I am very good friends with Putin. And I shall give you, in brief, the content of one of our recent discussions.

I told him, “You’re 63 years old, I’m 93 years old. Tell me, what do you want to achieve in the coming 30 years? What are you fighting for? Are you hoping to piss off America?”

He says, “No.”

“America wants a piece of Russia? No. You have trouble discussing things with Obama?”

He says, “Why do you ask?

I said, “Look, I am not a spy, whatever, tell me.”

He says, “What do you think?”

And I said, “America will win no matter what you do.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because they are lucky, and you are not.”

[Laughs]

I told him more. “When an American wakes up in the morning, what does he see? Mexico in the south, and they accept Mexicans in their country. Canada in the north, they are the best friends in the world. And on the right and on the left, there are fish in the water.

“What does Obama have to worry about? You, you wake up in the morning, whom do you have? Japan, China, Afghanistan? My God! They know that you have plenty of land, and you don’t give them a penny. You have 20 percent of the sweet water, and you give nothing. So when the snow in Siberia melts, the first thing you will see there are Chinese. Because there are plenty of Chinese in the east, and not so many Russians.”

The second thing I told him was: “America has the best proportion between the size of the land and the size of the people. You here have the worst. Twenty million square kilometers. My God. But what you don’t have are people. Your people are dying. Don’t be impressed by the applause and what people are saying. They won’t forgive you. Why do Russians live for only 62 years, while Americans will live 82 years?”

And then I told him: “You behave like a czar.”

I am very open.

Yes, I get that.

I said, “What did the czars do? They developed two cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, as a showcase. Whatever you want, you will find there. The rest of Russia is like Nigeria covered with snow. Your people are dying. You don’t give them life. You think they’ll forgive you?”

“Why is America great?” I asked him. “Because they were givers. Why is Europe in trouble? Because they are takers. America is giving; people think it’s because they are generous. I think it’s because they are wise. If you give, you create friends. The most beneficial investment is making friends.

“America had the guts to take the Marshall Plan, a huge piece of their GNP that they gave to this dying Europe. And in this way, they have shown that this is the best investment in the world.”

There is no European country that didn’t take an empire. The French and the British, the Portuguese, everybody. And what happened? They were thrown out of there and left with nothing. England, the greatest empire from sunrise to sunset, all the oceans, and the nice, nonviolent Indians threw them out and left them with nothing but three small islands, they don’t know what to do with them.

“Believe me,” I told Putin, “enemies and animosity are the greatest waste in life. You are investing in a foolish thing.”

You saw America come to the Middle East after the British left, not as an empire, exactly, but certainly as the guarantor of arrangements between states, and now you’re seeing America … not leave the region entirely, but the tide is going out.

Well, I mean, you can afford it, because your investment in friendship still exists. You have NATO. You have Europe, which means 600 million people who are still with you.

Putin says, “Look, what do they want from me? What do you need NATO for? The Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore. The Warsaw Pact was dismantled. I am ready to be a member of NATO, like you! But why do they need Georgia in NATO? Why do they need Romania in NATO? They want to go to Europe, go to Europe. But which army do they want to fight?”

And then he said: “You think I didn’t know that Crimea is Russian, and that Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a gift? I didn’t care, until then you needed the Ukrainians in NATO. What for? I didn’t touch them. They wanted to go to Europe, I said, ‘Great, go to Europe.’ But why did you need them in NATO?”

Putin told me he talked with Obama. He said, “I told Obama, ‘You know what? I’m ready to join you in the Middle East. Economically, not militarily. I invested $4 billion in Libya, we are working toward a transition there.’ Then one morning, I read that Obama cut the connection with Libya. I lost $4 billion. So I asked him, ‘Why did you do that? Did you think about what will happen there afterwards?’ ”

Maybe Obama’s mind was on something else.

I said to Putin, “Look, in spite of all this, why don’t you do what the Americans do? Create another government, or a governing body that allows for the growth of companies. You only have a government. In the government, you have the most ambitious people. They are corrupted, they are corrupting others, they are not loyal. Have the companies, and let them do what the American companies do.”

“Well,” he says, “what do you suggest?” I said, “We have a million Russian-speaking people in Israel. We are best, or among the best, in science. We are ready to help you. Work outside of the government. Or leave the government, they are corrupted anyway. You won’t win.”

[Laughs]

He says, “OK, let’s try.” And so we are trying now. And the absurdity of this story is that there were some American companies that invested a great deal in Russia, and now they are in big trouble. They asked me to help them out.

"русский медведь порван в клочья санкциями, и в бессильной злобе грозит ядерной дубиной".