Viktor Bout in the editorial office of Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO
Why did the United States and Russia come to a conflict that was not between them even during the Cold War? And what do they think on the other side of the ocean?
This was told by the most famous Russian prisoner, released from an American prison exactly 100 days ago, Viktor Bout. He came to the radio studio “Komsomolskaya Pravda” with his wife Alla.
“57 OF OUR PEOPLE WAIT FOR RELEASE AND RETURN TO THE HOMELAND”
… – Viktor Anatolyevich, how many of ours remain in American prisons?
– The last data I saw, it seems, 56 or even 57 of our Russian people, our citizens, whom the Americans hold.
Furthermore, most of them were arrested in third countries and brought to America. In violation of international laws. The impression is that the Americans are systematically working to create such a “swap fund.”
– And because?
– In my case, back in 2015, the State Department openly told the press that Bout would not be released until the last second of his imprisonment. Like, we want to make it an example for other Russians who will refuse to cooperate with us and will not plead guilty. If you behave in the same way as Bout, you will also serve a prison sentence of 25 years. We will destroy you, you will get sick and die soon.
That is, in fact, it is a life sentence.
WHO RULES AMERICA
-Why in the US is any attempt to get closer to Russia stagnated? Even Trump couldn’t reverse this, he was branded a “Russian spy”.
– You see, the United States is not quite a presidential republic, despite the fact that it has great powers. But in reality, using the example of Trump himself, we saw how easily his “pro-Russian” decisions were sabotaged, how everything chattered, dragged on. The President of the United States, despite the fact that he is considered the most powerful politician in the world, has a very small resource. And, in general, not even voters determine power there. And money, lots of money.
Therefore, power in America is such a projection on the screen of the one who holds his fingers and shines a flashlight on them. And a terrible picture appears on the screen.
“EVERYTHING IS HARDER NOW THAN THE COLD WAR”
– Why is there such a confrontation between us and the USA now, as in the Soviet years?
– In my opinion, much more difficult.
– It is?
– Yeah! Look, total US losses during World War II amounted to just over 400,000 dead. Compare: we only lost a million near Rzhev, in one battle!
They lost 50,000 in the Vietnam War. For them, this constant expeditionary warfare abroad with limited human losses is normal. In the last 80 years, the United States has only gone 12 years without a state of war. Someone was constantly leaning, taught …
– But not the Soviet Union.
– Yes. We had respect. They were not allowed to say that the Soviet Union was misbehaving. And after the collapse of the USSR, they already spoke to us in the language of the school director… Due to this collapse, they prevented their economic crisis. You have delayed what is only now beginning to happen to you. It was delayed at our expense.
Due to the fact that all of our families, this is how my parents, probably yours, lost. And now look how much of our money is frozen in the West…
And here again it turns out that in Russia not a single generation can accumulate anything. Some kind of catastrophe, conflict comes, and all this is lost. We start from scratch again.
– But why now everything worsens?
– Because the Americans were sure that they managed to make a semi-colony out of us. And Putin’s speech in Munich, Crimea are random failures, flashes of phantom pain among the Russians. All this will pass and Yeltsin times will return to Russia. Remember that we even had foreign ministers at that time, who now turned out to be American citizens and live there (we are talking about Andrei Kozyrev. – Auth.).
And we, to the surprise of the United States, did not give in this time.
Victor Boot.
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO
I READ THE KOMSOmolka to my cellmates
– Did you communicate with the Americans in prison?
– Certainly.
How do you assess what is happening?
– I can, perhaps, remember a person who was in the positions of the official American propaganda. Everyone else understood me, they asked, I translated our articles in the newspapers, explained what was happening.
– Did you tell us what our newspapers write about?!
– Yes. Including – “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. (Bout was sent to our newspaper all these years from Moscow, he miraculously managed to save some issues and brought them to the editorial office of KP. – Auth.) And there it was very important to understand what was really happening in Russia.
Propaganda in the United States has reached such a level that the population, no matter how “washed up” it is, simply no longer perceives it.
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO
– What did you translate from Komsomolskaya Pravda?
– Well, first of all, articles about what is happening at the front, especially the reports of your military correspondents.
Naturally, Putin’s speeches. By the way, all of them are immediately translated into English there, and many are even specially sent to you.
– Do the prisoners ask their relatives to send them?
– Yeah.
– So we imagine, a prison in the USA, everyone reads Putin’s speech.
– You see, what’s the matter… Now Russia has remained almost the only country that protects, in general, all of humanity, the planet. And the global elites are trying to destroy it.
KP political observer Alexander Gamov tries on Viktor Bout’s prison clothes in the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio studio.
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO
– Do the elites cut the branch they sit on? What do they feed on? And you do not think about self-preservation?
– They, these figures in the United States, say: well, just think, a nuclear war, we will survive, and for those who survive, everything will be enough … They say, 1 billion of the world’s population is enough for us.
– Well, then we will have to dig potatoes ourselves.
– They will leave a billion to dig potatoes for them, and everyone will work for them for food.
“THE PAINFUL SPOTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED”
– The United States also wants to destroy us economically. What are the possibilities?
– During the year of greatest sanctioning pressure in recent history, they have not been able to do anything with us.
What are the sanctions? This is an embargo. What is an embargo? This is the original seaport blockade. And always in international law such an embargo was considered an act of war.
How many such acts has the West committed against Russia now? Does it look like 11 thousand?
We have stopped counting. For some reason, I (Gamov. – Auth.) also personally fell under sanctions.
– Congratulations. This is a quality mark. Yes, our economy has not collapsed. But there were many weak points. We need to invest now in technology, in our automotive industry, and not in an assembly of screwdrivers. I welcome the revival of Moskvich himself, hoping that he will not be limited to sticking nameplates on Chinese models. We need to rapidly create our own production of microchips from scratch.
But the West did not get what it wanted either. He expected crowds of citizens to take to the streets. Overthrow power.
They judge us by ourselves. That is where your problem lies.
And the Russian people in difficult moments always come together and finally solve the accumulated problems.
You know, I liked Sergey Lavrov’s phrase to Western journalists: “Did they want to bring us to our knees? Well, put it on.”
RUSSIA VISIBLE FROM LONG
– Under the USSR, we closed the West with an iron curtain, and now, on the contrary, the West is trying to isolate us. Are we so afraid there?
– The elites are afraid. And what about ordinary people? Take the same recent articles in Komsomolskaya Pravda by your journalist Dina Karpitskaya, I read them with interest, about Americans who want to move to Russia. And about the Russian Germans who want to return. (read on KP.RU)
You see, now more than ever the state must help our compatriots, whom fate has scattered throughout the world. Every country has a Russian diaspora. Even in African countries.
I had an opportunity in the Central African Republic in 1998, when I walked into a store, I saw a white woman there, I talked to her and I was amazed! It turns out that she is ours. She came from Yakutsk and she can’t go back, anywhere. It is necessary to help all our people, scattered across the Earth, to return. They, having wandered, became more patriotic than those who stayed here. Because we have already seen enough, compared.
When you see our Motherland from afar, you understand what it is – our great Russia.
… AND THE VERDICT OF THERE BUT
“There is devastation and at night everyone is drunk”
Alla Bout (wife of Viktor Bout):
– I was in the USA in 2019. My daughter and I flew to see Víctor and traveled there. By provinces… For me, all the stories that the United States is a golden, prosperous place, then they collapsed in one fell swoop!
Listen, there is such a terrible devastation, it’s terribly simple, this is the same “America of one story.”
We walked round-eyed for two months in Illinois, went to nearby Montana, to another place.
What Victor says about his destroyed bridges: He’s 100% right. Half is completely closed, there is no way to move anywhere.
Urbanization there is a huge federal highway and small settlements around. Basically: alcohol stores, and at night everyone is drunk.
And most of them are fat, size 62.
When we saw a woman in a store who does not move around the supermarket on an electric cart, but, say, size 46 – 48, Liza and I (daughter of Alla and Viktor Bout. – Auth.) We were just happy …
