– Madeleine Albright: ‘Russia Is a Bangladesh With Missiles’:
Originally appeared at DiePress.com. Translated by Xenia Zinoviev, Julia Rakhmetova and Rhod MackenzieThe following are extracts from an interview given to the Austrian newspaper DiePress.com by the former US Secretary of State. We have included a withering response by famous Russian writer and left wing activist Eduard Limonov to one of Albright’s responses that seeks to belittle Russia
Even Russia felt betrayed by what happened in Libya.
I’ve had quite enough of people coming up with excuses for Russia. Russia is always provoking and feeling offended afterwards. The country has gone through a crisis of identity. I will never forget how back in the 90s I encountered a man near Moscow who said to me: “I am so very ashamed. We’ve been a superpower but now we’re like Bangladesh with missiles”. Putin has made good use of the situation, claiming he’d “build Russia up once again to bring it back to further glory”.
Did you notice this back in 2000, when you first met Putin at the Kremlin?
He is a smart but a truly evil man. An officer of the KGB, who wants to exercise power and believes that everybody has come together to conspire against Russia. This is not true. Putin is playing bad cards well, for the time being at least. I believe his goal is to undermine and to split the EU. He wants NATO to disappear from his sphere of influence.
Are the Baltic states’ fears of Putin therefore justified?
Yes, due to the methods of asymmetric warfare, used by Russians.
Putin has at least achieved his goal of building up Russia once again.
By invading and annexing another country for the first time since 1945: Crimea in Ukraine.
And he’s gotten away with this.
Yes, and this should have not been tolerated.
How do you evaluate Russia’s presence in Syria?
Putin only intervened in Syria in order to distract from Ukraine and to reinforce his influence in the Middle East. He wanted only to demonstrate Russia’s power. But let me emphasize the following: the US has no problems with Russia until as long as it refrains from occupying other countries.
At the beginning Putin even had economic success.
On the basis of high oil prices, and this is not the case any more. Putin has established nationalism to divert Russians from the fact that their country is merely a Bangladesh with missiles.
Limonov:
This is actually a boorish attempt to insult our country. We need to reply to it in a similar manner rather than give it some credence or any reasonable argument.
Albright is an ugly old woman with a hook nose who would gain the part of Baba Yaga without needing to audition. And they would film her without needing any special effects makeup because she is already so ugly. A seriously ugly mug, in short.
Bangladesh is a very beautiful, hot country populated by kind and peaceful dark-skinned people. It is where the Great Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers join together, forming the unique Ganges Delta. Its civilization goes back many thousands of years, while the history of the USA is short and vulgar.
Russia is an ancient, cold country with mysterious origins. Russia suddenly reached the pinnacle of world power without expecting it in 1945. In 1991, the USSR committed suicide, but the tree of Russian life did not die and has grown so strong that it now worries the USA and old Europe. They are shaking in fear, frankly speaking. Russians are simple, incredibly brave and a little naïve, as all great nations used to be.
We will bury you and will cry at your funeral, because we are also a sentimental people.
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