 connections. I'm Jay Fidel. What really happened in Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson, if you could call that an interview. We're going to look at some of the mistakes Putin made intentionally or unintentionally about Russian history. And we're going to talk about Navalny's moderate and how that affects Putin's future. Wow, exciting. This is really a lot to get your arms around. And for this, we have Dr. Roopmati Kandekar, who joins us to discuss geopolitical analysis. That's what she does. And we're going to discuss all of those factors right here, right now, here on Global Connections. Welcome to the show, Roopmati. Aloha, Jay. And thank you for having me. And I just enjoy interacting with you, as always, looking forward to this day. You know, this got me started with an article by Tim Snyder, history professor at Yale, who talked about, you know, Navalny and the interview with Tucker Carlson. And he went through, you know, a lot of the factual errors and mistakes unintentional or intentional that Putin made in his monologue that he gave for a couple hours in that interview. And, you know, you realize after a while that Tucker Carlson was irrelevant to that. He was just being used by Putin. And the point of the interview was to provide a platform for Putin to tell the Russian people, and of course, it was broadcast to the Russian people, it was done for them, and the world about Russian history. Your thoughts about the Russian history that Putin sees as opposed to the real Russian history? Jay, the Carlson interview that we saw, Tucker Carlson did. Take the background first, that he is very, he is a Republican right now. And this he provided Putin after 24 years of his presidency. This is the first time I think Putin has come on to and given a full-fledged interview to the Western media spanning over almost two hours. And in that, Jay, we see that he is very determined. The calm and composed manner that Putin gives the interview with is unfazed. He starts with the history. He starts from the Vikings. And when he talks about the Viking Prince coming and inaugurating this Ukraine, no centers of power in Russia, he traces, immediately he traces Ukraine to be an integral part of Russia. So he starts on strong note that Ukraine has always been part of Russia. Then he talks about Christianity. Christianity in that Jay, when he's talking to the Western world, he's appealing to the religious sense. We are right now in such a phase of international politics that there is lots of religionism that is on the forefront. You have a lot of antagonism between religions. You have people taking sides. And when he talks about Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, he presents himself to be pious. And there is one comparison he makes with Prince Vladimir who accepted Orthodox Christianity. At the end of the interview, he compares himself. In his mind, his mental mind, he is talking of himself being in that position of religion uniting Russia. He talks about power being together. And Jay, the stages that this, he's a thorough diplomat. He has spoken everything he wants to speak with, because every line has been countered. Every line has been supported by something. And he's a master in art. You understand 24 years of statesmanship brings out the best in you. He has just invaded a country, but he talks as if he's giving Hollywood actors interview. It's just another movie for him. It's just another phase for him. And that kind of grit that he has is unbelievable, Jay, because what he talks about, he justifies Ukraine, the war against Ukraine. He talks about the coup d'etat in Ukraine that happened. He talks about NATO in a full-fledged manner, Jay, and that we have to cover up in a bit why he speaks about NATO. And Jay, he presents himself as such a comedy statement. He even talks of Russia. He talking to Bill Clinton and asking him if Russia could join NATO. The entire aim of NATO was to stop Russian aggression. And when you have Russia itself wanting verbally to say we want to join NATO, the purpose of NATO is served. And that is such a big thing coming from Putin, Jay, that he came forward to ask that can he join NATO? So this kind of accommodating and bargaining presentation of himself that he gave in the interview is so, it hits you in your face when you're watching it and analyzing it. And this Putin strategy of saying that he's open to dialogue, when he says that he's open to join NATO, all aggression, all criticism of him goes to, because you have a man who's trying to join with your ego. That's how he presents himself. Can you believe what he's portraying? A very calm composure was what he brought out in this interview, Jay. That's what. Well, I don't want to talk too much about Tucker Carlson because I consider Tucker Carlson a low life. He has always been a low life. But why did Putin use him? And why did he come to Russia to be used? And what was in it for Tucker Carlson? And what did he mean to the American audience? I mean, it seems to me that Tucker Carlson represents Trump. Tucker Carlson represents the viewership of Fox News that is the base. Tucker Carlson stands for something. He is an icon for the base and for Trump. And so it seems to me like the meaning of having Tucker Carlson there is to say, Trump loves me through Tucker Carlson. Your thoughts about what Tucker Carlson meant as a participant in that interview, interviewing quotes because it wasn't really an interview. But what was Putin trying to establish by agreeing to meet with Tucker Carlson? Jay, we have seen in the recent times that propaganda plays such a huge role in international politics. And this was his propaganda. This was his presentation of his image to the Western world. People like us, we will study and research about him. But generally, people would not know about Putin. And when he talks on a stage like this, you kind of see a different man to what we are being presented. We are being presented media tyrant. We are being presented a person not willing to negotiate. Here in the interview, he presents himself as a statesman who claims that Ukraine was always an integral part of Russia. He claims that he is willing to negotiate, he is willing to join the NATO. He is very pro-American and he points out that de-dollarization is a wrong policy of the American statesman. And he has brought out one point that the administration and the president are not connected. The decision that the president makes, his administration would put it down. So when the presidents are telling him that they are willing to negotiate, the administration tells them, no, they can't do it. So he is bringing out these loopholes in American immigration. And that on the world stage, it's a bit confidential. Whatever you say, American policy runs through presidents. It runs in a linear line, irrespective of who the president is. American policy always keeps America at its prime importance. Well, it should anyway. You know what strikes me that Tucker Carlson really didn't participate in that interview. He provided a platform, a symbol of Trump and the Republican party for Putin to talk to. And through him, Putin was talking to a good part of the United States. I mean, if anybody would listen to it. But you know what strikes me is that in just sitting there, without interacting, without questioning Putin, without even asking him questions, without holding him to account on his factual mistakes and misstatements, Carlson was effectively repeating it. He was effectively agreeing with what Putin said. He was part of the propaganda. Don't you agree? Absolutely, absolutely point on Jay. This was such a brilliant point that you brought up that there was no interviewer, interviewer. It was just a speech. And Tucker was the audience, isn't it? There was nothing. He was not questioning, was not counter. There was no inquiry. He never asked him about human rights. He never asked him about the violations. He never talked aggression. What Putin was saying, he was listening. And he was just taking, he was not driving the interview to conclusions or to any point. It was just as Putin wanted. Putin gave a history of the Russian state. He gave that in 1940, 2014, NATO went for expansion. In 1999, he was promised no NATO expansion. In 2014, there were five waves of expansion. He's giving out his side of the story. There is no countering him. There was no debate. There was no facts. There was nothing. It was straight on giving him just a platform to voice his opinion. And you know that story that he picks up. And he tells that when the Russians were telling the Ukrainians that surrender right now, otherwise you will die. And from the other side, the Ukrainian soldiers shouted out that we are Russians. We don't surrender. So he's trying to say Ukraine and Russia, there is no difference. Oh, yeah. And then meanwhile, he's got an arrest warrant out against him by the international court. But let me go to something that you imply about this whole affair that is in a larger context. And that is, he either had killed Navalny by then or he was planning to kill Navalny by then. And I suggest to you that this interview was a way to change the subject. Putin is a master propagandist. And by the way, propaganda means lying is what it means. Yes. He's a master liar, perhaps more effective in his own way than Trump is, because Trump always gets caught. But you know, the press as it is in Russia doesn't necessarily catch Putin when he lies. And he lies about everything. Well, so here we have the Navalny thing, the interview thing, the war thing. And we have the, what do you want to call it, the ineffectiveness of our Congress thing. All these things working together and right in the middle of it, okay, is this interview. So my question to you, and it's a larger question is, how about that? Can Navalny be a martyr? Can Julia, his wife, Navalny, actually continue the tradition of standing up for democracy in Russia, of being a political leader? You know, he died, he was killed. This is martyrdom really. And the question is whether Putin can bury that martyrdom with all his propaganda that he's organizing. A hard question. Hard question, very hard question. Because we have mass graves in Ukraine and he doesn't care about life. So it's just about the aim, the objective and the aim and objective of a leader who has absolute power cannot have opposition, Jay. It's the truth of statehood that the opposition is always trampled and defeated to such an extent that they don't rise again. And the revolution happens when there is a waning of power. Right now, he's at the pinnacle of his power. He is into master de-dollarization. He has a weak American economy. He has a friend in China. He has got a Middle East which is unstable. He's got the oil and gas supply of Europe. He is at a height of things today. And you know, you have a promise of a friend in Trump coming up. So that kind of strengthens him. And if there was an opposing leader or strong leader coming and would have said, you know, you cannot do this and go back to your country and you can't transgress, Navalny leaders like Navalny would have had a chance. But there is no saving these people right now. We know how hapless the situation is because justice in the international system is always a subsidiary to power, always. It's just the rule of the law, rule of the land, rule of the jungle. What do you call it? That. Yeah, okay. I think you stated that very well. So here we have Navalny's memory. We have Yulia. She faced them down, you know, on the body. They were saying the prison system in, you know, Siberia was saying, and of course that's Putin speaking, that they're not going to give her the body unless she agrees to a secret funeral. And she said, no, no, I'm not doing that. I want the body because I want to examine the body. And I want to bury the body in a public spectacular funeral. And the examination of the body is very important because when he was given Novicek a couple of years ago, the Russian authorities held him until the poison was out of his body. So he couldn't prove that he had been poisoned. I thought that was curious. And maybe this was more of the same. Maybe this is Novicek again. And they wanted to hold the body so nobody could examine the body and find out what poison was involved. Of course, it might have been even worse. You know, that particular prison camp was the worst of the Siberian gulag archipelago. And the regular torture was taking place. And undoubtedly he was tortured. But, you know, the problem for Putin is the day before he appeared. And he seemed to be healthy. So all of a sudden he's dead the next day. What happened there? So there's a fair chance that it was either, you know, brutal beating or poison. And if it was poison, she, Yulia, wanted to know what was in his body. So they held on to the body. In fact, they held on to the body for way more than 48 hours for the dissipation of the poison. But anyway, she faced them down. And they agreed that they would give her the body. And she did not agree that it would be a secret funeral. So we have a martyr who is being celebrated in Russia. And I guess the question is whether that's reaching the people. You know, you spoke about, you know, Russian soldiers dying. And indeed, you know, there's a morale problem. Putin has to look far and wide for new recruits. And the people who lose their sons, they're not really happy about the way this war is going. And so what you have is a kind of undercurrent of dissension in Russia. Hard to express yourself because you'll be arrested. And indeed, hundreds, thousands of people have been arrested for dissenting against the war and put in jail for long periods of time. And that does filter around. It may not get public on the press in Russia, because he's always using the propaganda of the state television. But I'm sure it's the subject of discussion over the dinner table in many households in Russia. So it's a tension, right? It's a tension where he's doing this propaganda thing, trying to change the subject, trying to come off as a good guy and a strong man, trying to use people like Tucker Carlson and Trump to elevate himself, you know, beyond the brutality that he creates. At the same time, that brutality comes out. So it's a tension in terms of world opinion. You know, I don't think his propaganda is completely successful, but it's largely successful. And Trump is repeating it in this country. And Putin is using threats in Europe. So to the extent that, you know, Europe reacts, responds. The EU wants to raise money. I don't know if it's done that yet. And Macron even said, we don't take anything off the table. We may put boots in the ground to help the Ukrainians. There's a lot of things happening, you know, that favor Ukraine here. But the problem is that Ukraine has problem getting recruits, too. The Ukraine has lost a lot of people. Ukraine, you know, poor people are, you know, are suffering. And morale is low. Moral is low in Zelensky's army. By the other hand, it's also low in Putin's army. It's a war of attrition on both sides. And so this is really a tipping point kind of thing. And I think Putin sees that. You know, the sanctions have not had that much effect, but they've had some effect. And people are, you know, maybe arguably getting it in Russia. But it's still an inflection, but it's still hanging in the balance. And that's why I say this is a very difficult question. And somehow Tucker Carlson's, quote, interview is part of the propaganda, you know, that Putin is using, is availing himself of, to tilt it in his favor, to hold on to the loyalty of the people who watch state TV in Russia. And maybe, you know, Trump's base to try to get them on board. So we have a world confusion, which Putin has created and is trying to create. Your thoughts about that, your thoughts about which way is this going to tilt? And what will it take? You know, this, we live in a world where things happen every day that could change the calculus. So I can't ask you to make a prediction. All I can tell you is that we will identify the factors that could come up and see what it looks like in the next nine months. If Trump gets elected, this is FETA complete. Putin will win, you know. So the question is, what are the, what are those factors? Right, right, Jay. Right. Jay, headlines hit that Putin has given his first interview. Navalny was not that much in the headlines, wasn't it? He was receded to the background. So this kind of timing that Putin has is a matter of experience that he has, 24 years of absolute power. And I repeat, because that man has got such a hold on world politics. The way he is analyzing world politics is in a different way, Jay. He is looking at it from a vantage point. And Ukraine, I told you in the first, first interview that we had in, on Ukraine, that as a general, Zelsinski should have little bit, you know, receded into the background, held his camp to fight another day, regroup. He went head on to the Russian army. The Russian army is huge. You have to take logistics into account. How much would these countries from outside fund Zelsinski? How much of that funding would not go into corruption? Corruption has gone rampant, Jay. We had headlines hitting that a journalist, Egyptian journalist who reported that Zelsinski's mother-in-law bought a multimillion house in Egypt was slaughtered. He is also playing in this kind. The money would have reached the proper points. Russia would have had a formidable opponent, but that corruption channels are still rampant over there too. So, you know, that kind of imbalance that is happening gives put in another added advantage. And in war, you know that that a small advantage would lead to a victory, ultimate victory. And he is garnering supports with sort of patience, Jay. You forget mass graves. You forget war crimes. You forget genocide. You forget all these terms. And you just focus on how he has been able to garner support even in the face of aggression on Ukraine. He's invoked religion, everything. Yeah, everything he can. And so you have to wonder, you have to wonder when you see the full court press like this. The full court press is to, you know, kill Navalny at the same time, change the subject, take advantage of his expertise with the news cycle and propaganda. But, you know, I have to ask you this, everybody, when he's using all these factors, all these efforts at changing the subject and making himself look good, isn't there an element of desperation? Could you make the case that he sees himself losing the Russian people, that he sees the EU and NATO getting stronger? And they just brought Sweden in. That was interesting. Although Victor or Van extracted a promise that Sweden would give him some jets and would open a factory in Hungary. But fact is that Sweden is now a member of NATO. That one's happened. And so there are things that could make Putin desperate. And of course, he would never admit that he was desperate. But do you see a state of things here that suggests that Putin's you know, heavy propaganda of late is reflects a certain desperation. Jay, desperation to an extent, but smartness to a larger extent because he has shown the Russian people that he interacts with the Western world. He's shown the Western people that he's open to negotiations. He's shown his allies that we are in a de-dollarization country and we are having, you know, he talks of economic prospects. He talks of America not as an enemy, but as a potential ally. That kind of mind that he plays with, he talks that he himself had transactions of over $0.50. And right now, because of the sanctions, it's reduced to 13%. And we would have loved to do trade in dollars. But now because of the sanctions, we're not able to. So the recession in America is because of Russia not being able to do trade in dollars. I imagine you have a cramped budget and you're listening to Putin say this, you're going to feel like, hey, put it please, deal in dollars. So that level that he puts forth and that, you know, the carrot that he presents is hiding the stick that he has in such a good manner that we forget. I mean, literally even we study Ukraine, we see the footage, we see everything. But here you're watching him talk sense of geopolitics. So that is such a fast take. Passad, Passad, Passad is the only one. This reminds me of, I think the movie was Manhattan by Woody Allen. And it was a celebrated Marshall McLuhan who said back when that the media is the message. So that translates into the propaganda is the reality. And I think we have that. You know what? If you have enough propaganda coming at you, that's what you believe. It becomes the reality. But I want to go on to one more thing before we run out of time. And that is a friend of mine sent me a link to a Navalny production about Putin's DACA. And it is extraordinary. It is in Russian. It goes on for well over an hour. It is Navalny's handiwork. And it is a major effort at examining, researching, and producing Putin's corruption. And it focuses on his enormous and secret estate, which cost billions, if not a trillion dollars to build. It is huge. And it has every technological and surveillance technique imaginable so that nobody can get in. Nobody can find out what's going there. But in fact, Navalny had friends who worked on it. And they reported to him about exactly what was inside. And it was the best of the best of the best. And it cost a fortune. And it was just, it is just huge. Of course, Putin has layers of oligarchical ownership that distanced the ownership control, you know, the development of this huge facility from him. But it's clear enough from the video that Putin created this himself. It is absolutely regal. You've never seen anything like it. And Navalny has the goods. He has the research. He has the details. He has the facts. He has clips. He has, you know, he has mock-ups of what's inside. So this was circulated to YouTube. It is on YouTube now. And when my friend sent it to me, he said, this explains why Putin had to kill Navalny, because Navalny is revealing Putin's corruption, which is on an incredible level, far beyond anything we ever contemplated. And he is raping the Russian economy, raping the Russian people to build this extraordinary dacha. And so I guess I'm asking, oh, and I put this on our website so people could look at it. It's in Russian. But the word is that it's being translated and it will be ultimately available in English. And there are titles. There are subtitles in English against the Russian. Navalny didn't do this himself. He had to have a lot of help. He had some real professionals building this right down to the production values. It is impressive. So what I'm saying is, do you agree, assuming what I've said about this video is correct, that Putin, if for no other reason, he had to kill Navalny, Navalny to stop this report of the scandal. Your thoughts? Yeah, Jay, for Navalny's work to have impact or a fruitful outcome like a change of regime, you had to have a democracy. It's a totalitarian concept in Russia. They are under a dictator. If you call it President Putin, he's got total control over it. So the people don't have a say in it. There will be voices of dissent. But there is not a revolution which comes in because it's a socialist. They depend on the government for everything. It's not like our democratic society where you have free will and the larger the number of people who come can make a change. There are voices and the can be shut. Even if they shut with force, there will not be opposing power. In fact, by seeing this, they will keep quiet, more quiet. It's like Mao's campaign of a thousand flowers. The way he bought out the people who dissented against him and he destroyed them. Nobody could say anything about him. His regime continued till he wanted and that's the same with Putin. He will destroy all his opponents. Biden's plan came down. It was one headline. But there was nothing, you know, he can destroy opposition as he wants and he still presents himself as a statesman as a ruling, what is that? You can call legitimate ruler of Russia and making Russia great again. That is his political experience and his only from experience. Well, he's certainly trying to distance himself from this video. Just as he does social media, destructive social media in other countries, especially the U.S., just as he, and we know that he tried to and successfully affect public opinion and the vote here in 2016 and 2020, I believe, and he will do it in November the same way. This video will go worldwide if it hasn't already and it will affect public opinion. I don't think that people in the U.S. know about this video really. I don't know if Russia, you know, the people in Russia know about this video, but this is the kind of modern video that is the legacy of Alexei Navalny. This is his message to the world. You better watch out for this guy. Just like Bob Mueller said at the conclusion of the Mueller report, you better watch out for this guy. He's ripping you off and he's perverting everything in your system to be an absolute dictator. It makes the Czar's look lightweight. He really does. So I guess I'd like to just, in the last part of our show here, I'd like to just examine the relationship and Heather Cox Richardson has written about this, the relationship between Putin and Trump. You know, when Navalny's death was reported, Trump said he reported it as the sudden death of Navalny. And that's all he said. And then he said, and then he compared Navalny to himself as a statement of those who love democracy. It was so outrageous. He never condemned the killing. He never spoke about what it meant as, you know, in Russian politics. Never said a word. And again, it bespeaks of Trump's subordination to Putin. Putin is running the show. Trump is following along. Putin has something on Trump, we don't know what it is, but it's something a compromise of some kind. And Trump belongs to Putin. And Putin will help Trump win. It's in his interest in November. He's already helping him win with social media. And you know, the strange thing about social media is you can't tell what is being said to whom. You can't tell the psychology, the social psychology that is being employed by the Internet Research Agency in Moscow against American voters. So we don't know, but we can surmise pretty well that Putin is already active in American politics for this election and for state elections as well. So my question is, just exactly how much is Trump indebted to Putin? Just exactly how much Putin controls Trump? And it's a matter of we don't really know what we can connect the dots. Your thoughts about that? There was such a speculation, Jay, that the first election was won because of Putin's help, Russian help. And Jay, if you see the trajectory that Putin wants to portray Russia on to, he talks about NATO being a very subdued power. Here we have a corresponding President of the United States who talks about the end of NATO and let them do whatever they want. And Ukraine will not have an ally of funding in the U.S. like they're having under the Biden administration. It will change under Trump if he's not funding for climate. You think he will fund a country in Eastern Europe which is against Russia? He will not. He will not want to go in the bad books of Putin. They like a photo op better than talking of the righteous and the moral right to rule. They will go to any extent to get our power hungry authoritarian. And Jay, taking any means to achieve the ends is what is the common factor between these two leaders. And they're coming into power together. That is a point to think about because Trump is, looks inwards in politics. He looks at only American nationalism or American progress. He does not give that much importance to international politics. That is for a fact. He wants American economy to improve. He wants everything inward. He will not bother what Russia is doing in Ukraine. And that gives Putin all the more space to maneuver and to put stamp his authority over there. We're out of time, Rupati. We've got to go. But thank you for these great thoughts, important thoughts. We will continue this conversation after Rupati Kandikari joining us to see what about that interview and what about Navalny's death is killing. Thank you so much, Rupati. Thank you. Aloha, Jay. Thanks so much. Aloha.