and i will never forget the fa, the expression that came over yeltsin. >> narrator: yeltsin's confidantsofis life, he would come to agree with clinton. >> before boris yeltsin died, he told intimates that it was a great mistake for him to have selected putin as his successor. >> narrator: the signs were there from the beginning. putin moved to consolidate power. one of his first targets: television. >> one of the first things he did was take control of television, because more than 90% of russians got all their news from television. ♪ ♪ >> narrator: during the yeltsin years, independent television channels, like ntv, flourished, even as they ridiculed political figures. >> ntv has a comic show called "kukly"-- "puppets." and when putin comes to rise in public life, it features a putin puppet, as well, and he's never portrayed very flatteringly. >> (straining) >> putin apparently was driven to madness by this show, and by the way he was portrayed on it, the way he was mocked on it. >> narrator: ntv and its owner, vladimir gusinsky, came into the crosshairs of putin's government. >> he sen

can you comment about that specifically with clinton and yeltsin?uest: that is a great clip, that summit was a particularly contentious one, and you can see yeltsin saying clearly we do not want this to happen and you can see clinton trying to square the circle. president clinton was in a very challenging position. she comes into office, he is a young president -- he comes into office, he is eight young president from arkansas and he sees a lot of foreign policy issues pressing us. his focus was more on domestic issues. the problem is that the united states has to balance between the desires of central europeans and on the other hand moscow and additionally ukraine, so the question is how do you square triangle. triangles, unlike circles, can be squared. central europeans want to be in nato, then you have got moscow sitting do not want nato enlargement into their, and then you have ukraine needing a role to find for itself. the partnership for peace is part of that triangle. the pols joined through clenched teeth, but president clinton personally sp

it was nearly all transcripts from clinton yeltsin summit. i got these clinton documents declassified i realize the phrase that when inch over the course of the '90s gradually took on the opposite meaning. in other words, initially for james baker it meant nato will move not one inch eastward, but by the end of the '90s it had taken on the exact opposite meaning. washington had realized by then that it could not only win big it could win bigger. not one inch of europe need to be off limits to nato. there could be an open door basically in perpetuity. now, if there's one main take away from the book it's that nato enlargement wasn't one entity, wasn't one thing. there were multiple ways to enlarge nato and they were known at the time, and his decision to go for a manner of expansion that has an endless open-door was a conscious choice. there were people pushing back against it at the time to for example, the british said the way we should expand nato is we should do it once. we should take our time while russia is weak, pick some really good a

boris yeltsin was not dismounted by signing it. anatoly chernyaev entered a diary, starting from the first days of perestroika, the faster events developed, the less illusions about the future. on november 14, 1991, he wrote down the union treaty, which will not be on the agenda in novaya ogoreva, nevertheless, that day the meeting participants agreed to the creation of a confederation on november 15, the izvestia newspaper came out with the headline get used to the words union of sovereign states. among the participants in the new ogaryov negotiations was no longer the chairman of the supreme council of ukraine leonid kravchuk on december 1, a referendum of independence was held in ukraine. and the presidential elections, in which kravchuk won, the viability of the ussr, under the chairmanship of gorbachev, was in great doubt. russian president boris yeltsin began to conduct secret consultations with the leaders of ukraine and belarus, leonid kravchuk and stanislav shushkevich on december 7, 1991, three politicians gathered at the

, being groomed by boris yeltsin in order to cover for boris yeltsin and his family. and. and you know, the allegations, the criminal allegations that were being made against members of wars, yelton's family, not just in russia, but in western europe and so forth. and to, to provide the yelton family that kind of cover. and one of the 1st things vladimir putin was assigned by president yeltsin was the pacification program. the russians undertook in the north caucasus, and chechnya, which was cruel and brutal. so what am i worried about? i'm worried about a repeat of that pacification program in ukraine. what is it that we can do, steve? we can supply, and we can sanction, and we can support. we can supply the ukrainian fighters and what fighters, they are showing the world. they are these people who are literally coming out of their day jobs, who many of whom haven't been in the military for a while, are protecting their homeland with the guts and with support from the west. it is important that we continue to do that 2nd sanction. we sanctions take a while, steve, to

in the late autumn of the ninety-fifth year, being the press secretary of russian president boris yeltsint directly involved for a long time and there were reasons for this, it was kept secret. now we can talk about it. in his office in the kremlin, there was a lot of work , tense on the eve of the presidential election, yeltsin was clearly losing to his competitor, and then this strange call. it was a certain stoyan petrov, he called at the request of the bulgarian soothsayer vanga, who offered no more, no less for the president, yeltsin, to come to her in bulgaria, why, in order to tell him something important, related to the upcoming elections, vangeliya guscherova, the world-famous bulgarian soothsayer vanga a mystery of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of people visited her world celebrities from all over the world presidents and heads of state the largest businessmen and politicians, kings and sheikhs, famous writers, philosophers and scientists. many today revere helium to you as a saint, but there are many who are afraid to even pronounce her name aloud, considering vanga t

and yeltsin, like also russian leaders, had a corruption problem. more specifically, the problem yeltsin on the 1997 was that there was a prosecutor in russia it was investigating corruption at the highest levels of the kremlin, including yeltsin and his family. and for a time, it seems like that corruption relegation might be the undoing of yeltsin and his family and his cronies. volodymyr putin, as head of the fsb, to care of that problem for boris yeltsin. putin arranged for a videos of your broadcast on on gentle television. the show the prosecutor or somebody who maybe looked like the prosecutor in bed with not one but two, very young females. the video is low enough quality and was shot from sort of a angle that you couldn't necessarily tell with the naked eye with those granolas with these girls in this about. but, putin stepped up. and his authority as the head of the fsb. vladimir putin assured lotion public that he could guarantee that the man in the video was in fact that prosecutor. and so that was the end of that prosecutor. and that wa

at yeltsin's request, i called bulgaria and asked if they needed any help.hey told me there was nothing they could do to help. on the morning of august 11, vangelia gushcherova began to choke. the doctors decided make an incision in the throat to insert a breathing tube into the trachea, but as soon as the scalpel was brought to the throat, unexpectedly in the whole clinic. the backup power supplies worked, but they turned on with some delay. why remains a mystery to this day, but at this very moment? vanga died, it happened at 10:10. i don't have any doubts. no, there is no doubt that vanga is extraordinary, some incredible miracle, however, what is from the bank. vanga is not a servant vanga is not a servant of either god or church, she will never be colonized, she will never be rehabilitated, people who believe wang consider her a saint, whether she canonized or not. it does not matter. wang took all the riddles with her. did she really see what was inaccessible to everyone else? yes, she tried to help people, but they didn’t send her, she was kind to the

vladimir putin as head of the fsb took care of that problem for boris yeltsin. putin arranged for a very to be broadcast on national television that showed the prosecutor, or somebody who may be kind of looks like the prosecutor, in bed, with not one, but two young very young females. the video was low enough quality and it was shot from sort of oblique enough angles that you couldn't necessarily tell with the naked eye who, who this grown man was with these girls in the bed, and vladimir putin assured the russian public that he could guarantee that the man in the video was in fact, that prosecutor. and so that was the end of that prosecutor and that was the end of the corruption investigation into boris yeltsin and his family, and in gratitude, or at least in payback, boris yeltsin decided that he would name as the next prime minister of russia, and the next president of russia, that fsb guy who helped him out, vladimir putin. that's how vladimir putin rose to power in the first place in russia. that's how he got control of the russian government. by generating

yeltsin zelensky in munich demanded nuclear weapons.ase, everything that happens has become. it’s just inevitable that we, of course, it seems to me, so i can say to myself, have underestimated to some extent the fact that the west is ready to fight to the last ukraine, despite any losses, while he holds this order and forces the united states and others to do it, we see it unfolding in time and space all the time western countries do one and the other. you know the step in order to slightly advance to raise this bar the side step first. we say that our military, our citizens will not take part in military operations in ukraine, we condemn. even on the words of someone who went there, we recall him back. now we are sending there, for example, britain, some of our brigades, we are talking about what aircraft must be supplied. well, and so on and so forth we develop this topic. we are trying to open new fronts. how this is happening in transnistria is clearly at the instigation, not only of ukraine, but not at the e desire of ukraine alon

only the crimea and sevastopol well, everything that yeltsin asked for and for him it was just uh.eard of holiday, when yeltsin said, well, what kind of borders are there, kravchuk by the way, let me remind you, i blocked, in fact, ukraine's entry into union of independent states ukraine has not ratified the charter of the cis each state has free independent action. but the idea of ​​the commonwealth was needed only for one in order to use this idea. and as a certain respite, so to speak, during this period to create its own army, each independent state must create an army in a normal way at the expense of its taxpayers. but it turns out that the idea was different to take and transfer the current army simply under the jurisdiction of ukraine, today we have received the most dangerous symbiosis extreme nationalists. uh, with uh, the former party nomenklatura. they, uh, found each other very quickly. and if you pay attention to in speeches. the leadership of today's ukraine is not a word about human rights about a right state, they all begin and end with words about independence, fo

yeltsin m a choice in 1999 who would he sort of set up as his successor and as you recall, there were a number of prime ministers that were tried out and failed for one reason or another, and putin, a case officer, managed to get that. i would like to add one thing though, which is that you know, there's plenty to criticize what the u.s. did or didn't do in 1990's with regard to russia, but the first thing i'd say is, we manage our foreign policy based on the information we have, the choices that we think are in front of us. it's an imperfect process and we do the best we can and sometimes it doesn't work out exactly the way you would have liked, but the second thing i would say is that the russians have agencies. russia as a country, the leadership and the people. and when we talk about these events in the united states, understandably of course, we talk about it from an american centric point of view. we did this, we did that, blah, blah, blah. and it's like all the of these other countries have no agency, but actually they are the most important actors in their own story. >> that's

like me would refer to as this bad tool in 1993 and boris yeltsin many people believe by turning his tax on the white house, he himself was dealing a blow to russia's halting effort to become a democracy and you were there for the election of 1996 in russia where there was a corrupt bargain to purchase the election on his behalf. just decided by many people in washington as a way to avoid a return the communists to power. was that an original sin of russian democracy? was at the moment when something like putin became inevitable? >> i don't know is the short answer. i would just say that the intelligence services had always wanted more power and obviously that's where that comes from. there was a choice. yeltsin had a choice in 1999 who he was going to set up as his successor and there were a number of prime ministers e tried out and failed for one ed reason or another and put in was as as the case officer managed to get back. i would like to add one thing which is that there's plenty to criticize about what the us did or didn't do with regard to russia but the first thing i'd say is

imagine the collapse of the soviet union in 1992, yeltsin's kozyrev's russia in full gallop, like other republics running back, we give up our accepted values ​​in exchange for a place at the common table. as jeanske said, the russians must be given the illusion of involvement in the ninety-second year. so, under the leadership of the savages nikolin powell, to break the doctrine into an office providing for, the destruction of any potential adversaries of the united states and the global dominance of the united states in the world in the ninety- fifth year, yeltsin is still dancing kalinka into the raspberry with clinton, it seems, as we have with our american allies, as they said then, not partners, in general, peaceful and good friendly relations are being realized the nato program is a partnership for peace, through which all countries will subsequently be drawn into nato. central europe and the baltic states and c. at the same time, clinton utters the second historical phrase, we will allow russia to be, but we we will not allow russia to be a great power, what changes in 30 years?

next year there duration in its final year this oh, just bring in cost cutting the real easy for yeltsin up the 9. is this a re right he st. military, i believe a proud past day saas ah, promoting patriotism and country via union but remained. oh, tonal russia.

yeltsin later admitted that the shock was a failed experiment. only it was too late.o about the devastated population of professors and doctors of science who washed the entrances of teachers from poland to turkey who dragged checkered bags about privatization, as a result of which billions are now being so loudly arrested in the west, which are only now suddenly recognized as dirty. that is why, because we remember all this, now everything should be different. we have no illusion that someone will help us. we know that. the kanese bank jpmorgan has already warned shareholders that the conflict in ukraine and inflation could change the balance of power for the coming decades. get ready, that is, the game did not work in one goal. and you have to try wait until the americans realize that nothing can be achieved by war. we have to agree. anton pomarev tried to understand, and wait a long time, because the psaki say unambiguously. we are trying to get the russians to choose between default and depletion of their foreign exchange reserves and at the same time a biden. the

>> he came in to replace a man named boris yeltsin.oris yeltsin was the original president after the fall of the soviet union. boris yeltsin was a crazy guy, sort of drunk, and he allowed the oligarchs, these 22 oligarchs, to steal 40% of the country. the rest of the russians were living in destitute property. i and everybody else in the country were desperate for somebody to restore order. putin presents himself as a modern technocrat. he wasn't drunk, he was slim, he spoke english. he remembered things from meeting to meeting. for the first couple of years, he behaved kind of like a boring technocrat, no personal charisma at all, and we thought he was going to be getting rid of the oligarchs. it turned out he wasn't interested in getting rid of the oligarchs, he wanted to become the biggest oligarch himself. there is an expression that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and that was the story of putin. he became immensely corrupt and powerful and it got worse and worse until 22 years later, he is the richest man in

yes that yeltsin and kozyrev were in the west, that's how the west loved us, and halifax showed it. chechen war, as soon as we said there would be no negotiations. we'll get none. yes, there are no good terrorists of the mazhadov yandarbiyevs . we'll get them. we said all at once screams. notice it has stopped. well, a little fakes spun until the winter of 2000, then they quickly folded their paws. west anglo-saxons respect only brute brutal force and the victory of romik victories, they do not respect your logic, the same boris johnson who demands not to sit at the negotiating table. as soon as this week, british prime minister boris johnson tries to convince german chancellor olaf scholz to tighten sanctions against russia, fearing that some nato allies will still be able to push kiev to sign a peace agreement with russia on friday, scholz should arrive on his first official visit to london, during which johnson will presumably ask the german chancellor to increase diplomatic economic and military pressure on russia as said one of the senior members of the british government. lond

he claims that he offered yeltsin, and then putin, to join nato, but the topic was not reciprocated.en to possible nato membership for russia, which i have made clear. yeltsin and later confirmed to his successor vladimir putin, in addition to all these efforts to bring russia into nato missions after the end of the cold war, madeleine ulbright and our entire national security team worked hard to promote positive bilateral relations. and here is how everything really happened and whether it was notarized to accept russia quite recently vladimir putin told in 2000 during the visit to moscow of the outgoing us president bill clinton. i asked him. and, how america will react to accepting russia into nato, i will not reveal all the details of this conversation, but the reaction to my question. outwardly , let's say the americans looked like this, they really reacted to this opportunity, in fact, it can be seen on them. practically step against our country well bill clinton is known even under oath. uh, don't worry too much about the truth of your statements. here, with regard to finland,

of the first year that shed here , that is, yeltsin was the head of the state, and our musicians weres now shed . uh, in ukraine, it is on those who destroyed our country in the ninety-first year, therefore, this should be taken extremely, uh, seriously, but in no case is it possible with such a formal method, this enemy is not an enemy. this is a very serious reason. let's try again. here, probably, except for viktor zhozev, through sergeevich, here are all the others to speak on this topic let's try, if we have time now we'll see. the girl rejected the importunate admirer, and he decided to take revenge on her dousing with armor. he tracked her, ran to the girl and jumped. it is long for her. she touches her face with this dirty snow, and it’s just that the skin from her face remains all in the snow, the chosen one also remains, the injured couple is now in an extremely difficult condition. no eyes, uh sides of the face. hands and feet. what punishment threatens a sadist from a couple who crippled life and a schoolboy passing by, we will get not one, we will get two criminal cases.

yeltsin wanted to see that, i guess. he was amazed by what was on the shelves of american stores. the bounty we have. i think it moved him to become emotional about it. it also moved him to give up his role in the communist party in russia and try to start reforming his country. indeed, he was quoted as saying if the russian people could see what's on the shelves here, there would be a revolution. that's pretty amazing. so what are we doing here in this country? the regulatory agencies, policies come out of this administration and the state one in california, are basically running agriculture off the map. taking the water away from farmers in california is a big example. people around the country may be watching, why does that affect me? bunch of california problems. they are all messed up out there, anyway. what's important is that so many of these products we grow in california benefit the whole country. there are at least a dozen crops 90% to 98% of them that americans consume are grown in my home state. i went to this irrigation district meeting just recently here in my distri

yeltsin flew to the sevens themselves.ere he said to clinton at the press conference here is the person who supports us no no no, - said clinton here the prime minister of canada is speaking. yen says you are making the same humanitarian disaster as in bosnia and herzegovina and apparently. yes it can culminate in an international investigation, that is, a novel of what aggression against us might look like. i think that they can organize aggression against us in such a way as to create a tribunal to investigate some crimes. yeah, one of the former officials of russia, ideally for them, of course, the ex-president of the pension. oh, the vacation will arrive somewhere to arrest and deliver him there. so, well, for some reason we think that aggression against russia will begin again on june 22. i do not rule out that it will begin precisely on this first humanitarian scenario and at the same time there will be pressure and a question. can such a country be entrusted with nuclear weapons? and a place in the security council

the power brokers in russia that actually aided and supported putin in his bid to take power after yeltsin have struggled. with you, he was a politicalforce. do you regret your association with him? do you think he changed or did you get him wrong at the beginning? and you obviously paid a very heavy price, not least ten years in russian prison. and you today are a very passionate campaigner against putin and for what you call an open russia, with an open russia foundation, with an anti—putin coalition of exiled politicians. you are doing everything you can to change russia from outside but would you accept that what we see today is the failure of your political campaign against putin? i'm sure you are aware of the total information control that the kremlin operates. you're aware of the narrative that putin and his associates are giving to the russian people. that this is russia's defensive war, that nato is seeking to undermine russian security and that russia has a fundamental right to send its forces into a war which is safeguarding russian culture, russian history and russia's future.

yes to purchase that election on yeltsin's behalf. justified by many people here in washington as a way to avoid a return the communists to power with that an original sin, you know of russian democracy was at the moment when something like putin became inevitable in your view. i don't know is the short is the short answer. i would just say that. the intelligence services had always wanted more power and obviously that's where he comes from and you know there there was a choice yeltsin had a choice in 1999 who he would sort of set up as his successor. and as you recall, there were a number of prime ministers that were tried out and failed for one reason or another and putin, you know case officer managed to to get that i would like to add one thing which is that, you know, there's plenty to criticize about what the us did or didn't do in the 1990s with regard to to russia. but the first thing i'd say is we manage our foreign policy based on the information. we have the choices that we think are in front of us. it's it's an imperfect p

yeltsin, gorbachev, anyone. and that is ukraine and georgia, within the russian strategic heartland, joining a hostile military alliance. they will never accept that. the u.s. foraged ahead. september, 2021 policy statement amplifies it. it states it explicitly. we will go ahead and we will continue to arm ukraine. if you want to imagine what that is like from the russian point of view, understood well by high u.s. level statesman -- high-level u.s. statesman, it is if -- it is as if mexico were to join a chinese run military alliance and carry out joint exercises with the chinese army. place weapons in mexico. aimed at washington. we wouldn't tolerate that. it would never. not mexico, not anywhere in latin america. remember the cuban missile crisis? inconceivable. notice that this is no infringement on the sovereignty of mexico. mexico is essentially neutral. it is not part of any military alliance. it has restrictions. it cannot do what i just described. it cannot join a chinese run military alliance and carry

in the 1990's, it was difficult for boris yeltsin as president of russia to negotiate with ukrainian leadership and except this was a separate country, but he did. what happened was, first of all, in 1994, he has a beautiful memorandum. -- you to pass memorandum -- budapest memorandum. ukraine give up its nuclear weapons. so many of the soviet nuclear weapons had been stationed there. the united states and russia and great britain and ukraine got together and they signed a memorandum where ukraine said we are giving up our nuclear weapons and we are going to have assurances are territorial integrity and sovereignty will be respected by the signatories. russia signed a memorandum giving the security assurances. they were not guaranteeing various diplomatic reasons but they were assurances. in 1997, after a lot of bargaining, russia and ukraine signed a friendship treaty with boris yeltsin still in power, again guaranteeing territorial integrity and sovereignty. basalt a lot of border disputes. it had been difficult for them to agree on the status of parts of the border between ukraine