Scott Ritter (2)

9 h

Announcing a US-Russia Citizen’s Summit

https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritter/p/announcing-a-us-russia-citizens-summit?r=1vhv3f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

@tobararbulu # mmt@tobararbulu

9 h

The US-Russia Summit that YouTube doesn’t want you to know about https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritter/p/the-us-russia-summit-that-youtube?r=1vhv3f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Welcome to this edition of the Russia House with Scott Ritter. Today we have a special issue. First of all, this conversation that I’m about to have is going to be shared to the general public. We’re going to publish it on the Russia House, but we’re going to make it available to everybody because, one,

I think it’s important that people now and then get to see the work that we’re doing here on the Russia House and how important it is and maybe encourage more people to subscribe. But as important or even more important, it’s about getting the topic that we’re going to discuss today, a resumption of the Space Bridge,

a resumption of the Citizens Summit 40 years ago. Phil Donahue, a very famous American media figure, and Vladimir Posner, a very famous Soviet media figure, got together at the height of the Cold War and engaged in a program of work, cooperation, to bring American voices and Russian voices together through a space bridge

connected through satellite communications where Russians could ask questions of Americans and Americans could ask questions of Russians. And we could begin the process of breaking down the wall of distrust and learning to recognize each other as humans. And this helped pave the way to the end of the Cold War. Today,

we look at the relations between the United States and Russia, and we see perhaps the beginning of a new Cold War. That seems to be a direction our two nations are heading. And how do we forestall this? How do we prevent this from happening? And the idea is to resurrect the Space Bridge, the Citizen Summit.

And on June 18th, there will be a new Space Bridge, a new Citizen Summit. I’m going to be the moderator for the American side. And today I have the privilege of introducing you to the moderator on the Russian side, a Russian businessman. Pavel Balabanov is the gentleman that I’ll be working with. This is his vision.

He conceived this idea and he brought it to me and together we’re going to make it work. So, What’s going to happen today is I’m going to have a conversation with Pavel. We’re going to talk about the Space Bridge, talk about the Citizen Summit, and then we’re going to publish it for everybody to see,

to attract attention to this idea, because this isn’t an idea that should be limited to a handful of people. This is an idea that needs to be shared with everybody, Russian, American, and the world. And that’s what we’re going to seek to do today on this issue of The Rush House with Scott Ritter.

Today, I have a very special guest, special in a number of ways. One, he and I are in the beginnings of what I hope is not just a new friendship, but an ongoing friendship. But two, it’s a friendship that’s premised upon, I think, a wonderful concept, the concept of dialogue, dialogue between Russia and the United States.

I’m going to let Pavel steal my thunder here for much of this, but I’ll drop you a hint. On June 18th, we’re going to be co-hosting the second round of what is known as the Citizens Summit, something that began 40 years ago, an experiment of dialogue between two nations conducted by Phil Donahue.

and Vladimir Posner, two giants amongst their respective colleagues in the field of media. Now, I don’t claim to be a giant, and I don’t know if Pavel will take that term on himself, but the mission is a giant one. It’s an important one. And in many ways, it’s more important today,

trying to breathe life into this concept of dialogue than it was 40 years ago when Phil Donahue And Vladimir Posner brought it to life. But again, welcome to the Russia House and welcome to you, Pavel. Thank you very much for coming. If you could, for an American audience, introduce yourself, who you are, what’s your background,

and why are you getting involved in this complicated world of trying to improve relations between the United States and Russia?

Yes, thank you again for having me, Scott. It’s a great honor for me to be here. You know, first of all, I would like to start with that I’m not a politician and I’m not a journalist. Though, by the way, in my early ages, I wanted to be a journalist. And I’m just an ordinary businessman.

So I don’t have a Wikipedia page. So I’m just a small business in consulting services. And I was born in a small town called Tikhin. Actually, it’s not so far from St. Petersburg, the second largest city of Russia. 70,000 people actually live there in Tikhin. And… I lived there until 17, before I entered university.

I graduated from university, Railway Transport University, and I was a programmer. In my early ages, I started actually already making money. It’s not big money, but money I can, you know, buy some stuff to my sister and my brothers and parents. I was a journalist when I was 13. And you know what I do?

Actually, I watched football matches on weekends. And then I published articles in a local newspaper. That’s what I actually did. Then I had an experience on the construction side as a worker. But then after university, not after university, when I was the first grade student, I began working as a barista. You know what barista means?

It’s like, yeah, actually, cook coffee. And I worked as a barista for one… a year and a half. And then I began working for the company called PSS. And now I’m an owner of this company, the major owner of this company and a general manager. That’s pretty much it.

But I would like to add, you know, I love English as well as I like Russian. I had a dream. I had a dream to watch movies in the original. And my favorite show, it’s an American show, Friends. And we love Friends with my wife. And that’s why I decided, you know, to learn,

to make my efforts to learn actually English until 28. I didn’t speak at all. But then, actually, I learned it. I didn’t study abroad, never ever. I have never lived abroad. i of course i visited different countries but i have never lived in that countries

i only live in russia and i did learn language here i have three children a beautiful wife she is a writer and with all my three children by the way from the very early ages actually from the very birth of them i speak only english My wife speaks Russian to them and I speak English because, you know,

it doesn’t matter what language is, but, you know, it matters because it develops your brain, you know, and as far as I know, it’s even healthy, quite healthy for our brain. So I guess pretty much it about me. If you have any more questions, I would like, of course, to answer them.

Well, the big question is, how did somebody of your background suddenly become the Russian face of the new Space Bridge, of the new U.S.-Russian Citizens Summit. You know, I can say this. I mean… My involvement is purely by accident. I’m actually plan B, but maybe plan C, we don’t know. But I can say this,

that I did know Phil Donahue and we were friends and we had collaborated on a number of projects before his passing. What’s your relationship with Vladimir Posner? I mean, how did you become so involved in this?

Actually, I don’t have any relationship with Vladimir Poznan, though, beginning from… I guess I was maybe… It was late 90s and early 2000s, and he had a program called Times. In English, it’s Times, and in Russian, it’s Vremina, Times. And actually, I loved watching it. Then he had a show, Posner, on the channel First in Russia.

And I actually loved watching his shows, not only because there were some insights I share with him, but also because of English, because he has a perfect English with American accent. Partly because, maybe mainly because, he actually lived in America quite a long time. Actually, he has three citizenships. First, American, French, and then Russian.

And, of course, about space bridges, which happened in the 90s. I watched them on YouTube. and i of course i was fascinated and i i loved them and uh moreover i would like to tell you that recently my wife sent me a link it was on tiktok or somewhere or

maybe in contact you in one of the social network and uh someone published just a short video from one of that space bridges and they were children they met each other and are asking questions to each other and there were a lot of comments under this video

what is this show and look how smart they are the children and they are talking to each other and i was like you have never watched it before it’s amazing and it seems to me that the interest to such shows actually you know coming back to us in my view. So, and that’s it. Yes.

I, I know Vladimir, but I don’t have any close relationship with him.

But how did you come up with, because I mean, just for the audience sake, I, I wasn’t there at the birth. What I mean by that is I was contacted by Paula Day, who is a, a lady who has been involved in, uh, promoting dialogue between Russians and Americans in the past, in the 1980s, 1990s. Unfortunately,

because of the special military operation, the work of her group, CCI, came to a halt. But she reached out to me and said, there’s this energetic young Russian man who is trying to bring the space bridge concept back to life, to bring the citizen summit that began with Donahue and Posner

back to life and um you know your name came up as somebody who might be able to facilitate okay so the rest is history we we worked through it now we we’re going to do this on june 18th but um it was already a mature idea when i received that

phone call how did that idea come about yeah okay thank you for this question um actually my company a consulting company we We do every year an annual international conference. We call it BIM in practice. What BIM means, it’s abbreviation. It means building information modeling. We demonstrate different digital technologies for construction sites.

And people around the globe, they come to St. Petersburg and offline. And actually, we have, of course, online transmission, but mostly it’s an offline event. And they show what they do with all the digital technologies. And in September 2024, we had kind of space bridge with some guys from Italy, and they demonstrated what they do. Actually,

we were not fascinated by what they showed to us because we, in my view, we do even better here. But I kind of got an idea, why can’t we do a space bridge and gather professionals from one side and on the American side, and let them talk to each other, not through marketing materials or through,

I don’t know, articles in the internet, not through just text chats, but face-to-face. And what about if we are going… And we will, of course, encourage and invite journalists to moderate such dialogue. So I called up a very famous journalist. I’m not going to say his name because he, for some reasons,

there were reasons why he actually decided not to participate in it. But I called him and said, look, this is an idea. And he says to me, look, I have actually two questions. The first one, what about audience? You know, back then, back then 200 million people

watched it in Soviet Union, and 8 million, by the way, much less, right? 8 million watched in USA. How we will attract such an audience? That’s the first thing. The second one, the topic, is too narrow for me. I will not get myself prepared for this.

And I said to him, look, okay, let me figure it out, and I will come back to you. I came to the conclusion, okay, let’s do it during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. It’s a big event, international event. Why can’t we do this on the very first day of this event?

And of course, there will be media, great people and other stuff. That’s how we can attract audience. And the second one, topic. And I kind of, i uh said to myself yes you know that’s what important today the dialogue between ordinary citizens not even professionals but ordinary citizens who can speak to

each other share their ideas views and so on and so on yes we have to do this and then after this dialogue we can announce other space bridge professional space bridge but first We need to do this citizen summit, just ordinary people. And that’s how it all began actually.

And I would like here to add, you know, what surprised me and not in a good way. When I, came to this idea here in Russia. I, you know, I formed my company, actually, we were kind of sponsor of this international economic forum, sports event, not even forum itself, sports event.

And last year, I awarded with medals, you know, people who actually played hockey there. And I got acquainted with one of the guys there. I called him up and said, look, this is an idea. Let’s do it. And he said, it’s a great idea. Yes, let’s do it.

And almost all the people in Russia, high-ranked, low-ranked, doesn’t matter. They supported this idea from the very beginning. But when I contacted someone in USA uh and we contacted a lot of journalists you know uh actually tens of them and

these big names we got as a return either silence or no yeah it was like what i i don’t understand the usa sells no sorry for this word but sells kind of democracy and you know freedom of speech and something like this look this is a product i’m sure the usa will like it

and it was like and as a return i i got this and it was like why why russia does it and usa doesn’t do this and i that’s what surprised me a lot But thank for Polar Day. Yes, two months ago, we had everything prepared here in Russia in terms of place, studio, cameras, and support,

and et cetera. And we had nothing in the USA. Nothing. Only Polar Day. Yes, I contacted. You know why I contacted here and how I got acquainted with Polar? her organization citizen initiatives they interviewed twice vladimir posler and i kind of found them in the internet and there was just an email and i emailed them

and said look this is an idea what do you think about it and then two months ago she said to me about you scott that’s what happened well

With Paula, let me give you a little background on my end here. I actually wanted to do something similar to this last year. I had a Russian partner, I have a Russian partner, Alexander Zaryanov. Unfortunately, he was detained by authorities in Novosibirsk last June, and he’s still in detention to this day, accused of bribery or something,

but I don’t want to get into it because he’s still detained and I don’t want to create problems. I know him. He’s an honorable man, a decent man, and he’s innocent of the charges that they put forward based upon the information that I have to me. But that’s neither here nor there, except I would, you know,

in America, we talk about free this person. I’ll just go ahead and start the meme. Bri Alexander Zirionov, but we’ll move on now. He’s my friend, and he will always be my friend. But he brought me to Russia in April of 2023, and I was there for a month.

A very successful trip premised on a book that I had written in the United States, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika. which was published by Komsomolskaya Pravda in Russia. We did a tour using this book as a vehicle to begin dialogue. And it was a very successful trip.

So successful that Alexander said, look, you’ve got to come back in the wintertime. We’ve got to continue this venture. And I did. And it was, again, a very successful trip, both in terms of getting to know the Russian people, but also for me to learn about Russia.

I’ve been a lifelong student of Russia, but you always learn better at mother’s feet, they say. So go to Mother Russia and learn from Mother Russia’s feet about Russia is a unique opportunity, and I’m very glad that I did it. But then Alexander and I said,

how do we share this more effectively with not just an American audience, but a Russian audience? How do we begin this dialogue? And so I have a podcast here in the United States, and the decision was we were going to take the podcast to Russia. We’re going to 16 different cities over the course of 40 days.

And we would, in each city, we would have a podcast that was designed to bring American voices and Russian voices together. And this program had received a lot of support. I can say that it had been briefed to the presidential administration and that regional support was also provided. And this program was going to happen.

It’s ironic that you mentioned the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum because I was invited to speak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on two panels. And then from that, then to go off and begin this 40-day adventure of building a space bridge between Americans and Russians. And the U.S.

government stopped me at the airport and seized my passport and prevented this from happening. Why? because they are scared to death of this dialogue. You want to know why you got no or no answer from people? Because they’re cowards, because they are afraid. They’ve been intimidated by an American government that even in this day and age of

potential change continues to be infected by Russophobia. Russophobia is the fear of Russia, the irrational fear of Russia. But that fear is derived from ignorance, ignorance about Russia. The United States government was very concerned because I had made two trips to Russia and I’d come back and spoken very highly of Russia.

I published articles that talked about the reality of Russia. And now I was going to go to Russia for 40 days and build a space bridge between the American people and the Russian people. And the government at the time, the Biden administration, that was the last thing they wanted. So they not only seized my passport,

stopped my trip, but they sent 40 FBI agents into my home to intimidate me, to make me back down. Um, now one would think, okay, well with that experience under your belt, when Paula Day calls me and says, Hey, uh, Scott, would you like to get involved in this? I think the rational answer would be hell no.

I don’t want to have anything to do with this. I already had 40 FBI agents in my house. Do I really want them to revisit me? Uh, but the, the, the, the point is, um, this cause is too important. This cause is too noble. This cause is too just the, the,

the cause of bringing Russians and Americans together in common dialogue is critical if we’re going to survive as peoples. Behind me, where my thumb is, you see that. That is a replica of the Tsar bomb. The Tsar bomb is the world’s biggest nuclear weapon. It was tested by the Soviet Union. And

Inside that replica is a bunch of vodka. This was a gift given to me by the defense attaché, the Russian defense attaché, when I visited the Russian embassy on the occasion of May 9th, Victory Day. But this gift is only to be opened, and that vodka is only to be drunk when America and Russia

embark on a new arms control treaty the existing arms control treaty new start expires in february of next year and right now there’s no dialogue there’s no discussion there’s no negotiation so that vodka may never be drunk and if we get involved in an arms race that vodka may never ever be drunk because we’ll all be

dead so when you look at that the consequences of failure to have dialogue and you weighed off against me making the U.S. government even more angry at me because I want this dialogue, I’ll take the anger of the U.S. government over the death of the world any day of the year.

Now, I was told that, you know, they wanted to replicate the the initial space bridge, which was a big deal. Phil Donahue was in Seattle, and Vladimir Posner was in St. Petersburg, and big audiences, et cetera. But we have to also deal with realities. You may be a businessman. I am not.

Um, which means that, you know, budgets are an issue. And so we, we, you know, we had to come up with something that was within budget. Um, fortunately that, that, that sort of threw New York city out just so people understand you can’t even get into New York city unless you’re talking six figures and, um,

The improved Russian U.S. relations movement has never had a six-figure budget in its entire existence. So the idea is how to deal with a more reasonable… In Kingston, there’s this wonderful gentleman, Gerald Cilante. He is the editor of Trends Journal, been around forever. Gerald is very famous back in the 80s and 90s. He was a very…

well-known prognosticator. He would predict events in the future based upon in-depth research. He continues to this day. But Gerald is also a decent human being who believes in peace and justice, and he wants better relations between the United States and Russia. Every year,

he holds a rally in Kingston at what we call the crossroads of history in buildings that date back to before the American Revolution. indeed where he’s at is the birthplace of the u.s constitution most people don’t know that the new york constitution was written in kingston in 1777 before the city

was burned down by the british because they wrote the constitution there 70 percent of what became the united states constitution is drawn from that document that was written by John Jay. John Jay became the first Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America. And the building that we’re looking at is part of this history.

And Gerald owns this building. So I went to Gerald and I said, hey, can you help me out? And he said, well, what? I said, we’re going to do this space. And I explained it to him. And he said, Scott, I don’t have theater. I said, no, I don’t want the theater. What I want

If we’re going to do this, I want to show the Russian people America, the real America, not Hollywood, not New York City. Those are big cities. But the America that exists in between Americana, where people work, get up every morning, go to work to make a living.

Sometimes both parents have to have multiple jobs to make a living. Life isn’t easy in America. People, Russians should know that. Life in America is very difficult actually. To have this thing we call the American dream means we work ourselves to the bone. We don’t go on vacations.

Our health deteriorates because we have our nose to the grindstone all the time. We don’t learn how to appreciate life the way we should. And one of the reasons is that we are told that the world is a dangerous place. that the Russians are evil and that we have to work to pay taxes, to fund the military,

to be able to stand up to the Russians. And I said, I want to show the Russian people what America really is. Gerald Solante has this wonderful venue of the Mohican market, which has been converted into what we call the American cafe. And it is a cafe style layout. It is beautiful.

It’s going to be a smaller venue than what Phil Donahue had in Seattle, but it’s going to be an intimate venue. And it’s going to be a venue that shows a Russian audience what it’s like to be an American, what it means to be an American. And you’re going to hear from real Americans. You say, you know,

You didn’t know what the American response will be. I’ll tell you right now, I have for for every seat that we have available, I have four applicants and I’m going through and I’m getting more every day and I’m going through these applicants to pick people out who.

I believe will be able to ask great questions of their Russian counterparts and also answer questions given to them, but also truly believe in this concept. Some of the people may not speak, but they’re there to learn. And then they’re there to take the lessons learned from this event out to the American audience.

You say 8 million people watched the first, you know, Space Bridge in America. In the USA, right. 200 million in Russia. Now, I’m counting on you to get big Russian numbers. That’s your job. But what we’re going to do here is see, we don’t trust mainstream media anymore. Mainstream media is infected with Russophobia.

When you say Russia, they say evil. When you say Putin, they say dictator. We’re going with alternative media. I’ve been working with what I call the family of podcasts. We have, well, you know some, Judge Napolitano has a podcast. We have Danny Haifong. We have Garland Nixon. We have Joe Lauria.

We have a whole family of people who have podcasts, each of whom has a viewership of anywhere from 400,000 to over a million viewers. Max Blumenthal and The Gray Zone. And when we bring the family of podcasts together, We get an audience of three to five million right off the bat, just straight off the bat.

Three to five million people will watch. That’s better than any mainstream program you’re going to get on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and all that. We outperform them. And if it’s a good program, we have the opportunity not only to have tens of millions of Americans watch it, but people around the world watch it as well.

So I think you’re going to find that when we hold this space bridge, it is going to catch the attention of the American people. And it’s catching the attention of the American people at the exact right time in history. Because unlike the previous administration, this administration is engaging in dialogue with Russia for the first time. uh,

an American government is speaking with their Russian counterparts about how to solve the many problems that exist. But there’s problems. There’s, it’s a difficult conversation to have. I’m looking at this space bridge as, um, a tutorial. We’re going to teach the American government and maybe provide some, um,

tips to the Russian government on how to carry out a dialogue, a meaningful dialogue, a dialogue that brings people together, not pushes people apart. But, um, I want to thank Paula Day for making that phone call. It’s been a nightmare because it’s a lot of work. But it’s something that I truly believe in.

And I believe in it so much that I put myself in a position to be detained by my government, to have FBI agents come into my house to try and intimidate me, to prevent me from doing this very thing. But what we’re doing is the right thing. It’s the right thing for America.

It’s the right thing for Russia. And it’s the right thing for the world.

yes i couldn’t agree more with you and you know just a couple of remarks i would like to make um the dialogue itself you know face-to-face dialogue again not just by phone calls or through text chats it’s completely different and you begin understanding a person much better when you see him or her because you know

media can say something about a person but they can make out of nothing they can make a good thing and they can make a bad thing just by words that’s why you know the dialogue it i’m sure that after this dialogue in my view we will take the same

positions on things because we we though we look alike We are different, we live in different countries with different laws and et cetera. And very often, a person, it’s very difficult to climb down from your belfry, climb up the other person and see things from their perspective. It’s a very difficult thing to do.

But what we will achieve, I’m sure, it can reduce tensions and increase understanding, at least how people actually think. uh that’s it’s one thing another one i would like i really i really do not understand why we take too much you know too much efforts just to to destroy things

and not to construct them to go to mass for instance together because you know we just lose time for developing uh in the you know i read a lot i read a lot of facts uh which kind of you know usually are published by different universities or they were secret first and down

there kind of public ones i i read that then i read a lot of articles not only russian ones but english ones americans ones friends uh and i have you know, overview about things. So when I say something, I can say it objectively. And I really don’t understand why other countries actually, they don’t like Russia.

I don’t know why, because I can say it. When I was a small boy, maybe I was nine, maybe, yes, nine or 10, It was my first time when I watched Rambo, Rambo First Blood, Sylvester Stallone. And as I was watching it, there was an episode when Rambo actually fought guys in fur hats with the stars on

it. And I was like, wait a minute, who are these guys? russians why are we bad guys there so i i called mama could you explain to me why they’re showing us as bad guys and i don’t remember what she answered but that’s what it was and still is uh i don’t understand why Hollywood and USA,

they want not only their people to believe that we are bad, but they really want it and still want to believe us, Russians, that we are bad. Just recently, I thought before, yesterday, in the evening, I decided to watch a new brand, you know, brand new movie with Jason Statham. I love this guy, actually.

I love movies with him. The new movie is called A Worker, Construction Worker, something like this. Again, there is an episode. He shoots a guy. That guy actually falls down. He comes to this guy and buttons his shirt. And sees a tattoo on it. And you know what he said?

Because I like watching movies in original, as you know already. And he’s like, Russians. That’s not good. And I was like, what? And since we have, actually, we have in our, one of the movies platform, Russian movies platform, we have also this movie with Russian translation. And I decided to watch how we translated it.

And thanks God, we translated it, and you know how? He says, listen, mafia, this is not good. They changed it. This is good, in my view. They decided to do it. Why do you think, I would like to ask you, why do you think USA, they want us to believe that we are bad?

Because have you ever watched a Russian movie? First of all, took Two questions, the first one. Have you ever watched a Russian movie in your cinema? And if yes, whether we represented USA as bad guys or not? Because I have never watched such movies here and we never demonstrated actually USA, USA guys,

military service and so on as bad guys. I just have never watched such movies here. Why do you produce such movies? I mean, USA, not you. Could you tell me, what do you think of it?

It goes back to the time of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Bolshevism, which coincided with the rise of American workers’ rights, the unions, etc. And the industrialists in America were very much against unions. And so we… tended to characterize Bolshevism as evil. You know, that when people in the United States said, oh,

we want to create unions, you said, you’re Bolsheviks, you’re Bolsheviks, you’re like that Lenin character, you know, you’re evil. So right off the bat, Bolshevism became identified not only with evil, but with Russia, the Russian Bolsheviks. And then we further turn it into a cartoon with the rise of Stalin.

Because if you call somebody evil, the first thing that happens is you don’t really study them. You don’t need to. Because I’m trying to study to determine who you are, but I’ve already determined that you’re evil. So I don’t need to know anything about you. I just need to know that you’re evil.

So now Stalin comes into power, and we just say Stalin is evil, and we accept anything negative said about Stalin, and we ignore anything positive said about Stalin. And it created an interesting dynamic when the Second World War, Great Patriotic War began, and suddenly these Bolsheviks were our allies. We’re like, well, how does that happen?

And it was problematic. It required us to grossly oversimplify things because overnight, you know, I was in the military for a long time. And I learned this the hard way when I was standing in front of a general trying to explain to him why I was right and he was wrong. And he finally just shut me up.

He said, Lieutenant, let me just give you a big lesson in life. When you’re explaining, you’re losing. You’re losing, son. Get out of here. And that was it. So now, rather than explain to the American people why we were wrong about the Bolsheviks and how they became our friends, we just said, they’re our friends. They’re our allies.

They’re out there fighting the Germans. We’re like, oh, okay, that’s cool. But then the Second World War ended, and suddenly… We had complexities. Yalta. How do you explain Yalta to the American people? How do you explain Potsdam to the American people? How do you explain the complexities of what was going on in Europe to the American people?

You don’t. What you do is you have to pick an enemy. We had destroyed our one enemy, Nazi Germany. But in order to justify our continued presence in the world, we needed a new enemy. And you became it. the Soviet union, the iron curtain, the evil communists, Sputnik, you know, rockets, bombers. Oh my God, the cold war.

And you guys are the bad guys. And we sold you as the bad guys all the way up until the end. Um, You know, it’s funny you mentioned movies. In 1988, I went to the Soviet Union as an inspector to implement an arms control treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

And we lived in the city of Vodkinsk in Utmyrtia because of the Vodkinsk machine building plant, which produced missiles that we were inspecting. And we worked with our Soviet counterparts at the factory. And so trying to improve relations, we decided to show movies, you know, say, hey, come on over for movie night. And they came over.

The first movie we showed was Dr. Strangelove, which is a Stanley Kubrick classic of the Cold War. It’s sold as a comedy about thermonuclear war, which tells you already it’s that. Now, Americans, we have a very complicated sense of humor, should I say. We find humor in things that most people wouldn’t. Now,

the Russian people also have a very deep sense of humor, but it’s a sense of humor grounded in reality and life. There are things that are funny, and there are things that aren’t funny, and nuclear war can never be funny. And yet, we’re showing them this movie, and it basically portrays the Soviets, the Russians,

as the bad guys. And we’re going to go to nuclear war against them. And the Americans, we’re just laughing. We’re laughing. As Slim Pickens takes the atomic bomb down to Russia like it’s a cowboy, we’re laughing. And the Russians are like, this is horrible. This is the worst thing in the world. Why are you laughing?

Couldn’t understand us at all. Well, because you didn’t view us, you, the Russians, didn’t view us as evil. We viewed you as evil. We had no problem with dropping nuclear weapons on you conceptually because you’re evil. Now, as we became friends, there was a short period of time, I’d say, between 1988 and 1991,

when we actually moved on the path of becoming friends with the Russian people. But why? Because we respected you, because you were the Soviet Union, because you were strong. But then the Soviet Union fell. And here’s the problem that I think many Russians will, they might have trouble seeing this from my perspective, but I’m,

russians stopped loving russia you stopped being proud of who you were and i will tell you this about the american people we are a nation of people who made it on our own we landed on these shores and we conquered a continent i’m not saying it

was good i’m you know the genocide of the american indians i’m not proud of it all that but we hacked our way across this continent what we have we earned we earned with our blood We’re in with our sweat. We’re in with our tears. We built this country. We built this country.

And so when we look in the mirror, we’re proud of who we see. We see an independent, strong American. You know, what is an American? You know, we talk about the Russian soul. Well, I know what a Russian is, and Russians have souls. And so when I speak of the Russian soul,

I can speak of it collectively amongst the Russian nation. What is the American soul? There is no American soul, because what is an American? be of irish background italian background german background because you are young you know young country you don’t know that young anymore but we are still

relatively young but um we don’t you know we don’t identify in terms of the soul we identify in terms of concepts americans are free americans are independent Americans are proud. Some people say Americans are arrogant. Probably true, too. But the point is, when we look at ourselves, we’re proud of who we are.

I think the Russian people fell out of love with Russia in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed. And they forgot what the Russian soul was. The Russian soul dissipated. And instead, they started looking to the West and say, we want to be like them. So as an American, when I look at the Russians at that time,

I’m saying they aren’t proud of themselves. They don’t respect themselves, so I won’t respect them. I won’t try to understand what’s going on. Instead, I take a simplistic standpoint, because remember, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. So to explain the Russian people to America, we build upon existing stereotypes, the Soviet Union, The Russians are bad.

The Russians are evil. And then we put on top of that new stereotypes from Russia. It’s a mafia country ruled by the mafia, by people who only respect violence. They drink vodka. That’s who Russians are. And so Hollywood sells the Russian people to America

And what happens is you have Russians leaving Russia, coming to America, who say that’s true. Russia’s a horrible place. The Russian government is horrible. Crime is everywhere. And so Russians leaving Russia are selling this mindset to Americans who are ready to accept it.

Now, the last time prior to me going to Russia in 2023, I was there in 1992 at the The Russian Federation was brand new, and Russia had a lot of problems. That was the Russia that I remember in my mind. I remember the Russia when it was Soviet Union,

but I also remember Russia literally five years later when it was Russia, and it wasn’t the same at all. I went back in 2023. I saw something completely different. What I saw were Russians who were proud of being Russians. That was something new to me. That was something new.

I saw Russians who had recaptured the Russian soul and put it in their hearts. And the other thing I was struck with is they had so much to be proud of. I mean, I’m a proud American. You won’t find an American more in love with his country than me.

I know that we have many faults, but we do it right, too. We are good people. We have a good country. We have problems, but we’re going to fix them. But when I went to Russia, I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I saw wasn’t what I was expecting. Yes, the big cities are beautiful.

Moscow, St. Petersburg. But what you hear from everybody is that’s because that’s where all those Bolsheviks put their money and they’re fooling you. It’s fake. You know, it’s fake. Well, the first city I landed in, in April of 2023 was Novosibirsk. And first of all, that was a shock to the Novosibirsk border control people because they’re like,

why isn’t American landing here now? People need to understand that in April 2023, no Americans were traveling to Russia. The relations had been just cut off totally and there was no connectivity whatsoever, no dialogue taking place. So for an American to show up in Novosibirsk, they were just like, This can’t be right. This is a mistake.

But it was the right thing. And I saw this wonderful city. It’s, you know, the third city of Russia. I think Hekaterinburg likes to compete for that title, so let them compete. But Novosibirsk calls it the third, the largest growing economy, the capital of the region that has, you know, the most vibrant economy in all of Russia.

But this was a city that’s supposed to be under sanctions. I didn’t see any decline. I saw people working. I saw people proud. Culture center. We’re going to talk about culture in a minute. The opera house. I learned about the Novosibirsk Opera House and when it was built during the Second World War, the Great Patriotic War,

when every effort was meant to be going to the front of Stalin, that brutal dictator, had the foresight to build an opera house to celebrate culture because part of that Russian soul that we speak of is founded in culture, in beauty, in art. And then I went to Irkutsk. I went to, you know, St. Petersburg.

I went to Vodkinsk. I returned to Vodkinsk. Ijevsk, Kazan, Kazan, Volgograd. I mean, if you don’t get tears in your eyes when you stand on, you know, you know, the motherland beckons. You see that statue and you look out and you see the battlefield that was Stalingrad, today Volgograd. I, you know, I saw so many,

I went to Grozny, Grozny, Chechnya, which had been bombed into obliteration, gone, finished, and yet to see it rebuilt, and you realize that the Russians and the Chechens who should hate each other love each other. They live together in peace. Why? Because of dialogue.

Because Ahmad Kadyrov said that was Vladimir Putin, and they talked, and they worked it out. And they let the past be the past. They built a foundation to make a future, and that future exists. Now, the thing is, I came back to the United States, and I’m trying to sell this reality to the American people.

But it doesn’t resonate, because they don’t have a foundation of knowledge to build upon this. When I try to tell them that the Russians are good, they say, no, when I look on TV, the Russians are just problems. They’re the bad guys. When I try to say that Russia is beautiful, they say, no, no, no.

Russia has collapsed. It’s evil. The oligarchs, corruption, the dictators, it’s a dark, gloomy, militaristic state. I say, no, not at all. Not even close. So how do we overcome this information gap? we can only do it by dialogue we can only do it by talking as you said face to face

you know when when russian cinema you you see i i know this because my wife is from georgia by the way uh soviet georgia uh and but the russians have seen all the american classics you watch hollywood i think more than we watch hollywood So you see America as we’re trying to present America at its best.

But you also see sort of a cartoon caricature of America. It’s not the real America. But we don’t see the real Russia unless we watch Russian cinema, which no American, we don’t show it in our theaters. But I can go on YouTube. And I can look at the Russian movies. I can look at the classics. I mean,

if you want to study, you know, Americans look at World War II and we see Saving Private Ryan and we see, you know, Fury and we see other movies of this nature, Band of Brothers. But you can go on YouTube and you can watch, you know, Russian movies about the war, Soviet movies about the war.

And you’d be surprised because these movies are heartfelt. They’re very human. They’re very real. They’re not the glorification to violence that we get in the United States. It’s about the Russian soul. It’s about what it means to be a Russian. about what it means to be a Russian son going home to the village where his mother

waits for them, what it means to be a Georgian father who receives notice that his son is wounded and leaves the village to go searching for his son through combat zone after combat zone after combat zone. What it means to be a sergeant of an all-female unit in the rear and they suddenly

have to deal with German paratroopers, but it’s not your classic war movie of violence. It’s about a man trying to care for these girls as if they’re his daughters, you know, and then to watch them die one by one by one, you know, this is the cinema of, of, of Russia. And you look at it today.

I mean, some of the classics we watch, uh, you know, a man who meets the wrong woman for New Year’s. I mean, it’s a classic movie we watch every New Year’s. I forget the name of it, but he flies to a city instead of going to his fiancee with another woman and they fall in love.

But you look at this and you say, wait a minute, this isn’t what I was taught. Wait a minute, these are people, these are humans. These are humans who are doing things with emotion that we Americans feel. Why am I crying when they’re crying? They’re Russians. I shouldn’t have the same emotion with the Russians.

Why are they laughing and I’m laughing? Are you telling me that they think it’s funny as I’m funny? They can’t. They’re Russians. The Russians are human beings just like we are. At the end of the day, we laugh at the same things. We cry at the same things. We appreciate the same things.

We appreciate that which is human. So we need this dialogue. And this is why I’m dedicated to this project. Because, yes, we can talk in glorified terms of peace and bettering relations, and that’s all very important. But none of that happens unless we get Russian people and American people to view

each other as fellow human beings who are prisoners on this same planet. And if we don’t do what it takes to make life livable, we’re all going to perish. So we need to learn to appreciate each other. And I think the Russians, this is a task for the Russian people.

You can ask questions about America and you should ask all the questions you want. We’ll give you the answers. We’re not shy. But you need to teach us about the reality of Russia. That’s your job. You need to teach us about the reality of Russia. You need to break through the Russophobia.

You need to break through the prejudice of Hollywood cinema, where when we look at a body, we go, oh, Russians, that’s not good. Instead, what we want to do, because look at how we treat Italy or France. Okay, France, Paris, the city of love. So when Americans go to France, it’s to fall in love.

It’s to see beautiful women and to see beautiful scenery.

It’s a city of love for Russians as well. We love Paris.

But St. Petersburg is a city of love. Moscow is a city of love. You know, Russia is a nation of love. Italy, that’s where we go to fall in love again with wonderful people. russia that’s where we go where guys a fur hat we want to hit them with a knife we

have to change this so that when americans see i hope we do yeah that’s what that’s what our job is that’s what our task is it’s a very human job it’s a very practical job and it’s a very important job scott i’d like

to add something for what you for what you said, you know, I would like to confirm that we have plenty of beautiful cities in Russia. And by the way, you were in Novosibirsk in 2023, as you said, and you know that that new the new cities I would like to say how they actually look today actually it

happened for the last several years just beginning maybe from 2014 the situation in Russia you know become became better and better all the time and I remember 90s I remember me playing football matches in dirt There were no football pitches at all. Now, even in small towns, football pitches almost in all the courtyards. I’m from the small,

you, by the way, named quite a lot, quite big cities anyway, like Volgograd, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, big cities, not Megalopolis, but big. I would like to tell you that small Tichvins, much more beautiful today it’s a it’s a very nice town and people not only government government has certain budget they can distribute and uh build something

but also business began helping uh to to build the cities and uh it’s very beautiful and uh yes russia is beautiful and we have a lot of culture as you mentioned already Russian bullet, you know, St. Petersburg, it’s a mecca of Russian bullet. And we have a lot of things to watch here,

and I would like to invite all Americans to visit Russia and see it not through media, not through media which portraits Russia, not in a good way, see it with their own eyes. I remember, by the way, 2011, I went to London, by the way, to improve a little bit my English.

And a guy from Italy very seriously asked me, is it dangerous to live in Russia? I was like, I was shocked. What? Why do you think this way? What does it mean living dangerous? You know, kind of, I live. i make you know business there so i go to the theaters cinemas and so on about

cinemas by the way uh before 2020 i guess mostly mostly scott i watched american movies and we kind of saw a world through that hollywood’s movies they’re good with some of the problems i already mentioned but we approached in most of the cases Russian movies like Russian movies kind of

oh no Hollywood this is good Russian movies is not that good yes old movies are good about by the way the second world war and even when we were small children we saw it together all the families we watched this movie and still watch it but when it comes to movies after 90s

if they are they are not good and then i started watching recently maybe two two two years ago i started watching russian movies we have wonderful movies wonderful tv shows uh you know recently anna detective for instance or the formula of criminal and so and so just very very very beautiful and they um show St.

Petersburg small cities not so far from Moscow about life and by the way Russian soul and I started loving them and you are right that we are proud of our country we became proud of our country you know it’s gradual gradually it happened not

overnight gradually we became proud of our country and this is very good and in the end of my speech i would like to tell you that this is very good you are proud of your country you are citizens of your country i’m proud of my country and in this space

speech we would we would like just to share so our you know our feelings about ourselves and about each other This is very good. That’s what we are going to do. And I’m sure we will do it successfully.

There’s no doubt in my mind. You know, when I approached Gerald Solante about this concept, he’s a man from the Bronx. If you know anything about New York City and the Bronx, it’s a tough neighborhood. He’s a tough, tough guy. But he said, you know, we can’t change humanity simply by talking.

He said that we need beauty in life. We need beautiful things. And he said that, and he, I’m not gonna say chastised me, but he cautioned me. He said, as you work to promote peace, don’t forget the beautiful things in life. That what’s gonna bring peace is a renaissance of the soul.

And Renaissance requires us to appreciate art and music, et cetera. So I was thrilled to death when I’m not going to give away the farm here because people have to tune it. But when you sent me your initial outline, that there was culture built into it. And so this isn’t going to be just about people talking.

That’s very important. It’s going to be mostly what we do. But it’s also going to be a shared cultural experience, meaning that there’s going to be some music, some singing. And I think this is great because, again, I don’t want to give away too much, but I think I can say this,

that there will be a singer from, is it the Modinsky Opera?

Yeah, Modinsky Opera.

Murinsky Opera, yeah, forgive me. You’re talking to a Marine who can barely speak English, let alone conquer the Russian language. But Murinsky, I had the privilege of attending that opera on New Year’s Eve to watch Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. Yeah, and it was just a magnificent experience.

But the thing that made it even more magnificent was that the entire theater was full of average Russians. Yeah. Average Russians who brought their kids, who brought their family. This was a Russian cultural experience. You know, when you think of the opera in America, you think of elites, you know, the people who can afford the tickets,

who can wear the fancy clothes. But what I saw around me weren’t Russian elites, but Russians. Yeah, true. Normal Russians. So I’m hopeful that… we’ll be able to show that side of Russia to an American audience and for Americans to appreciate that. Then we’ll show you a little bit of a passage for culture here in America too.

So it’ll be a shared experience, but I’m really looking forward to this. Well, this is going to be a groundbreaking event. I think that we’re going to hit a home run. That’s an American term. That means it’s going to be a winner. And that from this, we’ll be able to organize additional space, you know,

because Phil Donahue and Vladimir Posner, they didn’t just have one space bridge, they had several. And that played a very important role.

By the way, there were some other hosts as well.

That’s a spinoff. That’s right. I mean, you know, we can start a race, but we have a baton. We hand the baton off to others and they can continue the race. And so that’s what we’re going to do. I thank you for your courage. I thank you for your vision. I thank you for your passion.

And I really look forward to working with you on this joint effort.

Thank you very much for having me. In my view, it was a great conversation. Let’s do it.

Let’s do it.

It’s going to be great.

Now, we have to be careful. You’re a businessman. You understand that. I think Nike has already trademarked that. But what the hell? Let’s do it.

Okay, Scott. Thank you very much.

It’s a pleasure talking with you. And I look forward to working with you. Thanks. Bye. Just do it. I couldn’t come up with a better motto for this effort. Just do it. You know, people talk. There’s an old saying, you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?

And, you know, there’s a lot of talk today about improving Russian-U.S. relations. But as you heard from Pavel, when Americans were given the opportunity to step up and become a part of this space bridge, they turned down that opportunity. because they can’t walk the walk. They don’t have what it takes at this juncture.

It’s a very difficult journey to ask somebody to embark on because it requires a certain amount of courage, a courage of your convictions to overcome the prejudice that exists not just in government, but amongst American society as a whole. But we’re never going to have good relations with Russia unless we overcome these prejudices,

and we’re never going to overcome these prejudices unless we have meaningful dialogue with the Russians. The best way to learn that the Russian people are not our enemies is to have a conversation with the Russian people. And Pavel and I are going to be doing that on June 18th. We invite everybody to join us.

It’s the U.S.-Russia Citizens Summit, the new space bridge. It will be broadcast on… on a number of channels that will be published on the eve of this dialogue. But it’s imperative that this isn’t just a conversation between a handful of Russians and a handful of Americans, but this rather becomes the precursor for an ongoing conversation between the

Russian people and the American people. We need to teach our respected governments how to have good relations, how to engage in civil conversation, how to have a meaningful dialogue without shouting, how to have a debate that doesn’t turn into conflict. And that’s what we’re going to do on June 18th.

It’s sort of an extension of what we’re trying to do here on the Russia House. to expose the reality of Russia to an American audience. So I’m very glad that we are able to bring Pavel today on the Russia House to continue this experiment in citizens’ diplomacy.

18 h

Ritter’s Rant Ep. 7: A Nation of Laws

https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritte

Ritter’s Rant Ep. 7: A Nation of Laws

(https://scottritter.substack.com/p/ritters-rant-007-a-nation-of-laws?r=1vhv3f&triedRedirect=true)

We claim to be a nation of laws, but in reality we are a lawless mob nobody can trust. How do we change this?

Transkripzioa:

Welcome to this edition of Ritter’s Rant. Today we’re going to discuss international law, in particular how it applies to the United States of America. The United States of America is a nation defined by law. Our Constitution is the the founding law of the land. It defines us as a nation of laws.

@tobararbulu # mmt@tobararbulu

41 min

Ritter’s Rant Ep. 8: Peace through Strength

https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritte

believing that he was sincere about pursuing rapid peaceful outcomes in ukraine in gaza in the middle east as a whole we were told that this man was going to resolve the ukraine conflict in 24 hours now we all knew that it was unrealistic but we at least expected some sort of concerted effort to responsibly engage with the

parties involved, including the Russians, to bring about conflict termination. Gaza, we were told that thing’s going to end. I mean, indeed, even before the president was sworn in because of his intervention, there was a ceasefire in Gaza. But almost immediately, once the president became president, we saw the Israelis violate it,

saying that was the agreement they had with this president all along, which means he was lying to us when he said he wanted to peace in Gaza. They wanted to bring an end to that conflict. He was just buying time for the Israelis to do what the Israelis do best, continue their policies of genocide,

to murder more Palestinians, to carry out wars of aggression in Iran. Iran was the ultimate deception. You see, he didn’t just deceive the American people when he said back in September of 2024 that he wasn’t seeking regime change in Iran, that he felt that we could live

a normal relationship with Iran, that there was a deal to be had. He wanted a new, better deal with Iran on the nuclear agreement, and that’s what he was going to pursue. But what we find out is actually he was working with the Israelis to use the perception of peace as subterfuge for creating the conditions of war.

I mean, the Israelis did launch a surprise attack against the Iranians without any justification under international law, and it appears that the president went along with this. After all, one doesn’t use the term we lightly when speaking of Israeli actions against Iran. That means that we, Israel and the United States, were involved in this.

This was the deception. This man doesn’t want peace. He only wants strength. Peace was a subterfuge. But here’s the kicker. If you’re going to basically define your administration’s national security posture on the notion of peace through strength, and you’re going to totally disregard the possibility of peace,

you better damn well be strong because you’re going to get a lot of conflict. But what we found out with this president is there is no strength. Yes, the United States of America possesses considerable military power. But that military power must be linked with decisive leadership in order for it to actually be meaningful.

But when instead it’s linked to a narcissistic egomaniac who only cares about himself and not the nation, who puts the interests of his legacy above the national security interests of the United States, what happens on every occasion so far is that he will back down. a narcissist, an egomaniac who’s not willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

For instance, when we are talking about sending American forces into war, we are talking about asking men and women to die for their country. So what we need is a political leader who understands the consequences of his or her action and is willing to pay the price because a determination has been made

That there is an issue out there that requires the potential shedding of American blood to seek a resolution. So what price is the president willing to pay? And the answer is no price at all. None whatsoever. Because the man is a moral coward, a physical coward, an intellectual coward. So peace through strength is an absolute fallacy.

We aren’t strong on Ukraine because we can’t confront the Russians decisively, not that I’m encouraging us to do so, but we also can’t confront our European allies decisively. We can’t confront the Ukrainians decisively. Look at the disingenuous manner in which this president is dealt with Ukraine. He won’t come out and say what needs to be said,

which is we will no longer support this conflict against Russia. This war was started by Zelensky. This war is the fault of Ukraine. And therefore, Ukraine must terminate this conflict on terms acceptable to Russia. That is the policy of the United States. We’re washing our hands of Ukraine. That would be strength.

You can’t turn to NATO saying that you have jumped into this conflict. You’ve now defined your very existence based upon predicated on the need for conflict. And America is not going for that. That if NATO insists on going down this path, it will do so without the United States. That would be strength. But instead,

this president leads the Ukrainians into believing that there is somehow a magic deal, the precious metals deal or the earth deal, where Ukraine was sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars that could be turned into weapons, that the United States would provide the weapons to continue this conflict. We’re not going to provide anything.

It was a lie that we’ve told the Ukrainians that We’ll back the Europeans. We may not be involved, but we’ll work with the Europeans. We’re not going to work with the Europeans. It was a lie. But then we told the Russians that we were going to negotiate with them, sit down with them, work to improve relations.

But no, that was a lie too. Donald Trump ended those negotiations. Why? Because he’s not man enough to deal with the consequences of his actions. Peace through strength. There is no strength, and now there’s no peace. The same thing in Gaza. But the place that it really rubs me raw is Iran.

Because Iran is a problem that the United States has been wrestling with for decades. And we know the reality of Iran. And we also know who’s to blame for the tension between the United States and Iran, and that’s Israel. And we know that Israel has not been an honest broker in its relationships with Iran.

We know that the Iranian nuclear crisis is a manufactured crisis. We’ve known for over two decades that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. We’ve been monitoring Iran through the International Atomic Energy Agency, and we know that Iran doesn’t want a nuclear weapon. And yet we’ve allowed Israel to manufacture a case for an illegal war of aggression

predicated on the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program that we know doesn’t exist. We don’t have the strength to stand up to Israel and say, not just no, but hell no. Instead, the coward goes behind the scenes, cooks up a secret deal with Israel to launch a surprise attack while we are negotiating with the Iranians.

That’s not peace through strength. That’s perfidy. That’s cowardism. That’s a disgrace. And that’s what this president is. This whole notion of peace through strength actually weakens America. Because if he was honest and said, we will be strong because we pursue war, maybe the American people wouldn’t have voted him into office,

but at least he would be honest about what he’s about. But even here, he can’t be honest because if we’re going to be strong through the pursuit of war, then go to war, damn it. But this president can’t go to war. Because he’s a coward. He doesn’t have what it takes to go to war.

He tried to confront the Houthi in Yemen and was compelled to back down. The United States of America packed its bags and ran away from the Houthi. Not because the Houthi are cowards. No, they’re very brave fighters. It’s because we don’t have what it takes to finish the job. Because the job isn’t worth finishing.

Because this job is about the prestige of Donald Trump. And the moment the going got tough, Donald Trump got going. And that’s where we are today as America. peace through strength, there isn’t peace through strength. America is weak, not because America is weak, but because its leadership is weak. And as a result, instead of peace,

we get war, war in Ukraine, war in Gaza, and now war with Iran. That’s my rant, and I’ll see you the next time. Bad thoughts cross my mind.

38 min

Project 38

https://open.substack.com/pub/scottritte