WEBVTT - The Best of Bloomberg Opinion 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.800 This is the best of Bloomberg opinion. I'm Vonnie Quinn. 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.480 The divining event of two was undoubtedly Russia invading Ukraine February. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.040 The war force continues latest tally's estimate, more than forty 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.720 one thou people dead, more than fifteen thousand missing, and 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.720 about fourteen million displaced. The invasion that chocked the world 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.360 saw Russian troops entering Ukraine from the northeast and south. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.320 Two months following that, I spoke with Ukrainian philosopher Vladimir 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.199 your Malenko in an effort to grasp the enormity of 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:40.599 what had happened. How do Ukrainians understand Vladimir Putin? If 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.280 he were to be removed by his own people or 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:48.120 an outside force, would Russia look different. I'm not sure. 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.040 I'm not sure it will look different. Obviously, the problem 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.440 is not only putting it himself, and if there is 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.880 a replacement for somebody else, most probably will have the 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:02.400 same personality or even the worse personality, although it's difficult 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.120 to imagine worse. So Ukrainians do not have any illusion 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.920 with regard to this. We understand that Russia in its 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:14.360 current form is seeing itself as a wounded empire which 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.080 tries to, you know, regain what it understands this past 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:24.959 glory and conquering Ukraine or even annihilating Ukraine. Ukrainians independence 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:30.040 and Ukrainian self consciousness is one of the key elements 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.320 for restoring this empire. So for us, it's a real 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:39.080 existential fight. We understand that Russians want to conquer these 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:43.520 territories and have the Ukraine without Ukrainians. You wrote a 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.240 threat attempting to put into words why Russians hate and 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.280 humanize Ukrainians so much. It's producing a lot of cognitive 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.880 dissonance that Russia wants Ukraine to sort of come back 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.720 into the cradle. And at the same time there's so 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:02.760 much hatred directed at Ukrainians, which Vladimir Putin maintains come 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.080 from the same Soviets nest as you like. I think 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.280 we have to understand that Russia is not a nation, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.600 it's an empire. So an illusion that sometimes you see 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.040 it in America in Europe is to consider Russian generation 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.880 as a kind of a nation state, where for example, 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:29.679 there are Russians living with certain homogeneity ethnic, cultural, linguisticy, etcetera. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.639 It's not the case, especially actually a continental empire, which 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:39.640 conquered so many different technicities, which has its colonies inside 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:44.520 its body. So it also considered Ukrainians and Belarusians as 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.560 part of this kind of imperial body. And when it, 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.760 for example, sees Ukrainians saying that no, look, we are 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.120 not Russians. We are a different nations with different organization 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:03.520 of society, culture, language, etcetera, this produces very difficult feeling 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.720 in Russia because it believes that Ukrainians and Delusians and 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.079 Russians is the same construct, the same nation, and every 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:18.000 deviation from this Russian nation, as they say, is an 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:22.280 example of Nazism, you know. So I think that they 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:28.520 are legging behind in developing their own national identity. Their 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:34.280 concept of empire means that empire doesn't have borders, Empire 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:39.200 is always expanding. Ukrainians developed this idea that well, this 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.360 is our land. We have certain borders. We don't want 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.040 to go any further these borders. But here inside our borders, 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.720 we organize our society in the way we like, and 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.240 we don't want to expand anywhere. And so a lot 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.200 of where when people talk about a Soviet identity as 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.080 a Ukrainian, what does that make you think is that 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.560 relevant to the current train. Well, in Ukraine, obviously there 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.120 are people who have some kind of nostalgia about Soviet Union, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.920 but much less than in Russia. Russia really developed a 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:14.680 political project of coming back to this glorious Soviet past. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.280 Ukrainian political imagination is not centered on the past. It's 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.279 centered on the future. For Ukrainians, the past is a 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:28.760 very traumatic thing. So basically Russian slogan was we can 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.000 do it again, meaning the victory in the Second World War. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.120 Our major slogan is never again, which is kind of 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.360 a slogan also common with Europeans. Why Russians are developing 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:43.600 this idea of ruleski mere Russian world, it's also an 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.760 artificial construct to replace this idea of Soviet people. There 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:53.960 is a kind of artificial invention in which every particular 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:58.400 group will be just assimilated into some kind of utopian 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.840 Soviet people, which is very artificial. Let's talk about NATO 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:06.159 for a second. Do Ukrainians accept that Ukraine cannot be 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.920 at least as the world is now part of NATO. Well, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.559 public opinion polls show support of NATO membership is very high. 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.920 It has never been as high as now over seventy. 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.600 But at the same time, what is NATO. Nature is 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:27.400 a security guarantee, and Ukrainians do need this because they're 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:32.000 living with such a monster neighbor. We understand that nature 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.680 is composed of many different countries, and you need consensus 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.640 to get Ukraine into nature. Maybe it's better to have 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:44.799 bilateral security agreements with the United States, with United Kingdom, 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.360 with Poland. The second thing is that Ukrainian army can 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:53.440 be very efficient and in a way Ukraine can turn 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.560 into kind of a security provider, not only security recipient, 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.120 for other countries. So I imagine, for example, Ukraine in 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.320 the future to be a kind of a country which 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.360 will share its military and security experience with other countries 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:12.120 of the world, maybe with NATO members. Do Ukrainians understand 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:17.240 why Vladimir Putin might feel threatened by NATO. No, Ukrainians 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.880 don't understand it. So we just look at the map 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.320 of Russia and we can't understand how Russia can be 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.480 encircled as they say, or fear the attack of NATO 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.800 or whatever. But the problem of Putin is that he 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:38.120 creates a reality which he constructs in his imagination. So 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.760 his propaganda was saying that Russia is not waging war 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.359 with Ukraine on Ukrainian territory, but with the United States 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.279 and nature. This was his propaganda for the past eight 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:53.560 ten years. So basically Putting created a reality which he 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.240 first invented in his head. And now this is the 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.480 reality that Ukrainians do have military support from the West 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.520 a lot of it. Has the West lived up to 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.160 its expectations in the eyes of Ukrainians. I mean, there 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.200 obviously have been attempts from the very beginning to punish 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.320 Russia and to help Ukraine, But has it been enough, 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.520 particularly since Ukraine has always looked West, has looked for 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:22.080 leadership and guidance and inclusion. Look, Ukraine was not taking 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:27.360 seriously all all those years. Our warnings were not hurt. 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.280 So when we were telling the West that after Russian 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:36.360 invasion of Georgia, Ukraine will be next. After Ukraine, nature 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:40.400 countries will be next. When Ukrainians were warning Europe that 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.679 dependency on Russian gas and oil exports is very bad, 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.440 we were warning Europe at least since two thousand and six, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:53.360 We were not very much hurt attentively, and I think 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:58.320 that Ukrainian self description as a kind of both the 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.760 land of the Western civilization and which is fighting against 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:07.280 something barbarian, undemocratic and the enemy of the civilized democratic war. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.600 This self description is now more and more accurate, and 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:16.200 therefore the West should stop looking for compromises. Once it's over. 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.600 Will Ukraine still want to be part of the likes 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.960 of the European Union and other Western institutions, Yes? Why not? 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.040 Why why shouldn't it strive to these institutions. So of 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.560 course it wants to be part of nature, part of 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.920 the EU. But at the same time Ukrainians understand that 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:38.679 European Union has been made possible because security was guaranteed 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.920 basically by nature by United States since the end of 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:48.280 the Second World War, and Europe concentrated its efforts on welfare, economy, equality, 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:53.640 human rights, etcetera. Unfortunately, Ukrainian situation is different. We will 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:59.000 be for decades with the country neighboring Ukraine a nuclear 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.120 power which WANs to destroy us. Therefore, we should think 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.480 primarily about our security, whether we are in nature, whether 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.160 we are in the EU. So I think that after 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.520 our victory, Ukraine will be a kind of a country 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.840 with very strong state presence in the security sector and 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.480 quite liberal economy, Vladimir, do you understand how Russia might 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.720 continue to be part of institutions, So, for example, the 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:27.680 U N. Security Council. I mean, it's out of the 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.880 Human Rights Council, but it's still very much part of 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.400 the United Nations. And in a far flung future, maybe 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.960 not even that far away, you might have to work 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.480 with Russia. I mean your own president has said that. No, 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.160 I don't understand it. Frankly, I don't understand how U N. 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.120 Security Council as an institution can function after these events. 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.800 It's unacceptable that any country of the world has a 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.240 veto power. If it's not able to reform itself. United 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.439 Nations will be over as organizations. But you do accept 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.960 that Russia, and it's one forty four million people, is 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.480 not going away, and at some point when this is 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.600 resolved somehow, it's still going to be a major player 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:13.560 on the world stage. Look, we don't know, because if 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.280 my interpretation is correct, and Russia is not a nation 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.559 state but an empire, Russia is the only empire that 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.000 survived the twentieth century, or the only European empire that 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.760 survived the twentieth century. But it doesn't mean that it 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.240 will survive the twenty first century. If you look at 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.240 Russian interpretation of what's going on, they basically admit that 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.120 if they do not expand, they will collapse, as it 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.720 collapsed when the Soviet Union dismountled, and therefore the war 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:47.319 in Ukraine is so existentially important for them. Ukrainian philosopher 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.600 Volatimer yo Malenko in April, this is the best of 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.040 Bloomberg opinion. You're listening to the best of Bloomberg opinion. 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.040 I'm Vonnie Quinn. Just more than six months after the 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.600 start of Russia's war on Ukraine, the man who presided 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.000 over the end of the Soviet Union died, the President 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.200 Reagan and I of the Treaty on the Elimination of 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.280 Intermediate and Short Arrange Muscles. Nikail Gorbachev won the Nobel 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.240 Peace Prize in for quote the leading role he played 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.720 in the radical changes in East West relations in the 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.880 scheme of history. However, his was a complicated role. I 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.160 spoke with Bloomberg Opinions Clara Ferra Marquez about the complex 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.360 legacy of the man who ended the Cold War. Clara, 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.360 what for you is the lasting legacy of Michael Gorbachev? 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.079 I think it's a really interesting and a far more 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.600 difficult question. And I think a lot of people realize, 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:38.520 and particularly in the West, where we have a very 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.000 particular view of Gorbachev and what he did and what 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:42.880 he represents for many of us at the end of 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.040 the Evil Empire, it's in reality a lot more complicated. 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.200 So he was clearly a man of the system, a 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.760 man who wanted to work within the system. Obviously, he 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.360 did not start out to collapse the Soviet Union. That 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:59.560 was unintended consequence largely of economic and this school reforms. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.440 He changed the world. He was able to end the 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.520 Soviet Union largely peacefully, and that is remarkable. But also 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:08.760 you know that a lot of the ill conceived economic 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.440 reforms that he brought in, the chaos that he left 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.760 in his wake, allowed kleptocracy to take roots, and in 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.680 many ways he is responsible for where Russia is today. 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.320 Russians too, of course, putain many of us in the 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.800 West who supported the system, but the economic plundering that 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.480 was possible was to a degree because of right, there's 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.000 a little bit more of a complicated legacy than just 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.439 he presided over the end of the ussr absolutely think 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.720 about him as a bit of a political rule shact test. 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:39.679 You know, to us in the West, he's the man 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.080 that Margaret Thatcher said she could do business with the 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.440 Many and the former Soviet States, he's the man that 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.760 brought down the wall. But for Russians, and I think 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:48.760 in particular what matters for us as we look at 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.960 this today is really what he means for the Britain 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.520 regime and for them, he is the man who lost 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.680 an empire, the man who brought national humiliation to a 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.360 great nation. And I think that's really very very important 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.920 in undis ending where we are today. So just to 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.040 go back to Paristoica and Glass nows those reforms were 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.200 life changing events, countries, state changing events. Were there any 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.760 remnants of what Gorbach had introduced, Well, now that's a 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.560 difficult one. I'd say almost no. So if you think 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.600 about the three things that he really wanted to bring, 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.679 he really wanted a thriving economy, he wanted openness, and 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:27.000 he wanted democracy, and under putin, all three have been undone. 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.440 But the concept of Parasto and the concept of glass 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.600 and stars slightly different, and they are self reinforcing. Glass 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.800 means transparency, clarity, It was about openness, and really that 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.480 began very strongly after ch a novel which was a 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.800 failure of the system that kept so many secrets. And 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:47.160 Peristoia was the reconstruction. So that's what Pedistroian means, to reconstruct. 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.440 And what happened, in fact is so relevant to today 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.600 because when he started to unpicket, he found that the 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.240 Soviet Empire was also on nothing. It was built on violence, 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.400 it was built on lies. And really that's what we 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.719 will find with the Putin regime. Archie Brown and The 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.000 Guardian said, Gorbachev was asked a couple of years ago 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.520 what has epitaph should be, and he replied, we tried. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.839 He was devastated, apparently by the war, and at the 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.040 same time, Clara, he must have seen this coming in 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.360 some ways. I don't want to compare it to other 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.520 rises and falls of other regimes and so on, but 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.400 in some ways these things are visible in advance, right 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.120 and certainly in the case of Russia, this was potentially 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.560 extraordinarily visible, especially to a statesman like Gorbachov, who then 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.760 handed off to Yelson, who then handed off to Putin. 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.400 I think, in terms of thinking about the collapse of 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.000 the Soviet system. Two things are important. One is that 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.320 they themselves think about this. Beijing thinks about this, So 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.680 Beijing spends an awful lot of time studying paristoric again 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.520 because going back to the Rulesha Act test, it really 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.520 says everything about fishing and not much about Mihil Gorbachev. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.160 The second thing is just in terms of the visibility. 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.720 So when we look at the Soviet collapse, the most 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:49.680 important thing is really to think that what was obvious 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.640 was that it would come to an end. It wasn't 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.720 at all obvious how it would come to an end 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.200 or when. And I think the same as through today. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.600 We have an extremely brittle system and a system that 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:03.200 is hollowing itself out, stagnant economy and impossible plundering of 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.680 resources at the top of predicting when that can end, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.600 I mean that is almost impossible. You mentioned that Beijing 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.480 studied Paristroiker. What lessons did Beijing learn from this study? 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.680 What so called errors of Paristroika would Beijing seek to 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.640 try and avoid. I mean, interestingly, I would argue they 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.600 take all the wrong lessons from this. They look at 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.760 gorbashof I mean, obviously there were violent incidents, but by 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.800 and largely was averse to violence, and Beijing sees certain 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.120 I think you think they once made a comment about, 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.720 you know that the iron grip that gorbashof did not have. 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.160 They really see this assay of demonstration that forces required. 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.440 If somebody wants to pull out of your empire, you 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.880 pulled them back in by force, and obviously that's what's happened, 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.400 for example with Hong Kong. The other thing they think 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.560 about it as economic and political reform, which comes first, 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.080 and they really see as a problem that what happened 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.640 in Russia was that political reform was done first, so 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.080 that there was openness, there was an ability to discuss 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.480 the errors, and everything was out in the open, and 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:58.400 they see that's as fundamental, but it is. It's a 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.720 really interesting study because it has chain and show over time. 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.320 So Clara, you would have seen this happening when you 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:05.160 were a youngster in school and so on, but you 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.840 did arrive in Russia not that long after some of 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.000 these changes were enacted. What was it like. Was it 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.520 a free and open society where there was a view 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.440 towards market economics and so on, or was the Yellson 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:22.000 era already showing signs of Strain. I think what the 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.880 Alton era really showed was that we were heading towards 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.840 the sort of personalist, kleptocratic system, and at the time 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.480 it perhaps wasn't so obvious. We saw a different direction 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.600 of travel. So I arrived in Russia in August nine seven, 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.080 so just before the financial crisis the year after, and 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.640 it was a time that was extremely chaotic, extremely painful 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.000 economically and also quite violent. To be clear, this was 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.760 not an easy time at all, but it was a 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.120 hopeful time in the sense that people did see something 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.240 better down the line. They were sort of living through 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:56.760 this period, even during the crisis, which is absolutely catastrophic. 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.840 I'd say a lot of that has been reversed, the 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.880 hope in particular, but also this idea that we could 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.880 escape stagnation. Take the auto industry or take the aviation 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:12.240 industry for example. Clara Putin, How would Vladimir Putin have 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:16.439 been shaped by the events that Mikhail Gorbachev oversaw. I 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.960 think there are two very important events I think important 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.960 to understand where Puttin is today and the plistical man 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.800 that he is one is effectively nine eight nine, he 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.200 was the young KGB officer in Dresden, in Germany, and 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.560 there's an episode that he's written about. He was at 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.159 the KCB headquarters and there was a mob approaching, and 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.280 he was desperate to preserve what was inside, and he 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.600 called the Red Army and he asked for reinforcements and 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.280 they said we we haven't got to orders from Moscow, 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.080 so you can't do anything. And then they said something 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.719 that stayed with him, which is they said Moscow is silent. 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.760 And this particular phrase for him was really a sort 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.080 of demonstration of powerlessness. It was a humiliation. He felt 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.480 the country no longer existed, and he wanted to reverse 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.159 this destruction of an emph He said later that the 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.520 thousand years of our work was Undone the second important 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.560 moments is that he did consider the role that a 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.480 collapsing economy place. So for him, macroeconomic stability was and 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:16.919 remains absolutely crucial, and he very often positions himself in 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.080 contrast with the chaos of the nine nineties. Obviously, that's 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.480 very ironic given where we are today with the Russian economy, 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.119 where he himself has pushed the economy back to pretty 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.919 much that period. How is Gorbachev seen by the majority 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.320 of Russians? If there is a majority opinion one. Well, 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.679 Russian's opinions on quite complicated and it depends to some 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.239 extent what age you are. But I think for a 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.720 long time he was actually completely ignored. He was a 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.800 fringe figure. He complained about the Prutain regime. Though I 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.520 would say that he saw Ukraine in Russia's orbit the 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.199 way that prusin. I mean that doesn't mean he advocated 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.239 an invasion. In fact, he clearly spoke up against it, 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.440 but he didn't have a radically different view. I think 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.359 it's important to understand the role that political deaths play 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.119 in the regime like this, the political death funeral, the eulogy, 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.040 the whole pageantry around it is not about the person 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.600 whose diet's about those stuff behind. The tributes have been 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:18.200 exactly as you would expect. So Frutin criticizing the failures 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.600 that he is now undoing, so the loss of empire, 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.160 but really glossing over some of the failures that tell 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.640 you a lot about the region today. So for example, 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:30.320 excessive military spending, for example, the misadventures in Afghanistan, or 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.520 the stagnating economy, all of that he will not talk about, 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.920 so he will use it in that sense and really 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.560 succeed the sort of Soviet tinged nostalgia. That is the 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.440 only thing that the current regime has to replace ideology, 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:45.880 and they cannot pull the country together on the basis 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:47.919 of ideology, so they've gone back to a lot of 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:52.280 the old Soviet imagery, the old Soviet narrative. Bloomberg Opinions 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.960 that Clara Ferreira Marquez, this is the best of Bloomberg opinion. 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.280 You're listening to the best of Bloomberg opinion. I'm Vannie Quinn. 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.879 The war on Ukraine is having devastating effects. Beyond the 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.840 crucible of the war itself. The impact on global food 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.720 supplies was immediate and vast, thanks to port blockades, sharp 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:14.280 increases and prices, and countries implementing measures to protect domestic supplies. 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:17.880 Food security, particularly in North Africa and the Asia Pacific 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.639 regions particularly impacted early in the food crisis. I spoke 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.439 with Boomberg Opinions David Fickling for an assessment of the 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:29.720 potential damage. I think we're approaching a quite unusual turn 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.119 in the sort of history of global food security. To 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.520 be honest, if you look back at the long history 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.480 of this, you know one of the crucial things that 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.320 helped keep the world fed over the past fifty years 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:42.680 while the world population has doubled, is actually trade. People 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:44.639 talk a lot about the growth of sort of chemical 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.080 fertilizers and farm machinery, which have both been very important 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.720 in the twentieth century in keeping the world fed, but 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:52.920 trade is a really important part of that because, of course, 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.399 if you have drought and crop failures in your region, 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.480 then there's no amount of fertilizer or farm machinery that 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:00.520 will solve the fact that your crop just won't grow. 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.560 So a really important thing that I think is underappreciated 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.000 is that the cost of ocean freight in the nineteenth 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.119 century dropped by about and so you suddenly have this 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.719 global trade in grains and about a quarter of all 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.600 the calories we consume it and now traded across borders. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.199 So it's very important that this is a global trade. 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.800 But I think something's undappreciated is that it's quite a 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.920 concentrated trade. The world's bread baskets are rather few. There's 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.399 probably about six of them the US Midwest, the South America, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.720 sort of Argentina, Brazil, that area, areas of western Europe, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.359 and the Ukraine and the former Soviet Union and Russia, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.440 and I think most importantly the playing between the Indus 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.440 and the Ganges in northern India and Pakistan and eastern China, 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.800 between the Yank Sea and the Yellow Rivers. Those six 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.280 read baskets are absolutely crucial to the world's growth. Of 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.520 these relatively few number of crops that we depend on, wheat, rice, corn, soybeans. 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.480 More than half of wheat and rice and corn are 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.080 grown if you put those those areas together, soybeans disclosed. 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.760 Now for most of the time, that's not too much 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.120 of a problem because although there's just half a dozen 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:06.159 of these bread baskets, if you get a draft in 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.600 one region, it tends to pair with good rainfall and 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:12.439 another region that leads to higher crop yields, because essentially 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:14.919 the rainfall has to go somewhere. It evaporates on one 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:16.399 side of the ocean, it tends to drop on the 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:18.200 other side of the ocean, And when we talk about 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.400 things like El Nino and Landinia, that's essentially about rainfall 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.200 ending up in different places. However, as the climate is changing, 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:27.639 a lot of that is getting a lot less secure 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:29.480 than it has been in the past. The weather has 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:31.560 a lot to do with the fact that there's going 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:33.520 to be a shortage. It is not just Russia's war 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:36.960 in Ukraine. Absolutely one of the world's top three wheat producers. 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:40.200 May be slightly surprising in fact, is India. You don't 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:42.000 think of India as a big wheat producer because there's 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.719 not a big wheat exporter normally, because it's almost all 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.280 consumed at home. What we've seen in India over the 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.640 past a couple of months, we've seen this very extreme 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.159 heat wave and that has caused India to embargo exports 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.080 of wheat. Places like the Middle East. They were very 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.600 dependent on wheat from Ukraine. That's obviously been damaged by 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:02.199 the war in Ukraine. The places they were hoping to 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.800