This interview did not age well😂😂😂

In Russia, Communism was never the problem; corruption was. In the U.S., Capitalism is not the problem; corruption is.

Boy this didn’t age well…

Victoria Nuland’s 2013 speech she revealed that since 1991 the U.S. had spent $5 billion to help bring about Ukraine’s “aspirations.” Part of the $5 billion the U.S. spent was to help organize protests. February 4th 2014 National Endowment for Democracy board member and then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. (Nudelman) The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which funds NGOs in countries the U.S. targets for regime change, had bankrolled 65 projects in Ukraine totaling more than $20 million. (NED) is funded primarily by an annual allocation from the the US Congress. (NED) received $300 million in 2021, from US taxpayers. The NED is Founded by Allen Weinstein and Carl Gershman who worked at B'nai B'rith and officer of the Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL), youth arm of the Socialist Party of America. These (Neocons) are the same people who in the last 30 years champion the U.S. to fight wars in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. America military leaders have warned us about this; “Rootless cosmopolitans” we have a huge problem with a class of so-called elites, the people who are wealthy, very wealthy in many cases and they are, as the Russians used to call certain individuals many, many years ago, rootless cosmopolitans.”, they have no connection to the country.

Twisted half truths and in-your-face deceit.

HE also lacks a good understanding of what the CIA does in other countries to Thwart true democracies from developing. PBS should think again about this interview.

Well well... doesn't look like this lie is aging very well.

David Hoffman is a dreamer

5 years later... In the meantime all the truth came out and we can only ask ourselves did he tell all these lies because he was paid or because he was just a naive ignorant? Or maybe something else? Thanks for keeping online these videos so that we can refresh our memories of what narratives were circulating at that time.

I am a Russian American, I was 12 and part of Communist youth movement when the Soviet Union fell apart. Then there was chaos and I grew up in it. Most of what Americans hear about USSR is propaganda and vice versa (Russian propaganda is strong too), somewhere in the middle there is the truth. What this man is saying is fairly accurate, based on my recollection of living through the fall of the USSR. During the early 90s there was so much murder and so much crime in Russia, it was hell.

It seems that this man really believes what he is saying.After 5 years propably he is enjoying hearing this again.

I grew up in the Eastern block and the way this gentleman describes life of that time is so spot on.

I am a kid of the late Cold War 70’s till the fall of the Berlin Wall. Spent my childhood in Europe in the 80’s. My Russian ex girlfriend and other friends ascribe a good deal of the fall of the Soviet Union came from bootleg VHS tapes of movies, tv shows and cassette tapes. The exposure to western specifically US culture and consumerism & prosperity are what drove the populace to turn its back on Soviet Style Communism.

Hasn’t almost every word of this been completely discredited by now?

Hats off to president Putin. I respect any leader that can pull the country out of the abyss of destruction!!!

Imagine going bankrupt and having your house taken from you because you get sick! Unaffordable medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the USA.

It's so refreshing to listen to someone who really knows what he's talking about. It's encouraging to hear him say "I don't know" sometimes, and then explain a possibility as such, not as a fact.

This is brilliant. This series of videos could well form the foundation of a graduate course in contemporary Russian issues. Deepest respect to the producers of Frontline both for doing these interviews and sharing them on UKposts. Thank you.

Thank you Frontline for this excellent and most enlightening series. I would say that David Hoffman's take was the most concise and I really appreciate his insight.

I met a Russian, in the 90's, he was amazing, and full of stories of what it was like in the Soviet Union, he told me he was actually scared of us, from all the stories he was told, and I said I was told all sorts of stuff as well, but on the whole Ivan, was just another man, not a monster, but a cool human being, who deserves a chance to be successsful, and happy, like what we all want for ourselves, but unfortunately, since he was Russian, nobody wanted to hire him for what he trained for, in Engineering, worried he may be a spy, he was planning on going back to Russia, and continue his life, knowing that this was a wonderful country, unlike anything he'd been told about us!

Bush senior was the CIA director, was he ever measured against that?

I find it hilarious that all of these experts know Putin more than Putin knows himself.

58:40 he says putin was wrong for wanting a strong security for a capitalist state. I wonder where he could have gotten that idea from? This guy is obviously 🙄 one of those people who criticise everything about everyone without realising weather it applies to themselves and the irony and hypocrisy involved

1:12:20 wasn’t intended to tear Russia 🇷🇺 apart… but we have it in our doctrine and millitary strategy to bulkanize Russia into many little rival states.

The talk about the Soviet Union in the 1980s mirrors a paper I wrote in college. I took a class comparing capitalism, communism, and socialism from the standpoint of economics, management, and workforce development. For an electrical engineer, that was a weird elective class to take. My grandfather was a hardcore socialist/communist. I wanted to understand all of these things more than just from the nightly news of us vs them. Iirc, I called the paper, “the coming economic downturns of the Soviet Union” where I argued that they were going to see an economic downturn worse than the Great Depression in the US. The guy teaching it had been in the state department in the early Reagan administration. He thought I was too negative about the prospects of the ussr. A few years later, I ended up being not negative enough.

Who's watching in 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

This is all secondary information and or hearsay.

Thank you Frontline PBS and Washington Post journalist David Hoffman, most enlightening! I've also enjoyed the "Putin File" episodes as well. Keep up the great work!

All the corruption and lies are going to finish us off. May God protect us ❤️

FRONTLINE: These interviews are OUTSTANDING!! Thank you SO MUCH!

OMG...I was in hight school back then and, had a history teacher that just immigrated to québec ca.. He got a job in my hight school as a history teacher. We all loved this class, he used to tell us all about the reality of things going on in Russia, the lack the country about being to provided for their people,for basic needs even. They had to line up for hours juste for rolls of toilet paper Meats ...forget it. There was none to be found. And here we are 2022, flash back, it so sad... , ,

Fantastic interview! I could listen to Mr. Hoffman for another 2 hours, he has a great voice and he is a superb story-teller.

The idea that a post for Putin in East Germany was a boring outpost is absolutely ridiculous. It was the focus of the cold war!

I used to look for Mr Hoffman's article 20 years ago I learned a lot from him he is unbelievably great

I hope you do a follow-up with David Hoffman

This is hilarious to watch now that the current sitting president is trying to jail his future competition.

So this guy was wrong about everything??

nearly every person that was interviewed stresses that putin saw and sees his power threatened by the united states 'out of a feeling' that he 'felt' that the us had a part in the colour revolutions and the protests in russia itself. i can't help but wonder how a guy who is otherwise described as a cold, intelligent and fast thinking person with the ability to set and pursue strategic goals would take such drastic decisions like sending troops to seize crimea out of a 'feeling'. he must have based his decisions on intelligence, right ?

When’s he going to apologize for being wrong? 🤔

This guy is a real piece of work!

I wish Eisenhower could see where we ended up.

HIS VOICE IS AMAZING I CAN LISTEN TO HIM ALL DAY HE IS A GREAT STORY TELLER.

Wow the Russian general was so right as america is doing exactly all that

Dude, physics, chemistry and mathematics are the foundation of Russian science. They were never inferior to the United States in this regard and even overtook the Americans at some points in history. Russians should not be considered backward people. These people were the first in the world to explore space and gave the world a table of periodic elements. The West has never understood Russia. That's all the problems.

I paid $75 for my first car from a neighbor that needed $50 worth of parts. I put the new clutch in with advice from the school automotive teacher who I met at our vocational school I was required to take a class at. This was 1982 at that time in the Soviet Union it took ten year of waiting on a list to get a car and it cost you 15000 ruble or $80,000 in buying power as close as I can tell. God bless America and American production. 1975 Pontiac Sun Bird four cylinders of freedom and girls.

Well done. I grew up in the eastern block, I this guy definitely knows his stuff.

While I didn't agree with every single point of view, I definitely appreciated David Hofman's analysis as it is not tainted by American bigotry. One may not like Putin, but he did (and still does) great things for Mother Russia while it was raped by the West after the USSR got dissolved. It took 20 years to build a new Russia, strong enough to be untouchable by economic sanctions...

The knowledge the speaker holds is something I've don't think I've ever seen. When the war started - I posted a comment on some youtube video about the invasion. I've kept posting it on several videos, with small changes. It summarizes my view on the war - and on its initiator - from perspective of a 40 year old mostly apolitical guy (I mean, I'm not in any parties and don't plan to) living in Latvia. I'm getting more and more afraid of how many western researchers of Russia have expressed themselves along the same lines - and how still, nothing much - apart from Ukrainians bearing the brunt themselves - is being done. The comment reads as follows (I've been countered with lots of trolls - but they mostly "muddy the waters" - as this speaker says - because, in contrary to 2014, they know that primitive direct lies can be taken down by the platform holder). ESPECIALLY THE LAST QUESTION I ask causes me certain amount of fear and anxiety. What the world needs to understand - and can't seem to, so far - is that Putin is a sick ego maniac the scale of which the world has not seen since Hitler and Stalin. Of course - there are people like Idi Ammin, Muamar Gadaffi, Sadam Hussein and many more in terms of disregard of human life on the throne of (mostly sickly imagined) personal benefit - but among all of them, only Vladimir Putin has the means (the largest country on earth, a superpower) to execute his sickly "revenge" plans on the West - and on the world - which started hatching, probably, somewhere from the moment of loss of his two elder brothers - to the moment he was stationed and "left behind" in Eastern/Western Germany as a KGB agent (more on that - documentary by russian/US journalist Julia Loffe called "Putin files" on UKposts). He's a scrappy guy who has no naivity, no regard or care for "talks", diplomacy, pleading, decency, morality, values. He SAYS AND DOES WHAT AND HOW HE WANTS. This was, time and once again, seen during the gathering period of troops for several months on the Ukrainian border - when he was openly ridiculing and bluntly lying in face of all of the world. Biden said - no, I don't believe the pictures of APCs retrieving from border are real - and Putin was probably giggling a sickly grin somewhere - saying - good boy, Biden, well noticed, good boy. The problem with the first invasion of 2014 was that he was testing the world - does it care - and how much, apart from giving a "like" in Facebook or youtube - about Ukraine? And after 8 years of no problems occupying Crimean peninsula and swaths of land in East Ukraine - he understood - naah, the world doesn't care much at all. So - he gathers resources for 8 years - and cablamo, still no one cares - here we go, killing people, civilians, murdering pregnant mothers, slaughtering children and his own servicemen. Does Putin care what he says? Does he care the world "sees" that his "targeting military infrastructure only" is a complete lie? Does he care that calling Ukrainians nazists and drug addicts is BS only idiots could believe? NO! Because he has been feeding the majority of Russians his propoganda for decades - no one seemed to be minding, by and large - can he proclaim and postulate anything he wants? ABSOLUTELY! What does he have to lose? NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! He''s known about all the possible sanctions, about disconnecting SWIFT, about not cooperating with Russia, about closing bank accounts, sports events, IKEA, Volkswagen, McDonalds, etc., etc. - for at least 8 years. HE DOES NOT CARE! He is that small ego-centric sicko kid in the playground - whose mentally disturbed resolve only strengthens with every objection - only his toys are mothers, soldiers, children, lives, futures and dreams - under some sick pretense. The only thing Hussein, Ammin, Gadaffi, Assad, bin Laden, HItler and Putin understand or take into account - is blunt immediate force. Once again - the appeasement policy prior to WWII in respect to Hitler - did not work. Are countries like US, Germany, France, UK - and others - willing to take the same bet now?

Yes, the Yeltsin family looked for someone who would look the other way at all the wealth acquired being in control. A back room deal.

Coming from an Asian country and living in US really made me understand that we have entirely different mindsets about democracy and US intentions. My own country, which has strong ties with Putin and faith in his system and power always interpreted political or economic problems as something to do with US. That US is surreptiriously steering the events behind the scene. Like he says information war is a true thing that change the outcome of elections drastically. Many in Asia, especially countries like India and Sri Lanka are quite good at using Putins tool box in diverging Socio-economic and political flow.

Extraordinarily prescient! The civilized world can hardly plead ignorance about Russian aggression.

This gentleman can go on for hours it seems. I CAN'T GET 4 WORDS OUT MY SONS AT THE DINNER TABLE!😒

It's incredible that both Americans and Russians think that socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive, and that you can't have democracy and socialism, or dictatorship or communism and capitalism... all of this is obviously complete bullshit. Any state economy needs a fair bit of socialism and capitalism in order to even work. And democracy is all about voting how much socialism vs how much capitalism you want. All people need socialism and capitalism, each and every one of us are born socialists, completely unable to take any kind of responsibility for our own lives, but rather just hanging on mommies tits. And then we grow up and learn to take responsibility and most people become more conservative and capitalist, because when you go to work and work for all your money, then you want to keep it for yourself. With pure socialism there is no wealth, there are only a bunch of people expecting a hand out, and none of them are working to create any wealth, because they are purely socialist and expect others to create the wealth for them and give it to them. With pure capitalism you get no welfare, only the working class get their wages and whatever trickles down onto the rest is down to the charity of whomever is earning any money. Socialism is defined as any redistribution of wealth.... well it would seem then that capitalism IS a form a socialism. It takes the wealth created by the workforce and redistributes it to the rich guy! The guy who started the business ;-) If you are a business owner, which anybody in the free world is free to be, then you have employees in your business and you capitalize on the actaul value that your workforce is creating. The capitalist does not create his own wealth, Bill Gates didn't program Windows 10 down in a basement all by himself and Elon Musk didn't design all of those spacerockets and Teslas that he is sending into orbit around Mars. The WORKFORCE creates the wealth. And when you capitalize on the workforce, it is completely fair and square that you pay taxes back to the state, because the state needs to look out and take care of the workforce and their families, and make sure that there even is a qualified workforce for the capitalist to capitalize on! The state can use those money that are collected through taxes and redistribute wealth and make a welfare available to the people, make sure that the working force and their families actually have whatever they need. And what do I mean by welfare? Well, it's nice to be able to send your kid off to school, nice to not have to worry about being able to get to a doctor if you are sick, nice to not have roads, pavements, bridges and all sorts of infrastructure. Nice to have some sort of security and feeling of safety, that if your boss fires you tomorrow, you will still be able to keep a roof over your hear, feed your family, send your children off to get educated and go to the doctors if you get sick. When we vote, we're simply towing the robe in each direction to get some sort of balance between socialism and capitalism. Want more socialism? Vote Bernie Sanders! Want more capitalism, vote Donald Trump. And if you think that there are too little viewpoints or ideologies represented in the political parties of your country, simply create your own party, try and recruit members, collect signatures and run in free and fair elections. That's freedom and democracy. And to be a little nationalistic here. I believe that I live in a country that struck gold regarding this whole robetowing between capitalism and socialism. I live in Denmark, a social welfare state, where we indeed pay a lot of tax, but at the same time have very strong unions ensuring a well paid workforce. After taxes, which are indeed huge. more than 50%, an average working class dane has just as much as an average working class american., and the minimum paid danish workforce have it much better better than the minimum paid american workforce. Any dane is free to start up their own business, and they will probably find it easy to get started since government is fairly quick to grant you investments to get started with the business. And any dane is also sort of free to simply just screw all of us and stay home and collect a welfare check every month to the day they die from boredom. They can go to the doctors. They can get educated. Tons of stuff that danes can choose to do with their lives, they can even start a small shop selling pillows and covers and grow it to a huge multinational business employing people all over the world. All in all i'd say danes are definitely more free than Americans and have far less worries in life :-) When it comes to the socialism vs capitalist robe towing it's also a balancing of the workforce, there is a publicly employed workforce and a privately employed workforce, and the more socialism you have within a nation, the bigger will be you public workforce, the more capitalism the bigger will be your private workforce, upto the point where the workforce is uneducated and died because they couldn't get medical help or whatever bullshit happened to them. We need both socialism and capitalism, and politics and particularly democracy is about towing the robe! Could we please get Russians and Americans to look at Denmark and Scandinavia and maybe stop all these brutal ideological proxy-wars throughout the world, with Russias communist ideology on one side, and Americas free market ideology on the other side?

The description of Yeltsin as a bear with periods of withdrawal followed by great energy is a classic description of bipolar disorder. It would explain to a point the excessive drinking beyond the culture of drinking.

He forgot to mention everything about the fact that the USA is basically down the fkn toilet.

There were people who warned about Putin 20 years ago.

He’s so passionate about his AOE. I love seeing people this passionate about what they are an expert in.

He is a story teller alright.

I am listening to Dave talk about the importance of free and fair elections when I realize this is 5years ago!

Я😮Зеленський далеких від мене особисто Дякую за увагу за ефір в інтернеті є такі слова що не зашкодить нам

Very enlightened dialogue. So refreshing. But so so sad to have such shallow pointless disharmony and conflict between nations. The essence is failure to take from private life out into one’s working life, the same standards of care that one offers oneself, one’s family and one’s friends.

Thank you.

This interview is really interesting in light of recent events.

V Ling - how would YOU feel and react to living in an atmosphere such as you speak of? I get so disgusted at the comments some of you folks make, speaking as though you have and face these situations that OUR president does. You are no more effective in changing our government from your armchairs than you are in changing the plays and final score of the Super Bowl! If you REALLY want to make changes in our government, GET INVOLVED BY VOTING INTELLIGENTLY!

Hailing from Czechia. Good work. I also appreciate `I dont know` answers.

U.G.W: Ukraine Guerrilla Warfare U.F.F: Ukraine Freedom Fighters Both U.G.W and U.F.F must be seen everywhere throughout Ukraine. These symbols bring forth the strength of the people to all Russian oppression. There were many advantages to using Guerrilla Warfare. Guerrilla Warfare allowed smaller, less experienced, and poorly supplied troops to defeat or severely damage large, experienced, and well supplied enemy troops. Many times guerrilla fighters have won great battles when fighting for their homeland as we are seeing and will continue to see.

have understood many things. an excellent historian on Red Russia

Having lived through this period in history, it is a real gift to hear this insider's report on what was happening in Russia, and also to have his insights into the Russian mindsight. Absolutely invaluable, a must-watch.

Thanks yet again for the interview.My entire understanding of any kind of Russian behaviour founders on the assumption they experience power the way we do,and I'm Canadian which is a socialistic society comfortable in a corporate capitalist culture.If I'm hearing Mr. Hoffman right they do not have any of these restraints.My question is not so much what happens with Putin but what happens after him?

Hello Comrade. I am here to talk to you about the importance of...water during an interview. All jokes aside. Tons of data really interesting to listen to .

I learned so much from this interview ... it really connects the dots. Thank you so much.

Aaron Maté is a journalist and producer. He hosts Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone. In 2019, Maté was awarded the Izzy Award (named after I.F. Stone) for outstanding achievement in independent media for his coverage debunking Russiagate in The Nation magazine. In other words, everything David Hoffman is saying about Russiagate is false.

He also didn't mention that Putin was named because he promised not to prosecute Yeltsin or his family.

Excellent interview. I enjoy listening to Mr. Hoffman. He makes history come alive.

Thanks SO MUCH for these wonderful interviews and broadcasts!

If you don't watch the entire thing 1:10:00 is the absolute gist of the lecture. In a nutshell... Putin like many Russians didnt accept defeat, didnt accept the helping hand. He helped himself up with the support of his security services and created a populist wave after Yeltsin stepped down. He owes some of his success to Yeltsin's implementation of capitalist theory and oil price rises. But at heart hes little more than a KGB-FSB man. That's what makes him so unlike the general public.

"Once it seems to be clear that it might be Russia". 🤔. ... Fascinating how bs can sound intelligent

David Hoffman is a great author. I highly recommend his books - 'The Oligarchs', 'The Dead Hand', 'The Billion Dollar Spy', 'Give Me Liberty' - all of them engrossing pieces of non-fiction.

Listening with fervor to this phenomenal narrative, which is equal to Masha Gessen's interview, in its vast scope of Putin. Thanks! Frontline's interviews as learning tools are superb; especially in 2023, as we maintain a pro-Democracy stance here in the USA.

Actually, Jena was higher tech center than Dresden, and where the precision equipment for Robatron was designed and manufactured. In fact Jenaoptik (the East German branch of Zeiss, and where the company was founded) eventually became the dominant division of the company for integrate circuit manufacturing, and remains the global leader today supplying the optics for ASML, the leading IC Lithography tool supplier. Hoffman may know a thing or two about Putin, but he is no expert on technology in East Germany. Great story teller, but some of his statements are not factually accurate,.

Very interesting. Thank you.

Makes me wonder whose controlling our press!

This is amazing. History recounted in a "telling the tale" style. Easy on the ears, food for the brain. Explains so much.

We are all screwed. Everyone worldwide. Only the oligarchs of the world will be o.k. It will take time but , we all are on our way down. We cannot even imagine ,how things will be in the future. We let it happen.

It's funny UKposts autoplayed this right after President Putin Tucker Carlson Interview 🤣

Incredible times with Gorbachev... I loved him when he was at his best! And I don't specifically recall much of this, I just remember this as an amazing time, but don't recall the election of Andrei Sakharov. We should have supported Gorbachev more at the beginning.

Time has told that all this was a lie.

The world should belong to all the people, not just a few.

yeah also know and understand very well

Thanks for being Honest!!

I feel more knowledgeable after listening to this Hoffman interview. Knowing the details if history is one thing, but understand the psychology and human emotions involved in the making of history are two different things. The Post was so much more respected when journalists like Mr. Hoffman were there. Today's Post , regrettably, is overrun with "journalists" whose idea of the big question of contemporary history is "What flavor of 🍦 ice cream does Joe Biden prefer?" That, I'm afraid, is the best today's jounalists can do.

Thats funny when he said Obama may not have wanted to appear to be interffing in the election . He was

Makes no sense. Apparently I have BPPV as my eyes did that thing on the test but my dizziness NEVER goes away. It's been 9 months. And I have awful tinnitus and hearing loss - but the opposite ear. 9 months I've had this. Drs aren't doing anything helpful.

Water comrade, water is SO, SO, more important than people think, especially in the Africa, middle east, China. Water is all ready being used as a weapon.

Amazing and informative interview

This gentleman has a profound and refined understanding of the Soviet/Russian evolution during the past 40-50 years. Bright man.

My man can talk forever, a true gift.

What an elite storyteller. He makes it look easy. Great orator. You can see that he is choosing both what he says and how he says it. This is pure stuff, not cut with nonsense.

I've watched more than half of these interviews. So far, no Putin supporters as far as I can tell. Were any approached?

A typical sold-tool of the state. Shame on him and PBS.