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The Amanpour Hour
Interview With Former Ambassador To The European Union Gordon Sondland; Interview With Exiled Russian Journalist Mikhail Zygar; Interview With ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang; Concerns Over Democracy And Free Speech As Israel Veers Right; Mikhail Gorbachev's Legacy, 40 Years Since His Election. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired March 15, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:59:43]
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But what I can't stand and I've violated this, so I'm not sitting here saying I'm sinless, but just people taking a selfie of themselves and posting it on Instagram. Like --
(CROSSTALKING)
KINZINGER: -- I know, I know, I know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ok. That's what Instagram is for.
KINZINGER: I've violated that.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: I get it. I get it Adam. I think you're right. But I think that we all do it.
(CROSSTALKING)
PHILLIP: So yes, I just -- everybody, thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight, 10:00 p.m. Eastern at our "NEWSNIGHT" roundtable. And anytime on your favorite social media platforms X, Instagram and TikTok @AbbyDPhillip.
But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone.
Welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR. And here's where were headed this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: America's allies are hitting back as Trump's trade war and pivot towards Putin fuel chaos, while Ukraine's future hangs in the balance.
Trump's former ambassador to the E.U., Gordon Sondland, weighs in on this global realignment. GORDON SONDLAND, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION: I'm not
saying this is without risk, and I do think that we're going to endure some pain. But I understand that he has a mandate and a tailwind currently that no president has ever had.
AMANPOUR: Then is Putin getting the American collapse that he's always dreamed of?
MIKHAIL ZYGAR, EXILED RUSSIAN JOURNALIST: I think Vladimir Putin has been watching Donald Trump for so many years, and seeing him some kind of a soulmate, I guess.
AMANPOUR: Exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar on the Kremlin's view of Trump 2.0.
And -- an on-campus arrest without charge by the Trump administration, with many more threatened. The chilling effect.
CECILLIA WANG, NATIONAL LEGAL DIRECTOR, ACLU: He's attacking all of us and our constitutional values.
AMANPOUR: Plus, Nic Robertson reports on Israel's crackdown on Palestinians' freedom of speech.
Also from my archives -- remember perestroika or glasnost?
40 years since his election, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev on reforming communism and how it all went so wrong.
And finally, from the front lines to the skiing slopes, Ukraine's war amputees get a second chance in Oregon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York.
Donald Trump continues America's breakup with its longtime European partners and allies, and they, in turn, are frantically preparing for a post-America world. But Trump's erratic moves launching straight into a global trade war and raising the alarm about the nature of any ceasefire in the real war raging across Europe, makes rational planning difficult.
This week, Trump's tariffs on metals caused one of the largest stock market drops of its kind and forcing Canada and the E.U. to hit back hard with sweeping retaliatory measures.
Kaja Kallas, the E.U.'s top diplomat, told me that the bloc will stand firm against these Trump moves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAJA KALLAS, E.U. HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND SECURITY POLICY: It's clear that, you know, if these tariffs are used against us, then we are, of course, protecting our interests. That is -- that is very clear.
But I want to stress that there are no winners in trade wars. That is -- that is very clear. And we want to avoid it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And just as this trade war is heating up, President Putin weighed in on the U.S.--Ukraine ceasefire proposal. He thanked Trump and other nations for trying to end the war, said he supports a cessation of hostilities. But as expected, attached a long list of conditions and reservations.
So how is this all going to end? I asked Trump supporter and his former ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Gordon Sondland, welcome back to the program.
I want to go straight first to the Putin reaction to the ceasefire. What do you make of it? Many, many analysts said that Putin is bound to play nice with President Trump. He appreciates Trump's intervention to end the war. But again, as suspected, he gave a whole list of reservations. Where do you think this is headed? How do you react?
SONDLAND: Well, the whole list of reservations that he gave is really nothing more than a form of rope-a-dope. He wants every second to be able to continue to hit Ukraine while these discussions are ongoing. And he's, you know, giving a nod to President Trump and thanking him for all of the courtesies.
But while all of this is going on, Christiane, he's going to continue to hit Ukraine very, very hard. But it's like one of those "We'll take it under advisement and get back to you".
We should, without public announcement or fanfare, be surging weapons to Ukraine as well as intel and letting them again hit hard inside of Russian territory.
[11:04:47]
SONDLAND: So that while Vladimir Putin is taking his sweet time, he's suffering severe casualties in the process.
AMANPOUR: All right.
Let's move on to the other war, because it is massive. And that's the trade war. We have a G7 meeting in Canada. Canada is sort of ground zero for this new Trump -- well, old Trump, new Trump escalation of the trade war.
I mean, every day just about we have trade tariffs then suspensions, then retaliations, then reciprocals. I mean what is -- what is going on.
SONDLAND: Well, what's going on very simply is President Trump is trying to do something really, really big. He's not now using the tariffs as a negotiating tactic because clearly that initial strategy has not paid off. Everyone has met him tariff for tariff and so on.
So what he is trying to do very simply put, and it's a big, big move and it's going to take a lot of patience on the part of the American people, because when you come out the other end, America will be better for it.
And what I'm talking about is reestablishing America as a major, major manufacturing center --
AMANPOUR: Ok.
SONDLAND: -- to the point of where everything is made here again, the way it used to be 70 or 80 years ago.
AMANPOUR: So, Ambassador Sondland, I assume that you agree with all the experts that say, even if that's possible, that's going to take a long, long time. And that it is very rich for the American people to be asked to accept what even Trump is saying. He can't rule out a recession. You know, prices are going to go up, as he said. There're going to be bumps in the road, but you just have to be patient.
Hang on a second. He ran and won an election based purely and simply on the economy and lowering prices and taking the cost-of-living drama out of everybody's pocket.
And now, I mean, this is rhetorical jujitsu. How are people meant to react to this?
SONDLAND: Well, were also talking a matter of days here that this has occurred. This has not been going on for a year or for six months. And what I think is going to happen is as these tariffs go up by the minute, at some point, one trade opponent after another -- and they're not our opponents, they're our allies -- but one trade opponent after another is going to say, ok, lets deescalate this while we talk.
At which point their tariffs on us will have to match us percent for percent. And that's what Trump wants. Because at the end of the day, he would like to see no tariffs in either direction and no barriers to entry in either direction.
He made, for example, the E.U. that offer back in 2019. He said let's drop all of our tariffs in both directions, all of our non-tariff barriers, all of our subsidies, and let's see how it goes. We can always reinstate them later. But the Europeans wouldn't take that offer.
AMANPOUR: Well, you know, chicken and egg and all the rest of it. "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board, they say, "The trouble with trade wars is that once they begin, they can quickly escalate and get out of control. All the more so when politicians are nearing an election campaign, as Canada now is, or when Mr. Trump behaves as if his manhood is implicated because a foreign nation won't take his nasty border taxes lying down. We said from the beginning that this North American trade war is the dumbest in history, and we were being kind."
That is "The Wall Street Journal", a traditional conservative supporter of Republicans and their economies. If they're saying that, who are we to argue?
SONDLAND: I think if President Trump is trying to do something truly transformational, it is going to take some pain. There are no free lunches here.
AMANPOUR: But I just want to, you know, history tells us that this kind of stuff back then, it was protectionism in the, you know, World War era led to big depression, led to, you know, the rise of all sorts of nasty politics, led to wars. Are you not afraid of the lessons from history?
SONDLAND: I think this is a big risk. I'm not saying this is without risk. And I do think that we're going to endure some pain, but I understand that he has a mandate and a tailwind currently that no president has ever had. And you combine that with his previous experience and learning from his previous mistakes.
And he had a couple of impeachments to deal with back then as well. And if he's successful, the U.S. will be better for it. But it is not without risk. You're 100 percent correct.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And coming up later on the show, how Russia views Trump's warm embrace of Putin. I speak with the exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar.
Also ahead, the significance of the administration's threat to deport a legal resident. Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.
[11:09:35]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
Since President Trump took office just under two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone from enemy number one to a potential friend and ally. The sudden realign has seen allies scrambling and Russia rejoicing. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called it a return to normalcy. But is this a real relationship, or is it one big bluff?
I asked Mikhail Zygar, an exiled Russian journalist sentenced by a Moscow court in absentia to eight and a half years in prison for opposing Russia's war in Ukraine.
[11:14:53]
AMANPOUR: He now lives in New York, and he tells me about the narrative whiplash underway across the Russian state.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Mikhail Zygar, welcome back to the program.
ZYGAR: Thank you, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: So, here you are in the United States, and I have been struck by your writing about the election and about the war, Russia- Ukraine.
You've been saying that Trump's election is something that Russia has been embracing even before this dust up with Ukraine. Why?
ZYGAR: You know, I think Vladimir Putin has been watching Donald Trump for so many years, and seeing him some kind of a soulmate, I guess. Both of them share the same perception, same very cynical and non- ideological perception of the modern world.
And I will tell you even more from what I'm hearing from Moscow right now, they feel that that's the end of the United States as they used to be.
AMANPOUR: As the leader of the world?
ZYGAR: As the stronghold of liberal democracy.
AMANPOUR: Ok.
ZYGAR: Because -- and they compare it to the collapse of Soviet Union. Because Soviet Union was the state based on ideology. And since the moment people stopped believing in communism, Soviet Union was doomed to collapse. And that's some kind of the same process we're watching right now.
AMANPOUR: But in reverse?
ZYGAR: In reverse. A lot of Americans don't seem to believe in liberal democracy.
Vladimir Putin is practicing this very pragmatic form of brutal capitalism without human face, without paying attention to human rights or any kind of values.
And they think that that's the same approach that is going to be the new ideology of Trump's America.
AMANPOUR: Do you think Putin is sitting in the Kremlin thinking, I can play this American administration, or does he think, this administration is on my side, I can get them to agree with what I want?
ZYGAR: You know, I think that he's been there for 25 years. So yes, he definitely thinks that he's smarter than anyone. And he's more experienced with anyone.
And he knows that unlike any other leader, he's not going to expire. He doesn't have limits of his presidential terms. So, yes, he thinks that he can play with anyone.
I think for Donald Trump, the idea of some kind of peace treaty in Ukraine is something he wishes to see. But that's unacceptable for Vladimir Putin. So, I think he --
AMANPOUR: Because Vladimir Putin wants a surrender, essentially, a capitulation?
ZYGAR: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Even if Trump says, and his people say, well, everybody's going to have to make compromises, can you see Putin making compromises?
ZYGAR: He doesn't need it. Because, for him, the best-case scenario is the war that continues. So, what kind of a compromise between war and peace can you find?
AMANPOUR: People like Putin, even Orban, they all have this sort of central guiding philosophy. They're anti-LGBTQ. They are all about cultural wars. They're all about family values, right? That's their domestic.
Here, it's anti-woke, anti-DEI. And it's causing huge upheaval in this country. But a lot of it is sponsored and pushed by bots and social media and interference, how much of it is genuine and how much of it is manufactured, do you think?
ZYGAR: You know, I've -- I know that for Putin that was the deliberate shift from -- because in the beginning of his presidency, he was willing to see the liberal, educated middle class as his power base. But these were the people who were the first to protest against him and to betray him, to want him out.
And that was -- it happened in 2011, 2012, when he realized that he needed different people. He needed less educated, less wealthy, more conservative.
And he started completely different ideological policy. He started promoting family values, conservative values. And that was the moment when he started learning from Americans. I know that Russian propagandists, Russian TV anchors were watching one of the American TV channels.
AMANPOUR: Which one?
ZYGAR: You guess which one.
AMANPOUR: I think you mean Fox, right?
ZYGAR: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: And the Christian Conservatives.
ZYGAR: They were watching Bill O'Reilly, and they were trying to learn from him and to mimic and to perform the flames of hatred. [11:19:45]
ZYGAR: Putin's team was watching the far-right in America and were learning from different far-right groups trying to promote those family values because, you know, Russia is not really the place where all those values could flourish.
Russia is not religious. Less than 100 percent of Russians go to church on Sundays. The same way -- that was the first year of the invasion, 2022. And Russian army was suffering -- was humiliated in summer of 2022.
And in the middle of that, Russian parliament votes for the anti- transgender law, banning all transitions, all transgender people, which was probably the most important issue in the country at that moment.
But it was not the issue. It was not discussed. It was imported from America. And he -- you know, there is a very important mental connection between those sources.
AMANPOUR: Mikhail Zygar, thank you so much.
ZYGAR: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: After the break, Mahmoud Khalil and the chilling effect. What the arrest and deportation threats of a Columbia graduate student say about the First Amendment and freedom of speech.
I speak with the ACLU's national legal director when we come back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WANG: The First Amendment protects Mr. Khalil's rights and everyone in the United States, all of our rights, to say what we believe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:21:18]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
Now, in his first address to Congress last week, President Trump boasted that he had saved free speech since returning to the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It's back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: This, as his administration threatens Democratic lawmakers with investigations, sanctions law firms for representing his rivals, and bans a whole host of words connected with diversity and equality and other stuff.
Now the government wants to deport Mahmoud Khalil and revoke his green card. A recent Columbia University graduate, Khalil played a major role in pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The Trump administration says that he organized activities aligned with Hamas. His lawyers flatly deny that. And no criminal charges have been filed a whole week after immigration authorities arrested him and spirited him off to a detention center in Louisiana.
Trump says this is all about rooting out anti-Semitism on campus. And he vows, quote, "It is the first arrest of many."
But it has deeply divided the Jewish community, among others, and it sent a massive chill through academia. That, and pulling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds for universities.
I spoke with Cecillia Wang, the national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, and I started by asking her about the significance of this case now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WANG: The Trump administration illegally detained and arrested Mr. Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the United States and a Columbia Law University student. They whisked him away from his pregnant wife, his family and his community in New York City and transported him to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, initially without permitting him contact with his wife or his attorneys.
Now, the Trump administration admittedly is trying to deport Mr. Khalil because of his speech and protest in support of the human rights of Palestinians. The government admits that he has not broken any laws.
And instead, they're invoking this obscure immigration law that provides that the secretary of state may designate someone for deportation if the government has reasonable ground to believe that their presence has a potentially serious adverse effect on foreign policy for the United States.
AMANPOUR: I want to play what Secretary of State Rubio said to exactly your point. He said this is not about freedom of speech.
This is what he said and I'm going to play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: If you tell us when you apply, hi, I'm trying to get into the United States on a student visa. I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages.
If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities. If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Right. So, he's laid all that out. Of course, if we were to tell him that, then clearly, we would not be accepted in the United States.
But what he's saying is that, it seems to me, I want to know how you as a legal expert view that, he's essentially suggesting that this all applies to Mahmoud Khalil.
And yet, there have been no charges leveled against him to touch any of those accusations. Am I correct?
WANG: You are correct, Christiane. And here's the problem with what Secretary Rubio and President Trump are saying.
[11:29:48]
WANG: The First Amendment protects everyone in the United States, and the government cannot single someone out for any kind of punishment, including deportation, simply because of the position that he's taken in protest and in exercising his rights under the First Amendment.
Secretary Rubio is simply wrong to try to read that immigration law in a way that is inconsistent with the fundamentals of American life in the First Amendment.
AMANPOUR: His lawyers obviously denied that he was supporting Hamas. He is a Palestinian university activist. He was at these protests, but they deny that he was sending out Hamas pamphlets or supporting Hamas.
So again, what is the problem here and what is the bigger picture?
WANG: The problem with what the government is trying to do is that they are -- regardless of the truth or falsity of what their charges are on the facts, the First Amendment protects Mr. Khalil's right and everyone in the United States, all of our rights, to say what we believe, to protest whatever we like to protest.
And it is completely contrary to the First Amendment and to our basic fundamentals of American life and American democracy for the government to do this.
In trying to -- in detaining and in trying to deport Mahmoud Khalil, what the Trump administration is doing is not just attacking him and his family, they're not just attacking immigrants, they are attacking a fundamental American right. And I'd add, Christiane, that this is part of a larger pattern, a very disturbing pattern of the Trump administration's actions against people he considers to be his political enemies or disfavored minorities.
Whether Trump is going after transgender youth or immigrants or pursuing his policy objectives, when he starts to punish people and censor people and try to chill Americans' rights to speak out against him, he's attacking all of us and our constitutional values. And this is a very disturbing large step toward an authoritarian government.
And I think we will start to see Americans across the ideological spectrum, from left to right, regardless of party, regardless of ideology, the Trump administration and Donald Trump are going way too far here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Chilling times indeed.
Now, after the break, crackdown on free speech in Israel? Police raid a Palestinian-owned bookstore. We bring you a report from east Jerusalem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAHMOUD MUNA, EAST JERUSALEM BOOKSHOP OWNER: Any book that had the word "Palestine", had a flag, had colors, had any expression of a national or political identity of the Palestinians became possibly a suspect's book.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:32:56]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
We turn now to the Middle East, where the future of Palestinians living in Gaza, of course, continues to hang in the balance, all humanitarian aid blocked.
During an Oval Office spray (ph) with the Irish prime minister this week, Trump responded to a question about Gaza, saying nobody's expelling any Palestinians. This after he had vowed to take over and turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.
Meantime, in Israel, civil liberties are being chipped away. In East Jerusalem, Israeli police have raided a renowned Palestinian bookshop for the second time in a month, detaining one of its owners.
They cite support for terrorism for the first raid, but critics point to this as proof of a growing crackdown on free speech in Israel.
And CNN's Nic Robertson brings us more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: In East Jerusalem, undercover cops rifle the shelves of an internationally-renowned bookstore.
Owner Mahmoud Muna looks on in disbelief, watching, he believes, the erosion of his and his customers' intellectual freedoms.
MUNA: Any book that had the word "Palestine", had a flag, had colors, had any expression of a national or political identity of the Palestinians, became possibly a suspect's book.
ROBERTSON: Muna, under house arrest when we met, was still struggling to understand why he had been targeted.
MUNA: What I do in the bookshop is I create a space and I put in it books that create conversations.
ROBERTSON: The police carried away bags of his books, returned most of them, and ultimately focused on a child's coloring book, which Muna says was in a back room, not for sale, titled "From the River to the Sea," words many Israelis interpret as a threat to the Jewish state.
Muna and his nephew were taken into custody, held almost 48 hours.
[11:39:40]
MUNA: There's a devastating feeling that's in this place. Within 30 minutes you could be, you know, running one of the most international bookshops of the city, and within 30 minutes you are in a dungeon underground in a detention center.
ROBERTSON: Lawyers, international diplomats and Israeli friends rallied to his side in the courts. A petition was signed by some of Israel's leading writers and poets.
Police arrested him for, quote, "selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism." The charges later downgraded, Muna says, to the catch-all disrupting public order.
That Palestinians should feel mistreated by Israeli police is not new. But Muna's cultural standing has some on Israel's left worried that since Hamas' October 7th attacks, Israeli freedoms are increasingly under attack too.
GIDEON LEVY, ISRAELI JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: And what happened in the bookstore, in the educational bookshop, should be a red light, a very strong red light for all of us.
ROBERTSON: Respected journalist Gideon Levy, once a go-to voice on the Israeli left, is slowly disappearing from the national conversation. No longer invited, he says, for Israeli TV interviews.
LEVY: In Israel, there is a government which is using anti-democratic means, not to say fascist means, against freedom of thought, freedom of speech, any kind of freedom, and they do it with pride.
ROBERTSON: And they say that this is the only democracy in the Middle East.
LEVY: This joke, I think nobody takes it seriously anymore.
ROBERTSON: The list of Israelis getting leaned on is growing. Knesset member Offer Cassif is a case in point. Knesset members voted to expel him last year when he said Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza.
OFFER CASSIF, KNESSET MEMBER: The very fact that members of parliament can impeach another member of parliament, that's anti-democratic because that's a clear case of tyranny of the majority.
ROBERTSON: Cassif narrowly avoided the expulsion, but even now is banned from the chamber, aside from voting.
CASSIF: There is an ongoing, profound, systematic political persecution of anyone who raises an alternative voice to the government.
ROBERTSON: Freedom of speech is at stake.
CASSIF: Freedom of speech doesn't exist. It's not even at stake anymore. It doesn't exist.
ROBERTSON: Israeli government officials reject Cassif's characterization.
DAVID MENCER, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON: We will maintain freedom of speech under the rule of law, so any measures which are taken are always taken within the framework of Israeli law, with all the appropriate checks and balances from our democracy.
ROBERTSON: Muna says he's never received a list of banned books and the Israeli government pushes back against accusations it's cracking down on free speech. But the raid on this store has raised awareness that this government is different to previous and that may come at a cost.
Nic Robertson, CNN -- Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Coming up, from my archive, the legacy of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. He tried to reform Russia. How it all went so wrong.
[11:43:10]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
With Ukraine's future on the line and Trump eager to welcome Vladimir Putin back into the fold, upending the order of allies and adversaries, it's worth remembering how a previous Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, changed the course of history when, 40 years ago, he became leader of the Soviet Union.
He was its last leader, and he tried to open the place up, introducing words like "glasnost" and "perestroika" that electrified the Western world and helped end the Cold War.
But today, Vladimir Putin has reversed much of that legacy, if not all, building back the walls Gorbachev helped tear down and starting several real wars on the continent.
Back in 2012, just after Putin's reelection, I sat down with Gorbachev in Chicago and I found him deeply worried even back then about the authoritarian tendencies taking shape inside Russia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Mr. President, many people call you the father of democracy, certainly many in the West and many in Russia. But many are also saying that Russian democracy, if it's not dead already, is dying. Why is that? What went wrong?
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, FORMER PRESIDENT OF SOVIET UNION (through translator): Well, during the Election campaign, a lot of critical things were said about democracy in Russia. And you are right, there is a problem.
But democracy is not dying because when 100,000 people, hundreds of thousands of people actually, protest in the public squares, when they demand free and fair elections, when they are ready to take risks for democracy, it means that it is alive, because above all, democracy is the participation of citizens.
However, the institutions of democracy are not working efficiently, not working effectively in Russia, because ultimately they are not free.
[11:49:51]
GORBACHEV: They are dependent on the executive. They are dependent on what we call telephone law, the rule of the executive.
And that is what the people are protesting against. They want real freedom. They want real democracy. They want a democracy in which the people's voice is decisive.
AMANPOUR: In fact, you've called Putin's democracy or the current Russian democracy an imitation democracy.
Do you think that president Putin is committed to any kind of reform? And will the peoples voice be heard under his presidency?
GORBACHEV: I said on the eve of the elections that if the president and his entourage in the future will just continue to try to fool the people with this imitation, that will not succeed. People are protesting and people might protest in much stronger ways if he just continues his old ways.
I think it will be hard for him, given his nature to do this, but there is no other way for him but to move toward greater democracy in Russia, toward real democracy in Russia, because there is no other way for Russia to find a way out of its dead end in which it is now.
AMANPOUR: In the meantime, about seven years ago, President Putin said, quote, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of the century. For the Russian people, it was a genuine tragedy."
He's talking about what you did. How do you assess his assessment? Was bringing down the Soviet Union, the greatest tragedy of the 20th century?
GORBACHEV: First of all, he has a right to his own opinion, and he has a right to speak out, to say anything, whether positive or critical, about me.
I, when I do not accept or do not like his policies, also say that very directly. So I think this is a very direct discussion and that's important.
AMANPOUR: Do you think the collapse of the Soviet Union, which you engineered, is a genuine tragedy for Russia?
GORBACHEV: Well, you are stating that I engineered it.
AMANPOUR: Didn't you?
GORBACHVE: You will not find in any of my speeches until the very end anything that supported the breakup of the union. The breakup of the union was the result of betrayal by the Soviet nomenklatura, by the bureaucracy, and also Yeltsin's betrayal.
He spoke about cooperating with me, working with me on a new union treaty. He signed the draft union treaty, initialed that treaty. But at the same time he was working behind my back.
AMANPOUR: Mr. President, can I ask you, when I travel around the world and I go to places, let's say from Iran to Cuba, and I ask them about reform and democracy. They say, oh, my goodness, look at what happened in in Soviet Union. Look what Gorbachev did. Shock therapy, chaos. They see it as chaotic.
What do you -- what do you say when you hear authoritarian leaders like Castro or the mullahs in Iran? Look at what happened in the Soviet Union and say, no, we can't do that. We can't liberalize, we can't open up. It's too dangerous.
GORBACHEV: Well, chaos that is frankly not Gorbachev's fault. I was against chaos. I and many people and leaders who supported me wanted an evolutionary approach to reform. We wanted to do it step by step. We were against shock therapy.
It was Yeltsin and his government, the government of Gaidar, who adopted the policy of shock therapy. And it resulted in very destructive privatization and resulted in the kind of privatization that gave the property that used to belong to the entire nation to very, very few people.
Why are they saying what they're saying? That is because they fear democracy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Now Gorbachev's optimism about liberalizing the system has been drowned out by Putin's Russia. Its autocratic rule, silencing dissent, and of course, its horrific war in Ukraine.
When we come back, Ukrainian resilience and rehabilitation on the ski slopes. War veterans and amputees learning how to do it in Oregon.
[11:54:34]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: And finally, a lovely story for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLEKSANDR SHVACHKA, UKRAINIAN VETERAN AMPUTEE: It's amazing emotion. It's an experience and I'm so happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: From the fiery front lines to the serene ski slopes, a group of Ukrainian war vets who've lost limbs in battle have made their way to the snow-covered mountains of Oregon.
It's all part of a skiing program for amputees, set up by an organization that aims to make sports more accessible for people with all sorts of disabilities.
[11:59:46]
AMANPOUR: The veterans were joined by Ukrainian ski coaches who are learning how to use this equipment in hopes that they can teach thousands of amputees back home.
It's an inspiring story of resilience and determination, even as they continue their fight for survival.
That's all we have time for. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online and podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.
I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York. Thank you for watching and see you again next week back in London.
