Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…Putin himself spoke about Russia, maybe about NATO. What you just said is very correct. What are the guarantees for Russia? It’s not like I’m even interested what happens to them. To be honest, I don’t care what will happen to them in the future after the war ends, but these are our borders and we must understand what is going on there. Well, the NATO guarantees for Ukraine. Actually, this is also a security guarantee for the Russians. Frankly, I talked about this many times before. Sorry, I’m speaking figuratively, but as an example, if you were a father who lost his children, a grown man. A grown man, a man, an adult, and the war has ended and he never got justice for real. For example, somebody decides to freeze support. We won’t give you anything. You can’t fight. You can’t continue, so we stop when we stop without any guarantees, without any support, without financing, without okay. And nobody is held accountable, but the man lost his children. He will not get anything. None of the killers will be in prison. All the sanctions will be removed, and he lost his children, and we have thousands of such people. Why do you think they will not go to Russia? We’ll find a way and will not kill the Russian soldiers there or somebody there. Why wouldn’t they? It’s human nature. It’s not about us, it’s everyone. Read American writers. Always after any war, if there is no justice for people, there must be punishment for the crime, it is only justice. How come my child was taken away? The war took him. This is very scary. And even whether it was my son, who was fulfilling his constitutional duty, or simply a missile that struck a civilian child, and if there is no justice and the killers are not punished, why wouldn’t these people come back with hate? They will definitely come back. So when we talk about NATO, NATO is not only stopping Russia. Do not forget, NATO is stopping us too, because there will not be justice for everyone. We know that NATO does not have the right to solve certain issues with war. NATO is a security alliance, it is protection, not brainwashing. What Putin claims that this is offensive is not true. NATO is a defensive alliance, a security alliance, and it is security for Russia. But unfortunately, there are many options for peace that don’t involve NATO inviting Ukraine as a member. Can you imagine security guarantees without NATO membership? For example, if America simply leaves NATO, I believe there is a high likelihood that Donald Trump would do such a thing. I think it’s very bad for NATO. That’s the end, that is, that’s the death of NATO. It is a pity, because I think that it’s a very good alliance. Maybe not everything’s good there from the bureaucracy or money, et cetera, but totally countries who are in NATO, they don’t fight. There is no war on the land of any of these NATO countries. I think that is the answer. It works or not. It works politically or militarily, I don’t know, but it works. So without Trump, without the United States of America, there will not be NATO. That is the first, so and you say, “Can we imagine that?” That what?…

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