TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About Putin's Russia - Mikhail Svetov

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

Mikhail Svetov is a Russian activist, political scientist, writer and leader of the Libertarian Party of Russia. Get TICKETS to TRIGGERnometry Live with Peter Hitchens here: https://leicestersquaretheatre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873620658 Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod​​​ Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The reason why you think Putin is irreplaceable is precisely because he's like a witch from the snow white. Who's the fairest of the mall? Well, after you poison every snow white in the country, you know, you're the fairest of the mall and that's the logic of Putin. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kisholm. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. guest we have for you today all the way from the motherland itself. He is a political activist, a campaign, a politician, Russia's most prominent libertarian Michael Svetov, welcome to trigonometry. Thanks for having me. Hi, Constantine. Hi. Yeah, there you go. Well, I mispronounced your name,

or I pronounced it in the English way to start with after you spent five minutes training Francis to pronounce it correctly. But listen, welcome to the show. Before we get into the conversation, tell everybody a little about who you are. How are you where you are? Because you're not actually in Russia at the moment. What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us? Well, I'm Russia's most prominent libertarian, as you mentioned before, and I've been really active in Russian activist circles for a couple of years now, and I've organized some of the most successful rallies in Russia. Not many people know that Libertarian Party of Russia organized a rally of 60,000 people in Moscow just a couple of years ago, two years ago, to be

exact, in defense of free speech online, in defense of privacy of conversation, in defense of telegram. It was a big news in the international media as well, and I played a major role in organizing those rallies. I'm also famous for reading lectures about libertarianism, and my biggest accomplishment is that I actually toured Russia from Kaliningrad to Yuzno Sa Kalinsk, that's the far east of Russia, reading lectures in over 70 cities of Russia. All of them were very successful, and that's my biggest accomplishment, something I'm most proud of, apart from lectures. And the other thing I'm really proud of is I organized lecture by Hans Herman Hoppe in Moscow. It was the most, the biggest lecture read by a libertarian in the world. Over 1,600 people attended. It took place in the

big concert hall. The recording is available on my YouTube channel. And nothing like this, at least as far as I know, has never been done anywhere else. I mean, 1600 people listening to a lecture read by a philosopher and economist, that's something. So whenever people act surprised that Russia has a libertarian party and it's been quite prominent for the last several years, I always act surprised in return because, you know, we did things that seem impossible, even in the U.S. and seem ridiculous in Europe. So that's something I'm really proud of. Well, it's great to have you on, and I think we'll get into some of your work a little bit further on.

But I think it's impossible to discuss anything about Russia, particularly for a Western audience, which is mostly who we have without contextualizing it a little bit, because most people, I know this for a fact in the West, don't really understand what's happening. To be honest with you, I wouldn't even claim to necessarily know the ins and out of what's going on. So can you give people, first of all, a broad perspective of where Russia is today? What has happened? Who is Vladimir Putin? How has he been in power for so long? You know, all the electoral shenanigans that are going on and all of that. Can you just give people a big picture of you before we get into everything else? Well, yeah, Russia is in a very difficult

place right now. We just had elections two days ago, and they were fraud with falsification. with ballot stuffing and things like that. And basically, United Russia, that's the Putin's party, claimed victory, even though they didn't gather enough votes to actually win properly. But there's nothing civil society can do so. There's no rallies because most of the activists

has been jailed. Like, the last nine months were spent just jailing every single dissident in Russia. So the biggest story you probably heard about is the story of Alexei Navalny, who's been poisoned by Novichok, Last year, he survived, he found people who attacked them. He dared to come back to Russia, and he was apprehended and put to jail right in the airport

when he boarded off the plane. So that's the situation we've been struggling with in the past months, and I myself had to leave Russia because most of my team, like the people who made the successes I will be talking about today possible last year, two years ago, three years ago, most of them were dispersed. some of them are under house arrest right now. Some of my closest allies are under house arrest. Most of my allies had to flee Russia. I left Russia myself as well,

not because of the direct political prosecution, even though just three months ago I was in jail. Three months ago, I had another house search. My house searched again. So that's the kind of pressure we're living under. And Russia's been very, very difficult place to do any kind of political activism. And it's getting worse, unfortunately.

It's interesting that you're saying it's getting worse, because hasn't Russia always had this history of, you know, powerful leaders crushing down on, you know, the individuals and, you know, the people who live in Russia? Yeah, but we had this window of freedom 20 years from early 90s to, let's see, to the late 90s that felt freer than ever before. but now that Putin cracked back on the civil society, now it's getting really bad again. So Russia today is very different from Russia two years ago. As I mentioned, the kind of work I've been doing in Russia for the past years is impossible today. Like the biggest example, two years ago I opened the first libertarian club in Russia called New Sincereity, and it felt like a good idea just two short years ago, but then the whole thing with Navalny happened, the poisoning, his survival, he's returned.

home and his incarceration. And now it's something that's impossible to imagine. I had to close it down. Police raided several times. They forced us to close for several months, and it's impossible to hold a place of conversation anymore, even though a kind of conversation was possible just recently, even less than a year ago, it was still possible.

Really, the things turned to the worst nine months ago when Alexei Navalny came back to Russia. And why is that? this sudden crackdown happening? Is it because Putin has felt that his power is being threatened, that he's not as strong as he used to be? Therefore, he needs to introduce more draconian measures. Well, he's as strong as he used to be. The reason why he's cracking down is because he saw example of Ukraine. He saw example of Belarusia. I think that's what triggered him mostly. He saw that people flooded the streets and he wanted to act in advance. He wanted to prevent

them from happening. You're talking about the protests in those countries. I'm talking about the protests In Ukraine, I mean, Ukraine had a proper revolution. Belarusia had an attempted revolution, which failed thanks, well, thanks to the draconian measures of Lukashenko. You probably heard about it as well. So Putin wanted to act in advance. He wanted to not allow this kind of protest to happen to shake his power. So he cracked down on any kind of person who dared to say something against the party.

So he's a... He's a smart tactician. I think what people don't realize about Putin is that he's a very smart politician. He's bad for the Russian people. He's bad for the country. But he's very smart in the way he deals with power. And that's why he's been staying in power for over 20 years now. Michael, let me take you back to my earlier question because we didn't get a chance to get into.

Put your historian hat on for us. Let's go back to 1998 when you and I were both. quite young still. Yeah. Explain to people the entire process since because most people in the West don't know how Vladimir Putin came to power. They don't know how he managed to serve more terms than was originally allowed by the Constitution.

They don't understand the whole situation with Dmitry Medvedev. Like just give us a brief history of the last 20 years because I think that would be very helpful for any conversation. Okay, well, Putin has been appointed as a successor of Yenbrivedev. Boris Jeltsin, the president of Russia, nobody knew who he was back then. They felt like he can be easily controlled. That's why all the oligarchs, Russian oligars, backed him as well. But when he rose to power, he emerged as this kind of strong man, quite popular at the time

with the general public because he was cracking down on oligarchs and nobody liked oligarchs. So he basically cracked down on the same people who brought him to power. And that gave him a very great measure of support in his first eight years when he was in power. Then he sort of surrendered the presidential post to Dmitri Medvedev, who was his closest ally. And at the time, everybody was talking about how Dmitri Medvedev can prove to be a liberal shift in the politics of Russia, how he was different from Putin's. But to me, it always felt ridiculous because I remember the interviews that Putin gave in nine, 1999 when he was first appointed as a prime minister back then before he became president

One of the first interviews he gave he was asked you know other people you trust You can trust 100% other people you can rely on and he named one person who nobody knew at the time Whose name country didn't learn for another eight years and that was Dimitri Medvedev he said that's the person I can rely on 100% So when they made the switch rule when Medvedev became became president, I was sure that, you know, that's basically the same party, the same person ruling the country. And it proved to be correct when they switched back four years after that, when Medvedev succeeded the presidential post back to Putin again. And after that, after that, things turned more authoritarian. So in the first eight years, Putin generally was a very liked

president. Like, I didn't like him, most of dissidents didn't like him, but it was hard to argue that he was really popular. After that, the Ukrainian war happened, the annexation of Crimea, and that gave him a different kind of boost, the different kind of boost of popularity than he had before. The patriotic sensibilities rose,

and he rode this way for several years again. Now it's a different story. He doesn't have a success story anymore. He's burdened by the mistakes and he's burdened by the economic stigma. but he's driven by will of power and his closest allies. The circle of people that's been with him for 20 years. It's so tight and so well organized that there's really nothing you can do to fight against it,

unfortunately. And the last development was the whole thing with Alexei Naval in Belarusia. have only got poisoned. Belorussia had attempted revolution, which gave Putin this historical sense that revolution is something he had to prevent in Russia, and that's what he's doing right now. And yeah, USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. And would you say that he is a good leader, not in terms obviously of human rights where Russia's human rights record is abysmal, but in the way that he runs a country, the way he runs it fiscally, etc?

You see, there's a difference between good leader and competent leader. He's a competent leader. I don't think he's a good leader. I think he's driving country to the ground, but he's been doing it very competently and he didn't allow any kind of. kind of dissent during his five terms in power now. And why is it that he's been allowed to serve five terms? If, as Constantin alluded to, there was a set limit? Well, there is a limit on consecutive terms, so you can't stay president for three consecutive terms, only two consecutive terms, but if you make a switcher-roo, the kind of switcheroo that he did with Mitri Medvedev, then you're allowed an extra two consecutive terms. terms. And then we had this referendum. Well, it wasn't really a referendum. It was a plebiscite

where he asked people if it was all right for him to change the Constitution, to allow him to stay in power pretty much indefinitely. And that's happened last year, the big plebiscite. So now there is no limit whatsoever. And the one thing that we think of Putin in the West is that his ruthlessness, particularly when it comes to his enemies, and particularly when it comes to the use of poison, Why does he do that? Why, and particularly, why is it always poison? Because it works. I mean, the question you should ask yourself

is why shouldn't he do what he does because it allows him to reach the goals that he set? So at the ends justify the means. He deals in real politics, so he doesn't really have an ideological agenda. That's what people in the West don't really realize, I think. And he does whatever works. So the poison works, so why not use poison? And it's less messy than hiring an assassin.

It's less troublesome than dealing with people politically, you know, and he's not as acute in public politics as he is in real politics. And real politics works. So whatever works, he's willing to do. But hang on, surely, like, you know, if you look at the case of Alexander Lipvinenko, which happened around 15 years ago, the Salisbury poisonings,

I mean, that's been condemned by everybody around the world, practically. Surely that isn't an effective tactic. Is it? But of course it is. Well, of course it is an effective tactic. Okay, he's been condemned, but what did the West really do to Putin? I mean, there hasn't been really any meaningful sanctions.

There hasn't been any meaningful backlash when he annexed Crimea. You know, all the West did is said, well, you shouldn't really do that. So he feels like he feels like he's been doing everything exactly the way it should have been done. And I understand this will be a difficult question for you to answer, but let me ask you anyway, liberal mind of people like you and I are thinking of Russian background or who lived in Russia. I think we're in the minority, wouldn't you say?

Isn't it not fair to say that most people in Russia support what Vladimir Putin is doing? I mean, I would argue, and I've argued many times in the past, and, you know, feel free to argue with me, which I think you will. You know, Russia's never been a democracy. There's never been a single democratic transition of power, truly democratic transition of power in the entire history of our country going back. centuries and centuries and centuries. Isn't Vladimir Putin just one of those, you know, Peter the great, Ivan the terrible, you know, whatever, just a typical Russian leader. And Russian people

love that. Well, he definitely likes to think of himself that way. But I think people never had a chance to actually develop this kind of tradition. So there is always a moment in time where, you know, democracy emerges out of and free society. And Russia had the chance. And Russia had the chance, you know, if the leaders allowed for that, you know, this tradition could have emerged. We've seen the same thing happening in the Eastern Europe, for example, after the period of the Soviet occupation. You know, they developed healthy democracies. In Russia, we were never allowed that. So I think it's an unfair question to ask, you asking if Putin is really, you know, his means are justified if he's really popular,

because we don't know, really. There is no freedom of speech. there is no freedom of association. Any kind of political organization is being crushed once it reaches any kind of success. So the kind of institution that could have developed in the past 20 years, that could have became a backbone of a new free society

were crushed. So of course, right now there is no alternative to Putin. But the only reason there is no alternative to Putin is because Putin did everything in his power to make it so. That's his... That's his, I think it's what all tyrants and all dictators do, really. They destroy any meaningful opposition, and they come to the public and say, well, look, there is nobody except me. And that's exactly what Putin did.

So how popular do you think he actually is? Because you make a very good point. For example, Chow Cheshka, the Romanian dictator, he had a 93% approval rating the day before he was taken out and shot. Right. So he was obviously not that popular. But in dictatorships, I take your point, the popularity rating, according to polls, is kind of irrelevant. So how popular do you think he actually is in Russia? I think he was very popular throughout most of his time in power, but I think it changes right now.

And the last election we had just two days ago showed that his party, United Russia, couldn't achieve the success that they were hoping for. So they had to use tough ballots. They had to falsify the elections in order to secure the seats that they needed. There's a really clear evidence that the last election was heavily falsified on both ends, on offline ballots, real-life ballots, and on the digital election front as well. We have this digital election system based on blockchain that's been used to actually swing the election in favor of United Russia. Mikhail, wouldn't you say that,

that actually Russia needs a Putin, you know, because it's a country that is not particularly stable, it's large, and if you have a democracy, wouldn't that therefore mean that there be certain parts of it that want to become independent? And it would be fundamentally unstable as an entity? Well, I think people should be given a chance. There will never be an alternative to a dictator as long as there is a dictator in power. So we will never know what would the, what other options are. So we have this, well, he's an opposition leader. We call him that. Alexi Navalny, the man I mentioned earlier. And he managed to gather a serious support in Russia. He had chapters of his organization in every major city in Russia. He ran for

mayor of Moscow and almost one several years ago. and he hasn't been allowed to participate in elections ever since. So the reason why you think Putin is irreplaceable is precisely because he's like a witch from the snow white. Who's the fairest of the mall? Well, after you poison every snow white in the country, you're the fairest of the mall, and that's the logic of Putin. And has his reign been undermined?

Is coronavirus playing a big factor in this? that go for it. Yeah, well, I think the whole thing with coronavirus is just, it's been so depressing, not just in Russia, but in the entire world as well. In Russia, it's being used exactly the same way. It's been used in the US and in Australia right now. Basically, every time it's convenient, you know,

you crack down, you say that there's a quarantine, you have to stay home. There is this whole criminal case against activists right now who are basically being afraid. for spreading the coronavirus by means of organizing a political rally. So it is being used for political means whenever it's convenient, but whenever there is a big prestigious event like the European football match that took place in St. Petersburg a couple of months ago,

you know, all the quarantine measures are being lifted. Whenever there is an election, that was very, very funny as well. We had elections that I mentioned two days ago. and all the quarantine measures were lifted. And once they were over, the government came in and said, well, you know, you can't have rallies. You can't oppose the election results because we have coronavirus and actually we're bringing back your codes as well.

So it is being used by a tyrannical government to reach its political means. Amico, the other thing that people in the West often associate with Russia without really understanding the full meaning is people describe Russia as a kleptocracy, which I know is another thing, one of the things that you would be concerned about as an opposition activist. Can you explain to people in a kind of broad brush detail what that actually means? Because I think, again, in my experience, people in the West have absolutely no idea what we're talking about. Well, kleptocracy basically is when you have the ruling clause and Putin and his closest associate dealing with using the government budget

as their own piggy bank, and that's what they've been doing for the past 20 years. Every single friend of Putin's became extremely rich in the past 20 years, and the kind of crippled down economy that you usually took in the West, it works in the nepotism kind of way in Russia. If you know someone who knows Putin, you will be well off. If you manage to suck to the government, you'll be well off. But there is no really a fair economy, there's no really market economy anymore, because everything relies on if you have connections, then you can do business.

If you don't have connections, like Pavel Durov, for example, he was the one, he was the only real capitalist we had. He created Fcontacti social network, which is the biggest rival of Facebooks in Russia, and it occupies a major part of the market. And it's been basically stolen from him by the Putin's oligarch, Alishar Osmanov. So he had to flee Russia, and he created Telegram, and Telegram became the big of the biggest messaging platform in Russia as well, but it's not based in Russia anymore because it's dangerous. And Pavel Dourov basically country turned back to his home country under threat

of arrest. So basically, whatever Putin's cronies want, they take, and there's no repercussion because there's no fair trial, there's no justice system, everything is corrupt, and everything is for grabs if you're in power. And when I was in China, there was a very sort of similar system in many ways. However, for the average Chinese person, if you don't get involved in politics, if you don't question authority,

if you just want to go about and live your life, life is actually not bad. In fact, it's pretty good. Is that the same in Russia? Well, I actually argue about that in regard to Russia and China as well, because you never know what may become. politics tomorrow and there's this huge case happening right now in Russia, the case of

Yuri Kavanski who was a blogger, he reviewed the food, you know, junk food and stuff like that, an apolitical whatsoever. But 10 years ago, just think about it, 10 years ago, he sang a song about a terrorist act that happened in Moscow. It was a satirical song. It was made in bad taste, but it was a satirical song sang by someone who was never involved in politics in his life And just a couple of months ago, he was brought to trial. He's tried as an extremist and a terrorist. He's actually in the same list as a ISIS terrorist right now. He's been put in the same list by the Russian government for singing a song 10 years ago.

So you never know what may become politics. You never know when you may become inconvenient. And it's been spreading like a rash in the past months because once the thing with repressive machine is that once you get rid of real enemies, or at least some people you perceive as real enemies, you still need someone to oppress because you need to prove your worth to the government, to the people that are paying your money,

to the people that decide that you are still useful. So you have to invent enemies. And once the real political activists are out of the picture, they start to prosecute innocent people. And that's what happened to Yuri Kavanski, my good friend, Maria Matusna, she's been in the Western news as well. She was in the list of extremists and terrorists as well for sending a meme in her private message to a friend when she was living in a tiny city in Russia.

So she was not a political activist back then. She is now because of the story she went through, but she was not a political activist back then. And still she was tried as a terrorist simply for sending a meme. And there are stories like this happening all the time. The biggest one out of three is the case of Ruslan Sokolovsky, who was a story. a blogger as well. He recorded a video catching Pokemon's playing Pokemon Go inside a church. And for posting that video, he's been put in the list of terrorists and extremists, the same kind of list where people who actually bomb and kill people are being put in. And it took us over a year

to help him get out of trouble. So no, it's not enough. It's not good enough if you're not interested in politics because politics will get interested in you. And when it happens, there's nobody left to help you. And, Mikhail, you mentioned something that I think is actually very important, something that, you know, I haven't lived in Russia for over 20 years now. But the one thing I really do associate very strongly with is Russian culture, Russian literature, Russian, the whole cultural sphere, which, you know, Russia has produced some of the greatest poets, the greatest artist, the greatest writers, a little bit depressing, but nonetheless, the greatest writers in history,

even during very difficult, oppressive times. What has been the impact of the last 20 years on the cultural life of Russia, on the ability to produce the great satirists? I know that, for example, one of the people I really used to respect, like Viktor Shondorovych, he's not able to really be a satirist anymore. He's become a sort of dissident commentator because he can't actually make comedy shows on TV.

as he used to. And other things like that, has all of this stunted the cultural aspect of Russia has actually spurred it on as it has done sometimes in the past? No, no, it's stunted the Russian culture as well, and it ceased to be international, like the kind of authors you're referring to the Dostogovsky in Tolstoy's, they were all in the past, and the Soviet here during the Soviet times, we have this saying that the Stalin, he took Russia with great Russian literature and left Russia with the literature. literate societies, and it sounds better in Russian anyway. It does.

It does. It does. But the point is, the point is that we don't have strong culture anymore because culture needs freedom. And the much better example, to be honest, is what happens in China. I've always been fascinated that China managed to become this economic juggernaut. You know, they have these factories and they import pretty much all the consumer goods to the world. but there hasn't been a single decent movie coming out of China in 20 years. There hasn't been a single good song coming out of China in 20 years.

Sure, they produce local culture, but there hasn't been any cultural success, international cultural success coming out of a country of almost 2 billion people. They haven't had a gangnam style. Yeah, well, Gagnam song is Korean, you know. That's the point I'm making. You know, Korea, they have K-pop and they have the, the movies, you know, the Paraside was a great movie, the Korean cinema is on the rise.

You know, the Japan, they had the anime and manga that took world by storm. And that's the country of, what, 150 million people. And a country of 2 billion people didn't produce a single decent cultural product that tells you something about how freedom affects the society. So it's the same thing in Russia. Russia doesn't have its intellectual freedom anymore. you have no intellectual freedom, you have no culture, unfortunately. That's such a good point about freedom.

And Mikhail, one of the things I wanted to ask you, and I think a lot of our audience would be curious to know, I know people often are interested in my opinion about things as an outsider, but you are sort of much fresher off the boat, if you like, in terms of leaving Russia much more recently. What do you see in the West as an outsider in terms of, you know, I think a lot of people in Russia would look at the West often as... as a place where there's a lot of freedom. Maybe some people would not in Russia would think there's too much freedom, but nonetheless.

What do you notice as a person who's been forced to be in different parts of the world? You've been to all over the place, New Zealand, Brazil, etc. What do you see as an outsider? Well, the biggest problem the West faces today is the loss of moral high ground, and I've been writing about it incessantly, is that the U.S., during the Cold War, the US was this shining beacon of hope, you know, freedom, an example we were striving to follow. But now it's much harder to make that case because there is no more moral high ground left. And the biggest blow to my ideology, like libertarian ideology, came from the US.

It came from the ideals that founding fathers were talking to the ideas of classical liberalism, the ideas of individual freedom, the ideas of just law. But when Julian Assange was first put under house arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy and now he's under proper arrest in the UK, to me that seems unthinkable. I can't defend the freedom of speech as efficiently as I used to be able to because now every time I bring up, you know, the Western media, there is always this case of Julian Assange. That's basically a person who's been incarcerated for doing editorial work.

He was working as a journalist. He never had access to secret documents. He never had access to government secrets. So why is he in jail? Nobody can, there is no good explanation. The other big blow was, of course, what happened to Edward Snowden. And again, there's much better case that can be made against Edward Snowden, that he actually did commit a government crime.

It was for the good. He was a whistleblower, but there was an actual crime taking place. But I was fascinated that the only country that Edward Snowden found refuge, was Putin's Russia. That tells you something. He couldn't go to Merkel's Germany. He couldn't go to France. He couldn't go to Netherlands. He couldn't even fly through Europe because there was a threat that the plane will be landed somewhere and he will be extradited back to the U.S. So he had to seek refuge in Putin's Russia. And that was a huge win for Putin. That was a huge win for his prestige, I think. And I think that's something the West should really reflect on because the loss of moral high ground has been this red threat

that's been going through Western politics in the last 10 to 15 years. And it's getting worse day by day. And I understand that this whole justification of a noble lie, you know, we have to do that to prevent a catastrophe from happening. But that's what brings about a catastrophe. Like what happened during the elections of 2020 in the U.S. It divided the country. It was, let me rephrase myself.

So politics became global, right? So whatever happens, whenever something happens in the U.S., whenever something happens in United Kingdom or in Europe, it's being interpreted by the governments and by the civil societies of other countries and in Russia, of Russia as well. And when we saw what happened during the 2020, when Donald Trump was banned from all social media, Just think what kind of message it's sent to Vladimir Putin.

Hey, here's this platform, you know, Twitter, Facebook, Google, whatever, YouTube, that claims to be a platform of free speech. Yet they banned the most powerful person in the world who was to become the biggest opposition leader in the U.S. Because they can because it's politically convenient. So they're not protecting freedom of speech anymore. They're using it to sway elections. they're using it to silence the dissent.

I will do the same in Russia, not just because they're doing the same, but because them controlling who gets to say what on Twitter is direct threat to Russian politics within Russian society because everyone in Russia uses Twitter as well. And just think what it means in terms of election. Just think what it means in terms if Google was to ban someone from United Russia from its feed

It can sway elections in Russia. And that sort of drives Putin's, that sort of drives his distrust to the West. And it drives distrust of the civil society as well, because we see these things happening in the West, and now we doubt if it actually can be better. So the biggest weapon the U.S. had during the Cold War was its moral high ground, was its respect for values, even when it was inconvenient, but now that it lost that, it's really hard to distinguish between Putin and Biden, for example,

because, yeah, there are nuances and there's no moral equivalency yet. But it's looking much grayer, and the distinction is much less pronounced than it used to be just 10 years ago. Hey, Constantine, do you love trigonometry? Of course, incredible interviews, hilarious live streams, hard-hitting satire, plus my handsome jawline. Whatever takes away from your hairline. But if you do love trigonometry and you want to support us, there's only one place to do that,

and that's on locals. Yes, Locals is a brilliant platform that has been incredibly supportive to our show and other problematic creators. The great thing about locals is that it's a great thing. community for people who love trigonometry. That's right. It's a place for you to hang out with like-minded people, share thoughts, memes and discuss the show. You can enjoy it for free, but it also gives you the option of supporting us for as little as $7 a month. And if you want to give more, you can. We have incredible rewards for our higher tier supporters as well. We've got everything for mugs,

monthly group calls and one on two chats with me and KK. Get in. Join our community by hitting the link in the description and the pincom. below. See you there, guys. Isn't it also as well, Mikhail, is that at one point you saw America as a unified country, whereas you look at America now, it seems to be a country at war with itself. Oh yeah, but it's America's problem. So America always had dissent within its borders, and I think it's quite normal for a democracy, for a liberal democracy to disagree with each other. But what I think is not normal is having the kind of Putin-esque censorship that's taking place in social media. And I know there is this fig leaf of explanation that, you know, well, it's a private property, so they can ban whomever they want.

But we saw the leaks from the White House that, you know, the White House actually helps Facebook and helps Twitter to create white lists of people who it will not ban. We saw the conversation that the tech oligarchs had with the Democratic administration just before the election. So it all raises red flags, and I think this is a much bigger story. I agree with you. But to summarize what you said, and I think I really want people to get the point that you're making, which is when we in the West fail to live up to our stated goals and ideals, not only are we undermining our own society, we are giving power to dictators and tyrants around the world

because they can point at the West and go, well, look, they're not doing freedom. Why would we? I want just to precise your point a little bit. It's not just about pointing in the other direction and saying, why can't we do the same. It's also about real politics, and I mentioned real politics before,

is people in other countries use Western social media. And when Western social media is being censored, in favor of a political party or a political force in the US, it triggers every single other country to defend itself because it feels like the same kind of private censorship, call it what you will, will be used in local elections as well to sway the elections in favor of a different country, of a country that controls Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or Google or whatever.

So in terms of real politics, it's a much graver situation. So it's not just ideology, it's not just moral high ground. It's real politics that changes at all. So the reason why Putin became so aggressive in censoring Western social medias in Russia is because he feels that the Western social media can be used to interfere in Russian elections. The same thing is being felt in Hungary, the same thing is being felt in Poland. And to be fair, the same thing is being felt in France as well, because Well, you remember the reaction of Macron and Angela Merkel in Germany when Donald Trump was banned. They didn't endorse it one bit because they felt that the same kind of instrument can be used to sway elections in their own constituencies.

Well, they're not, they're smart then because this is the point I've been trying to make to British politicians as much as I can. You've got to understand. These people are going to have the power to decide whether you get re-elected or not if you allow this to continue. And not enough people, I think, I think grand. that. So with that in mind, what about the sort of the stuff that you and I talked about when I was on your show, the culture war, if you like, are the cultural debates, the cultural, I mean, it's not debates, really, it's war at this point, I think, that we are seeing here in the West, all of the discussions about sort of reshaping society. Is that happening in Russia,

or is that a thing that sort of Westerners, rich and bored as we are, can. get involved with? No, it is being discussed in Russia as well, primarily because everyone in Russia uses Western social media, and that's being interpreted by Putin as a kind of a cultural war, especially after everything that we just discussed after the censorship started to take place, et cetera, et cetera. So it is a factor. It's not a major factor because the grasp of traditional media on Russian audience is still

quite strong, stronger than it is in the West, I think. But it is being discussed, and I think one other factor that is rarely discussed, and I'm going to put it in the most mild words possible, is that, well, the reality of politics in the world is that whenever you have an opposition, the opposition seeks whatever support it can get, and it seeks support in other countries as well, and the U.S. is the country that is most generous with its support. And its support is conditional. So whenever it starts to help a certain political group within Russia, and I'm not naming names and I'm not going to tell who I'm referring to, but it's happening happens all the time. They conditioned their support with certain cultural agenda, and Democratic Party is much more willing to give money for this sort of activism. So what you get is that the political opposition within borders,

within borders of a country, Russian borders, for example, gets colored with a certain cultural agenda. And that, in my opinion, that really, whomever accept this kind of support shoots themselves in the leg. Michael, I'm going to interrupt you. I'm very sorry. I'm just very sorry.

I know what exactly you mean, but let me state as Russianly and bluntly as I can. Okay. You're talking about, I imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, the U.S. says, here's some money for your position efforts. But you've got to focus it on LGBT plus, blah, blah, blah, which will automatically discredit you massively in the eyes of ordinary Russian people. Absolutely. That's exactly what is happening. And I think the most obvious example of that we saw in Afghanistan.

You saw the videos flowing from Afghanistan. They had gender studies being taught in Kabul. They had, you know, people talking about feminism. And I mean, okay, those are values that I understand you feel like you have to defend those values, but you also have to take into consideration, you know, the kind of culture that country has, you know, and work within that culture because otherwise you'll just, you'll never achieve the kind of ends of building a functional society that were put, that you were striving for in Afghanistan. And that's what I think brought the war to the fiasco that it had.

in Russia, the same thing happens as well. The reason I didn't want to put it as bluntly as you did is because I have a lot of friends who will be watching this show and they'll take it personally and I didn't want them to take it personally. But that's basically... Well, now they will.

No, look, I'm not making any judgments about it. I'm just trying to tease out the point that you're making, I think. Yeah, and that makes sense to me. As someone who understands Russian culture from the inside, I don't think it would be accurate to say that Russia has progressed quite as far as we have in the West in terms of accepting people for who they are. And therefore, to make an additional extraordinary emphasis on these marginal issues of sexual identity or whatever would be very off-putting to the ordinary Russian person and therefore would quite likely undermine the effectiveness of an opposition.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that happens as well. It also shifts the power balance within the opposition because basically whomever has support from the US or from the UK or from Europe, they have money, they have support of Western media, and the kind of people who get the support of Western media are not necessarily the kind of people who will be successful within domestic politics. And it brings all kinds of chaos into domestic politics straight away.

Mikkel, this is a question that a lot of people are going to want answered because we've had a very insightful, very interesting conversation. But you're talking to us from Georgia. Why are you in Georgia at the moment? Well, I'm in Georgia in the moment because during the elections, there was this serious crackdown on all kinds of opposition. And I mentioned that just three months ago, I've been in jailed. I spent 10 days in jailed.

It was my fourth time that I was arrested. I had my house searched. I had my friends threatened, and a lot of my allies had to leave as well. I'm in Georgia right now because I came here just for two weeks. I spent the last three months in South America in Brazil. I came to Georgia to see some of my friends who are not as well off as I am, who are living here right now and who have no way to come back,

because once they return, they'll be arrested the same way that Alexi Navalny was arrested, the same way, Andrei P.ovarov, a good friend of mine, he was actually took off the plane out of Russia. So he was about to leave Russia. He went through all the controls, the passport control, etc. but they took him off the board of the plane and put him in jail just for being a political activist. So it's dangerous to do politics in Russia today. Do you think you're going to be able to go back?

I definitely hope so. I don't consider myself a political immigrant because I don't like the kind of stigma that it has. But my hope is that I will be able to return. I'm just not sure when. And in the West, we tend to paint Russia almost as the enemy. Do you think Russia is a serious threat to the West, or do you think not really that is an exaggeration by the Western media, trying to create a bogeyman, etc., etc? I think Russia is the most convenient boogeyman possible, because it's incapable of really posing any kind of serious threat,

Just look at the GDP that Russia has, look at the state of economy, look at its, well, it has a decent defense budget, but still, it's a local empire. It's not a global empire like it used to be during the Soviet era. So if you were, but it's much more convenient to prop up Russia as this big enemy because China is scary and, you know, ruining relations with China. Nobody can afford to ruin relations with China, but pretty much every. everyone can afford to ruin relations with Russia. And that gives you an idea that Russia is not really, does not really pose a serious threat. Because when someone does pose a serious, serious threat, you don't deal with it the same way that Russia has been dealt with by the West. Well, the last time the Soviet Union posed a genuinely serious threat that we had to, well, the West had to react to was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

when, you know, the West America pulled out all the stops to prevent Russia from having its nuclear missiles right on its border. And I guess what you're saying is the passive response to the poisonings of people in Western countries, the invasion of Ukraine, et cetera, et cetera, shows you that the West isn't really that bothered about what Russia is doing, because it's kind of local affairs.

They killed off a few Russian guys in London, whatever, who gives a shit, really. Yeah, yeah, exactly that. So Russia does its thing, and it can poison a politician in London if it really wants to, but it will be a Russian politician. It doesn't have a real sway in the European election, and the whole Russia gate that happened in the U.S. just felt so ridiculous. Like watching from Russia, you know, nobody could have done a better PR campaign for Putin

than the Democratic Party did because they basically created this kind of, you know, who rules the American elections, who rules the European elections, you know, who has his hand pretty much in every single crisis in the world. And that's, I mean, yeah, Putin has been flattered by this kind of coverage. And it did a lot to raise his prestige within Russia, because if you remember in the 90s, it was a decade of humiliation. A lot of Russians felt that, you know, Russia's been humiliated by the term of Boris Yeltsin. And when Putin came back, he said, well, you know, from now on, Russia will be respected.

And the kind of Russian gate stories and the kind and the propping up Putin as a boogeyman as the world wide boogeyman is actually, it feels like respect when you when you live in Russia. It feels like well now, you know, they're afraid. And if they're afraid, you know, they respect us. So I think it did more harm than good in terms of creating a functional political system in Russia because a lot of people, every time there's another Russia gate happening. in the US, a lot of people see it as a sign of strength of Putin's regime. It's very interesting that you say that, because, you know, we've been fed this lie again and again. You know, the region Trump came to power was because of the Russians. The reason Brexit happened was because of the Russians.

I mean, you tried to get Jeremy Corbyn. Don't. Don't, don't you fucking start. Don't start with that shit. We did not try to get Jeremy Corbyn elected. Even we are not that stupid. But if the Russians aren't the real threat to Western democracy, you intimated that it's actually China. Is that fair? Or have I put words in your mouth? Well, just look at the scale of the country.

I'm not saying that China is the enemy. What I'm saying is that if you're looking for an enemy, China is a much better candidate for this role because of the scale of its economy, because of its population, because of its ambitions. at what happened to Hong Kong. And by the way, if we're talking about the prestige of the West, you know, it's humiliating to see the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, you know, deleting the tweet that the U.S. will stand with the people of Hong Kong. It hasn't been forced. Why would you delete it? At least have guts to stand by the words, even if you're not going to do something. So if you're looking for an enemy, China is a much better candidate because it has means to do harm. Russia has no means. So why would you even pay attention to it?

Amahil, we're coming to the end of our time. I know we've got our final question, as usual, but I actually feel like, is there something about Russia we should have discussed that we haven't so far today? I wish we discussed more the kind of global politics that we mentioned just once, because politics has become global. A lot of Russians speak English, a lot of Russians consume Western media and whenever you have this blunders like the Russian Gate, whenever you have censorship like what happened with Trump or Milo Yanopolis, you know, there are YouTube channels that have translated lectures by Milo Yanopolis that have millions of views and whenever he's being banned from the social net, from the social media, it resonates far beyond the anglosphere.

It resonates far beyond the US. We see that and we see how it's similar. to what's happening within our own countries. And we mentioned Alexei Navalny, for example. And there was this huge discussion when Alex Jones was banned from Twitter and YouTube, et cetera, that, you know, well, Alex Jones is being banned, but Alexi Navalny is still allowed a platform on the same media when the same case can be made against Alexi Navalny

for having his own channel removed from YouTube, for example. And Alexi Navalny realized that himself, when Donald Trump has been banned on Twitter, He wrote an article basically saying that's an unacceptable act of censorship because he understood that the same logic can be applied to any kind of dissident, to any kind of opposition leader in other countries as well. So global politics is the reality and you have to think twice when you do something locally, especially in the anglosphere because everyone speaks English nowadays. It's going to resonate far beyond what you think is possible. The same goes, the same applies for Brexit. You feel like Brexit is this local story

that doesn't affect anyone except the Brits. But the truth is, when we were looking at the referendum and the attempts to rerun the referendum, the whole world's been following that. The whole world's been following the Trump-Trump reelection. The whole world read about Hunter Biden's laptop. And the whole world saw that the same articles that got you banned,

on Twitter just a year ago are being reprinted by Politico today, for example, by saying, hey, you know, there's been some truth to that. Let's look into it. Now that the elections are gone, it's safe to discuss it. The same has happened with the coronavirus, but we're not going

to get into that. So the biggest point I'd like to make is that politics is global, especially in the anglosphere. Whatever happens in your district, you know, we're discussing in Russia, we're discussing politics of Florida today, of California, because the cultural victory that the United States and United Kingdom achieved in

the past hundred years has also made you a target, have made your domestic politics a target of international attention. And that should leave an imprint on how you deal with it, I think. What do you think is going to be the future for Russia moving forward? I think it's grim. I don't see any kind of solution to the kind of situation that Putin created today. I think the only choices are either through a proper junta or through a revolution. I don't see any other ways forward. I may be wrong, but that's how it seems right now. Well, on that happy note, Mikhail, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a real pleasure. I think a very valuable perspective, actually, not only on Russia,

but also on the West and how we ought to be thinking about some of the decisions that we make and some of the conversations that we have. So I know that our audience will have really appreciated. We both certainly do. And with that and mind, before we ask you a couple of very special questions from our fans on locals, our last question is always the same. What is the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? I think I already answered that, is that politics is global today, especially politics in the Anglosphere. We should talk about it more.

And we should talk about the loss of moral high ground by the West. It makes the world a worse place. Whatever issues you think you're solving by losing the moral high ground, you're not solving it. You're making it much, much worse. Without the West, as an example, it's much harder for people like myself to fight for freedom in countries. Like Russia, and I'm sure as hell that it's the same in China. it's the same in India, it's the same in Africa, et cetera, et cetera. So we need an example and the lack of example

will bring the whole world to a much darker place than it is now. Mikhail, thank you so much for coming on the show. If people want to find you online, what is the best way to do that? Well, I have a Twitter. It's M. Swetov, but it's in Russian, and I have a YouTube channel that actually has some English language videos. I had a conversation with Hans Hermann Hoppe, a very prominent libertarian. I had a conversation with director of Fee,

Lawrence Reed, and other prominent libertarians. So you can watch that. It just has Russian subtitles, but it's in English. Mikkel, thank you so much for coming on, and thank you all for watching and listening at home. We really appreciate you spending this time with us. We will see you very soon with another brilliant interview like this one, or Raw Show.

All of them go out at 7 p.m. UK time, which is 2 p.m. Eastern. And if you want to listen to Trigonometry on the go, you can always download it as a podcast. Thank you very much, guys, and see you soon. We hope you've enjoyed this incredible interview. Remember to subscribe and hit the bell button so that you never miss another fantastic episode. And if you believe that the work we do here at Trigonometry is important, support us by joining our locals community using the link below.