Lawfare Daily: Mikhail Zygar on Putin, the Russia-Ukraine War, and Press Freedom

[Intro]

Mikhail Zygar: They love this trend. They love America becoming less careful about, about democracy. They think that that's, that's the beginning of the new world order. That's the end of any kind of criticism about Russian democracy or Russian political system.

Olivia Manes: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Olivia Manes, associate editor of Lawfare, with Mikhail Zygar, a renowned Russian journalist living in exile in the U.S., as well as a New York Times columnist, Princeton lecturer, and author of multiple books on Putin, including “All the Kremlin's Men.”

His most recent book “War and Punishment” explores and illuminates the historical myth that gave rise to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both past and present. He's also the founder of one of the last independent Russian media channels, TV Rain, which is now based in the Netherlands.

Mikhail Zygar: The moment when, when journalists start being afraid, or their, their bosses, their editors start being afraid of touching some topics—that's, that's the moment when we should know that we are in trouble.

Olivia Manes: Today, as we enter a new stage of the Russia-Ukraine war under the Trump administration, we're talking about structural incentives underlying Putin's actions, Mikhail's experience as a journalist living under authoritarianism, global disillusionment with liberal democracy, and more.

[Main podcast]

I want to begin by asking a little bit about your background and how you ended up kind of where you are today. So can you tell us about your experience as an independent journalist in Russia and how that ultimately led to your living in exile in the United States?

Mikhail Zygar: Oh, thank you, Olivia, for having me. That's a great privilege for me.

And yeah, actually that's a very long story. I, I used to work as a journalist in Russia for more than 25 years. I was war correspondent working for Russia's biggest independent newspaper called Kommersant. That's some kind of Russian equivalent for the New York Times. Mostly I was working in the Middle East in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Sudan, Syria, other hotspots.

And then in 2010, I, I became one of the founders, founding editor-in-chief of Russia's only independent news TV channel, as you mentioned, TV Rain. And that that TV channel was absolutely independent. We were able to give floor to any representatives of, unregistered oppositional parties, anti-Kremlin activists for example, Alexei Navalny, the late leader of the Russian opposition, was our frequent guest and contributor.

And basically we, we were the most influential and the, the most popular viewed TV channel in Russia until 2014. Our TV channel was almost destroyed just around the month before the first invasion of, of, of Ukraine, before the annexation of Crimea. When Kremlin decided that they're going to start another era in in Russian political history, they, they did everything they could to destroy all independent media outlets, and we were the biggest and probably the, probably the biggest and the first one to be almost eliminated. We lost, I would say 99% of our audience. And the TV channel managed to survive, we moved online as most Russian independent journalists.

So basically during the last 10 years Russian independent media existed online and we had a lot of very high quality investigative outlets TV channels, radio stations, mostly YouTube channels. YouTube was the major platform for independent high quality investigative journalism in Russia.

But basically another era started in 2022 when, three year three days after the invasion, journalism was basically criminalized in Russia. According to the new law, it is just impossible to call this war a war, and I'm the example. I was sentenced in absentia to eight and a half years in prison for being a journalist.

So yeah, all the independent journalists who used to work from Russia and who used to live in Russia, had to to flee—most independent media work from Europe, from the Netherlands, from Lithuania, Latvia, or Germany. I work in New York. I, I mostly now write for American media and teach, teach in American universities and continue writing books.

And also, I, I have, weekly Substack newsletter called Last Pioneer, just about what is happening in Russia, because we still have the possibility to cover what's happening here, what's happening there, what's happening in Russia, in the Kremlin in Putin’s inner circle. We still have—I still have a lot of reliable sources. And yeah, it's, it's still better than how the, the journalism in Russia was during the Soviet period during the Cold War. I think that time the information about what was really happening was minimal. Now we still know quite a lot.

Olivia Manes: Yeah. Thank you for that really sort of extensive overview and I think I wanna dig into a lot of the different points that you've touched on. With that in mind though, I do want to start with a topic that I think is on everyone's mind and that you mentioned as sort of something that has really triggered sort of the degeneration of, of independent media in, in Russia, more so than ever before. And that's the Russia-Ukraine war.

I do wanna preface this question by saying that as recently as today, the U.S. Secretary of State said that it's, it's not possible to end the war in Ukraine, it's time for the U.S. to quote unquote move on. So with that, with that kind of, you know, sentiment in mind, I wanna talk, get your take on this basically, and you know, in one of your most well-known books, “All the Kremlin's Men,” you sort of demystify the Putin regime and explain the structural incentives that keep, that keep the Russian president in power, right? And you refer to him as sort of an accidental king.

So my question is, how do these incentives sort of factor into the Russia-Ukraine war? Why might Putin be committed to ensuring the war continues?

Mikhail Zygar: Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that even Marco Rubio admitted that it would be at least very hard, if not impossible, to end the war. And the major factor for that is President Vladimir Putin, because we, we can be sure that he doesn't have that desire, and he cannot stop the war. He embraced this war. He started loving it and he found that that's the only mechanism for him to, to remain in control, to stay in power forever.

And yes, you are, you are absolutely right. He's quite a accidental ruler of Russia. He he was no politician before he was elected a president. But somehow once he obtained the power, he realized—or he started realizing more and more during the first years of his presidency—that he cannot leave that position.

And once back in 2008, he was trying to create another scheme of, of running Russia from the background being prime minister while picking Dmitry Medvedev as the president. But Putin didn't like that, that situation. He realized that the influence was, was being lost, and he, he could not, he could not be certain that he's still holding all the, all the instruments, all the mechanisms of, of power. So, yes, for, for now, we can be sure that, that he's intended to stay in power forever, till the end of his days. He's not going to choose any successor, and unfortunately, he, he has learned basically since 2014 the nation that is waging the war is the most easy to control. That's the, the only way to to make sure that all your all enemies are suppressed, or now most, most of them had to leave the country.

The inner circle, the big business, the top bureaucracy, the, the people who used to influence a lot on different levels—he people who I called collective Putin. In, in my book “All the Kremlin’s Men,” the, the people who symbolize this regime—and surprisingly, most of them hate the war, surprisingly. They they don't really want this war to go to go on, but they have no voice. They have no possibility to influence him or to confront him or even to speak out because during, during the war, any, any kind of doubt or hesitation or criticism is equalized to a betrayal.

So, yeah, it's the most comfortable scenario for, for him to wage this war, to—he, he was playing a very effective game, trying to pretend that he was ready to start the negotiations. He was ready to, to talk about the ceasefire because he was trying to put the blame on President Zelensky. He was trying to, to to pretend that it was not him, but Zelensky who didn’t want the cease fire, but now it's becoming more and more clear. Yeah. We, we see that even Trump administration will have to, to admit it, and better sooner than later, I guess.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I mean, I think what you're alluding to is there's, there's sort of an apparent paradox, right, of Putin's incentives and keeping the war going with his kind of initial willingness, willingness at least to at least entertain the idea of an end to the war. And in a recent New York Times piece, you, you term this a dual track strategy. Can you discuss this a little bit and tell us what this, what this kind of means?

Mikhail Zygar: Yeah, absolutely.

Basically, Putin really wants to reestablish his relationships with, with the United States. And he, he really wants to separate two tracks. He, he wants to talk about bilateral relationships separately and Ukraine separately. And yes, he is really interested in bringing Russia back to the international arena. He wants basically sanctions to be lifted. He wants to reset his connections with, with West, but that doesn't mean he, he's ready to stop the war.

So he would love to continue the war, and at the same time, to, to start talking to Donald Trump. He, he would love Donald Trump to—basically his dream was to persuade Donald Trump to visit Russia, to visit military parade in Moscow on May 9. That's the anniversary of the end of the Second World War. So basically, I know that Russian diplomats, Russian negotiators were trying to to make this as some kind of precondition for the great breakthrough in the negotiations.

But at the same time, he didn't want to make any compromise on Ukraine. He really needs to continue the war. He even was not ready to, to agree for 30 days ceasefire. He proposed so many unacceptable preconditions. So it, it was, it was all in vain.

But yes, he, he's trying hard to, to continue talking to Americans because he sees that that's the unique opportunity. He, he has some soulmates in, in the current administration. I, I don't mean that there is any kind of collusion, they are not considered as Russian agents in the Kremlin; they are just considered to be the, the people who, who can be dealt with. They, they are mentally very different from the the previous administrations. And yes, the Kremlin bureaucrats think that that's the unique opportunity to, to relaunch relationships with, with Washington.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I mean, I think what you're kind of alluding to is some, something you've discussed before, which is the, the sort of Putin of world politics, which, you know, is marked by this profound cynicism, you say it's, it's the idea that, you know, that might makes right, and that, you know, you, you do what you need to do, what's necessary and with, with very little regard to norms or with very little regard to a consistent ideology necessarily.

So I think it seems like what you're alluding to there is that the current administration is like-minded in that, that profound cynicism, in that idea that might makes right. So maybe could you talk about how this is playing out geopolitically this, this kind of Putinization of world politics, and maybe discuss how we might counter this trend?

Mikhail Zygar: You know, I can at least at least tell you how this strength is is viewed from Moscow because yes, definitely they were for many years, Kremlin ideologists were preaching that liberal democracy does not exist, and liberal democracy is fake, and all western politicians who are talking about liberal democracy, human rights, free and fair elections, and attempt spread democracy around the world—all of them are hypocrites. And that was Kremlin’s message for a couple of decades.

And right now, they, they are feeling that their ideology, they are a liberal skepticism—or let's call it cynicism, it's the correct word—their ideology is becoming more and more popular and more and more influential in America. Even more, they think that the concept of liberal democracy is, is becoming much less popular in America. Less American people believe that the current American political system is democratic.

And according to many Russian political strategists, according to many high ranking bureaucrats in Kremlin who are trying to make, establish the new world order, they compare current political situation in America to their last years of the Soviet Union. And they say that, okay, so Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in communism and it was, was irrelevant. And the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, embraced Western ideology, which was liberal democracy. They think that the tendency in America is somehow similar, that the current American administration is becoming less convinced that liberal democracy is the true religion of America, is the the cornerstone of American statehood. And they are embracing that much more pragmatic or cynical approach to, to the global policy much less based on the ideology.

So the conclusion they come to is that the United States of America as, as it used to be, is no longer there. So it's becoming some, some kind of new new political force, new political power, and new, new entity, new state, not a state which was based on values. And for them, that's, that's completely different thing for them. That's they, for many years, they considered that ideological approach to be the best one.

For many, you know, even, even during the Soviet period, Soviet diplomats considered Republican administrations and especially Henry Kissinger as the, the symbol of realpolitik, the most approachable and like the the most comfortable partner, and the, the Democratic administrations as a symbol of that, of that ideological approach, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski as the least comfortable one, the least friendly negotiator.

So yes, they, they, they love this trend. They love America becoming less careful about, about democracy. They think that that's, that's the beginning of the new world order, that's the end of any kind of criticism about Russian democracy or Russian political system. And they think that this nothing personal, just business is the way how they would love to make things. They, they think that that running company as the corporation and living in a world where corporations deal with each other without any talks about human rights or values is the best case scenario.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, so it seems like there's a really profound, I guess pragmatism would be the word, you know, which is not predicated on, on any sort of idealism—any, any notion of, you know, what is our duty in the world, right—and kind of a rejection of the idea of norms, you know, sort of the neoliberal world order.

That said, I do wanna maybe dig into something that's a little paradoxical to that, which is that Russia has often kind of invoked or turned to international law and international norms as a justification for its actions in Ukraine, right? It's often said, you know, there are human rights being violated in Ukraine. It's talked about self-defense. It's talked about, you know, notions of being able to choose your own identity, choose your own, your own country.

So, I mean, I guess the, the answer is sort of implicit in my question, but what do you make of this strategy of sort of twisting the norms and laws of the international order to, to Putin's own ends, to Russia's own ends?

Mikhail Zygar: You know, the most popular mantra, and it's equally Putin's one and, the mantra used by Russian propaganda is that Russia is not the first to break the international law and the, the international norms.

And it's, I think that's the most paradoxical argument. They claim that America started it first and they actually, according to that point of view is that it all started with Iraq. They, they say, okay, you, you were the first to start a invasion of Iraq and after all, retroactively, we know that it was not really justified and the, the weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Sadam Hussein’s Iraq.

So probably America was the first to break the old world order and Russia together with France in Germany back in 2003, was opposing that military intervention. That's a very weird logic, but they say, okay, you, you did it first, but if, if it's possible for you, why, why isn't that possible for us?

Somehow, you know, paradoxically, it's the dilemma that was, that is very close to famous Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “War and Punishment,” the dilemma of the protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov, the person who killed the old lady, who had a moral dilemma if he had the right, or he was just a trembling creature, so to prove himself that he was a superhuman, he had to kill the person.

And just like that to prove to itself that Russia is a superpower, Vladimir Putin needed to prove that, prove he has the right to violence. He had, he, he needed that violence and international aggression to prove that he's not lesser of a superpower, just like, just like America.

So basically diplomats are speaking about the kind of respect to international order. In reality, they, they admit that, that, yeah, that, that was an aggression. That was, that was the breach of all international norms. And that's okay, because international law, as it used to be, does not exist any longer. That's, that's the, the idea of, of Vladimir Putin for many years, and actually he started speaking speaking out about that since 2007 when in Munich, during the Munich International Conference, he made his infamous Munich speech and he called for the new Yalta for the new conference to establish the new world order, to re-divide the world. So yes, basically that's, that's something he, he would like to have.

Olivia Manes: I mean, I think history is often marked by these moments of what we sort of term a realignment of a world order, a fundamental shift. And sort of on that note, we've been talking about the present. We've been talking about this perceived shift in how the world functions, right? Or at least that Russia claims there's a shift.

I wanna look to history now. And your recent book, “War and Punishment,” is sort of an examination of the history that led to today, and more specifically, it's an examination. It's a critical self-examination of Russia and the Russian narratives, you call them myths that helped enable the war. Can you talk a little bit about those narratives, some of the narratives and myths that you, you identify and how they specifically translated into policy, into how Russia approached the war?

Mikhail Zygar: Yeah, we, we all know that Vladimir Putin is obsessed with history and he, he never misses the opportunity to, to have a long lecture about history. He's lecturing foreign leaders. He was lecturing Tucker Carlson when, when he gave an interview to him.

And yes, he repeats the same, myths the same historical narratives. And basically he believes in, in, in many because Russian imperial history is the classical version of Russian history that was created back in the 19th century. That's the, the, the only version we know, and unfortunately, Russian history has never been de-imperialized.

We don't know any history of peoples who used to live who, who live in Russia. We don't know, history of Russian people, we don't know history of all those peoples who were invaded and suppressed by, by the Russian empire like Ukrainians or Tartars or, or so many, many more ethnicities who, who continue living in Russia or have their own their own states now.

And that's, that's one, one of the problems that that has become very. obvious after the, the invasion of Ukraine because Putin is trying to justify his war with that classical, traditional imperial narrative. He's claiming that Ukrainians and Russians are the same people and there is no such, such a nation as Ukrainians. He claims even that Ukrainian language does not exist.

He uses the classical story from, from Russian history, the moment when Peter the Great was fighting against Swedish emperor, Charles the Twelfth, and the military leader of Ukraine, Ivan Mazepa. He was the ally of Russian Emperor, but then he switched sides basically because he, he chose the interests of his own people. He chose, he, he realized that Russian Empire was a great threat to his people, and so he, he chose to become an ally of, of, of Sweden.

But in classical Russian literature as well as as in classical Russian history, that is the symbolical betrayal of Ukrainians and that motive of Ukrainians as traitors who have always betrayed Russians, somehow still exists in, in Russian literature, in Russian history, and is constantly repeated by, by Putin, by Putin's propaganda and by a lot of historians.

So yes, I think that's that's another big problem, that traditional version of, of Russian history is constantly used by Putin to brainwash a lot of people. And that's not something he invented. That's, that's the same narrative that has been used for centuries. And a lot of people in Russia believe in it because they, they have never heard about possibility of another, another look on history.

Olivia Manes: I kind of wanna shift gears now. We've talked about the Russia-Ukraine war; we've talked a little bit about the incentives that that come into play in terms of how, how Russia interacts with geopolitics and the international order.

I wanna talk a little bit about the situation in Russia in terms of press freedom and power consolidation, and I wanna dig into that and then talk a little bit about how your experience with that sort of situation is maybe framing some of the things we're seeing in the US right now.

So first of all, I, I wanna preface this by saying that like, Lawfare is a publication that kind of rests at the nexus of law and international security. So of course we love to focus on, on the, the legal elements of current events. But you've made the point previously that, that one of the main barriers to independent media in Russia is not only the, the weaponization of the legal system, but the way that media is kind of financially structured.

So you've, I think you've said something to the effect of, you know, there's, there's not necessarily a draconian dictatorial law; capitalism is sort of what has precluded or made difficult independent media. Can you talk a little bit about this?

Mikhail Zygar: Sure. Yeah. I think that's, that's very important part of our troubled experience in Russia with, with independent media, because really Putin has managed to destroy the free independent media, not with any kind of new laws. He was using all the best practices and all, all the most liberal press freedom laws that existed in Russia back 25 years ago, and, and still it was, it was possible to eradicate independent news TV channels, independent newspapers, because he was, he was affecting the owners.

When he was elected President of Russia back in year 2000, most independent media belonged to big businessmen. We call them oligarchs. Most of them were, were oligarchs because they were not only businessmen, but they wanted to have the political power. They wanted to affect the political decisions of the government. So yes, they, they were playing political games as well, and some, some of them were oligarchs loyal to Vladimir Puddin or who wanted to be his allies. Some of them were much more independent.

So he started his, his presidency with getting rid of disloyal oligarchs and trying to, to change the owners of the most popular news TV channels. He didn't invent any new laws. It was only business methods. One oligarch could, could buy the, the TV channel from another one, but that always led to the change of editorial policy that always changed to the journalists being fired and replaced by other journalists. And that was a very slow process. But the oligarchs, the the people who used to own media were doing that work for him. The independent media market was destroyed, independent media were eradicated, not, not, not by President Putin, but by the, the businessmen who had interests in media business as well as in, in other industries.

Most, most—for most media owners, for most media tycoons, TV channels or newspapers were not the only business interest. They, they used to own factories and plants and mines, and oil, oil fields, and they cared about them much more. And that was the guarantee for, for the government, that every time they wanted something from the, the media owner, media owners were responsive, loyal, and they wanted to help.

Olivia Manes: Yeah. So it seems like there was sort of an installment of, you know, these, these essentially oligarchs into positions of, of influence in terms of media, so that it was all media essentially became Putin friendly, right, but there was also this element, it seems like, of making smaller media enterprises financially non lucrative, right? Like it, it became very difficult to, to make money as an independent journalist in Russia. And so, I mean, obviously independent media has found other ways in, in Russia—you've mentioned social media, you've mentioned sort of smaller channels, ones that are less lucrative certainly.

Is there anything happening in the United States right now that kind of. Resembles what you've alluded to in terms of making independent media non lucrative. So I'm thinking kind of threats of lawsuits against smaller media outlets, you know, that functions as a financial deterrent for those who don't have the resources to fight back things of that nature. Is there anything that's reminding you of that sort of constricting of media freedom and freedom of expression, either through, you know, making it financially difficult or through other means?

Mikhail Zygar: No, it's, it's hard for, for me to compare the situation in in America and the situation in Russia that that existed 25 years ago because yeah, definitely, countries are very different and the, the democratic institutions that exist in America are very different and much more developed than the ones we used to have in Russia.

If we need to write a playbook of how independent media should endure any kind of pressure from anyone, the first word we must remember is the self-censorship, because that's, that's the biggest threat to, to media freedom, not, I don't think, not the trials, not the, the new laws. Self-censorship is the most important phenomena. When journalists know that it's not safe for them to do their job, to make investigations, to report about mismanagement, to criticize the government or anyone, the moment when, when journalists start being afraid or their, their bosses, their editors start being afraid of touching some topics—that's, that's the moment when we should know that we're in trouble.

I remember that it started with, with bits of self censorship in Russia 25 years ago. I remember that when I was working for Russia's that time biggest independent newspaper. We used to know that we, we had only two taboo topics: war in Chechnya and president's personal life, his wife, we could not talk about only two issues and the rest was free. It was, eh, that was not an important sacrifice. That was not, not a, a very big deal for us. We, we were sure that it was okay. But that was only the tiny beginning of that self self-censorship, and then it was growing. And then we found ourselves in the situation when we could not talk about much more, much longer list of topics.

At the same time, ten years later, back in 2010, in, in 2010 when I was, when together with, with my friends and colleagues, we were launching the only Russian independent news TV channel. We knew that we could not tolerate any kind of self-censorship. We, we would be normal TV channel that covers everything that, that was important for us. That was important for our audience, but the situation in the market was completely changed and we, we knew that the only possibility for independent media to exist was to be miserable, actually, to be not successful at all.

We could exist, we could work for several years. That was a possibility for us to cover all the important issues. But we knew that there was no chance to have any advertising contract. No advertiser, no big company was able to risk their situation, their, their profits by dealing with us because it was not acceptable for the government.

It was still possible for us to work. We were, we, we had donations from our viewers. We had minor contracts with, minor advertisers. We had contracts with cable operators, but still that was clear that there was no official ban for anyone, but the atmosphere of potential risk was obvious and that that stopped a lot of people from, from working with us, from talking with us.

In the beginning, we were able to work. I was able to, to send my correspondence to work in the Kremlin press pool, for example. But then that all, that also stopped. And we know that that's a very disturbing practice when government officials prevent journalists from having an access to information. That's the beginning of a very disturbing trend as well.

Olivia Manes: Yeah. Given that, that last point, I wonder what you make of the White House recently, you know, limiting access for journalists to, to the White House press pool. There's obviously been a lot of controversy about that. I wonder what your thoughts are on that and how concerned we should be as a nation about that, given your experience.

Mikhail Zygar: You know, I think that's it's not the first, first time when something like that happened in this world. And for many years, I would say centuries, journalists used to show much more empathy to to their colleagues. I haven't seen any protests, by another media. I think journalists should consider themselves to be, to be the corporation. They, they do the same job.

So if Associated Press was, was punished and prevented from, from, from having an, an access to, to the White House, I don't see the explanation why all other independent media, why Reuters or CNN or the New York Times just tolerated that and said, okay, it's not about us. They are not coming for us, so we don't have to be worried. I think they are coming for everyone. If any correspondent is, is punished, that's the issue for everyone. And I think that's the only possible answer. Just for, for any journalist to demand the justice for anyone who was affected.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I mean it seems like there's an element of fear and deterrence there, you know, I think what you pointed out is that AP will probably not be the last, right. But I think maybe some of the factors that you've discussed before in terms of resistance to, to actions by an administration or leader through these deterrence mechanisms like lawsuits or making, you know, fear of making, of raising topics that might raise controversy and might put, put you under the scrutiny of a of unfriendly administration—you know, I think those could definitely play a role in that. And I, I imagine, you know, given your experience, that's concerning.

So kind of shifting gears a little bit, I wanna talk about, something that has recently come to light, but which a lot of people have, have been discussing as a general trend, which is that you, you may have seen that Ed Martin Trumps interim U.S. attorney for D.C. it was recently revealed that he, he appeared on RT over 150 times. And RT is of course, the state controlled media of Russia in the U.S. It's a, it's a registered foreign agent. Obviously this is one of the more direct examples of a Trump affiliate promulgating Russian propaganda, but it, it's certainly not the only one. I wonder if you think that these connections indicate that the U.S. government has, has been compromised by Russian interests and how, how concerning you find it.

Mikhail Zygar: You know, I do not believe, I must start with, with a statement that I don't believe in any kind of collusion, and I have never heard from, from my sources in Moscow that, that anyone in current American administration close to, to current administration was considered to be some kind of agent or our guy, our person in America. I think it's, it's much more complicated. It's much more about same approach, same business approach, same logic, same philosophy. They, they are much more of a soulmates than collaborators.

To my mind, according to the values that, that I consider to be democratic, thought cannot be a crime. So if, if any American politician or civil servant agrees with what Russian propaganda says and is not shy to to speak, to, speak aloud about that, that could not be a crime. If, if any person sincerely reveals his his point of view, that's, that's fine. He's not, he's not cheating anyone, and that's up to the, to the media, to the public opinion, to the, to the voters to react. But I don't think that that's something illegal. If a person, okay, if, if, if, if someone says that that he loves President Putin, if someone says that he doesn't think that it is Russia attacked Ukraine, that it happened otherwise, that might be a mistake, but that's still not a crime and that's still not a proof of any kind of of conspiracy.

So I think it is sad, for me it is sad when I hear that that Russian propaganda is being so effective and so influential in in America and all around the world because I know that unfortunately, a lot of people who are creating Russian propaganda do not believe in anything they say. They are very cynical people. They, they know that that's just, that's just bull. That's like they are, they're creating alternative reality. They are creating fake news, they are creating fake narratives, but it is based on some facts, some set of values they truly believe in.

And yes, they, they, they truly distrust liberal democracy. They truly believe that that democracy is, is a fake value and it should not exist. They truly believe that there is no independent media anywhere in the world. They truly believe that free affair elections do not exist. And yes, they think that it's much better to run the country as the corporation without thinking about, about minorities without thinking about any human rights. That's their mindset. I think it's the issue of American voters to agree with that or disagree.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I mean, I think given your experience in Russia where this idea of, you know, where basically invoking organizations or media outlets as foreign agents was used to shut them down effectively, right, and used to limit their, their speech, I can totally understand why you would be very reticent to recommend limiting the speech or freedom of people to affiliate with certain organizations. Because obviously that can lead to a very dangerous path, right, where it, it becomes very subjective. What—who is a foreign agent?

Mikhail Zygar: Yeah. I can give you an example. Two years ago, Russian Ministry of Justice announced that they, they are going to register LGBT, I quote, as an extremist and terrorist organization. So anyone who is, openly coming out in Russia, anyone who speaks out as a, as a gay person according to Russian law, admits that he or she's a terrorist.

So, yes, it, and it's like that's the new law in Russia. So basically if Russian government and all, all those legal practices are very anti-woke, at the same time, these are the new Russian laws. So yeah, according to, according to the to these laws it's very, it's very easy to, to imprison anyone or just to, to make anyone silent just for, for accusing them of of, of being a, a member of an LGBT, LGBTQ community.

Olivia Manes: Yeah, I mean it's, it's, I can understand that that would be a very dangerous path to go down. And that's why, you know, RT is, RT is not, you know, illegal in the United States. It's just registered as a foreign agent.

But I think, you know, I wanna kind of wrap things up a bit. I think a consistent thread throughout our conversation has been that at the core of a lot of the sort of sympathy between Russia and some in the United States—and of course there are other, you know, there are European nations who are increasingly turning to Russia or who are aligning themselves with Russia—at the core of this sort of Putin, this cynicism, there seem to be, there seems to be a profound sense of disillusionment with the ideals of democracy, with the ideals, with the idea that democracy can deliver good for people and that, you know, a liberal international order can deliver promises and deliver a better, a better quality of life to people.

So how can we kind of right the ship? How can we contend with, with this sentiment and admit that it exists, right, people are becoming disillusioned with, with democracy and the liberal international order. Assuming that you think that we should sort of right the ship and that we should steer people back in the direction of democracy and democratic ideals, how can we begin to do that either domestically or internationally? It's a big question.

Mikhail Zygar: Yeah, it's, it's an ama-, it's the most important question. Thank you for that. And at the same time, you know, I think that's a bit ironic that you ask me the person who, who lives in exile in New York, and basically, yeah we failed our struggle, at least for now. I was struggling for democracy and for the democratic society in Russia for 22 years of Putin's presidency, and we were not successful. I had to leave the country and I had to admit defeat. So, yeah, it would be probably unwise for me to give any, any advice to Americans or to anyone.

But I, I remember that the only thing that we were doing was, was practicing what we used to preach. So yes, we were, we were talking about democracy and we, we had to prove that we really believed in all, all those, all those values we were. As, as journalists, we had to be unbiased and we really did that. I remember that for, for me, I always realized that Alexei Navalny, the leader of Russian opposition, even though he was very, all of his values were very close to to mine, but I still treated him as one of our newsmakers, not as our partner, not as our leader. He was one of them, he was just like, like Vladimir Putin, another newsmaker. We had to cover his activities as well as Putin's policies.

I remember it was very hard for, for all Russian civil society back in 2014 when after years of struggle and after years of protest rallies against Vladimir Putin, we had the impression that we failed because in 2014, Putin occupied Crimea and it seemed to be very popular within Russian population. And it looked like we lost that competition for the hearts of Russian people. And a lot of Russian positional activists and human rights activists were disheartened, heartbroken, and we, we could not find energy to, to continue our struggle because we had that illusion that we were outplayed, we were so objectively less popular, less influence, less powerful than Vladimir Putin, than people who were trying to make Russia great again.

And still that was, that that should not been a case for us, that, that, that didn't stop us from, from working. So yes, we, we had to try till the end. Our, our case is not the successful one. But I can I, I can tell you that I mentioned Alexei Navalny many times and for, for now for Russia, he remains the person who believed in liberal democracy that much. So he gave his life for it. He intentionally came back to Russia to live in Russian prison, knowing that he, he would've been imprisoned and even killed. And still he wanted to, to prove that that was not a joke, that he really was ready to give his life for his values, for Russian democratic future, and for the idea that that Russia is not doomed to be autocracy, is not doomed to be dictatorship; Russia has the potential to be a democratic country, and he was the person to believe in that, and he is the inspiration for a lot of people to continue believing.

So yeah, I think that's, continue believing and practicing, that's the, the, the only possibility to maintain and to spread democracy.

Olivia Manes: Well, I think that's a, a fantastic place to end. Thank you so much for, for joining us today for what I think was a really illuminating conversation. Thank you.

Mikhail Zygar: Thank you.

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