TOP

Eugene Robinson

Chapters

The FRONTLINE Interviews

Eugene Robinson

Columnist, The Washington Post

Eugene Robinson is a columnist and an associate editor for The Washington Post, where he writes on politics and culture.

The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE's Mike Wiser on March 3, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length.

This interview appears in:

Putin’s Road to War

Text Interview:

Highlight text to share it

Putin’s Centralized Power

So we're thinking of starting the movie with something recent that will get us to think about who Vladimir Putin is, and it's a moment you mentioned as being like something out of <i>The Caine Mutiny</i>, which is this national security meeting that he has with his advisers.Vladimir Putin, I don't know if you've seen the whole footage, but it's this ornate room, giant room.

Exactly.

Putin walks into the room by himself.His top national security advisers are sort of arrayed on the other side of the room.If you could describe that moment and what you see in, just, the theatrics of what's going on inside this moment, where they're on the march to war.

Well, it was a very, very strange moment, because you had Putin 20 feet away or more from his entire national security team.They're sitting in an array, like schoolchildren maybe, or supplicants of some kind.And he goes in a room, and they have to sort of get up and pledge their fealty to this idea of recognizing these two breakaway Ukrainian republics in the east.And it's a very, very strange moment.

I mean, we see a lot of strange things in the age of COVID, and people distanced in a way that they wouldn't have been before, but this was like something different.This looked more like something you would see in a royal court than you would see in a modern government.And then the moment when the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service doesn't quite give the right answer, and doesn't quite say, “Absolutely, sir, we should recognize these republics,” and at one point, I believe, Putin says, “Do you support this?”And he says, “I will support it.”And Putin pushes again, because that's not quite the same thing.He's saying, “I will support it if you go ahead and do this thing that I have some doubts about, clearly have some doubts about.”And Putin pushes him and pushes him and pushes him until finally he asked for a yes or no: “Will you support it?”And then finally he says—he says yes.

But to sort of dress down the head of the equivalent of the CIA in that manner is something I have never seen before.And to have it staged for public consumption in that way was just very strange and very troubling, very troubling that a man with such power, such absolute power, is behaving in that way.

What does it say about where power is in Russia?And what does it say about Putin himself, about how he sees himself, about what he sees as his role in that moment?

It says that power in Russia is Vladimir Putin, that power is centralized in Putin, maybe in a way that it hasn't been centralized in any Russian or Soviet leaders since Stalin.To me, it seems that he has more power than Khrushchev had, more power than Brezhnev had, because it's all centralized in him.There's no suggestion that there, as there was in the Soviet days, that there was a Politburo, a Central Committee, some group of apparatchiks, who, if push really came to shove, could change the head of government.There's no committee governing the actions of Vladimir Putin.

It's Putin himself, and everyone has to pledge loyalty, fealty, to Putin in order to maintain any position, any status in the government in an almost groveling way.And again, we have not seen in Russia since the days of Stalin.

I mean, it's an incredible amount of power you see in that moment, but there's also the question of: How does he understand what is going on?These are also the people who are his advisers, who are supposed to be telling him, you know, “This is what the situation is on the ground.”What does it reveal about Putin's grasp of—or whether people are able to give him hard facts?

It certainly suggests to me that Putin, who, after all, has effectively been in office for two decades, who's very experienced at this, who's had some success as a leader, thinks he basically knows it all.And one does not get the impression that he's particularly interested in the counsel of his aides and certainly not in opinions that run counter to his own.

He, to me, seems—and I think his history bears this out—he has said that the dismemberment of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.I think he really believes that.I think he, if he could, would essentially reassemble the Soviet Empire, the Russian Empire.And he's not—I don't think he's crazy.I don't think he's going to, tomorrow, invade Latvia or Estonia, other NATO countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

But I believe he has a special thing about Ukraine.He seems to always have had this almost mystical, historical view of Ukraine's importance to Russia, its relationship to Russia, and I think he is determined that Ukraine not be an independent, Western-leaning nation.I think he believes Ukraine really is part of Russia, and he is determined, to the extent that he can, to reverse this geopolitical catastrophe that separated Ukraine from Russia.

… Is this Putin's war?Is this Russia's war?When we think of the Iraq War, and the Bush administration certainly led us into that, but there was months' long campaign to bring Congress and others along, intelligence, good or bad, that they were putting out there.In this war, does it feel to you like this is really about Vladimir Putin, as much as it is about Russia as a country?

Oh, this—this war to me feels very much about Vladimir Putin and not really—certainly not about the Russian people.I don't think it's about his aides.It's not about his government.It's not about resources or anything like that.It's not as if Ukraine is a great source of oil or something that Russia could use in that way.I think it is Putin's war, very much.

Now, there was a buildup to it, and certainly a buildup that Ukraine noticed.It noticed the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin, noticed Putin's threatening arms buildup on the borders, you know, considerably before it became an invasion force.

And, you know, the world wasn't paying attention, arguably wasn't paying enough attention.But this is inspired and carried out by, I think, Vladimir Putin and his own sense of his place in Russian history, his role in Russian history.I think he wants to be a great historical figure for Russia.I think he wants to be in the line of Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin, Stalin.I think it's Putin the Great, is what he wants to be.And one of the deeds that Putin the Great will have accomplished is reuniting Russia with Ukraine.

Putin’s Rationale

… Where we're going to pick back up is in this 2015-2016 time period, as Putin—he's gone through 2014.He's seized Crimea.He's encouraged war in the east of Ukraine.And the U.S. has had sanctions, but it doesn't respond as strongly as some would want.And he's contemplating what he's going to do next.He's about to launch interference in the American election in 2016.Who, do you think, is Putin at that moment? …

You know, if you think about it, the stakes were really raised for Putin by what happened in Ukraine.At first there was the Orange Revolution and then the Maidan Revolution and these examples of people, people power, of people rising up to say no, in the case of Ukraine, to a leader whose agenda was this tight, close relationship with Russia and Putin and obeisance to the Russian system and to Russia's desires.And the people rose up against that leader in Ukraine.

And so, in a sense, Putin, he's certainly a man who thinks of his own self-interest.And there's a danger, obviously, with this close example in Ukraine, brother country of Russia, to have people rise up like that.It could happen in Russia.And I think Putin is thinking defensively in those years.And he's thinking, how do I make sure that never happens in Moscow?How do I make sure that what happened in the Main Square of Kyiv never happens in Red Square?

And what do you think, looking back on him, would make him think, you know: I'm going to take the risk to launch interference in an American election.I'm going to be increasingly aggressive?Was that the turning point?

Well, his interference in the American elections certainly represented a ratcheting up of his risk tolerance, I guess.On the other hand, number one, I think Putin believes the West is inherently weak and can be pushed to a certain point, and he pushes to that point.And if he doesn't get a reaction, he pushes some more.And so he thought he could push that far.

And he saw a clear potential benefit in a change of U.S. stance and policy toward Russia, and attitudes, and saw potentially—first it might have just been a chance to make mischief and create trouble for the U.S., because if the U.S. is worried about its own political crisis, it doesn't really have time to worry about Russia and what Russia might be doing.But I think he came to see the genuine opportunity to change U.S. policy, to soften U.S. resistance to his project of cementing, not just his own power, but Russia's power and Russia's dominance over the former Soviet Union sphere.

And what must he take, at the end of that, where he's interfered in the elections?He's been called on it.He watches. Whether it's the help of the Russians or not, he watches Trump be elected.There's some sanctions, and they kick out some diplomats, but what lesson does he take at the end of the day?He took this risk, and—

He took this risk, and it paid off for him.And so he must take the lesson that "I can push further; that I can do more."And look at the relationship he had with Donald Trump, who stood next to him in Helsinki and essentially said, “I take Vladimir Putin's word over the word of the U.S. intelligence community,” a shocking thing for a U.S. president to say and do.So I think, as long as Trump was president, I think Putin felt he had a free hand, essentially, to pursue his own goals without much fear of U.S. interference or pushback in any way, not even rhetorical pushback, the kind of pushback that you would expect.

And if the United States is—it sort of backs off.That, I think, creates space for a similar retreat, I think is the word, in Europe.And the United States really has to lead in this relationship, and has historically.And without that sort of U.S. leadership, I think Putin felt unbound and unconstrained, and I think the result is what we're seeing now.

… Inside of Russia, there's increasing crackdowns on protesters.He's jailing [opposition leader Alexei] Navalny.He's amending the constitution to become president for life.What's his approach inside Russia during those years, leading up to now, and what changed for him?

Well, you know, inside Russia, I think the longer he was in power—and remember he's been there for 20 years—I think he was fairly systematic at making sure he had no rivals in power.There's no figure around him who challenges him or who even looks like a successor to him.He was careful not to allow that.… I don't think he's particularly religious, but I think he came to see himself as almost ordained to lead Russia at this moment and to lead Russia back to greatness.

And if that is your ordained mission, if that is what you are supposed to do, then there aren't a lot of limits on the means you can use to achieve that goal, right?So jailing the opposition becomes not just an act of self-interest in getting rid of a potential opponent, but it becomes in the national interest, because it is in the national interest for Putin to lead Russia back to greatness.Therefore, it is in the national interest to jail Navalny.It is in the national interest to poison and kill opponents and drop them out of windows and the sort of thing that we've seen from Putin.It is in the national interest not to have the kind of dissent and expression of public—of public attitudes that we see in the other former Soviet republics that became independent and Western-leaning nations.That's not in Russia's best interest, in his mind, I think, and Russia's best interest is to have him as its strong leader indefinitely, because he is leading it back to greatness.

We often think about the Soviet era, but it's almost more czarist.

Exactly.

He is the state, as you were describing.

Yeah, exactly.It is almost more czarist.And one could argue that Stalin, who concentrated so much power in himself, was somewhat czarist as well but not any of the other Soviet leaders, with the exception of Lenin, I guess.But the subsequent Soviet leaders were more like the head apparatchik, whose turn it came, and none threatened to become czar of all the Russians.And that very much seems to be the way Putin thinks of himself, as more of a czar than as a president.

Putin’s Foreign Policy

And overseas during this period, he seems like he's emboldened.I mean, you mentioned the poisonings.They're happening in the United Kingdom.He's deploying troops into Syria and doesn't seem to mind the criticism and the accusations of war crimes that Russia gets accused of.What's his approach during that period, leading up to now, to foreign policy?

I think he has realized and understood that he does not have to stay within what most of us would consider international norms, because in the end, what is anybody going to do to him, right?I mean, how—you know, rank has its privileges.Nuclear weapons—being a nuclear nation, a nuclear-armed nation, has its privileges, and one of those privileges is that nations that may criticize you, that may disapprove of what you're doing, that may be appalled and sickened and outraged by actions you're taking, have to stop there.They can't go to war with Russia, because it's suicidal to do so.Mutual assured destruction is still a doctrine that kind of works, and it's a fact of our lives.

So I think he learned that he can sort of push it to the limit and then beyond, because in the end, the United States is not going to go to war against Russia.France and Great Britain are not going to go to war against Russia.Nobody is going to go to war against Russia, because if you do that, you are signing your own death warrant and that of millions of innocent people.You're killing your own country, as well as his.And so, since that can't happen, he can push as far as he wants.

Trump loses the election, somebody who was sort of giving him, in some ways, a green light to do what he was doing.And Biden comes in.But at the same time, Putin must be watching Jan. 6, the withdrawal from Afghanistan.What do you think he's seeing in Biden and the United States in this run-up to the decision to go into Ukraine?

I think he misperceived President Biden.I think he underestimated him as a leader and underestimated his position, his strength as a leader.You see Jan. 6; you see an America that is divided, that is chaotic; and you can assume that it's going to be less effective in opposition.You see the withdrawal from Afghanistan.And, you know, Russia also withdrew from Afghanistan, or the Soviet Union did.So maybe, maybe you take a lesson from that or maybe not. …

I think you look at Afghanistan, and … you see a United States that might not have the stomach for confronting Russia, if it does take action like he's taking in Ukraine.You look at a United States not necessarily in retreat, but a United States that is not advancing its interests and advancing its power in the world.

And so I think he's been surprised at the strength and the unity of the reaction, both worldwide and within the United States.… I think he anticipated more division inside the United States about how to respond if he took a step like the one he's taking now.I think he expected us to be slower in reacting.I don't think he expected the sanctions to be as tough as they are, and I think he's probably concerned about further steps that could be taken to sanction the oil and gas industry, which would hurt even more.

We started with talking about that national security meeting.But something that is really striking during the era of COVID, when you look at the pictures of Vladimir Putin, that he's on videoconference with people, that he is—when he is in person, he's at the end of the long table time and time again.What does it say about Putin, to see these images of Putin apart?What does this suggest anything about—

It is very, very strange.I mean, again, even in the age of COVID, when we established social distancing and we don't sit in tight clusters without masks the way we used to, even then, the way he establishes physical distance puts his aides, or anyone who's talking to him, really, almost on a lower plane, on a lower level.It suggests that he sees himself as apart and above all of those he interacts with.You noted that when President Macron of France, for example, came to visit, again, you had them sitting at opposite ends of this impossibly long table.I mean, there's no sort of medical reason why, even in the COVID times, why there had to be such great distance between them.

And so it has to be deliberate, and it has to be a deliberate way of saying: “I'm apart from you.I'm above you.And you have come as a supplicant to ask something of me, and I will grant it, or I will not.”But there's no sense of, sort of, conversation as equals.And you can, by extension, wonder if he believes he has equals.

Putin’s Goals

So in the film, we've watched him.He's watched the collapse of the Soviet Union.He's watched the U.S., in his view, humiliate him and try to undermine him.My question is, is this the moment that, in his own mind, his life has been building up to, the invasion of Ukraine?Does this feel like, when you read his speeches and see what he's saying, like the culmination of his life, the culmination of history leading to this moment for him?

You know, I do think this is a culmination.I do think he sees his life as having led him to this point, to this momentous point, but I don't think he feels that he's finished yet.I don't think, if he conquers Ukraine and even if he reunites Ukraine with Russia, I don't necessarily think he feels he's finished and he has written his legacy.I really think he sees himself as restoring Russia to absolute greatness in the world and reassembling, basically, the Russian Empire, the czarist empire, the Soviet Empire, whatever it was.

That doesn't mean I think he's going to, again, start invading NATO countries.I don't think he's completely mad.But if he gets away with Ukraine, I do think he will continue to push, and I think what he will push for is a kind of, at least, effective neutrality from the countries on his borders.I think he is surprised probably now that he hasn't gotten that yet, and that in fact those NATO countries, and even countries that are not now part of NATO, like Finland—and Finland has been kind of neutral.But I think he's surprised that those countries are leaning forward and criticizing what he's doing so harshly.

But I'm not sure he'll be entirely deterred.I think he sees, first, he has to deal with Ukraine.This is more difficult than he could have imagined.And assuming he accomplishes eventually what he wants to accomplish in Ukraine, then I think he wants more.I really do.

Putin’s Understanding of Ukraine

Putin seems to be a very canny operator—minimal investment in the election, and he gets great results.The Crimea invasion is something they're able to mount without a military invasion or without fighting.But in this case, it seems like he doesn't understand the capabilities of the Russian military; he doesn't understand the attitudes of the Ukrainian people; he doesn't understand what the response of the West will be.What happened?Why does this seem so different, in his understanding, or how it seems like he understands what's going on?

Well, you know, we talked about that distance that he establishes, that physical distance from his aides, from outsiders.You know, I think that that's a visualization of his distance from realities that he really should have, and could have, been more in touch with.So he should have been more in touch with the capabilities of the Russian army and its lack of apparent readiness to really carry out an operation of this size.I think he was certainly not in touch with what the people of Ukraine were really feeling and how strongly they felt about their own independence and their independence from Russia, from Moscow.He was out of touch with that.

He was out of touch with how the world community would react.And again, I think he is a bit stunned by the strength and unanimity of the reaction.And so if you isolate yourself, you put yourself above everybody else, and you only listen to people who tell you yes and tell you what you want to hear, then you get a lot of bad information, and you miss a lot of relevant and good information, and you end up making mistakes.And, you know, the way this invasion has gone so far, it's been nothing like what he expected or what he wanted.Now, he has the firepower, eventually, to do to Kyiv what he did to Grozny in Chechnya.He can just pummel it into rubble and win that way.And that may be what he intends to do, ultimately.That makes it a kind of Pyrrhic victory, but he shows no sign of being willing to back down.

Putin’s View of Zelenskyy

You said that part of what this was about was Putin's fear of democracy, of uprising in the streets, of what it was that Ukraine represents.And right now we have this mirror image between Zelenskyy and Putin.How do you think he views the Ukrainian president?

… I think he probably sees Zelenskyy as a real threat to him, not just to his project in Ukraine, what he's trying to do in Ukraine, but to him personally.Here you have this man, democratically elected, former comedian.Putin might have dismissed him as kind of a joke initially.I do believe that his idea of how to carry out this invasion, you know, involves sort of sweeping in and getting Zelenskyy off the scene.And I think he probably thought that Zelenskyy, once Russian forces started entering Ukraine, that Zelenskyy would immediately flee into exile and would set up some sort of government in exile that would actually, to Putin's point of view, be irrelevant.And, you know, let them have their little government in exile, and I'll have my government in Kyiv.

And the fact that Zelenskyy did not run away, and more than that, that he became this incredible leader, became the face of resistance and a symbol for the whole world, in the way that he has, has to be a real shock for Putin.And he must be wondering, how can I rid myself of this troublesome Ukrainian president?You know, how can I get rid of this guy?Because you look at the way he has rallied the Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian people, he's rallied the leaders and people of the world in opposition to this invasion, I don't think Putin anticipated there would be any such figure in Ukraine who could accomplish what Zelenskyy is accomplishing.

The Stakes for Putin

And it sort of raises the—it changes the nature of the war between territorial dispute to one of an autocracy-democracy sort of ideological conflict.What are the stakes for Putin at this moment?How much has he risked in this invasion? You know, because we're looking at the arc of his life.How important is this moment, and what's at stake for him?

Well, this is a really important moment for him, because, you know, he crossed the Rubicon, right?I think it would be very, very difficult for him to back down at this point. …He was offered various sort of off-ramps, and he hasn't taken them to this point.So, you know, does he really press on?And, in part, I think it depends on the performance of the Russian military and whether they can show sort of more effectiveness than they have thus far at anything other than artillery and shelling cities, which—they're very good at that, but in terms of actual maneuver, in terms of, you know, resupplying forces at the front and whatever, it's not working the way he wanted it to work.

So—but I don't see how he backs down at this point, you know.I don't see, having gone this far and incurred the cost that he's incurring, how does he then say, “Oh, OK, never mind”?So what's the endgame here?And I think he is certainly smart enough to see that it is really an unattractive prospect to think of having to fight a long-running, potentially really effective insurgency in Ukraine that's being armed and fueled by the West.

But that may be—he may see no other option but to keep going and to then fight that insurgency indefinitely, knowing, you know, that it's a quagmire for him.But he stepped into the quagmire, and I don't see him at this point deciding to back out.I think he's just going to keep wading forward.

And for Putin, who thinks the U.S. has been trying to launch a coup against him, who watched Qaddafi being dragged in the streets and said, “That could be me,” I mean, it must be very personal stakes for him at this moment, too.

Well, I think it is—it is very personal for him.… His main focus has to be on Ukraine and what's happening there, but he has to be looking, you know, out of the corner of his eye at his defense ministers, at the officials around him; at the oligarchs who have so benefited from his rule but who now are being punished in material ways, and who are going to suffer.And he has to wonder whether he has made himself more vulnerable internally by doing this than he would like to be.

The threat to him might not be being dragged out of the Kremlin by a mob of citizens.It might be being deposed or assassinated or whatever by an effective cabal of oligarchs and maybe defense officials and others who get together and say, “We have to stop this madness.”

We've been focused on Putin and on his motivation, as a biography of where he came from.But one of the amazing things about it, and the reason the biography feels so important, is the consequences of this decision, you know, one man making a decision.What are the consequences for the world, for Ukraine, for Russia, of a decision that Putin very much made on his own?

Well, I mean, just look at what's happened.This is a world historical moment that we will look back on and say, this is one of those moments when things, big things changed.Look at—look at Germany.The greatest economic power in Europe has always been, since World War II, has been incredibly skittish about arming even itself, much less arming others, about any sort of militarism because of its World War II past and its World War II crimes.And now Germany is supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine, deciding to spend more than 2% of its GDP on the military, deciding to arm up in a way that was unthinkable.I mean, it was unthinkable last year, not just 10 years ago—last year.It was unthinkable that Germany would be doing this.You look at the forward movement of NATO arms to the sort of eastern front of Poland and Romania, and how the United States and the NATO allies are literally moving forces forward to position in those countries in a way, again, that would not/could not have happened a year ago and would have been seen as—as, you know, provocative and unnecessary, and why would you do such a thing?Well, now, it seems very necessary.

And you look at the kinds of decisions that leaders elsewhere are having to make.I mean, you know, how long is President Xi of China willing to tolerate this invasion?How long is he—there are benefits to him from this relationship with Russia?China is playing an even longer game, and it doesn't involve, I think, being seen as in lockstep with Russia.So I wonder about that.I wonder about, you know, the other sort of rising Asia superpower, India, another nuclear arms state, traditional relationship with Russia.That's where India gets most of its advanced weapons.Yet even under Narendra Modi, who doesn't mind being kind of an outlier among world leaders, there's going to be a lot of pressure within India to, you know, to really rethink that relationship with Russia, given what's happening in Ukraine.I think he has reshuffled the decks of the international order in a, you know, one move, one man, one decision, one move.

One other man, President Zelenskyy, because after all—you know, it's interesting.History is not so deterministic, right?You know, one person can make a huge difference, and Vladimir Putin is making a huge difference.I would argue that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also making a huge difference in the world by his bravery in confronting Putin.

My last question is … how dangerous is Putin at this moment?Obviously there's this talk of World War III and nuclear threat.There's a threat to the international order and the laws of nations.But how dangerous is he?How dangerous should we think that he is at this moment?

We should think that Putin is really dangerous, I mean, you know, just because he has brought us to a point where miscalculations become potentially catastrophic.… I think most of the talk about nuclear war and the third world war will be nuclear and that sort of thing is, yes, that's bluster, and he's threatening, and you don't take him literally.But by the same token, if, you know, by doing what he's done and by speaking the way he's speaking, blustering and threatening in this manner, he—necessarily other powerful countries have to sort of be more alert and be more prepared and start thinking about contingencies.

And, you know, the Biden administration has been very careful not to put U.S. forces on higher alert, not to sort of take the bait in that way.And I think that's because of the realization that you don't want to bluff by walking closer and closer to the cliff, because you might slip, and a slip is unthinkable.It's the end of civilization as we know it.It is fatal, so you can't slip.He's playing—Putin is playing a very dangerous game with his rhetoric.

And so he really increases the possibility that we blunder into some sort of catastrophic nuclear exchange.And, you know, I don't think that will happen, but I think there's a much greater risk of that happening today than there was a month or a year ago.

… Somebody we talked to once said that Putin is like a rat, and when you corner this rat, he can always eat his way out of it.That's when he's most dangerous.But how close are we to watching Putin get in that corner, and how could he fight his way out of this, do you think, if that's a really true description?

I think that may be true, because I don't see Putin just sort of throwing up his hands and saying, “OK, I give up,” you know, and withdrawing.I don't see that.I do see the possibility that, at some point, he would take a face-saving off-ramp of declared Ukrainian neutrality or something like that.I see that possibility, but not soon.And I dearly hope that some of the irrationality we see now is an act.I dearly hope that he's sort of playing a madman on television, and he's not actually a madman. …I hope a lot of this is just a—is calculated to scare us, because if he's really serious, then, you know, we're really screwed. …

He's got—he's got these nukes on alert, and I just—I don't spend a lot of time worrying about nuclear war usually, and I thought we had gotten to the point where the world had to think less about that.But we're not. We're not.That's a longer-range issue for the world, I think.It will be interesting to see if, you know, assuming—and I do think this will end somehow other than with the destruction of the world—it will be interesting to see if this reignites any … renewed interest in nuclear arms control and in sort of lowering that temperature around the world, or if it has the opposite effect, and in fact ends up spurring other developed nations that could easily acquire their own nuclear weapons, like South Korea, Germany, you know.All the developed nations could have crash nuclear programs and have nuclear arms in practically no time.And so does this end up making more nations want to become nuclear-armed?That would be a nightmare scenario and, again, not thinkable a year ago, very plausible today.

My question is about NATO.So Trump had been bashing NATO for years, and he even talked about removing the United States from NATO.So I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about that acrimony that Trump had towards NATO, and how Putin would have perceived that.You know, what did he see in Trump's treatment of NATO?

Well, you know, I don't know if Putin sees NATO as an actual threat to Russia, or an actual threat to him, or a humiliation.… But he does, I think, or did feel humiliated when NATO sort of expanded right to the border of Russia.He sees NATO, I think, as fundamentally an anti-Russian alliance, not an alliance of sort of Western security, but an alliance against Russia.I think that's the way he sees it.

And, you know, he's not the first Russian leader to have really valued the sort of territorial buffer zone between Moscow and Western Europe, you know.That seems to be almost a fetish of Russian leaders, that expanse coming through Belarus and Ukraine, that's their big part of that buffer zone that sort of protects Russia from its potential enemies in the West.Those potential enemies in the West are now embodied by NATO, in his view, and it seems to just make him very uncomfortable, the idea of NATO being right at Russia's border.And that seems to be genuine discomfort on his part.Whether it's legitimate or not, it seems to be genuine discomfort.

Latest Interviews

Get our Newsletter

Stay Connected

Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation

Koo and Patricia Yuen

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.