“An Evening with Vladimir Soloviev – Dmitri Rogozin Interview” (Rossia 1, 2014)
A very grateful thank you to The Vineyard of the Saker blog for uploading a video of the current affairs TV show “An Evening with Vladimir Soloviev” together with an English-language translation of host Vladimir Soloviev’s grilling of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitri Rogozin, before a live audience. Rogozin is the head of the Military – Industrial Commission and is tipped by TVotS blogger The Saker himself as a successor to the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The interview can be viewed on TVotS at this link.
The two men stand some distance apart facing each other at white lecterns in a setting that might remind some people of the sets for the famous quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Initially Soloviev asks Rogozin about the current state and progress of Russia’s military technology since 1991: a timely question given that as of this writing Russia was facing the likelihood of war from NATO due in no small part to the conflict that has been ravaging Ukraine since April 2014 and Russia’s supposed role, talked up by the US government with no evidence to support its statements, in directing the activities of the anti-Kyiv separatist rebels in the Donetsk and Lugansk areas in eastern Ukraine. Over the past 20 years, Russian military technology has had mixed fortunes: during the Yeltsin years, technological advance in this area stalled for lack of funding and corruption in government, and since 2000 military designers have been playing catch-up with the rest of the world. Particular emphasis is placed on having technology that can project power away from Russian territory in a way similar to how the US projects power throughout the world through its aircraft carriers and other technology, and on training soldiers to be highly mobile and flexible, able to use a variety of technology at different levels of complexity in different defence contexts. Quality of weaponry and of soldierly preparation over quantity of weapons (the Soviet Union was infamous for having too many weapons that were never used) and soldiers (Rogozin believes that the country’s population is too small for the geographical territory Russia covers) is preferred.
The conversation moves to a brief discussion of the decline of the engineering and manufacturing industries in Ukraine since 1991, how industry in that country has frozen and been left behind by both the EU and Russia for lack of funds and the crony capitalism looting the country’s assets and wealth, and how Russia has ended up benefiting from Ukraine’s loss as Ukrainian scientists, engineers and technicians move to Russia and put down roots. Rogozin emphasises how the defence industry is not only attracting good workers with high technical and scientific skills but it is attracting such a large number that the average of defence workers has dropped by more than ten years since the early 2000s to age 45 years. The two men also discuss the Mistral warship contract, the behaviour of the French government over the warship and what that implies about the character of such a government in refusing to supply the ship, built to Russian naval specifications and therefore useless to other countries, to a country that had already paid in full for it. Interestingly, Rogozin says that the ship is not needed (in fact, it was ordered by a former disgraced defence minister who has been charged with corruption).
Soloviev asks quite searching questions and Rogozin is up to the task of explaining in detail how the Russian defence ministry is modernising the country’s armed forces and its equipment. For someone who trained in economics and has a doctorate of philosophy, Rogozin’s knowledge of Russian defence capabilities is wide and quite deep without being very technical. (His father was a military scientist by the way.) He presents very well without coming across as having been groomed and rehearsed through his speech, and he is genuinely passionate in his explanations. Rarely does he repeat himself or resort to stock phrases as most Western politicians put on the spot do during interviews. During the course of the interview, viewers discover Soloviev has known Rogozin for a long time and the two men are friendly, so Western audiences expecting an adversarial and aggressive interviewing approach will be surprised. Perhaps Soloviev could have asked Rogozin more awkward questions about how Russia can finance all its defence improvements and how quickly and well the country can do so in a global environment in which its enemies are circling it and pushing it towards a major war. He could have probed some of the risks of the agenda adopted by the Russian government in modernising the armed forces and military technology.
Western audiences will be intrigued that the interview takes place before a live audience who listen intently and seem very interested in what Rogozin has to say. There are no interjections and unfortunately at the end there is no opportunity for the audience to ask questions. A sceptical Western viewer might say this episode is merely full of hot air in its own way, if less glossy.
The interview is important for what it reveals about current Russian military strategy and the Russian government’s view of the challenges it faces in changing its armed forces, plotting a direction for its military and seeking to avoid war while it is still modernising its industry, while the West grows ever more hostile and rattles its sabres against Russia and the country’s allies.