Transcripts For CSPAN3 Andrew 20240704

Well, ill come to politics and prose. My name isnt karl and im the events advisor here. And on behalf of our owners and our staff, its my pleasure to welcome you this evening before get started, just a few housekeeping items. First, a reminder to please silence your cell phones. Also, be sure to take a look at our web site to see some of the great events we have as we wind up the year and soon, well be posting events for 2023. And we have lots of other great things going on here, including classes and trips. Also tonight, when get to the questions, we have a standing microphone here. If you could make your way there, that would be helpful. We need you to come to the mic as we are filming and. Cspan is here and we want everyone to be able to hear your questions. And also well be posting this, our youtube station after the event and following the q a, well have a signing here at the table. So if you havent already purchased your book, we have many copies behind the register and then well ask you to start lining up here, make that possible and come by and ask for your name to personalize the books. So please have them ready for us and also, as you likely know, when the events over, if you could help us by folding up your chairs and just leaning them against something sturdy, we would be grateful. So tonight im very excited to welcome andrew weiss to talk about his new book, accidental bizarre, which is the rare combination of graphic novel and biography. Illustrated by brian box brown, the accidental czar in the title is Vladimir Putin, and the book chronicles his rise from midlevel kgb officer to the russian presidency to comic book villain and couldnt be more timely. Today is actually the launch day for book, and this afternoon he was on all things considered, where he spoke to mary louise kelly, an and he described his book as seriously quirky. Weiss is the james family chair and Vice President for the four studies at the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. He oversees research on russia and eurasia. Hes served in various policy roles at the National Security council, the state department and the pentagon. Hes going to be in conversation this evening with ambassador marie yovanovitch, who served as the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine as well as to the republic of armenia. And the kirk is republic. Shes also the author of a memoir, lessons from the edge. And we have of copies of her book as well, behind the registers. And shes happy to sign. So please pick up copies of both books and help me welcome andrew weiss and ambassador yovanovitch. So welcome to everybody here tonight. I think were in for a real treat and finding out more about this book. So when andrew told me that he was writing a book, his first book, and it was going to be a nonfiction graphic novel, i was kind of shocked, to tell you the truth, because, you know, here he is, this expert on Russia International affairs, and hes doing a graphic novel. And i thought, you know, am i the only one who is so uncool that ive never read a graphic novel . But i can and im not going to make you show hands as to who else has not read a graphic novel. But now i have read one andrews, and im telling you, you should line up and buy it because it is great. You will learn about putin, you will learn about russia, you will learn about the last 30 years of international affairs. And, you know, i kind of consider myself to be an expert in some of these things as well. And i learned a lot from this book. And so i highly recommend it. So my first question though, since were in washington and is going to be about process, how did you decide to write a nonfiction graphic novel . Who was your audio and what was the process working with, you know, this very renowned illustrator . I mean, tell us about that. Sure. Well, first of all, thank you, marcia, for being here tonight. And thank you, politics and prose for hosting us. And its so great to see many friends in the audience here, us tonight on the process for writing a graphic novel is different than writing a memo, and that was the first thing i had to learn what was really interesting to me was when i first started to think about this was i really knew nothing about what graphic novel writing involved. And i had to put together scenes. The book is basically a collection of scenes, but then you have to partner with someone because i dont know how to draw. And i have this very inspiring partner, brown, who goes by box brown and hes written several amazing graphic novels of his own. Hes never drawn one for someone else, and so when i would draw these right out these scenes and share them with brian, i would give him suggestions of things that i thought would illustrate the point i was trying to make. But i was really, really, really focused on lets avoid visual cliches. No, mitch rush goodalls none of these things that people, you know, constantly fall back on a shorthand for russia. And when brian would turn it around, he would come up with things that were entirely in keeping with someone whos written books about andre the giant and things like that. You know, hes not a Foreign Policy nerd and there are these combinations of images in the book, the one that im most fond of. If i can just show to everyone, is he took these very gloomy, atmospheric photos i showed him at the berlin wall, and he then sort of put putin sort of skulking around in a trenchcoat in front of the berlin wall as the cover. And it just it was just an ideal encapsulation of what working with someone is brilliant, is brian was all about. And so why did you decide to write a graphic novel as opposed to what i would have assumed you would do, which is, you know, a very serious Foreign Policy tone. And i would add theres a ten page bibliography. So this is a serious Foreign Policy. Yeah, definitely. Everyone should read the footnotes first. But yeah, what i was trying to do was i thought there are about three key audiences that i really wanted to reach. The first one was for people who are obviously paying attention to putin, who has this outsize impact on the world today. And im pretty much everyones life. But people who are following the news might not really understand either. The arc of his own life. The arc of russian history, and the arc of the experience of someone who really was a mediocre midlevel operative who lucked into the job of a lifetime and who has played it fabulously from his perspective. And hes been on this incredible winning streak up until february 24th. The other audience that i thought was really important to reach were young people and people in my line of work and think tanks and policy. Were pretty insular. Were generally speaking to each other and either, you know, convincing each other of things or more often than not, not convincing each other of things and i thought it was really important to sort of give young people a better grounding in who putin is and how he got to be in this grudge match against the United States. And like just one thing, which im sort of you know, as i did the research for this that i had forgotten, which marcia, maybe you remember, is that after 911, putin was the first foreign leader to call president bush, and he became George W Bushs buddy. And that of being americas buddy also included getting to sit in on one of the cias president ial daily briefings for the president and getting his own copy. And he sort of autographed it and handed it back to the cia briefer at the end. But again, just to imagine the arc of someone who was, you know, for his own reasons, it was all very selfserving when he wanted to be americas buddy. But to where we are today. So i thought young people really needed to know that. And then lastly, coming back to the joke about the footnotes was for wonks and practitioner ers to kind of dredge up things about putins personal story well as how we got into incredible grudge match with him, that would sort of give my particular take on who he is. So so who is he . I mean, when he came to power, i mean, as you said, i mean, hes sort of an accidental president by all accounts. So ive always thought of him as you being relatively careful and so forth. You make a pretty compelling case that hes actually a hothead, has always been a hothead, is not a master political strategist. And so im wondering if you can talk to us about that a little bit. And then when he came to the presidency in the 2000, was he an empty vessel or and, you know, everybody poured their desires into him and he kind of moved forward. Or did he have wellthought out views and ideas about how he was going to move forward . So three quick points. When Vladimir Putin came into office, everyone should remember russia was being run by a total booze hound who show up for work most of the time, boris yeltsin. And so the key goal when putin was installed was to ensure continuity that the people who had been around the yeltsin entourage and yeltsins own family would be protected. And they wanted someone who they felt would basically live up to that unwritten understanding that they could keep their ill gotten gains. They also needed to show the russian people that there was a sober man of action on the job who could protect their country. And thats why you see all these ridiculous images early in putins career of wearing sailor suits and flying in the cockpit of jet fighters and stuff and parading around with guns. It was kind of create an image of theres a decent, you know, normal person in charge after a while. And the image that they built for him was all based on pop culture. And there was a kind of dashing man of the Silver Screen who was named skeptical of who was russias george clooney. Basically, the soviet george clooney. And he played a deep cover kgb operative who wormed his way the top ranks of the ss in world war two. And so they were deliberately modeling all of this after these things they knew would appeal to average russians. For our purposes, i dont think we really got and i put myself in this category as someone who was part of the team dealing with putin at the beginning of his career and the senior ranks of the russian leadership. How much the thing that motivated him the most was the notion of having a strong state and theres this russian word, gusto darznik which means believer in a strong statement, the interest of the state and having a Strong Authority trumps everything else. The rules of the roles of individual or rule of law. And then the last thing which i think we didnt totally get about putin, was that as the winning streak continued in russia, became fabulously wealthy. It had a series of geopolitical successes. They would become more and more convinced that the United States was in an inexorable decline and that we were going to be the losers. And countries like russia, were going to be the winners. And that fed level of hubris and overconfidence, we can come to that in a second. But but i think thats a big part of how we ended up in the mess were in today. Yeah so when i look back and you mention this, you know the idea of bush and putin as being, you know, if not best, at least having a partnership, a collaborative partnership. And, you know, when i think back to that time, i think, you know, there was a moment maybe i was deluding myself. There was a moment where it seemed that russia perhaps could become a working democracy, or at least more more liberal. Is that was that all a delusion . Was he just leading us on, the master spymaster or or was was there a moment there . So people like you and i worked really hard to try to help russia in this horrible period of the 1990s and to sort bring russia into the mainstream. But i think what totally corroded any of that was a sense on the russian side that the goal of us power is to basically knock off regimes that we dont like. The idea which runs throughout the book of basically the United States going around the world and launching revolutions which in the russian terminology are called color revolutions. Starting in 2003 and then most spectacularly in ukraine in 2004, that this is the thing that most animates putins view of the United States and deepest fear that he will be hauled in front of a mob and, either, you know, sent to jail or something worse. And he saw this in yugoslavia and the fall of milosevic. And i can remember quite vividly being at the white house and how devastated it was for the russians to see their ally milosevic go down in flames after a student led movement remove him. And one of the things that i found in the book, just coming back to the nerdy part of the book, was this great interview with president clinton about the covert action finding he signed and using covert action a tool for encouraging the student uprising. And so i can bet, you know, you know, i dont have any proof, but i would certainly bet the russians were onto this us level of involvement in the student uprising in serbia and that created a view that i think is, you know, still deeply held today that the United States is aiming for nothing less than putins ouster, and that thats the ultimate of us policy and. You think that that continues to animate putin today . Absolutely. And so should we do about that . Well, i dont think you can ever now, given the of blood on putins hands, given the horrible crimes that have been committed in ukraine to reassure him, like you get to keep your day job. Like if, you know, if you back out of ukraine and we go back to the world that existed on february 23rd, you know, all is forgiven, i think, you know, hes now backed himself into a horrible corner here. And thats what makes the situation so dangerous. Yeah, its certainly. It certainly is so just going back to putin the man and putin, the myth, i mean, he you know, we know these stories about putin who, you know, talks about the rat that is in a corner and that rat is the most dangerous. And so now all of us here in washington are like, oh, my, you know, is putin the rat . And is most dangerous now because hes kind of cornered. Can you talk a little bit about these myths that have been established. You know, i recall that when i was working for the government you know, we would have to remind ourselves that just just remember, the russians arent ten feet tall, that all of myths out there, you know, putin riding, you know, with a bear chest on a big old horse, you know, somebody so, so powerful and so and yet somehow, even as we kind of made fun of that, we were buying that myth. Now. So the rat story is a good one. And my friend bob here somewhere, hes always point out to me that the rat storys ambiguous because the you know, our telling of the rat story, hes, you know, hes running around the Apartment Building where he grew up and hes chasing rats for fun and. One day he chases a rat into the corner, and hes got a stick. And the rat jumps on him and putin learns this lesson of like, dont corner a rat because, thats dangerous. But as my friend points out, like, he backed off that, you know, he he didnt keep chasing the rat. And so, you know he went out. So there is a kind of interesting ambiguity to that story. But for us, the danger is, is that the russians are so good at getting in our heads and theyre so at scaring us or planting ideas, our heads that, you know, you know, for example. Right now were all worried about which is the threat of some kind nuclear use in ukraine. The question is, whats the goal of getting us all to think about and talk about this . And thats basically what everyones been doing for the past three or four weeks after. The russians brought this issue out. I mean, i have a theory on this, which is they believed that theres a button on joe bidens desk, which him to turn up and down the level of violence in ukraine and that the ukrainians are simply our proxies which again denies them the status of being the you know creators of their own destiny and having control over the fact that theyre fighting for their survival. So, you know, but again, the russians have brought this issue to the fore and. Then we spend, you know, inordinate amount of time, as you say, buying into the things that they want us to talk about. And we end up, you know, in many ways we just dont have the same discipline about that. They bring to the table. Right. So after, as you pointed out, mean its been weeks of, you know, these hints and actually even months of hints about possible use of Tactical Nuclear weapons, which is, i think, terrifying to probably everybody in this room just even thinking about that. And yet over the last couple of maybe its over the last week, the russians seem to be backing off of that a bit. You know, putins saying what . What . No, no, no. I would never use Nuclear Weapons. I thats a little exaggerated on my part. But tell us about that. You know, the ability, it seems that putin can turn it and off, too. Yeah, well, theres a great quality to russian leaders and you do a very good putin impersonation. I should that is that theres this concept of lying. But also the kind of, you know, im lying. I know that you know that im lying. And that is also always going on. And i think thats whats made dealing with putin so hard over the past eight years when the war started, is he just would not accept basic facts and expected us to kind of be able to talk to him when he would deny that russia had ever invaded ukraine or that there was russian control. The separatists, the socalled who were operating in eastern ukraine. And i think its that inability to have a normal conversation with him thats going to make this crisis all the more dangerous, because we cant have lines of communication that are productive. And then if you chase after someone who you know is full of it and who has no interest in a normal conversation, you look weak. And i think thats whats, you know, basically in part holding back the United States or other western countries like no one wants to be the one that looks like theyre ready to be duped or trust someone like Vladimir Putin. Yeah, yeah. Thats certainly the case. So do want to come back to this question of has putin changed over time . Is he still the same man he was when he was an ideal, you know, young Intelligence Officer or have there been changes . So two parts of that. One is probably my single favorite, brian brown drawing. And this whole book is something that i was told a Senior Western official about what was so maddening about dealing with putin. And it was the fact there are im sorry, im going to struggle to find this. Theyre not cool. Thank you, masha. The problem is is there are three hemispheres of putins and i think we just to remember that these hemispheres exist. The first one is filled with all the garbage, lies and conspiracies that hes fed. Pejorative. Thanks, marshall. Hes getting to. Okay, the question. Okay but so in this picture that brian drew which everyone im sure in the back you cannot see it im sorry i was just kidding is these three hemispheres of his brain and the first one is just all the nonsense that he gets from the kgb and the career bureaucracy that fosters sort of the pseudo history and conspiracy that hes marinating in all the time. The second hemispheres of his brain are the his own experience and the things that hes participated in over more than two decades in power. And so hes very experienced. Hes cut a lot of deals. Hes been at the top table of Global Leaders, and he runs circles, frankly, around a lot of Global Leaders who arent as experienced as is. And then lastly, the third hemisphere is the real world and its the one that we all live in. And the problem with the us with putin is he toggles back and forth in the series, a single conversation between the different hemispheres and you never really know if you all share a baseline in common understanding. And does he know where he is at any moment . I mean, that sounds like a ridiculous question, but i dont think its possible to know. I mean, because so much of what he stands is artifice or invented or embellished or selfserving. He has an intense level as our former boss, bill burns likes to say, he harbors these intense grievances and grudges. So he wears that on his sleeve. Some that is real and some of its totally selfserving. So just to take one example that theres this constant and it comes back to the question of how the russians are good at making us think the terms that are or beneficial to them. This notion that russia was humiliate and that russia is a humiliated power like that is something that the russian government has indoctrinate it into all everyday life, through the media and through other forms. Propaganda to make russians feel. And i have no reason to doubt that average do feel that the soviet union was a great superpower and now its not, and that thats unpleasant. But this notion that, you know, russia has a grudge against the west is very convenient to him because it fosters a sense that the worlds out to get them and that through unity and sort of standing up to the opponents of russia outside of russia, russia, be great again. And thats, you know, the rallying point for that happens to be Vladimir Putin. Its all very, you know, deliberate and beneficial to him and his power. Right. Right. And so, you know, it seems that that and you go into this in the book in some detail, it seems the russian identity is a negative, opposed to a positive. You know, not our people and those others that are not ours nationally in russia. Yeah. Now this is a great concept and i dont want to get too deep in sociology, but one of the sort of sort of leading forces is in russian sociology is in the book, sort of explains how because russias and what defines russia and what defines russian ness has been opaque and unclear throughout most of modern history. Its a lot easier for russians to identify themselves with things not theyre not in favor of lgbt equality. Theyre not in favor of the kind of normal western that we all embrace as part of this is selfserving, again, because what putin wants is he wants to portray his as people who are not russians. And so this not one of us concept is very beneficial. And its been, you know, something that the russians have used time and time again, like when he says that the us organized protests in 2011, 2012, it was an easy way. Say those arent middle class normal. Those are state Department Paid proxies and they want things that you dont want, you know, want a russia that you could never abide. And we see this today with all the kind of ludicrous propaganda, the russians are pumping out about nazis and ukraine and the fight against satanism and all these other things like all is aimed at appealing to a sort of joe sixpack voter who lives out of the cosmopolitan parts of russia and who are putins base voters ultimately. But is there a positive russian vision of the future . Is it all like negative and to a certain extent, looking backwards, the russian empire does. I think that putin has laurels to restaurant. And if he had played his cards differently and he had not been so and 2014 and starting this war and that had not been such an opportunist and expanding the war in 2022, he would go down history as a leader who had overseen russias revival. The country was in horrible shape when he took over in 1999. It grew significantly wealthier and more stable and more prominent on the world stage, and it was respected again on the world stage to a degree, but by basically being obsessed with ukraine, i mean, im sort of curious what, you know, you think this what is it about, ukraine that made him want to torpedo all of that. Hes destroyed his economy, hes tarnished his record. Hes turned himself an international pariah. He has basically removed the benefits of globalization that russia enjoyed for the past three plus decades over what and what is what is it about ukraine that is this thing that is so important to him . And what is it that he cant control himself that has led him into this series of epic miscalculations, blunders . So if you can, you know, you can expound on that. You know, we can do a book together exactly. Yeah. Well, i mean, i think i think its the idea of empire. I mean, russia without ukraine is not an empire. And i think that that is an animating feature, not only for russia, but of russia in previous years as well. And think that he didnt think it would end up like this. You know, he made three serious miscalculations, the strength of the Russian Military about the strength and the unity of the ukrainian people and the leadership of president s zelensky. And he also, i think the us and the west and the fact that we were able to come together and support ukraine in a meaningful and strong and ways. Can i just on that agreeing 100 with what you just said, the one other piece which i think is missing from the analysis, is how the notion of not having natural boundaries and not being protected matters in the calculus of the russian leadership. And this, you know, in our scholarly work at carnegie, a key theme of our work that, you know, the fact that russia views buffers as providing strategic depth against external opponents has been an animating force in their history. And one of the great factoids thats in the book, which i credit to historian stephen kotkin, is the notion that starting in the era of ivan the terrible russian empire grew at a rate about 50 square miles per day for centuries. And it was that expansion ism that provided the modicum of that russian czars are now Vladimir Putin have always sought. Yeah, although i mean ironic, you know what what the russians may have perceived as safety has also created intense resentment. I think im putting that mildly among other peoples, in other. And were seeing that now, you know, the expansion of natos, you know, to include even finland and sweden now, etc. , etc. , etc. , where on the hand this was all supposed to keep russia safer. And yet those actions have boomeranged back and are making russia in their own view at least. I mean, i dont think that natos a threat to russia, but in their own view, at least less secure. So, you know, its kind of an interesting dilemma for or for russia. I, i did want to ask you, so in the book, you make pretty clear that putin and i think putin himself has made this clear, that he certainly see ukraine as an independent, an independent. People. They are clearly just proxies for the us and were telling them what to do and. He makes pretty clear that hes at war with the United States and you know if if we didnt know it before with i swear wasnt going to say the word elections tonight, but im forced to say the word the sort of the meddling in our 2016 elections, the disinformation that is everywhere, including today about the the the war in ukraine, sort of all of the different kind of soviet now postsoviet plays that the russian government using against us and. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the soviet playbook that are seeing reanimated and, how we should respond that so because i mean, i think we dont want to be at war with russia right. Yeah, but youre right. This is the way they define it. Part of it is selfserving because it you know, justifies the need for everyone to donate their children to go fight in this horrible criminal war in ukraine. But i think it does reflect a mindset. The stakes are existential for them and that this may end really badly for Vladimir Putin and the west has now really gone in to support ukraine at levels of support that, im sure for you would have been unfathomable, given the way u. S. Policy was was developing before february 24th. The question in my mind about what we going to be facing is one, as you said earlier, we should not make ten feet tall and we should not pretend that they are super spies and that they know the formula for undermining democracy. Were doing a good job right now, undermining our democracy without their help and they amplify things that are important on the margins, but theyre not the authors of that. Second, it is a lot of the tools, as you allude to, that they do use are clumsy, their soviet and origin and their theyre theyre intended, if anything, to play with us and get a you know, get us to be thinking about them as as they are intended to disrupt and harm us and the unity of the Transatlantic Community that the United States is the leader of. And so over those, you know, and you can probably you know this better than i after our election in 2016. The, you know, light bulb off and pretty much every European Capital of like, wow, we have a problem here. We have a country that plays dirty thats to amplify extreme voices in our societies thats going to promote populism or radical left groups. And we need to make sure that we we track it and we watch some of that will always be is another colleague of ours mentioned it be like oxygen like were not going to uninvite disinformation that will always exist you but there are things that we have to do to harden our democracy and that means making sure the election machinery more secure and that has, you know, somewhat that theres been significant progress on that. We need to protect people against the kind of hack and leak operate actions that hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016, where, you know, peoples dirty laundry are dumped out into the public domain. But the russians are able to do these things because theyre cheap, because theyre asymmetrical kind of level the Playing Field with a much stronger us and because theyre like a Lottery Ticket, you never know. One of these things might pay. And Donald Trumps election, which is a focus, the last chapter of the book is probably the most spectacular Lottery Ticket russia ever bought. Yeah, and its also deniable. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, i mean, should we be what kinds of tools should we be looking at deal with with russia . I mean, should we be looking back at our cold war playbook . You know, the idea of soft power, the radios, other things, the russian people are now cut off from the world increasingly, although, you know, a great number of younger people are using special technologies that im not that good at myself like vpns and anonymous ers to get access to information. Were very fortunate to work at the Carnegie Endowment and our russian colleagues, the Carnegie Endowment publish great analysis every day. And so there are brave russians out there who are doing smart things and who are sort of sharing analytical, objective information. We shouldnt pretty fool ourselves, though, that that reaches everyone. Russia, because, you know, most russians are deep politicized, apathetic and atomized. And so there isnt the same hunger or interest. And theres also this cultural norm. And im a little wary of, you know, stereotyping. But in russian, i think this is one of the key differences between russia and ukraine. And hopefully you can amplify this. Masha, and a lot of russian minds, everything is out of their hands. Theres this notion. And you yourself are a russian of avos and that sort of god will will it, god will decide it. And you see that, you know, since the heyday of the yeltsin era when people did show and did take agency for the countrys future, putin has kind of indicated like a theres its never going to work like you cant out menace me im really tough and im going to you know scare the hell out of you and to even if you try it wont work. And so it has fed this level of apathy and, you know, sort of willful passivity on the part of average russians and ukrainians, just different. And ukrainians, you know, now multiple times in 1991 and 2014 in the orange revolution and the im sorry, in 2004 and the orange revolution in 2014. And the revolution of dignity and now most vividly in the defense of their country, theyre all in. Right. And i mean, you were in ukraine some recently, and you can you know, its unimaginable to me that Russian Society could mobilize itself in the same way ukrainians have. And it just highlights the difference between those two similar but very different groups of people. Yeah, i think that was very well, but i think it does also kind of lay out how big the challenge is as we move forward. I mean, one of the things that you write in the foreword to your book is that we need to do a better job of managing putin. And so im wondering if you have any words of advice for, you know, those who might be with the Us Government here for how we do that. Its really hard and i think the vitamins nation has been really careful to not build expectations that, you know, with a frank conversation can sort this out and to really focus on guardrails that there are a couple of things that are really scary and really dangerous, namely getting into a direct war with russia or the use of things like Nuclear Weapons on the battlefield, but also showing that were not going to up with things that we might have in previous eras been willing to accept. And so the notion that russia gets to decide the fate of ukraine like thats not something were going to tolerate anymore. We are going to provide military assistance to the people of ukraine to defend themselves. These are all game changer type decisions. And as much as all of us, you know, particularly former state department people, you know, think maybe theres a, you know a conflict that could be resolved at the bargaining table, like thats not going to happen here. This war is largely going to get resolved on the battlefield and russia is being shredded right now, the battlefield. And that creates new dangers. And i think the Biden Administration has to be focused on to what extent does ukrainian audacity and success on the trigger, some of the escalatory spirals that we really want to avoid. And thats a horribly complicated balancing act that they need to be mindful of. Well, so maybe that will spark some questions. And in this audience, i think im sure that many of you have lots of questions for andrew. And so if you could do a yeah, yeah, can i make two or. Okay, okay. Okay. Thank you very much. I enjoyed both of your remarks and i imagine its a Little American citizen. Hundred years ago, Benito Mussolini marched on rome. And 100 years later, a woman, who comes from the far right and the fascist and i Fratelli Italia or son of italy party is the head of government. For 30 years. The yet is still a cartoonist named giannelli has used humor the same humor that you use what cartoons to destroy. For example both melania the woman in power and, berlusconi, for example, a picture of the vatican. How do you say, ruth, with the two fingers pointing at each other and touching with berlusconi naked, but with high heels and meloni naked like this. And hes touching. And he and the caption is, padre. From afar, i made you write. And that has done more to reduce berlusconi who is called berlusconi than anything you can imagine in italy. Therefore, i, i have exstudents in germany, germany, france britain, ireland, holland, poland, serbia, croatia, and now and no alla, along with wife, romanians, ukrainians and russians who have left the country because they are ones step away from famine. There is no in employment for young people. There living in around inflation and whats called nit or not employed it educated or trained and never lost hope and you and my yeah my point my question is how can young people afford a book like your own which costs. Per page. I agree what you said, but i have people who who would love to read what you wrote now. Thank you so much. The you know, probably the single most exciting thing that happened when i wrote this book was when the Library Guild selected it and it just reminded me and my kids are both here. It reminded me of the centrality of libraries in our culture and role that they play, and especially educating young people. Yeah, thats so true. Certainly played a huge part and in my upbringing. So if i could just ask people to identify themselves, but also to to ask shorter, short questions. My name is jack. Im a student. American university. My is you guys talked about myths about Vladimir Putin. What was his initial response to the way the west would react when he invaded putin . Is it true that he was like lockdown during covid and decided to invade because he was irrational . Like, how did he think the west would react. Really quick . Putin spent the pandemic in this weird work from home situation where he isolated himself from team, from the russian people, played a lot of hockey with his bodyguards and bought into a lot of pseudo history. And he wrote this crazy essay, im sorry, this inaccurate essay. And so yeah, a treatise. And he laid it all out that, you know, this would be the crowning moment of his legacy. And we wrote a scholarly paper about this called putins Unfinished Business that came out of about exactly a year. But hes an opportunist. He saw what happened in afghanistan in the summer of 2021. He saw Angela Merkels departure and so he felt europe would be less of a to push back if the u. S. Would be possible for us to push back. And the zelensky at that time was mired in all sorts of trouble. And the reality, sad reality. And 2014, 2015 is when conventional Russian Military force was applied against the ukrainians. The ukrainians got battered very badly. But what he did not calculate was the extent to which his military Modernization Program was founded on a lot of corrupt turning inadequate program, as well as the sheer creativity and moxie of the ukrainians and the fact that the United States would, in so hard and heavy behind them, excellent place. Good evening. Im alan cyprus. A few moments ago you described profound difference in the cultures between the russians and the ukrainians. The russians. You talked about the passivity. Ukrainians. You said theyve rise repeatedly, risen repeatedly to defend their national interests. What accounts for those profound cultural differences between those two peoples . Thats a great question for. I think are a lot of ukrainians in the room who could probably answer it better. But over to you, andrew. No, no, no. This is i think is a unique capacity for selforganization and for autonomy and non centralized Decision Making in ukraine. Thats been a strength and a weakness at times. There is also the very, i think, serious memory of suffering and being a victim of, bigger empires that did violent, horrible things to the people of at different stages of their history. And then theres the fact that theyve seen that doing stuff matters and that their vote against continued survival of the soviet union in 1991 basically spells the death of the soviet union. It was the final most deathblow, and they saw that when the russians tried to, you know, monkey with their election in 2004 and install victory yanukovich that when they stood up in the street and demanded a rerun of that election their involvement mattered and same in 2014 that you know what started sort of as a group of Young Students angry about a you know somewhat obscure diplomatic discussion about bringing European Union and ukraine. It was when the police beat the hell out of those students that hundreds of thousands of ukrainians came out on the street and stood up to a dictator and said, you cant do that to our kids. And, you know, again, weve seen time and again in russia and this is comes back to what we were talking before, that the russian government is so smart and so selective about how they apply violence and they dont need to do things en masse, but that if they target it carefully and then let that person whos been the victim, like the poet who is raped, the police recently think that that you just let him go back out and, tell his story to the public. It will have a Chilling Effect on everybody else and that its basically you do these demonstrably things a couple of times and everyone else will get the message they need to fall in line. Thank you. Im just going to add one one thing i agree with that you said. But one, theres one other thing that is sort of i think kind of summarizes it. So the National Bard of ukraine is a guy named thrush shevchenko and his most famous line is fight on and you will prevail. And i think that, you know, every ukrainian learns that verse and now theyre living it. You know, i. Michael kimmich, congratulations. Andrew. I have a question about the genre of books. Putin is among the most photographed people in the world, and he certainly or tries to control his National International sort of reputation through imagery. So im curious about the graphic novel that youve done, which is obviously not a putin set of images and how you worked with images in a sense to tell a different story from the one that weve all been inundated with from all of this public photography and image making. Well, great to you, michael, and you were a huge inspiration and help in writing this book. I think that the problem with the putin image pollution is, that its omnipresent and we over liberalize it, if thats a word, and believe in it and then make conclusions that affect everybody. So whats really important to me in this book that i would not take cheap shots, that i would be respectful and not mock russia or mock him, but that i would not buy into the way hes depicted. And so for the way putin wasnt at the beginning of his career, selfconfident in a lot of these posed photos with the guns and in the sailor suit, stuff like that. Theres this great line from one of his advisors, which is at the beginning he just wasnt really comfortable swearing in public and being coarse. But eventually he grew into the role and theres this kind of point, the book, where this former pr guy says, like, hes now basically playing that role by heart and hes playing the image back at us. And i think the other part of which i hope you see in the book over arc of his career and this comes from a guy was a dear friend of several of us in the room a former diplomat a colleague of ours who lived in moscow for a long time. Is that if you have been treated as putin has been for 20 odd years, as the boss and in russian theres a great term for this which is passion, which basically means like the boss of a group of thieves. Like you start to imbue that in your own behavior. And i think that is also a big part of what were dealing with is someone whose selfconfidence and sense of himself has a greatly expand it, especially as his. You know winning streak played out over the 20 years. It does make you wonder if hell read the book. I mean, apparently hitler watched the great dictator twice, but you could secretary. Hello. Hi. My name is isaias. Matt and i bring you greetings from traverse city, michigan. Jack siegel and. Oh, wow. Yeah, hes fabulous. So for a number of putin was talking about the leadership in ukraine and we sort of turn our back or we didnt listen we didnt believe they were actually go to war. Do you think we missed a chance to perhaps prevent the war . I think that weve always had other priorities dealing with the role that russia would play in its neighborhood has often been seen as complicating us, in part because we didnt think. What was happening in russia is immediate neighborhood was as important to whatever the issue was at the moment, whether it was the war on terror, arms control, the supply corridor to afghanistan like weve always been very good at managing our inbox and kind of prioritizing the issues of the day. And when the russians would come to us, i mean, you can probably challenge this and said we really need to talk about ukraine were often like, thats not really your business and thanks for your interest, but its not something were prepared to talk to you about because. There are sovereign country and you know, thank you for your interest in National Security. But the the reality was they were dead serious about this and they learned over after the war in georgia in 2008 and then again in the war of 2014, the first phase of the war that when Nuclear Superpower acts deranged, uses armed force to get its way. A lot of countries back off. And sort of the analogy to me about all this was that no one really ever wanted to go toe to toe with Vladimir Putin. Like its too scary. And its like the drunk guy in the bar who comes up to you and starts you. You kind of want to sneak out the back door. And i think that was in part what was going on for much of this time. But isnt it true also that we kind of on overestimated the power russia and his army. Yes. No. And i think theres going to be, you know, a need people like myself really that one wrong and really thought that the russians would be able to, you know, create facts on the ground in ukraine like they had done in syria and other places rather quickly. And you know, that was spectacularly not the case. Thank you you. Matt hi. My name is max. Ill be 11 and my friend and i are actually here from the east coast of canada. We came on a road trip to see. So, yeah, staying with some friends in d. C. As well who are here. Um, my question for you both tonight is about a letter written by the progressive caucus recently, which i am sure you might be familiar with. But a couple of weeks back about, i believe it was 30 House Democrats signed, a letter calling for President Biden to engage in direct diplomacy with Vladimir Putin and perhaps bring up the issue of sanctions relief. Should russia ease the war efforts or stop the invasion, in a sense . And that letter was rescinded the next day there was a big backlash. And im wondering what kind of inside forces within the Democratic Party and the Us Government more broadly might have caused such a backlash when this letter was genuinely expressed and legitimate in a certain sense, calling what it what it was, it was very mildly worded, diplomatic sentiment. Thanks for the question. So i wish i knew a lot about u. S. Domestic politics and so i can you know, truthfully say i dont im sure there are genuine worries and all sorts of american households and in political circles about where this is going. And i understand why its horrible to watch every day a war thats going to grind on and cause so much misery. And then the question always is, can we do something about it . And americans love to try to fix problems. Its kind of what makes our society so great. But in this particular, it is not up to United States to somehow mandate that people who suffering unbelievable hardship and quasi genocidal attacks sit down at the bargaining table and carve up their country. So i think that was a miscast idea. The is is the other part of this, which is i think everyone in this room sees whats happening in ukraine and also knows that Vladimir Putin has never been up for a diplomatic solution. He has tried to dominate countries in his neighborhood and play hard to do it. And hes never negotiated in good faith. So anyone who thinks that the us hasnt tried do that needs to sort of look at the diplomatic history of this and our colleagues at the state department and masha herself spent a lot of time talking to the russians after the war began in 2014. About heres some ways we could maybe stabilize, and heres some ways we can fuzz up the status of the contested parts of ukraine that you claim ownership or want to have control over. And at no point did the russians want sanctions relief or any of these things so much that they were willing to talk seriously to the United States, the European Partners that the United States worked with. So that is the reality and i dont think were anywhere close to bargaining table. And we may not you know, we may end up in a world where this war goes on and on and on, and we end up with something thats just going to stay pretty tense and pretty dynamic. Im not confident that its going to in Something Like dayton accord, if you remember the way that one of the balkans wars ended in the mid 1980s, i just it just doesnt feel like the formula is in place. And then part of what made that war come to an end was that the United States stepped in and we put our military in to sort of force the milosevic government to concede and i just think for the reasons we talked about earlier, no u. S. President is going to be eager to send u. S. Troops into into ukraine. Arent there already troops there covered . Theres some that have been deployed there for at least a recently. Im talking about a u. S. Military operation on the ground in ukraine. Theres nothing like that that im aware of. Okay, thanks. Thank you. I think we have time for two more questions. For one. I can yeah, ill ask one. Since ive been. Hi, im serena. So that focus on young people on your target audience. Number two, what would you ask a . Elementary school . A middle schooler and a high schooler after they read the book. What question would you ask them . What kind of is the drive home . I guess question would be why is russia different than a lot of countries . And also what makes it similar to . The United States in a lot of ways. And, you know, part of what makes United States and russia similar to answer the question, is we have always sort believed that we have some exalted purpose in the world and czars going to that middle ages have sort of identified russia as having this special mission and that russia would be a center of world and that it had to have this outsized impact on the world stage and so that is sort of baked into the notion of what makes russia, russia and putin has really embraced all of that. So theres this notion of of know the thought of rome and these things that we all hear about, but they are pretty cardinal to the way the way russian leaders have defined their role in the world. Im david falk. I lived in the neighborhood. Yeah, i know. You cant get into putins head, but what do you think he realistically thinks of the fleeing of, i dont know, 300,000, 500,000 young russians, intelligent and educated russians, the it industry and so on. Its a really good question. Its also just a great insurance policy for Vladimir Putin. The more that unhappy people and they keep the borders open, the safer he is. So its a safety valve and it basically creates a mechanism for the most adverse sort of globalized and selfstarting people in the country, punk out and for the who are left behind to be the most passive and paternalistic and dependent members of Russian Society