that 90% of time, they spend to discuss Iran deal. And Mr. Blinken was trying to convince Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Putin to participate in the negotiations with Iran to give a chance for Iran to enrich uranium. So that is why our understanding of what's really going on behind the doors is pretty limited. So that is why we do see the particular mindset of the leading members of the current US administration that is really, at the same time, giving green light to Mr. Putin to attack Ukraine, to continue efforts to provide Iran with Iran deal with possibility to get to the nuclear weapons, which is threatening Israel. In April last year, Mr. Biden withdrew a hundred million US dollars of military aid to Ukraine. It was in April. That was actually scheduled according to the law adopted by the US Congress. And he gave those hundred million US dollars to Palestinian authorities that gave this money to those terrorists who attacked Israel. Only after that, they stopped this operation, but it was an initial reaction. They removed Houthi, for example, from the list of terrorist organizations. And Houthi used this possibility to attack Saudi Arabia, airports, and the facilities. And after that, we know that the US administration withdrew American troops from Afghanistan with all this blunder that we were watching. So it's not a single element. This is a very comprehensive mindset towards different countries—Houthi, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia—it's the same approach. This is actually very interesting because you mentioned the Foreign Minister Lavrov. And so he's recently talking about—I'm going to actually use the quote because I have it here—this is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order. The current crisis is a fateful epoch-making moment in modern history. It reflects the battle over what the world order will look like. Putin understands very well that there is a unique window of opportunity for these four years, from year 2001 to year 2000, at least January 2025, when Mr. Biden is the President of the United States. Because of the position of Mr. Biden and his leading members of the administration, this is a unique opportunity to change the world order. Because with any other US President, whoever that person will be, whether Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter. It would be impossible to do it. But with this particular team in the White House right now, there's a unique chance to change world order in favor of tyrants, despots, authoritarian leaders like Mr. Putin, like Chinese leaders, like others. This is a unique chance, and this chance should be used. So that is why they are in a hurry. They are in a rush. And that is why they're using this opportunity to attack Ukraine. That is why they were able to see what's going on in the Middle East with Iran and so on. So that is why we entered last year in a very dangerous moment of world history. And this dangerous moment will last at least until January 2025. Until, hopefully, another President will be in the White House, regardless which party that person would represent. But for almost three years in a row, it will be a very dangerous moment that will be used and is being used by Putin and others to remake the world order. It seems like Russia and China are really getting closer together here, definitely economically. Of course, there was this announcement during the Olympics, this very tight cooperation, and we're seeing this materialize. The process of de-dollarization, for lack of a better term, is kind of accelerated, I guess, certainly for Russia, because of the sanctions imposed. So I guess there's two questions here. There have been all sorts of economic instruments that have been implemented to try to stop Russia from doing what it's doing. What do you think about the impact of that? That's the first question. And the second question, the China connection. First of all, just if I may use your question just to say something very important, because there was a lot of discussion about the possibility of the mainland China to attack Taiwan and to try to capture Taiwan. And my understanding is such, if Putin will be victorious in Ukraine, it will raise substantially risks for Taiwan. But if Putin fails in Ukraine and will be defeated in Ukraine, it would reduce substantial risks for Taiwan. That's the first observation. Second, the sanctions that have been implemented against Russia have demonstrated this ineffectiveness in a short or medium term perspective. It demonstrates how narrow became instruments in foreign policy being used by Western powers. All these instruments have been reduced only to sanctions. And we already see for eight years in a row, since year 2014, and especially over the last month plus, that sanctions by themselves cannot produce changes in decision-making process in Moscow. It's not a surprise. There was no single case that sanctions by themselves would change policies in those countries that have been sanctioned, either in Iran, or North Korea, or South Africa, or Cuba. In no case those countries have changed their policies. So if sanctions did not work in all those cases, if they did not work in the case against Russia for four years in a row, what is the basis to believe that another sanctions would work in this particular case when Putin already proclaimed that it is so-called holy war for him against Ukraine? No basis. It means if the United States administration and the Western leaders cannot see this very clear logic, actually absence of logic, why they still insist that sanctions would work. No, it's clear. They don't work. And it means that if they insist, they know that this policy would not work, but they continue to do it. It means that they don't want to do it. But just to be fair, it's not just sanctions. There's increased weaponry being passed to Ukraine from all sorts of countries. It's not just sanctions, right? It is not enough. And that's a very important one, because we remember how many times Ukrainian presidents and Ukrainian leaders were asking for jets, for MiG-29s that were ready to be provided by Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria. And then for two weeks there was a discussion, oh, okay, they can do it. Mr. Blinke was saying that, oh, we're giving green light to these MiG-29s. Only after that, just to confirm, yes, it was the Biden administration that banned transfer of these jets to Ukraine. So that is why it's a kind of double game. On one hand, yes, they are ready to provide some weapons, for defensive weapons like Stinger or Javelins. And that's good, no doubt. That's really good. And that helps to Ukraine. But the only thing that can stop Putin is the military defeat of his troops in Ukraine. Mr. Putin's statements and his Ministry of Foreign Affairs statements are very clear. They are not going to stay there. If they will be lucky or victorious in Ukraine, they will go further. If somebody really wants to stop the war, for example, just stop the war. It's very simple. In the year 2008, as we know, the decision of George Bush Jr. to send the U.S. Navy to the Black Sea and the U.S. Air Force to Romania and Turkey stopped the Russian invasion within 12 hours. If the U.S. administration would do something similar today, for example, to give the order to 5th American Corps located in Poland with the staff quarter in Poznan, they would move to the territory of Ukraine, not to participate in the war, not to fight on the front. No, to visit coffee houses in Lviv, just to taste coffee in the famous Lviv coffee houses. This is the very announcement that American troops in Ukraine, in the west of Ukraine, they're not doing military business. They're just, whatever, peacekeeper operation or the tourist trip into the west of Ukraine. Mr. Putin will ask for negotiations within 24 hours. He would immediately pick up the phone and will call Mr. Biden and everybody, just, okay, what kind of arrangements we would like to have. Very simple. And there will be no single case on the American side. I mean, just no military involvement, nothing. But the war will be stopped and thousands, if not tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Europeans will be saved. So I've heard you say before, I think you were talking actually about nuclear deterrence, if you say, I'm definitely not going to use nuclear weapons, that means that weapon is off the table and it changes the diplomacy that's going to happen between countries for time and so forth. In this case, if these military people were to come to the coffee shops, so to speak, with the knowledge that they're not going to do anything, isn't that the same thing? This is a different calculus, not here, but in Kremlin. It is an absolute game change in Kremlin because Putin understands, yes, today they're drinking coffee. What will happen tomorrow? This is strategic ambiguity. That's exactly what is necessary. It is not necessary to send a signal, yes, we will fight, but it would create a new system. What Mr. Biden was doing for all these months before the invasion, he was saying, no, United States troops would not participate in the battle, would not participate in the battle. They would not fight. How it can be read in Kremlin? Okay, we have a green light. We have free hands in Ukraine. As soon as United States administration moves to a different position, we don't know yet what are we going to do. We're going to drink coffee or just to sightseeing. That's a very different story. It means that something else can happen and that is why it's necessary to recalculate the whole strategy and that is why they're changing. It does not necessarily mean that anybody would participate in the fight, but it means that it might change. That's exactly what was in Yeltsin's aid. Mr. Bush, President Bush, did not say that United States troops are going to participate in the Russian-Georgian war on the Georgian side. No, just no. Let our Navy just to spend some time in the Black Sea, just nice weather, August, sunny breeze. That's very interesting. Let's have our pilots in Turkey and Romania. That's interesting area and region. 12 hours, everything is finished. So, there are many things that many signs can be read in a different way. By the way, do you know why Belarusian dictator Lukashenko did not attack Ukraine? There was a lot of discussion that, okay, he's going to participate. Mr. Putin was pushing Lukashenko to do it. Lukashenko even moved some troops to the Ukrainian border and there was many signs that, okay, they can cross the border within a day or several hours and it did not happen. Do you know why? I know because I followed this event. Because those American troops, this fifth corps that I mentioned before, they moved to the Belarusian border near Grodno just for work, for tourist work along the Polish-Belarusian border and spent some time there. Mr. Lukashenko understood this signal very well and he abandoned his plans to attack Ukraine. Nothing happened. Nobody crossed the border. Nobody participated in any battle. No life has been lost. But it forced Mr. Lukashenko to recalculate his strategy. Well, I mean, if there's a theme to what you're talking about, it's to project strength in an ambiguous way, basically, as a strategy. This is a logic that is very well known as a strategy, peace through strength. That's exactly what President Trump was doing for four years of his term that brought the Abraham Peace Accord in the Middle East. It was a stop of missile tests in North Korea. It was a stop of the provocation in Syria and so on. This is a logic, how to deal with thugs and dictators and tyrants in this world. It's not the style of working with your allies or with friends. No, with allies and different approach. But with thugs, they understand only this language. I want to touch on this Russia-China getting closer together and the significance of that. You mentioned that some sort of success for Putin in Ukraine would signal to China that there's opportunity for Taiwan as well, and we know how badly the Chinese regime wants Taiwan. What do you see with this? Is there a realignment happening, or is this just a progression from before? How do you see that? I think that Chinese are rather smart. I mean, Chinese in Beijing, and they are trying to understand the world, and they are very accurate in assessing what is possible and what would be better to postpone. For example, last autumn, Mr. Xi, Chinese leader, was very much interested in pushing for Taiwan. And even in the conversation with President Biden, he said bluntly that he's going to take Taiwan. But the current problems of Mr. Putin in Ukraine and the current bloody war that put Putin in the center of very bloody picture around the world, it is not something that Mr. Xi very much liked to be with. They did not abandon their plans for Taiwan. They did not abandon their plans for other issues. But they're much more cautious and much more accurate rather than their friend in Moscow in this behavior on the international arena. What are your final thoughts? Several things. First of all, never trust Mr. Putin. I mean, for US administration, for Western countries, for Western society, never trust Putin. This is number one. Second, the war that Mr. Putin is waging against Ukraine is not the war only against Ukraine. This is war against Europe, against NATO, against the United States, against the West. Trust what his people are saying. They consider it as a holy war against the Western civilization. As survivors from Nazi concentration camps taught us, if somebody promises to kill you, take those promises seriously. Don't disregard those promises. They are very serious about that. And third, the current US administration provides the window of opportunity, which is very dangerous for the peace and security. The only way to avoid catastrophe with the remaining almost three years of this administration is to radically change attitudes. And instead of providing green light for Putin and other autocrats around the world for their adventures, to change radically the position of the United States and to provide all weapons that Ukraine needs today. This is the best way to achieve peace, security in Ukraine, in Europe, and around the world. I just have to clarify one thing, because you kind of said on one side, you said, don't trust Vladimir Putin. On the other side, you said you should trust him when he tells you something. You need to trust Putin when he promises to kill. You need to trust Putin when he promises to attack. We need to trust Putin when he says that his goal is to capture Europe or to establish new division lines. We do not have such a right to trust him when he says, I'm peaceful. I'm just for peace around the world, for security. That part of his speeches, we could not trust, because all his more than two decades rule in Russia proved opposite. He's using these rhetorics. He's using these lexics only to cover up his aggressive intentions against Russian population within the country and against other countries around the world, against Georgia, against Moldova, against Ukraine, against Syria, against anyone, against the West, against Europe. He said clearly. So the main thing that he could not leave with is the Western civilization, Western values. He, from this point of view, is a deeply anti-Western person. And he's using those attacks not only, not so much against Georgia as Georgia or Ukraine as Ukraine, because he sees in those countries these elements of Western civilization that's so valuable to us, that we so much cherish. And that is why he's fighting those countries, because he's afraid that those roots of Western civilization in those countries would flourish in those countries, and sooner or later can go to Russia as well, and would change his regime, society, and this country forever. That is his most important fear. Putin understands West as so-called old West, old Western values like freedom, democracy, real democracy, rule of law, division of powers, human rights. That is what he considers as the most dangerous values for himself. He does not care much about all this decadence, about this cancel culture that is actually helpful for him, because it is something that is destroying Western civilization from within. And that is why he's easily using all these rhetorics about all these issues. But he's really very much afraid of the real roots of Western civilizations. And that is why he's fighting mercilessly, fighting those values in Russia, in Georgia, in Ukraine, in Europe, everywhere. Freedom, independence, democracy, rule of law, human rights, division of power, and so on. Freedom of press, freedom of expression. That's exactly what he considers the main chief enemy to him. Dr. Andrei Illarionov, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you very much, Jan, for inviting me. Thank you.