Well, the Muslims are cheating the Americans in the same way and the Croats are cheating the Germans. So maybe this is not even deceit. There’s no unity in their leadership, either. [Serbia’s President Slobodan] Milosevic agrees with us, with our program, but his generals don’t always agree. But I believe that we will ultimately succeed in initiating a peace process. Talking to Helmut Kohl today, I told him my suggestion that we, the leaders of Russia, the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, should come to some neutral European country and invite all the Yugoslav leaders. We should put them around a negotiating table and get them to sign a peace treaty. There’s no other solution, because the Muslims tell Americans, “No, we’re not provoking it.” The Serbs tell us, “No, we’re not starting it.” In fact, it’s hard to understand who is starting it and who is responding. Even the U.N. peacekeepers that are right there cannot quite figure it out. That’s why I suggest this, and I believe it would be the best way out for Yugoslavia and the entire world if the leaders of the countries involved sorted it out.
We are against airstrikes. Airstrikes can’t solve anything. We’ll just make them mad, fuel nationalism and this war will get exacerbated. After bombing, you can’t expect them to make peace. It was with great difficulty that we managed to keep the Serbs from getting more active militarily after the airstrikes. They really wanted to.
I believe that this noise comes from the mass media, from you. You are to blame for it. You are firing passions where there should be none. We have good relations with the United States, we have a partnership and nothing threatens this partnership. Yes, we may have some disagreements, some different points of view, like they are in favor of bombing and we are against it. But that in no way leads toward a confrontation between us. President Clinton and I would just talk on the phone, explain our stands to each other, understand each other and move on. So I categorically disagree with those who believe that a black cat has passed between us. There are those who want to drive a wedge between us, but that will not happen.
Of course. You have a kind of fixation, Mr. Editor, about Russia still being an evil empire. We have no imperial ambitions. We are just helping the countries of the former Soviet Union since without helping each other we cannot survive. That’s why we formed the Commonwealth of Independent States. it will be tough on Ukraine, of course, since nationalist sentiment is very strong there and there is a split between the Western and the Eastern part of the country. That will cause great problems for them. And reforms are having more problems there. They are moving along better in Russia, and we are kind of pulling up the others behind us.
It came as no surprise to me. Before, everything was planned very precisely. Every nail was registered and everyone knew where it was to be sold and for how many kopeks. Then suddenly there was this transition to a free market, free trade, free prices. What they called profiteering before they now call private enterprise: buying cheap and selling for a higher price, at a profit. Those who are unable to work honestly are, doubtless, attracted by such a situation. They get a chance to obtain money illegally, sometimes committing crimes, murdering people, taking bribes, corrupting officials and so on. But I am convinced that as the economic and financial situation stabilizes, crime will drop. As slight positive changes take place in the economy, as people grow psychologically accustomed to market and as all government structures try to combat crime, all this inevitably leads to a decrease in crime.
No, he is no threat. Yes, he racked up 25 percent of the vote. But those votes came from people who have been disillusioned. They were not voting for Zhirinovsky or for fascism. They voted against the fact that a large number of people are still badly off. It was a sign of protest. Of course, you cannot discount the danger of fascism in any country, including Russia, but the signs are so few. Our country, which lived through fascism during the war and through more than 70 years of a totalitarian regime, will not allow fascism.
I’m an optimist. I believe that, no matter what, reforms cannot and will not be reversed, no matter who crows like a rooster to prove the opposite. Rutskoi cannot rise again as a politician. He will hamper us in minor things, but that’s all he can do. People will not accept him, and he himself, psychologically, is not a man who stands firmly on his feet. The communists will remain, like in any other country. But they will gradually change to what they are in your country now-small groups that preach communism. Our people are fed up with communism, so the communists will just be a minor hindrance in Parliament. Maybe sometimes they will hold the odd rally-but in the framework of the law, because we will no longer allow them to take to the streets. We will take tough measures, just like in your country.
I think you just haven’t been following my movements very closely and you don’t know what my itinerary and my monthly schedule are like. I could show you my schedule and where I go, I constantly meet with people. But why did you get this impression? I can explain that. In the first 18 months or so I handled everything myself Now I am trying to delegate economic issues to the government whose duty it is to handle them.
I am pushing it through as a president. If I didn’t have a firm hold on it and if I wasn’t pushing it, no one knows what would have happened or what its fate would have been. I never wavered for a minute when it came to reforms, no matter what the situation was like. I am like a locomotive; I am not pushing the people but the government so that it would follow this path, and then the government, by taking the right decisions on reforms, mobilizes the people to follow these decisions. It shouldn’t work like a rally anymore. There has to be calculation, there have to be correct management decisions. And there should be the right staff to make them. I monitor all appointments in the top echelons of power, picking people who are capable of conducting reforms. The talk that one hears overseas about our government not being reformist anymore and Prime Minister Chernomyrdin being responsible for that-I categorically disagree with that. [Former reform architect] Gaidar’s style of work is, of course, different from Chernomyrdin. But they also come from different age groups. So one of them is more lively and the other is more fundamental. But both still move the reforms along. And the fact that I have good contact with Chernomyrdin prevents him from turning aside.
Well, everyone disappears. Your president disappears, too. Any president disappears. He’s human. He can’t work all year round without taking a rest. I don’t take a vacation once a year-as a rule, I take 10 days or maybe two weeks off in spring and then about as long in the fall. it has nothing to do with anxiety or depression. I am not the kind of person to get depressed. The other accusations come from the communists. When I go on vacation, even though the newspapers report where I have gone, where I am, so you can come and make sure that I’m there, they start saying, “If he’s not here, there can be a putsch.” This stereotype has been created by some mass media and it has to do with the fact that Gorbachev once went on vacation and we had a putsch. So they tie these events together, though I am calm when I leave town for 10 days’ vacation. Besides, I don’t just relax there, I also work a lot. I get a pile of papers this high on my desk every morning that aren’t going to just disappear. Every day, they are flown in by plane and then flown out. And anyway, I do not use up the vacation time that is due me. I only use a little more than half of it.
Well, there are nine people in my family and they are all very politicized. Even kids this tall talk about politics. It’s all politics, all politics. So I’m just trying to hold them back a little bit-let’s talk about something else for a change! When we sit down to dinner, it’s politics. On Sunday, when I try to take half a day off, it’s politics again. There’s got to be some variety! So I do sometimes criticize them for abusing this subject. But I can understand their concern. My wife is retired, so she’s got time, she reads newspapers, watches TV, follows everything pretty closely. She’s pretty knowledgeable. So she wants to voice her opinions sometimes. Sometimes she disagrees with me.
It wasn’t the army that hesitated but just a few wobbly generals with weak nerves. They are not around anymore; they’re already retired.
I am sure of that. I am doing my best in order not to lose the army and my influence on it. That is too serious a matter for a president.
If you take my entire life-the war, the famine, the extremely difficult conditions, the hard work-nevertheless, these past two years have been the most difficult years of my life. When I took resolute measures during both putsches, my character toughened somewhat, even though it was pretty tough to begin with. And, of course, I have come to understand Russia better. This very tense, tough struggle has certainly been for no personal ambition of mine-like holding on to power. It was all in order for Russia to follow the democratic path, to carry out reforms and join the community of the world’s civilized nations.
The other day, our team met-and that team includes the top leaders of the presidential staff and the government-and we discussed this question. I have been criticized for saying that I would not run for re-election. We agreed that in the coming two years I would not address this subject or answer these questions. So write whatever you want.
Yes, and I have been invited to do that more than once.
