Read Full Transcript EXPAND
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to AMANPOUR AND COMPANY.
Here’s what’s coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: We will propose to ban all Russian oil from Europe.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): As Europe and the G7 pledged to phase out Russian oil, could this help or hurt the struggle for green energy? I’m joined by
the U.S. climate envoy, John Kerry.
Then:
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are proud of the unconquered value generation of victors. We are proud that we are their
heirs.
AMANPOUR: Putin’s view of history from Catherine the Great to Stalin. One of the world’s top Russia historians and authors, Simon Sebag Montefiore,
joins me.
Plus:
JUDITH WARNER, AUTHOR, “AND THEN THEY STOPPED TALKING TO ME”: Experts say that what the pandemic did was basically add gasoline to a fire that had
been burning for a very long time.
AMANPOUR: The mental health epidemic facing America’s children. Journalist Judith Warner tells Michel Martin why this crisis didn’t start with the
pandemic.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.
It’s day 76 of Vladimir Putin his war on Ukraine. And the West’s campaign of economic pressure aimed at crippling Russia’s economy is ramping up,
with widespread pledges to phase out imports of Russian oil and gas. The White House says it’ll deny Putin the revenue he needs to fund this wall.
Governments are scrambling to fill the void with other oil and gas producers.
But this could also be a major opportunity to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. The U.S. climate envoy, John Kerry, is pushing for that
option. And the clock really is ticking down, with news today there is now a 50/50 chance the world will surpass a critical warming threshold of 1.5
degrees in the next five years.
The former Secretary of State John Kerry joins me now in the studio.
Welcome back to our program to continue discussing this really difficult issue.
JOHN KERRY, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: So let’s say the last time we spoke was at the COP meeting in Glasgow, where there seemed to be a lot of optimism.
Enter the war in Ukraine and disrupting all the energy supplies. Is this a chance, or is it actually the reverse, in terms of climate change?
KERRY: No, I think it’s an opportunity.
Obviously, it’s disruptive. And the prices have an impact. And they will have an impact temporarily. But Europe has now made a fundamental decision
to try to accelerate the deployment of renewables. I think, globally, people are understanding that the message from this is, don’t allow energy
to become weaponized by anybody in the world.
So you’re better off being independent. You’re better off deploying. You’re better off moving now to where the world is inevitably going to get there.
And that is a low-carbon/no-carbon economy. The question for us all is, will we get there soon enough to do what the scientists say we must do,
which is avoid the worst consequences of the crisis?
AMANPOUR: Well, what do you make of this 50/50 chance of getting above 1.5 degrees some time in the next five years?
KERRY: I’m actually pleased to hear it’s still 50/50. I’d been scared that they may have blown by it already.
And I think that we have to be moving. I mean, the International Energy Agency tells us, point blank, in order to keep 1.5 degrees alive as a
possibility, we have to be deploying renewables five times faster than we are today. We need to be transitioning from coal to a less dirty fuel at
least for the next eight years or so.
We have got to begin that transition, and it’s here’s got to be now, five or six times faster. We need to deploy electric vehicles 10, more, 20 times
faster. So the bottom line, Christiane, is that, as a world, we are not moving fast enough to achieve the promises that we made in Glasgow.
But the IPCC, the scientific report of the U.N., underscored we still have time to do that. And that’s the key.
AMANPOUR: OK, so they said, the IPCC, that it’s very difficult. And, of course, 1.5 is — just to explain for viewers what it is and what why it’s
so crucial, that 1.5 degrees Celsius.
KERRY: The science around the world has agreed that if you can hold the world’s temperature to a rise of only 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is more
than we would like, but if you hold it there, then you have the best shot of avoiding the worst consequences of the climate crisis.
But every 10th of a degree above that, all the way through two degrees 2.7 — before Glasgow, we were heading to about three degrees or more. But now,
if we hold it below and — or close to 1.5, we lessen the damage, we lessen the requirement for trillions of dollars to be spent on adaptation, on
building resilience, and on the level of damage that we suffer on a constant basis.
AMANPOUR: So, all of that, fine, and yet, as I said, the war has scrambled or appears to be scrambling all these intentions, because all we hear now
is very little about renewables, despite what you say, and a lot about trying to tap other producers for actual fossil fuels, oil and gas, to fill
the void left by trying to wean oneself off Russian oil.
This is what the U.S. president, Joe Biden, just said about stockpiles and releasing U.S. stockpiles.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I led the world and other countries to be joined with us to coordinate the largest release of oil
from our stockpiles of all the countries in history, 240 million barrels, to boost global supply.
Here at home, U.S. oil and gas production is approaching record levels. In fact, we produced more oil domestically in my first year in office than my
predecessor did in his first year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So there he is almost boasting about the amount of oil, fossil fuel, dirty energy, that America is pulling out of the ground, and he’s
besting the record of Donald Trump.
I mean, for a climate czar, how does that sound?
KERRY: Well, I understand why the president is doing it. And right now, we have a terrible disruption because of what happened in Ukraine. Gas prices
are exorbitant. People are feeling the pinch.
And we have to keep economies stable and stabilized during a period of transition. We didn’t promise in Glasgow that this transition would be
fully completed six months into this year. We planned to have a reduction process over 10 years.
And our goals are for 2030, in order to empower us to have ability to reach net zero by 2050. If we don’t do enough between 2020 and 2030, then we
don’t do it. We will blow past it. But it’s still — it’s 2022. We’re six months from Glasgow.
And just this past two days here in London, at the invitation of His Royal Highness Prince Charles, we had — there was a meeting of the Sustainable
Markets Initiative, which he began, bringing 150 CEOs from all over the world together to talk about how we will accelerate this transition.
So, even though you see this anxiety in the economy as a result of the war, there is still an enormous amount of work being done. And most people
understand this transition is going to happen, Christiane. The only issue is not whether we will get to a low-carbon/no-carbon economy. It’s whether
we will get there avoiding the worst consequences of the crisis.
AMANPOUR: Right.
And, to be fair, President Biden also ended that statement by saying he’s working with Congress to try to get tax credits and other things to spur on
the use of renewables and help people climate-proof…
KERRY: And the transition will continue to take place. I have no doubt about it.
AMANPOUR: OK.
KERRY: And there are amazing things happening in technology that are going to begin to help us to be able to accelerate our efforts.
AMANPOUR: Right.
But do you think there’s enough — I guess somebody like yourself or other climate activists and journalists who follow this would say, wow, this is a
terrible war, but doesn’t it give us a real chance to actually do all those things that politics…
KERRY: It does.
AMANPOUR: … and CEOs of fossil fuel companies have prevented us from doing for all these years?
KERRY: Yes, it does present us with that opportunity. And, in fact, it is critical that we use this moment to accelerate the transformation. My hope
is — I know President Biden has been working at this diligently for a long time now, trying to get legislation through the Congress that will
facilitate this transition.
But if your economies are all feeling so much disruption, you will have a harder time effecting the transition that you want to effect. So I
understand. I mean, gas, people don’t understand. A lot of people say, oh, we can’t — we shouldn’t be growing the use of gas, et cetera.
Gas is a 50 percent reduction over the emissions of coal and oil. So, for a temporary moment as we transition, whatever that period of time will be,
gas will be part that transition. And the administration is planning that, as will nuclear.
But that doesn’t mean that’s the picture of your energy…
AMANPOUR: You’re talking about the transition to bridge the pain by this war and inflation.
KERRY: I’m talking about the transition towards a low-carbon/no-carbon economy. That will take place over the course of the next 30 years with a
specific goal that, between 2020 and 2030, our goal is to have a 45 percent minimum reduction.
President Biden has set a goal of having a 50 to 52 percent reduction in the United States. Europe is doing a 55 percent reduction. So, 65 percent
of global GDP is committed to plans that actually keep 1.5 degrees alive.
The problem is not Europe and the United States and others. We have a plan to get there. We have another 35 percent of global economy that is not yet
there. And we’re working directly with many of those countries.
AMANPOUR: Such as? I mean…
KERRY: We’re working with Indonesia…
AMANPOUR: Yes.
KERRY: … to help Indonesia be able to transition.
They need technology. They need finance. We’re working with South Africa, along with our friends from U.K., and Germany, and Japan. We’re working
similarly with Vietnam, with Mexico, with India.
In India, Prime Minister Modi has set a goal of deploying some 450 gigawatts of renewable energy. That’s a lot, and if people don’t know what
that means, but that’s a lot of energy, renewable. And they’re really moving in a serious way to do that. And we’re going to work with them to do
that.
(CROSSTALK)
KERRY: So, Biden’s diplomacy right now, his request of me and Secretary of State Blinken and others is that we work to help these countries in order
that we accelerate and stay on track, and get some of these other countries to adopt the plans that will put them in the 50 percent, 45, 50 percent
range for the next eight years.
AMANPOUR: What about you — you clearly stayed away from talking about China, which, in the past, you have talked about as a responsible partner,
as a leader in climate mitigation.
But over the last few months, we have seen the president of China double down on coal and the like. What — I mean, that’s a really big blow, isn’t
it?
KERRY: It’s a challenge.
But we are working. I have been in touch with and talking to my counterpart in China. We’re going to meet in a few days again. We came to an agreement
in Glasgow that China this year will announce publicly an ambitious national methane reduction plan. They have agreed to work with us in a
working group, where we will have experts helping us to see how we could accelerate the phasing down of their use of coal.
They have agreed to work on deforestation. Now, the agreement and just saying it in the words obviously doesn’t get you there. It’s the actions
that matter. But we are going to work, hopefully, with China’s help here, because we can’t get there without China. Nobody gets there without China.
We have to have China cooperating in this effort. So we have a lot of work to do. But I’m convinced the private sector is really seized by this issue.
They are moving, because the private sector understands it’s far more expensive for the world not to respond than it is to respond.
And if we do the right thing, we will reduce disruption, we will — cleaner air; 10 million people a year die from the quality of the pollution that’s
in the air from greenhouse gases. We begin to rein that in, we will have healthier countries. We will have cleaner countries. We will have safer
countries. And that’s what we’re working for.
AMANPOUR: So, I guess you must still be frustrated, like the president. You have got a Democratic president who was going to be the historic
climate agenda-setting president.
KERRY: Well, he has…
(CROSSTALK)
KERRY: Mind you, he has set an historic agenda.
AMANPOUR: Yes, Democratic Senate, Democratic Congress, and still being stymied, including by your own party, for majorly ambitious final
targets…
(CROSSTALK)
KERRY: Nobody knows the legislature in the U.S…
AMANPOUR: Better than you.
KERRY: … better than Joe Biden. He knows it better than I do. And he’s been there longer and worked at it. And he understands the currents and how
to get there.
I’m hopeful, he’s hopeful, we’re all hopeful that we can still get to a place where we have climate legislation sometime this year. And, mind you,
this is not for Democrats or Republicans. It’s not ideological. This is about mathematics and science and the mathematics and physics, really.
That’s what dictates this.
And if you know what’s happening, as people are increasingly now witnessing on a firsthand basis all around the planet, you know we have got to move.
And I think that we have still the opportunity to get done what we need to get gone.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you about Putin?
Because, as you have told me before, he has — Russia, under his leadership, has played ball with the United States and the global climate
COP meetings. You have negotiated with him on Iran and getting the nuclear deal and many, many other things.
How destructive is it on this issue, for instance, that they’re not at the table and they’re un — Putin is unlikely to be at any table, given the
fact that he’s waging this war?
KERRY: That’s a reality.
And it’s a reality that comes from his really horrendous decision to do what he’s decided to do. This is a very different Putin from the Vladimir
Putin that was working with the United States and others a few years ago. And I think everybody sees, that he’s in a different place.
It’s tragic for so many different reasons, most of all for the poor people of Ukraine, who have proved themselves current courageous beyond belief,
and who have fought for their nation in ways that Vladimir Putin never knew they would or could. His miscalculation here is gigantic and tragic.
And now the issue is, obviously, how one gets to a place where killing stops and you begin to get out of the war and move the world towards the
focus where it ought to be, because there’s another existential issue, that Ukraine is existential for the moment for the people in the gunfire and in
the war being shelled.
But climate, as I said, kills five million people a year now, because of extreme heat, 10 million people a year because of the pollution and that
and the lung disease and heart disease and other things that come from it. So we have to learn — not learn. We just have to — and President Biden is
doing this now. I’m here.
I’m following the president’s instructions to keep the fight on climate moving. And that’s what we’re doing. And we have to do — and we have to
show we have the ability to meet several crises at the same time.
AMANPOUR: One last question. And the other — as I mentioned, you were instrumental. Obviously, you negotiated the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.
We don’t know whether it’s going to actually come back. It looks like it may not. But could Iranian oil fill part of the void for some nations? Do
you think America would allow that? Would you…
KERRY: Well, I can’t speak…
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: Would you do that even without — OK, what do you think?
KERRY: That’s not my…
(CROSSTALK)
KERRY: … or anything.
AMANPOUR: Would you allow it?
KERRY: The one thing I will say is that the decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement is one of the most damaging, dangerous, foolhardy
decisions in the history of international affairs.
It brought a nuclear weapon possibility back to a table it had been taken away from. And so people need to focus on the difficult hand that the world
has been dealt with that regard. I don’t think we ought to be looking around for a world that is more dependent on oil or gas or coal.
We need to be thinking — but I will tell you why. That’s not me speaking. The scientists and the best people in this business, people at the
International Energy Agency and others, tell us we have the technology today, Christiane, right now, to be deploying additional energy that
doesn’t have to be gas and oil.
We could deploy more solar. Solar is cheaper than the other alternatives. We could be deploying more wind. And we could deploy that in many nations
without putting the energy, the baseload, the energy structure of that — any of those countries in jeopardy. We have a great leeway for additional
renewable.
And Germany, for instance, is striving to get 80 percent of its energy from renewable. So we could do a lot more now that would be better in terms of
this fight for the climate.
AMANPOUR: Let’s hope.
KERRY: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: John Kerry, thank you very much indeed.
KERRY: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Thanks for being here.
Now, the United States has accused Putin of revisionist history during his Victory Day speech yesterday. President Putin has long tapped into Russia’s
past to fuel his brand of nationalism and maintain his iron grip on power.
He sent out strong signals as far back as 2007, as he famously engineered that job share or job swap with Dmitry Medvedev and stirred up youth groups
to stare down any political opposition.
Here’s part of my report from Moscow during that time.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR (voice-over): This campaign of intimidation has been led by pro- Kremlin youth groups, the so-called Putin youth.
MAXIM MISHCHENKO, MOLODAYA ROSSIYA (through translator): You will never succeed in making a revolution in this country. You will never succeed in
imposing America’s government here.
AMANPOUR: America’s government? What is Maxim Mishchenko talking about?
MISHCHENKO (through translator): We came here to show the embassy this is how things look to us. This is how America screams and squeals.
AMANPOUR: He’s the leader of one of the youth groups called Rossiya Molodaya, or Young Russia.
(on camera): We saw you outside the American Embassy at a demonstration carrying a pig. Why so bitter?
MAXIM MISHCHENKO (through translator): These piglets symbolize Russians that look for directions from United States. These people don’t understand
that their political positions will pollute their own backyard.
AMANPOUR: So you think any opposition here, like Garry Kasparov, has to be an American agent?
MISHCHENKO (through translator): Garry Kasparov is an honorary U.S. citizen. He loves that country, not this country. Such people should take
no part in the Russian politics.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Where does Maxim get these ideas? From President Putin himself. At a pre-election rally, he said the opposition were
behaving like jackals.
PUTIN (through translator): Unfortunately, there are some that scavenge outside the gates of foreign embassies.
AMANPOUR: At these special summer camps organized by Nashi, the largest pro-Kremlin youth group, 10,000 young Russians enjoy the great outdoors and
a healthy dose of political indoctrination.
Kasparov and other Russian leaders, for example, are depicted as prostituting themselves for America.
(on camera): Do you think the American administration has a plan against Russia?
MISHCHENKO (through translator): Yes, I think so. Because Russia has one- third of the world’s resources. U.S. needs this oil, if not now, then later. When this happens, the world will be shaken by colossal wars. And I
want my people to be ready for this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Colossal war, indeed, fast-forwarding to today and Putin’s ongoing distortion of history to justify his war on Ukraine.
Simon Sebag Montefiore has documented Russian history in an array of bestselling books, including “The Romanovs” and “Stalin: The Court of the
Red Tsar.”
And he’s joining me now in the studio.
Welcome to the program. Welcome back.
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, AUTHOR, “STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR”: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: You just heard that. I mean, it’s quite impressive to hear that that was being said back in 2007. And it’s kind of come to pass.
MONTEFIORE: It has come to pass.
And it’s interesting that Putin was also fascinated from — about Ukraine from the very beginning, from very early in his rise. And he was — I would
say he was fixated on it from around 2000, and was researching how Russia gained the Black Sea and how it could get it back.
AMANPOUR: You were in Ukraine when you wrote one of your great books, which was “Catherine the Great & Potemkin.” I’m going to get the name
wrong, but “The Imperial Love Affair.”
Putin apparently really respects Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, the originals of Russian empire. Tell me about Catherine and Ukraine and Putin
and Ukraine.
MONTEFIORE: Well, it’s fascinating that — when I wrote that book, I traveled around Ukraine obviously to research it.
Most of those southern cities that we read about in the news today, Mariupol, Kherson, Sevastopol, Odessa, were all built by Prince Potemkin
for Catherine the Great, and — in the 1770s and 1780s.
When I wrote that book, Putin was just coming into power. And I was contacted by the Kremlin to sort of write a memo for them about the story
of that conquest. Now, this may seem very peculiar. Why couldn’t they do it themselves with their own historians?
In the Soviet period, Catherine the Great and Potemkin were sort of airbrushed out of history. So they studied Peter the Great. They studied
Ivan the Terrible. They studied the czars later, but they didn’t study Catherine the Great and Potemkin because they were so — they were regarded
as totally decadent, which, of course, was true, hence the imperial love affair, but they built those cities.
And when Putin came to power, he studied that subject and wanted to regain — he regarded that period as key, hence, his mention of Suvorov and
Ushakov, these admirals and generals of Catherine the Great.
AMANPOUR: And, apparently, he read your book. You know that because of a conversation he had with George W. Bush when Bush visited him in Saint
Petersburg, and they were discussing the book.
I think Crimea figures hugely for him, because Catherine is the one who got Crimea for the Russians.
MONTEFIORE: Yes.
And what’s important about Crimea is Sevastopol, the naval base founded by Potemkin, where he built the first Black Sea Fleet of Russia. Now, Putin,
among his many other sort of mystical ideas about Russian empire and the Russian world and religion, orthodoxy and so on, one of the things that’s
important to this is cold power in the south.
And he regards that as essential. Now, that is based on the Black Sea Fleet and on Sevastopol. And that’s in the Crimea.
AMANPOUR: So he — I mean, I would imagine then that the sinking of the Moskva was a personal affront to him.
MONTEFIORE: A terrible affront to him.
And I think it would have been extremely painful. The first — and the first ship was called — the first ship of that Black Sea Fleet was called
Glory to Catherine. And he’s — so he mentioned Catherine frequently in speeches, as you know.
I mean, the interesting — one interesting aspect of this is, of course, when they were talking to me then, in 2000 and so on, they were worried
that Catherine the Great was a woman. Here’s a very macho, swaggering guy, Putin, and regime and a very macho culture over there in Russia. They
couldn’t completely — they couldn’t completely canonize a woman.
And so they always mention the generals, which is…
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: I’m going to you about the generals in a second, because the U.S. has been saying and the latest information from the Americans, in
fact, to Congress, today, one of the generals in the Defense Intelligence department said that they believed eight or 12 Russian generals had been
killed. And I don’t think they leaked all the intelligence again about they helped.
But we also heard from Andrei Kozyrev, the former foreign minister, and from Ben Hodges, who was the U.S. commander of the Army in Europe, that the
generals don’t see — they’re having to go to the front because of the structure of the military command, that the — there’s no such thing as a
sergeant or anybody who can make decisions on the spot at any level.
MONTEFIORE: That’s right.
I mean, and there’s not a sort of culture of NCOs that we have in the West. And, also, there’s a real lack of independent initiative in the Russian
army. But they have always — it’s always been this incredibly kind of crude, clumsy weapon, tool, where they just use massive amounts of
artillery and massed infantry, careless of the well-being of their troops, which has happened right from the beginning, throughout the czarist period,
this was true. And, of course, in Stalin period, very much so.
And there are real parallels now with the Stalin period, with World War II, which they’re obsessed with, of course, in the way that they have got kind
of troops behind the troops now trying to block any retreat, as Stalin did from 1942, with his blocking — blocking groups, which kind of machine
gunned down anyone who came back.
In some ways, some people believe that the Chechen troops in this war are performing that role, and they don’t seem to be doing much fighting. They
seem to be kind of enforcing, rather than fighting.
AMANPOUR: Do you — when you study Putin in the context of all the history that you have written about, I mean, is it fair to say that he has — he
harbors these kind of messianic visions of himself as not just protector of the empire, reconstituter of the emperor, kind of a czar himself?
Does he believe that?
MONTEFIORE: Yes, I once asked someone who was one of his ministers, if he was — how rich he was, I said, is he is he worth $50 billion? Is he worth
$100 billion?
He said, like, you’re misunderstanding. It’s a foolish Western question. He said, like, he’s the czar. He owns everything. And as long as he’s czar, he
owns everything.
And, of course, he sees himself as a czar, as a Stalin. He’s fusing together the Romanov paradigm with that of the sort of — of Stalin, of the
most successful of the 20th century rulers, which of course, is Stalin.
And he’s merging together their ambitions. Of course, it’s also adapted to a very modern time. We’re in a digital time. We’re in a time of Internet.
So it’s not exactly the same, but he’s certainly fusing the two.
AMANPOUR: So tell me about Stalin.
Again, you wrote two books about Stalin. You say the most successful. Most people view him as the most brutal. Apparently, there’s anywhere between 24
to 27 million Russians who were killed during World War II. Before that, there was a terrible famine created by his collectivization in Ukraine in
the ’30s.
MONTEFIORE: Right.
AMANPOUR: What does Putin see as successful by Stalin?
MONTEFIORE: I mean, what they see as successful is that Stalin industrialized — industrialized Russia very successfully.
I mean, I have just seen a tape of Hitler talking, one of the few tapes of Hitler talking, not speaking, but talking privately to Marshal Mannerheim
of Finland. And he’s saying to him, like, what kind of enemy is this that can manufacture 35,000 tanks?
So, Hitler…
AMANPOUR: Talking about the Soviets, yes.
MONTEFIORE: Talking about Stalin and the Soviets.
So, the point was that, in an unbearable and totally unacceptable cost in humanity — I mean, Stalin’s whole attitude was that, our system is
bloodletting. He said that all the time quite openly. And he industrialized, he left Russia with an empire larger than the Romanovs with
the whole of Eastern Europe, a nuclear superpower.
So, in terms of kind of brutal power, he was successful. Totally unacceptable, a monster. But in terms of that power that Putin respects —
but I do think it’s worth saying is about history, because we’re obsessed with history. Putin’s obsessed with history.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
MONTEFIORE: And, you know, this whole kind of question that we’re discussing really shows how — you could have too much history. But what’s
important now is how people live and how people want to live now. And even as a historian, I really believe that. And that’s the real lesson of this,
isn’t it?
AMANPOUR: Yes. The thing is, he’s also maybe obsessed by history and probably reads all the books. We understand, during COVID, that’s all he,
really take himself away and read a lot of history. But we can see from what he’s saying, I mean, yesterday, at the Victory Day Parade, it’s a
distortion of history.
MONTEFIORE: It’s very much so.
AMANPOUR: It’s a complete reconfiguring it to fit his own idea. And I guess, where does that end? What does it mean to the people, to — where —
how does — what — I mean, do you see an end to this now?
MONTEFIORE: I mean, I don’t see an end. The war could go on for a long time, of course. We — you know, we all know that. No one knows the answer
to what’s going to happen.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
MONTEFIORE: I mean, that’s the trouble when you start a war. I mean, every general – you know, every general, every ruler, has always wanted what the
— (INAUDIBLE) called a short victorious war, but few were given it. And —
AMANPOUR: Well, Putin thought that he was going to get all people saying that he — you know, apparently, you know, he was saying to his own people.
MONTEFIORE: Right.
AMANPOUR: They really believed it was going to be a short, victorious war.
MONTEFIORE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So, what did he get so wrong about the Ukrainians? Because he told everybody that these are our brothers, this is our — you know, these
are our comrades. And yet, what did he expect, do you think?
MONTEFIORE: I think in the early days of the Ukrainian State, in the ’90s, you know, it was a very weak divided state. And that influenced him. Also,
you know, traditionally, the Czars always called Ukraine, Little Russia, and that governor generals were in Kyiv, governor general of Little Russia.
So, that was kind of sums up the view of Moscow to Ukraine. Once, you know, also shared by Stalin, by the way. So, you know, that’s what he expected.
In fact, some of his own actions have helped to build Ukrainian nationhood, Ukrainian State in the way he could not have really predicted. And since
2014, the consciousness of the Ukrainian people and the sort of belief in the Ukrainian State has redoubled, and that’s often the way in history, you
know.
AMANPOUR: Tell us about — I mean, he’s constantly talking about denazifying, and people, you know, even neutral journalists, westerners, or
whatever will say that the Azov brigade are just Nazis and this and that. What is the actual amount, the number, the power of whatever you want to
call them, Neo-Nazis, far-right nationalists, in Ukraine?
MONTEFIORE: It’s tiny now. It’s like not even — it’s below 1 — it’s 1 or 2 percent. It’s below the sort of — it doesn’t even — it don’t even get
people into parliament now. I mean, there is — it is true that the Azov regiment was originally a Nazi paramilitary, you know, organization.
I mean, sadly, y9ou know, most of the Azov regiment has been wiped out in Mariupol. So, that’s the sort of — but that’s the origin of it. And, of
course, what he’s referring to with the Banderites, which he continually — you know, he continuously refers to, is that in World War II, there was a
small organization that did cooperate with the Nazis at the beginning of the world under Bandera, which then fell out with the Nazis, and then
fought the war against both the Nazis and Stalin.
And it’s — you know, it’s a fascinating thing that for five years, until 1950, there was quite a considerable insurgency, a war in Ukraine, which
Stalin finally crushed, just as there were the Forest Brothers in the Baltic States fighting against the Soviets, which we knew very little about
at the time, of course.
AMANPOUR: The other thing which I think is really fascinating, you talk about, you know, less than 1 or 2 percent of neo-Nazis, but also,
separately, there were a lot of pro-Russians in Ukraine, whether they were politicians, whether they lived in the Donetsk. And there was a story just
written in “The New York Times,” which was really fascinating, sort of drawing together some of these, you know, pro-Russia politicians who,
clearly, Putin’s henchmen counted on to be a fifth column, you know, to hold fake referendums, to basically turn their areas into Russian
statelets, and it hasn’t worked. And they’ve told the Russians to, you know, that they’re Ukrainian patriots.
MONTEFIORE: You know, the building of the cities across the South of Ukraine, like Catherine the Great in Potemkin in the sort 1770s was
different from usual Russian imperialism. They brought the work, that they took over the cities, this territory from the (INAUDIBLE) of Crimea. And
when they did — then, they started to build cities, and to build the cities there. And to build the cities, they brought in Russians but also,
many Ukrainians, many Jews, many Italians, many Greeks, Mariupol was a Greek settlement.
And so, these cities, they were often Russian-speaking, but they were very cosmopolitan. So, they weren’t like Moscow or Petersburg. They are special
cosmopolitan cities, and you see this in the openness of Southern Ukraine in the different nature of these cities, none more so than Odessa, of
course.
AMANPOUR: So, I think that’s really fascinating, because in his counter Victory Day speech yesterday, President Zelenskyy said that this was a
battle not of soldier against soldier or Russians against Ukrainian civilians, but of two world views. He said, they hate our freedom and our
democracy and our cosmopolitan nature, that were not like them at all.
MONTEFIORE: That’s right.
AMANPOUR: How much is this a war by Putin, who does not want to see his next-door neighbor actually get away with being completely different to his
autocratic state?
MONTEFIORE: I mean, of course, it’s very much that. I mean, he wants — he believes that a democracy, an independent democracy next door, you know,
would lead to protests in Russia and would destroy him, ultimately.
And, you know, when people in the West, particularly London said, oh, you know, Putin will never attack because, you know, the Russians love our
public schools and having houses in Ethan Square, I mean, it’s very fascinating because I always said — now, that says a lot about you. That
doesn’t say a lot about them. What they’re interested in is staying in power in Moscow. That’s what they’re interested in, you know, these top
people, and that’s what this is all about.
AMANPOUR: And very briefly, one word, do you think he’s miscalculated?
MONTEFIORE: 100 percent. Huge miscalculation. Historic miscalculation. The will in the end somehow bounced back to destroy him.
AMANPOUR: Simon Sebag Montefiore, thank you very much for being with us.
MONTEFIORE: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: For more than two years, the pandemic has placed great stresses on families around the world, especially on children. But our next guest,
journalist Judith Warner writes that children have been suffering with increased feelings of anxiety and depression for years. She sat down with
Michel Martin to discuss how COVID simply put a spotlight on that issue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Judith Warner, thank you so much for talking with us.
JUDITH WARNER, MENTAL HEALTH JOURNALIST: I’m so glad to be here. Thank you, Michel.
MARTIN: So, you’ve been writing about mental health and wellness among children and adolescents for some time now. You wrote a piece recently for
the “Washington Post” magazine where you talked about how it’s tempting to think that the challenges that we’re seeing, in fact, what some people call
a crisis of mental health among children and adolescents is due to the pandemic. But you make the argument that this actually goes well before
that. Why do you say that?
WARNER: Absolutely. Yes. As you say, I’ve been covering this for a long time. And the surgeon general in 1999 warned of a mental health crisis
among American kids. And since that time, the numbers have just gotten worse, rising levels of depression and anxiety, rising rates of suicide,
you know, this absolutely did not begin with the pandemic in 2020.
MARTIN: Just some of the numbers that cite that, I mean, you said, according to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, in 2019, one out of
three high school students, and about half of all high school girls, reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. And also,
according to the CDC in 2019, which is, again, before the pandemic, one out of six high school students reveal that they have crafted a suicide plan
the previous year. That is really disturbing.
I mean, I’m guessing that this is the kind of thing that perhaps parents and maybe educators had seen, but perhaps, couldn’t — maybe didn’t put it
altogether. But why do you think that is and why do health professionals think that is? What’s at the root of this?
WARNER: Well, in just sense of — I mean, just raising the issue of parents and teachers, it’s very hard to recognize the signs of mental
illness in kids if you don’t have the eyes to see it, because it looks so different from one kid to another or from adults and kids. A lot of parents
whose kids go onto develop anxiety and depression had it themselves or have it for themselves, but it looks so different. And kids hide what’s going on
with them.
And teachers, of course, have the same issue. They can sense something isn’t right. But unless they have been specifically trained in how to spot
serious problems, you just don’t see them, and kids really do their best to not worry the adults around them.
MARTIN: Do — why do you think it is that people are so quick to blame the pandemic? It’s it, in part, maybe because the kids were right in front of
their faces, or are kids — were kids manifesting their distress in a more visible way during the pandemic? What do you think?
WARNER: All of that. And, you know, experts say that what the pandemic did was basically add gasoline to a fire that had been burning for a very long
time. I mean, the pandemic was hard for everybody. Everybody. Adults and kids were stressed, not sleeping well, anxious, worried. And, of course,
you know, 2020 also included all of the civil rights protests, you know, the Black Lives Matter protests, and the police response to those protests,
the very militarized response. And there was really a big feeling of unsafety in that period, that then was heightens after January 6th as well.
So, there were all kinds of different things going on, and kids were seeing that adults were fighting amongst themselves about what the right thing was
to do about COVID. There was so much rage in the air, there still is. You know, these are toxic elements for a kid to be plunged into, just as it’s
toxic for all of us, these are really tough times.
So, parents definitely we’re seeing this, it was in front of their noses. And then, of course, the social isolation on top of all of that anxiety and
stress just heightened whatever was going on beforehand. And there was a lot that was going on beforehand.
MARTIN: You know, you tell some really disturbing stories in your piece about some things going on beforehand. For example, you tell the story
about a Northern Virginia child psychiatrist who would set up complicated medication regimen for a 14-year-old boy with a diagnosis. He had bipolar
disorder, but the — but he had retired. And when the boy’s parents couldn’t find a replacement, his physicians didn’t feel comfortable
continuing his medication regimen because they didn’t really understand why it was all about.
So, his medication lapses. And they, you know, were trying to find somebody else to keep monitoring him, but it was, what was it, months before they
could find somebody in that time? His medication lapses. He gets into a disagreement with someone. He picks up a gun and he shoot somebody. And
then, he’s now — so, you know, somebody — and he’s locked up.
And I also have to say, you know, more recently in the news, we are seeing some very disturbing stories involving kids. Like you’re seeing, on one
hand, criminal justice implicated stories like a kid whose parents were actually called to school because he was showing some disturbing behavior.
And in the very afternoon, after they refused to really engage with it, he shot people at school. And also, in the last couple of weeks, after your
piece has aired, there’s been a number of stories of students, young women student athletes taking their own lives.
And I’m just wondering, do you see this all as a piece? Because we tend to talk about this in different ways, and I’m wondering if you see this
differently.
WARNER: It is all of a piece in that. You know, the common thread in the stories that you just talked about is lack of access to care, right? Kids
not getting care. About half of kids with diagnosed mental disorders actually get specialized care. You know, actually, see somebody, like a
child psychiatrist, a child psychologist, a child, you know, counselor who is specifically trained in addressing these sorts of issues.
And there are lots of reasons for that, just coming back to the story that you told about the person in Northern Virginia. I mean, that was — it was
actually a pediatrician who told me that story. The psychiatrist — and this is all too typical how fragmented care is, and how difficult the
responsibilities are that then fall on parents.
The psychiatrist didn’t give the family any referrals. The family then goes to the pediatric practice saying, can you help with the medication? The
pediatricians, because the child is on this very complicated cocktail of meds, as so many are, especially those who are diagnosed with bipolar
disorder, they didn’t do the diagnosis, they didn’t write prescriptions, and they didn’t feel comfortable renewing them. But they felt like the
family needed help and the kids had to get care.
So, they actually put their whole nursing staff on the job of finding a psychiatrist for this kid, and they called around for days and days and
finally found one who didn’t have too much of a weight, meaning it was just a month as opposed to three months or six months.
And as you say — and you know, you told how that story ended. And this doctor also told me the story because afterwards, she was so horrified that
she really set out to do something about it. And she went around the state and then, around the country to hear what was going on. Also, in Northern
Virginia, at around that time, there had been a kid was on a waiting list for one of the few hospitals that actually had a pediatric psych unit.
There were 1,000 kids on that list. And, you know, while he was on it, he died by suicide. So, this is just — this is huge, huge problem.
MARTIN: Why do you think it is that, you know, on the one hand, yes, people have been talking a very great deal about the impact of COVID on
children and adolescents, and also, frankly, on adults who are clearly have been in distress. But the broader picture of some of the mental health
challenges doesn’t seem to — I don’t know if you share — my observation just doesn’t seem to have kind of risen to the level of a coherent national
conversation.
Why do you think that is? Is it just — it is stigma that people — when people — as families that they’re dealing with this, they don’t talk about
it with other families? What’s your take on them?
WARNER: A large part of it is stigma. Although, the stigma side of it, I really do think has decreased in recent years. But with the examples you
just gave of the athletes, they must have been suffering, versus the kids were “acting out,” you know, there’s a big race component to that. I mean,
you know, very often, the cases of the kids who (INAUDIBLE) tragedy are white kids and the kids who were said to be acting out are black kids, you
know, who are really viewed differently in school.
I mean, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know or that hasn’t been reported already elsewhere, that you do have a school to prison pipeline,
basically, of black boys, and increasingly, girls, who are viewed as behavior problems, you know, who’s difficulties are seen as a conduct
disorder, who, in fact, are suffering from depression or undiagnosed learning issues, and who don’t get treatment as a result and who are just
vilified over and over again. And that is a very long-standing problem, and it’s one that continues to this day.
MARTIN: How does the profession itself of, let’s say, psychiatry, address this? Is — Does this address this in any — does the profession address
this in anyway?
WARNER: I think that there is increasingly plenty of goodwill, but there – – you are up against a structural situation where you have 4 percent of psychiatrists, all psychiatrist, not just child psychiatrists, who are
black. And you have, of course, you know, a patient population which represents every group across the socioeconomic spectrum, but who in — you
know, as part of which, you have kids who have been subjected to racism all their lives and who, in more recent years, have been living at a time when
more and more groups are being singled out in very dangerous ways.
So, the stress has risen. I mean, you know, experiencing racism is now widely recognized as a form of trauma in and of itself. So, you have a
really big population of traumatized kids, kids living in poverty who are traumatized by so many aspects of their living situation. And this, of
course, is a long, ongoing problem that has only really gotten a lot of attention in recent years. And that attention, I think, is slowly trickling
out into the mainstream, sort of beyond professionals. But it’s still not something that kind of drips off the tongue.
So, I think that we tend to be, we journalists and, you know, the social conversation of (INAUDIBLE) tend to be a lot more narrow in what and who we
focused on than we readily admit or we even realize.
MARTIN: You cite in your piece that it takes, on average, eight to 10 years from the time a child first starts having symptoms to actually
started to receive treatment. Recently, there is a very disturbing, you know, piece in “The New York Times” about kids sleeping in emergency rooms
around the country because there are no beds, inappropriate psychiatric placements for them, literally sleeping in emergency rooms because people
don’t know what else to do until a place opens up
So, do you at least feel encouraged that perhjaps people were paying more attention?
WARNER: I feel encouraged by the fact that it used to be, of course, that who had kids with mental health issues were sort of those people over
there. Nobody wanted to identify with that group. There was a large part of denial that was mixed in with all of that. I think that that’s really been
softened over the course of the pandemic, because life’s been hard for ones for just about everyone. Of course, not to the same degree, but there is
something of a shared awareness, even if it hasn’t necessarily led to more compassion, it has, at least, led to a greater and more universal
investment in the subject.
And, you know, I really, really hope that people will tune into the fact that there are good solutions available right now that aren’t expensive and
could be put into place very quickly and easily. I hope that that won’t end up getting so widely politicized that it becomes impossible. And I’m
talking about things like training teachers and other school personnel to be able to recognize when kids are showing signs of emotional distress
that, you know, maybe rises to the level of being mental illness, something that could be diagnosed.
Or training parents in the skills to be able to teach their kids tools for dealing with their emotions. Training teachers to do that. And training
pediatricians to be able to serve basically as first responders when it comes to kids’ mental health issues. And that’s all that is underway, all
of that already is like — is ready to go. It’s just has to be more broadly put into place.
MARTIN: Can you give us an example of a place where this is working, where these kinds of strategies are being employed?
WARNER: There are a number of organizations that are very successfully training pediatricians, for example, in being able to diagnose the most
entry, the most complemental health issues. There’s an organization called Reach that does this around the country, there’s something called Project
Echo that’s being widely in Virginia to train pediatricians.
And, you know, in this way, thousands of pediatricians have been trained in doing kind of basic psychiatric work. And what that means is that child
psychiatrist, of which there are so few, about 8,000 for the entire country, are freed up. And if this became more widespread, they would be
greatly freed up to be able to just treat kids who had the more complex and difficult problems like bipolar disorder.
And the model is more or less the same when it comes to teachers or parents. You know, for parents, in the “Washington Post” piece with that
like little box that says where they can go to pick up some of these skills, and there are people who have developed programs for school
personnel, for teachers, that really short lesson plans accompanied sometimes by videos. I’ve seen some of them. That are really, really good.
They’re simple. They’re sort of at the — for the — they’re made for kind of 10-year-olds more or less, but in fact, they are good enough to reach
older kids and even slightly younger ones.
And, you know, in five minutes, those videos can drive a point home that teachers can then address in a 15-minute lesson and then reinforce. And
that is starting off in a couple of D.C. schools in order to, you know, get experience and data. It’s there. It’s doable.
MARTIN: So, before we let you go, Judith, what — people listening to our conversation, what would you — what should they do? I mean, what about
parents who just want to support — or not even parents, people who are looking at this and they’re saying, you know what, I’m recognizing that
this is a crisis for our community, and I want to be helpful. What could they do?
WARNER: There are things we could do to address what’s going on right now, and there are things that we could do to prevent kids from being so
traumatized that, you know, trauma is driving a lot of the most serious mental health problems. And a lot of that trauma comes about because of
poverty, because of racism, because of sexual abuse, you know, all of these things that seem like maybe, that seem like, you know, such large systemic
problems that we throw up our hands, but there is so much good science, both about the effects that these kinds of social traumas have, and also,
what to do about them, what kinds of interventions have an effect and can make things better.
And we really need a lot more air time going to both, you know, the causes of trauma, the effect of trauma, but also, what we can do. Because it’s
really not terribly complicated. And just add on and say, trauma isn’t just something also that affects low-income people. This is happening across the
board. When you think about sexual violence, or the effect of living in a home with a parent with mental illness or somebody who is struggling with
an addiction that isn’t being treated.
This is all of our problem, and maybe it’s the last remaining stigma that we don’t want to talk about that, but we have to talk about it if we are
going to do something for these kids.
MARTIN: Judith Warner, thank you so much for talking with us.
WARNER: Well, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Focusing on the children. And finally, tonight, an auction record for an American piece of art. Andy Warhol’s iconic silk-screen of
film legend Marilyn Monroe has sold at Christie’s for a staggering $195 million in just under four minutes. The auction house likens sit to a Mona
Lisa of the 20th century. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is one of five in a series of portraits that Warhol painted in the 1960s after her death. They
transformed the actress into a pop art icon. A very, very, blond hair and very luminous features.
The unknown buyer broke the previous auction record for American artwork, which was $110.5 million paid in 2017 for this skull painting by Jean
Michel Basquiat. He was Warhol’s friend and protegee.
And that is it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.