Putin and the Presidents: Timothy Snyder (interview) | FRONTLINE

As a Ukrainian I couldn't agree more with prof. Snyder. His free online course on Ukraine's history is just brilliant. Thank you for your interest and support of my country.

I'm from Ukraine. Thanks a lot to everyone who supports Ukraine, thanks to everyone who believed that we won't be afraid or give up facing the rushits aggression. And yes, thanks to prof. Snyder for doing so much for my country with his publicist and scientific work!

His book, ON TYRANNY, is a must read. At 76, I’m still learning. THANK YOU.

Mr Snyder, i have learned more on world geopolitics in your one hour interview than in the last 25 years. Brilliant. If i was an elected politician, i would love to have you as one of my adviser. And kudos to the interviewer who asked very good questions.

I became a very involved fan of Prof. Snyder, because he brings the conversation back to Ukraine and Ukrainians, when most of journalists just want to speak about Putin

Thank you Timothy for everything you are doing to spread the truth about that war

I was born in Finland in 1958. In my childhood, we were taught what a great friend we have in the USSR. We had a friendship and co-operation agreement with them. We paraded all our prospective Presidents and Prime Ministers for their approval. I was raised to see the best in our eastern neighbour, explain away the occupation of the Baltic countries - our Finnic brothers and sisters there. I represented the amnesia generation after WW2, whereas my parents had seen the deeply traumatizing Russian invasion, brutal war, the loss of our young men and our ancestral land to them. The war payments, the ever-working absent parents, the burden of horrors affected deeply the way I turned out. It has been heart breaking to follow the Russian destruction of Ukraine. Thank you, Professor Snyder, for your thoughtful analysis and your steadfast support of democratic values and the survival of nations previously considered someone else's "buffer zone".

I wish all the Pro-War-Pro-Russians or Anti-Ukraine crowd would have the intelligence and patience to listen to this.

I highly recommend Prof Snyder's series of 23 lectures "The Making of Modern Ukraine", also on Youtube. This are the actual lectures he delivered to his history class at Yale. You'd think listening to 23 hour just on Ukraine would be overkill, but he makes it so exciting, so interesting, and draws in so many fascinating connections to the rest of European history over 2,000 years that it's effortless; like reading a really engrossing novel. A wise and intelligent man and a great teacher.

I can listen to prof Snyder for HOURS. Always clear and insightful. THANK YOU

An assessment of Russian psychology I've never read or heard before. Mr. Snyder is the real deal. Thank you so much for educating us.

Thank you for the interview. As a Greek, watching Russia crumbiling the democracy of the US was making me despair. The US needs to defend its democracy and put malignant tumor Trump in jail, the same way we did with the fascist party leaders, who incited violence. This is a turning point of history, and democracy needs to win.

Absolutely tremendous. It’s people such as this that remind me that the people I normally get caught up listening to are pseudo intellectuals

This is the most powerful analysis of the situation I have ever encountered . It has dramatically increased my understanding . Thank you Frontline and PBS

Thank you for this upload! May I correct one thing? Around 3:55 Synder says that Putin doesn't know foreing languages. This is not correct, Putin speaks German very well, in 2001 he even hold a speech in the German parliament in German. Putin was stationed in the GDR (in Dresden) from 1985 to 1990 as a KGB agent. This doesn't change anything about Synders basic statement, I just wanted to clarify that. I think that the impact his career as a KGB agent has had on Putin's thinking cannot be underestimated.

It is a pity that we don't have enough people like Prof. Snyder in the academia of the Free World. Such a bright and easy-to-congest interview.

I discovered Professor Snyder gradually over the years. He strikes me as a really deep thinker, especially in the field of the history of ideas. In his history, ideas matter, worldview matters, domestic policy matters, fear matters, self-interest matters, dreams matter, ideologies matter. His approach, coupled with a huge knowledge and deep understanding of Eastern Europe and its history, makes for fascinating, well-thought-out ideas and views of what is happening. He is one of those rare people who help me understand things a little bit better, whenever I listen to him. Another person who has that when it comes to the Ukraine war is Lawrence Freedman, a professor of war and conflict from the UK. His substack articles on the war - like those of Timothy Snyder - are always a worthwhile read that helps me understand things just a little bit deeper, a little bit better. Worth your time.

He has an excellent grasp on the subject and articulates his thoughts very well. Thoroughly enjoyed this.

awesome. I wish more leadership in this country was as smart as this fellow here.

Recap by Tammy AI with useful timestamps! 0:00: 🌍 The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in late 2021 is a significant moment for the Biden administration and the world, with the stakes being the international legal framework and the idea that countries should not destroy others for no reason. 6:24: 🌍 Russians think of themselves as a great power and want to prove it, while Americans do not need Russia for their sense of themselves. The belief that democracy is inevitable due to capitalism was a mistake and too few people owning too much stuff and dominating the media leads to a lack of democracy. 12:58: 👀 Understanding Putin's turn against the West and the failure of his domestic policy 19:15: 🌍 Russia's goal is to turn America into a total mess and American foreign policy does not matter that much in Russia. 26:31: 🌍 Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 caught the West off guard due to Russian propaganda and manipulation of social media, which they later used in the 2016 US election. 31:20: 🌍 The conflict in Ukraine was about democracy and Russia's fear of a functioning rule-of-law state joining the European Union. 38:57: 🌍 Trump normalized the Russian way of doing politics, which was a huge gift for Putin and had a tremendously negative effect on politics around the world. 44:15: 🔍 The conflict between democracy and authoritarianism is exemplified by the war in Ukraine and Trump's approach to it, which shows his disregard for democracy and his willingness to personalize foreign relations. 50:34: 🔥 The current situation in Ukraine and Russia is dangerous, with Putin's actions having consequences for both countries and t