Vladimir Posner broke his year-long silence by attending Ubiquity University Humanity Rising Day 641: Summit on Ukraine I: Overview of the War. Here are a few points from his speech and discussion with Jim Garrison.
- Putin is anything but crazy. Putin does not want the USSR restored. He has said many times: he who does not miss the USSR has no heart, and he who wants it back has no brains.
- Read the original documents, not opinions. Don't believe me, don't believe anyone, believe only documented facts.
- Russia has never had democracy in all the time of its existence, this is something new to it. It's something you have to learn, and it takes time.
- NATO has always been an organization for defense against a possible Soviet threat, which is why Russia had great questions and concerns when NATO began to expand after the collapse of the USSR.
- Gorbachev made the mistake of not pushing the idea of signing a document on the non-expansion of NATO, this agreement was only verbal.
- Some influential Americans, politicians and journalists, predicted that Russia would react negatively to NATO expansion and that this was a mistake, and they were right.
- Comparing Russia and Ukraine to America and Mexico: "Imagine if an anti-American president were elected in Mexico and they called in Russian troops to help defend the Mexican borders, wouldn't Americans be concerned about that?" - underquote)
- Whether or not Putin is right in his belief that Ukraine's interaction with NATO poses a threat to Russia, what matters is that he actually believes it.
- Putin warned the West, and specifically the US, to guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO, and they poked the bear in the nose several times, hoping it would fall into the trap called, Ukraine.
- An important reason for Putin's actions is that he doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO.
- Whether I agree with Putin is irrelevant. It's the facts that matter. But I think the ball is in the U.S. side because Zelensky is 100% dependent on the U.S.
- Now it is clear that China will support Russia, but not because it loves Russia so much, but because it is against the US. The Chinese think that the US wants to repeat the Balkan scenario with Russia and are afraid that they will be next.
- If we talk about the intellectual community, it is mostly against Putin, but this community is very small in Russia.
- In Russia today, it's very difficult to publicly disagree with what's going on, it's dangerous. In my opinion, society has become repressive. People are put in jail for saying what they think. The people I see (perhaps meaning "the people I see" - translator's note) are mostly against it.
- I am ashamed of my profession (literal translation: my profession), I am ashamed of what they do, of the lies that are presented as truth, of propaganda in the worst sense of the word. I shouldn't say it, but I will. I'm an atheist, but if there is a hell, journalists will get there.
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Those who remember the '80s, may have seen Posner on American TV.