Frontline one on one interviews are my new obsession. ☝️ Very well produced and good journalistic format. IMO. Very easy listening for the most important amount of information. Very soft well spoken thoughtful interviewees, excluding Bannon. Good watch though. 👍

This series is endlessly fascinating, and prophetic given current events in 2022

Frontline: My thanks to you taking the time to speak with the adults here.

Mr. Fried is the best historian I’ve seen in this series and beyond. He is philosophical, smart, and has amassed a well of wisdom regarding Russian history and society that informs his current observations. This is a must see episode of Frontline’s “Putin Files.”

Mr Fried has a fascinating way of talking. The story about Stalin asking who organized the spontaneous applause is amazing. Makes me wish I was privy to daily national intelligence reports for the rest of my life.

Very impressive man and interview.

Democracy is always ill with corruption, but not so ill as totalitarian regimes with instituted unreachable corruption. That makes great difference. In a democracy is always some tendency to confront the corruption, to throw it down immediately after it tries to concrete itself in some position. Totalitarian systems are stable just for a while, as he said in 51:00, it always means hostility and downward spiral with increasing repression until it fails and collapses like communist regimes in the eastern block. So now we can say that Putin's regime is on the path to collapse. But we still don't know how painful it will be, how many lives it can destroy as a side effect. And we don't have any control over it as the regime is perfectly institutionalized unreachable stupidity.

A prescient series… watched in full several years ago and again now (2022) only to learn heaps more that relevant to the here and now. Bravo frontline and interviewees.

This guy is really good , need more content from him

Should you trust a spy when he tells you: “never trust a spy?”

The fact that I'm watching this of my own volition (and belated interest) surprises me - but what surprises me more, maybe even scares me a little, is that Frontline has such a small subscriber base. Prank videos, pet videos and videos of people falling down have the attention. Mike Judge's 'Idiocracy' is coming rapidly true. I need to move off this planet...

The meaning of the reset button was over-charge as in pay too much. Ironic.

Very interesting interview, again. I commend Daniel Fried for participating.

I am speechless before his mastery of English language and éloquence

This man has some good insights and communicates them well. It's too bad he is unable to admit that Bush or anyone in his administration ever made a wrong choice.He even attempts to smear some shit on politicians who opposed their disastrous decision to invade Iraq at the time, which is pretty low.

Mr.fried is 1,000,000%rite...He knows alot....

I love hearing this insider view on this fascinating piece of international relations. Wunderschön.

Wow, this was good, informing & most fair assessment of Putin Russia. What a difference; professional politician with a first hand experience so dissimilar from disgruntled journalists with their disproportional over dramatization of their often too liberal takes on reality.

At the moment, the best thing I can say about a free democracy system is that I can ask the question that I put below: that's it...that I have the freedom to ask that question without going to jail...but nothing else is so terrific...nothing...in a country of people who are basically morally bankrupt because of their free choice...dts/usa

Excellent interview.

Really wish more political interviews were as interesting and enthralling as this one! Fascinating insight into US-Russia relations and the complexity of foreign policy making.

Riveting. You feel like he's reliving it as he describes it.

Why aren’t people like this running for office? Seriously we need more policy makers actually in office instead of the sidelines.

Oh, how things have changed..

Very interesting.

Ex Soviets said "a group of drunks wouldn't trust Putin to buy the bottle".

From what does that infinite capacity to suffer stem? I understand that CONDITIONS for centuries upon centuries were so bad they CAUSED suffering and that there was nothing (within the context of staying & under the feodal regime of suppression) that the Ordinary Russian could do. But supposing Russians as people are not different from any other people and aren't dumb, and given the fact that they recently were in a position that allowed them to at least get acquainted with some freedom, some better conditions, and the spirit of liberty (that allows people to speak their heart, a complete novelty), would circumstances today (now that a new unrivaled repression seems to be what their "president" is intent on instating) STILL be so that the Russian would still be willing or even capable to put up with it? ...Of course, it in fact is their ability to put up with misery that stands out, not their ability to put up with any choice for it, so I guess what I mean is, ARE they GOING TO??!...

Dammit man....

Interesying

This is to me the most honest take on this matter.

The recourse to colloquialism, the lapse into coarse language, the narrowed vision, the unwillingness to take responsibility, are building this image of an untidy diplomatic service, never mind the Russians.

Why did they abandon Belarus. Belarus nearly starved and fell into Russia's orbit.

This guy is good.

The biggest problem is nuclear weapons on Belarus land would cause WW3

What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history! 😢

Is it Putin or the people behind the scenes and he is only the poster boy?

Mafia way of dealing.

okay, where is my "reset button' since we are doing a group hug and all that ?

If Putin wasn’t so paranoid, Russia would have had a brighter future.

Anyone else get here from Scotchbox's Star trek bridge crew playlist? lol tf

Continue the policy of nato enlargement

I would have to say putin is fascist or nationalist. As for his treatment of women this guys right. When are the weakness of both China and Russia. Both having the capability of creating democratic change in both countries. Which is why they crack down on women in both countries in different ways

I wish that Fried would push those rose colored glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose. Maybe it would bring some realism to his perspectve.

DDR was way more successful then Russia and it had zero impact on the feeling of the simple Russians that they should now go out and make some kind of revolution to be or to live like DDR

I'm just learning about Putin in the last two months, seems by FORCE💯

Way too apologetic towards own politics and fuckups.

Everyone wants to modernised their society, but they do for sure want to maintain their own culture. If the west think that by being modernised mean being more western that's where they're wrong. And this man is wrong

at 14:25

at 30:43

Bush is a "shrewd judge of character" but who he thinks he's dealing with ... isn't. Hmm.... interesting twisting of reality. Bush got his pants charmed off by a cool and calculation Putin - played him like a fool. Poor stuff from an American President.

Articulate, a grossly overused characterization. In fact, this man is articulate. Intelligent.

You will never break the free democracy social policy. No capitalism in Europe will flourish

Throughly interesting interview. He blinks way too much for my comfort, had to listen rather than watch.

So vlad watched these diaries l wonder how he responded. Whoops.

David Sedaris has really let himself go.

"Bush is a shrewd judge of people" 😂😂😂

I think it is Putin's personal "thing" about women, considering those rumors about his wife and their past relations.

“I’m not going to criticize that line”... dude, you haven’t criticized one thing yet. Your answers are a trite tapdance to avoid blaming anyone for being naive or simply incompetent.

Which revolution is he talking about in the beginning? Did I understood right, did he praised the era before Russian revolution 1917? Russians have never ever had anything remotely looking like democracy. Before revolution, they had hundreds of years of horrible autocracy by Tsarism. So, political power just shifted to different hands, but the basic outcome for the ordinary people was the same, and STILL is.

Im USA citizens in Putin files when he was agent snow in kbg

(39:00) Wow...and he didn't make a connection between Kosovo and Iraq? o_O

I'm sure Putin was happy as a clam cause he figured he's never gonna get anyone dumber than bush...then of course 2016 happened. He musta felt like he'd won the lotto TWICE!!!

The Bush people couldn't even translate Russian properly...and we wonder why we have problems...

It is beyond comprehension as l sit here with the benefit of hindsight learning about these important players that they are really that gormless of their actions. When you act unilaterally then these responses are truly disingenuous. America should pay for its hubris but why with ukrainian lives.

The American government organised coups in Iran,Guatemala, and Chili to name just a few countries. It is bizarre that the interviewer and interviewee do not address this issue in the interview. Of course the Russian government would be concerned about possible American backed coups. The USSR did the same in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan. This interview reveals each side thinks they are innocent and are blind to their own faults.

russian weapons to canadian border

So I still don't get why they needed to enlarge NATO? Why not make eastern European countries neutral like Finland or Austria? That would be a fair arrangement. But trying to "engage Russia" while moving a military block to its borders (given the history of invasions coming from the west that Russia suffered)? What kind of analysts work there?

Bollocks.

Agent snow Moscow Russia in kbg soldiers in world domination

Looks like Carl from Billy Madison

US obsession with Putin is disturbing

This is one of the weaker interviews and he does not appear to be completely sincere, honest and upfront

This guy worked at the State Department? Jesus, he talks like a crazy homeless guy from Florida!

But the true question is when will Russia lose its mental anguish and lose this inferiority complex towards the west and gives itself a real chance at democracy because the only thing holding them down is themselves so as a biproduct of being led blindly is you have lesser men at the helm they speak of" russian resolve " well ....

Putin in head 24/7 rent free