Good afternoon. Welcome to the heritage foundation. Onwelcome those who join us all of these locations on our heritage. Org website. For those inhouse, make sure your cell phones are turned off. We will welcome questions at any time, it emailing us speaker heritage. Org. Hosting our discussion is the senior fellow at russian studies. He has a firsthand knowledge of the former soviet union and middle east and his work focuses on such issues as Economic Development and political reform in the former soviet republics, u. S. Commrg security, global war on terrorism, and continuing conflict in the middle east. He served as a consultant in both the skeckive branch and private sector on policy toward russia, central and eastern europe, central asia. He coauthored russian imperialism in crisis as well as eurasia in balance. Focusing on the easternure peaian region. Please join me in welcoming dr. Cohen. [applause] thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. It is my particular pleasure to welcome ilia to the heritage foundation. It is a pleasure because i always admire people who have courage to speak truth to power. It is not easy in any society. It is particularly not easy in todays russia. Ilia could have a wonderful wife in russia. He was the youngest president of the Lucas Oil Company back in the 1990s at the age of 24. He worked for Multinational Oil services companies. He is extremely gifted as a youngster, as a 14yearold, he he was Teaching Computers in the soviet Nuclear Physics institute to the old guys who didnt know at the time about p. C. s. So either a career of a conformist politician or a businessman would have saved ilia a lot of trouble. Instead he decided to take principal stances, he he was the only one in the duma who voted against the socalled gay propaganda law, and most importantly, he he voted against the annexation of the crimea. And that took a lot of courage. He worked in this country in high tech. He has background in investment and as i said already in oil and gas. He he was a member of the duma for the just russia party, and he is really a political star in any other democracy he would have been already vice minister, minister and a respected member of legislation. Instead, as he is going to tell us, his going is rough and becoming rougher. Welcome and lets have meaningful conversation about whats going on. [applause] so the first question i would like to ask you, what made you vote the only vote against annexation of the crimea . I remembered the votes in the german plarlment in the beginning of world war 1 plarlment in the beginning of world war i. Who paid with their lives. For the vote against a senseless world war. What makes you stand up and say no when everybody else is voting yes . Thank you very much for your kind introduction. Im blushing. I think that you were too kind speaking like that. The inspiration was coming from comrade plutnik although the person who convinced me to do what i have done was vladimir putin. It was two days before the actual vote was taking place in duma. It was a president ial address to the national assembly, to the lower chamber, to the state duma, and there was a big crowd of people, maybe 1,000 people all together because there were member of parliament plus governors and other invited guests, and everybody was just shouting and waving hands and praising putin. Hailing chief. And saying lets take over crimea. That was so reminded me so much of the soviet past and the negative past of the soviet. So firstly i decided to seek friends, not stand up and not join the cheering crowd. Secondly i decided i have to vote against. I didnt know whether i should just small take part in the vote or should i vote against. That time i was convinced i should vote against. This is emotional part. The rational part is that being of course patriot of russia, i he was thinking that this move to take over crimea is extremely unbeneficial for my country. What we ending up with . Firstly, our brother nation of ukraine is no longer friend. And whatever dreams we had about the union, about the projects went down. We were always thinking about the issues of National Security and were saying that nato should never come to ukraine and ukraine should remain neutral. And that was pretty much supported by ukrainian people. In 2013, National Polls in ukraine indicated that from 15 to 17 were in favor of joining nato. Others were against. Now after our move, majority of ukranians want to be part of nato. And thats also not beneficial for russia. Thirdly, is the question of International Investments and technological climate in my country. The capital run from russia this year is estimated between 150 and 200 billion u. S. D. That means that every single citizen of Russian Federation pays more than 1,000 for annexation of crimea. That is twice as much as we are investing in health care. This is seven times 7 1 2 times more than we invest in r d, and per capita basis. In absolute figures. The budget per annum in health care russia is 71 billion u. S. And the capital 150plus. Let me ask you this, the ideological and Spiritual Climate in russia that a lot of folks in the u. S. Have a hard time following because of the language, because we are preoccupied with our domestic issues, obamacare, we are preoccupied with china. But to focus on whats happening in russia socially and ideologically. You either have to live there or spend a lot of time doing that like myself being addicted to the russian facebook. What i see is a quick change, its a fast change from sort of laisez faire soft model that we had in the past decade. From 2000 to 2004, and then maybe under medvedev, it was authoritarian but it was not particularly harsh as far as thorn models are concerned. Ukraine is a katjalies, the change started to happen even before ukraine with the ban on adoption of russian kids. With the ban on support of russian nonprofits by western financers. The antigay propaganda law. All kinds of things that the state is increasing its interference in peoples lives. How does ukraine affect that, and where does it where is it moving, where is it going . I think that those changes, you know, they are pretty much on the surface. The fundamentals, and the fundamentals are such that russia as United States is a nation which believes in its mission. And even our missions are pretty similar. We believe in freedom. We believe in distribution of our core values. And it was communist time when russians thought that those communist ideas are light of freedom and invigoration for our neighbors nation and the rest of the world. And we defeated fascism. In coalition with the United States. We did it on our own. Because really official numbers 20 million perished during world war ii, and that is something that every Single Family in russia has suffered. Every Single Family has. Getting to ukraine today im getting there. So there was a mission which suddenly disappeared in 1990s and 2000. But it didnt go anywhere because at our core it was still there. And the Biggest National idea for russia during all those years was the victory day. May 9, not may 8. Yeah because of the time difference. The european victory in world war ii. Stalin made sure it wont be the same day the europeans are celebrating. So that is our Main National holiday. That would unite the full nation, the fight against the fascism. And how it was presented to the nation by president putin is that in ukraine those are western sponsored fascists who came to power, and he dedisplayed with flags of foreign Ukrainian Liberation Army who were allied with us during world war ii, and so he used that to prove that these are fascists who are fighting against both russia and ukrainian nation. So its misinterpretation that we are looking just to protect russia or russianspeaking minority. No for the overwhelming majority of russians we are continuing world war ii. And we are liberating, really liberating, ukraine from the fascist threat. And more we are thinking about liberating the whole of europe because what is europe these days . These gay people with arabs who were disswaying european civilization and christianity, and putin is always referring to those values of christianity and our belief an our tradition. So extremely conservative in this sense. Thats why hes allied in europe, movements like in the french. The head of the national front. He yeah. And other ultraright conservatives in many countries. After recent elections to european parliament, they were in all Russian Media were presented as a huge success of those rights. Is there a paradox, you have some family members who are specialists on different political movements in the outside world. So the soviet union until about 1987 or even 1989 was a great supporter of communist and leftist movements all over the world. I wrote my masters thesis about that. Now only 25plus years later russia is viewed or putin is viewed as not just an ally but as a Guiding Light to the neofascist Hungarian Party jobik, or to madeline lapenn, or German NationalDemocrat Party which is nazi. Somehow the ukrainian ultranationalists are put aside, and by the way the percentage of vote of the recent president ial election in ukraine in favor of ultranationalists is only 10 . Whereas in france and hungary its 20 or higher for these guys. What is the swing of the pendulum from left to right, whats going on here . You see i think that those extremes, they are getting pretty close to each other. If you look u. S. Example and russia to date, its been admired by both tea party and occupy wall street force. They occupy wall street in russia today. You know, you may feel youre not that familiar with tea party. Im not that familiar. I will show you example. With exception a particular member of congress, can i not think of anybody who admires vladimir putin. I think its actually pretty natural. Because putin during last 20 years in general, our officials, they are trying to capitalize on the industry of the soviet union, but trying to flip it from the ideas of World Revolution and the leftist idea of internationalism to empire idea. Its been seen as the most successful of either of russia in all ages. How many people stalin killed officially . There are a lot of stipulations on that, what im saying about National Polls, people will still support stalin and identify themselves stalinists is between 5 and 0 in all polls. Think positive of stalin. Despite the fact that the research indicate that probably up to 20 million were killed. I think 20 million doesnt matter. It would be 100,000. Youre taking the civil war, the agricultureure in the early 1930s and repression. Millions and millions of people. Whatever. Lets not go in this discussion. But my point is that stalin during soviet union times was always seen and driven on the leftists agenda. Right now hes been seen as a great emperor, the great conquerer. Beholder of the empire. Putin is trying to build his background from stalin and trying to capitalize on that. Do you remember when putin said, we were weak and the weak are beaten . That was a direct quote. I want to move on to something that is close to your heart, i know. Innovation and foreign investment. You were a lead on the skolko project, it was brought to partial end, and i dont see anything that is replacing it as sort of a magnet for pushing forward russian high tech, gotting young entrepreneurs to develop their ideas. From what i read a lot of people emigrate, people who want to do business in their 20s or early 30s, what is going on with that . What are the impediments today to investment and entrepreneurship in russia . You know there are two trends in that community. One trend which is more local and probably larger in quantity. The trend to emigrate, there are several visible examples like rushian mark zuckerberg, founder of russian version of facebook, and as you might know thats with a i like to walz with, facebook is now four russian social network. Its not even number two or number three. Our engineers are really great. And the greatest of them was palo. He said he to longer wants to stay if russia because of the attacks conducted on security people and particularly from someone trying to take over as a company. Then our biggest i. T. Company is now under attack. Our first and biggest System Integration company, edslike, Company Announce the hes moving outside russia. So there is a significant flea flee. Flight. Flight of those. From the other side several of our developers who are focused on domestic market, they think that it would be bigger military procurement. That would be higher demand for necessaryically developed technologies. And so that they will be getting more money. My personal opinion is that the increase in domestic spending for new technologist will be not so significant as people expect. Russia during recent 20 years of new liberal reforms, lost its ability to produce a lot of High Technology and products and relies heavily on importing them from the outside. And restore production of those things would be extremely difficult and lengthy. I saw million augosian, vice premiere for military industrial, he was pushing to shut down the g. P. S. Stations on the russian territory. And i dont remember if he threatened or actually made the move to curb the use of russian booster rockets to the space station. I believe there was a threat. Maybe a decision. Im not sure. But are there any accomplishments like with maybe glasnost or space launches . What are the accomplishments so far of this very statused approach to innovation and high tech . You see i was always very vocal proponent of creating our own technologicalist which would at least go pair to pair with International Peers and which would regularly replace them. The same thing as an impoth substitution or global competition . As a global competition. Of course domestically to use our internal market to boost the demand. And to make money for our hightech companies. And glasnost is a great example of such a technology. Do you believe that without competition in russia from foreign competitors exactly my point. If youre shutting down the competition, then you have no drive to increase your service. And increase quality. Quality of glasnost is not yet there. Its being gradually improving, but its not yet there. It had all the chances to become a global competitor with g. P. S. We need to add five years of stable work to issue that. Same thing with our domestic russia when like i was one of the programs that i was supervising was a transition to services, government services. Egovernment . Yeah. And we want to develop our own visatype card to pay for those services, and there was sufficient market for that. This is your work with minister of communications . Yes, thats right. But at that timeure ruling party voted against our ruling party voted against because they were allied with several banks which was against them. It was more profitable to work with western card. Now because of the National Security concerns they are trying to shut down visa an master card, but there is no replacement. So by shutting down visa and master card, it disrupt your Payment Services for your clients. The russians are still sometimes using the aba can cuss baba cuss. You are outdated. The penetration of cards right now is 83 . Lets get back to issues that you as a legislator youre concerned. In the this is going to create it of the executive ranch and on about runs of power. Do you see they are demonstrating that . What would be the solutions . I really agree with what he just said. Indeed, it was undemocratic. Undemocraticd in circumstances. On the public referendum, in 1993, even the official numbers were part of that. This is the fundamental problem for russian political and social economic systems. The problem is that it was from the france french constitution. Given more power than to the french. Then this was above all three branches. The checks and balances are ruined. That was balanced by personality. Even with those ideas, they were very far from that. He was the leader of the communist party. I very much believe in the idea that at that time, he would be allowed to coin the jury. The for be very help the political system. That would create an example of democratic transition. I do not think he is exactly a democrat. It is just a pretty weak. He also has the inland groups which were begging him at the time. I think it would be about the obligation. He would not be able to change the strip matted clay. Drastic. Not so , had to say in russian history cannot suffer conditionalitys. Looking at the system today, our things are working . What kind of changes would better serve the Russian Society . Biggest ones about ,he role of the constitution right now the majority of the thetions lean toward constitutional reform. Example thaterfect the country used this without the president s. It was the president s. Page was the prime minister. He was the leader of elementary majority. Think it is a proven example that it will be safe. [now] it is very possible. According to the russian tradition, there are many archetype in our fairytale. Who judged it. On to have such an ultimate judge who is most opposed to give any executive decision. It was supposed to be the ultimate ruler between the political groups. That is very stabilizing. We have that too. We, the supreme court. Think the judicial system should be the main system. It should be the beall, final system in russia. Another neither executive or legislation. Ok. To finish it, not everybody shares this. It was for our colleagues. Can you give us an example . It was like part of the system. They say the constitution is good. Lets just restore the competition. Part of the circle that push through. Are the opposition leader. It would be better. He said the organizing narrative was against that in world war ii. In coalition with the west. Children who will learn. Do not tell me that. Kids who learn russian history of the unified history that is are they being prepared