Russia Quotes by Masha Gessen

As a gay parent I must flee Russia or lose my children

— Masha Gessen

Incomprehensible messaging is a very important part of Russian propaganda.

— Masha Gessen

I think that Russian meddling in the election is an important issue.

— Masha Gessen

There aren't a lot of things that are extraordinary about Putin, but his greed is truly extraordinary.

— Masha Gessen

Putin is an uneducated, unintelligent, uncultured man who has no plan.

— Masha Gessen

You risk everything if you so much as join a legal protest demonstration in Russia. It raises the stakes.

— Masha Gessen

I don't have a lot of hope for Russia when Putin goes, because I think that the kind of damage that has…

— Masha Gessen

One of the things that I really value about Russian culture is that on the private level it allows for a huge…

— Masha Gessen

Of course, Putin may well have reasons for wanting Trump to be president - not least Trump's apparent skepticism toward NATO and…

— Masha Gessen

I do a very good impersonation of an American - I went to high school here - but I've spent most of…

— Masha Gessen

Putin, I believe, was actually born to be a KGB agent. And I say born because I think that his father was…

— Masha Gessen

Putin was very careful to gradually sort of rotate people in and out of power, to make sure that he had competent…

— Masha Gessen

Trump very much wants to be liked by Putin and I think sincerely admires him. Putin doesn't know how to deal with…

— Masha Gessen

Putin really assumed that once Trump - who had such clear admiration for him - was elected, it would be convenient for…

— Masha Gessen

There's not a whole lot of similarity between the two societies, Russian and American. There are similarities behind psychological forces. One thing…

— Masha Gessen

There's the hypothesis that things just keep happening to Russians, things that keep turning them into the same kind of subjects, as…

— Masha Gessen

The reason Vladimir Putin released Pussy Riot, the Greenpeace activists who were kidnapped in international waters and kept in prison for two…

— Masha Gessen

It is the first time since 1993 that Russians have come out into the streets without an explicit permission from the government…

— Masha Gessen

Every time I talk to somebody about Putin, it's like, 'But isn't he vastly popular?' Is that really the most important question?…

— Masha Gessen

It seems that probably Putin's father maintained some connection to the secret police throughout his life. One sign of that is that…

— Masha Gessen

In the 1990s, there was a lot of reform, and there was a lot of forward movement on a lot of fronts…

— Masha Gessen

I think that Putin's strategy has been throwing a lot of money, fairly haphazardly, at a lot of projects aimed at disrupting…

— Masha Gessen

Take the people facing charges in connection with the protests that occurred on the eve of Vladimir Putin's third-term inauguration, May 6,…

— Masha Gessen

“Perestroika was an impossible idea on the face of it. The Party was setting out to employ its structures of command to…

— Masha Gessen

“At the time of the October Revolution, the Russian intellectual elite had been both a part and a partner to the European…

— Masha Gessen

What has happened to protesters in the past was that, basically, the government in 2012 put an end to a series of…

— Masha Gessen

I have no doubt that there are Russian efforts to disturb the fabric of American democracy, but they're disruption efforts. The working…

— Masha Gessen

When I was touring with my Vladimir Putin biography, which was published all over the world, people would ask me, How come…

— Masha Gessen

I think Putin's popularity was genuine when he first came to power. He was seen as a welcome relief from the Yeltsin…

— Masha Gessen

I really can't abide conspiracy theories, because I believe that everything in the world stems from idiocy and incompetence. That's certainly true…

— Masha Gessen

Russians didn't elect Trump. Even if there was collusion, even if every hypothesis that has - that is at play in the…

— Masha Gessen

I think there was certainly contact between the Trump campaign and Russians, which is perfectly normal. All campaigns in the modern age…

— Masha Gessen

“Half of the population is behind bars and the other half is guarding them,' Russians have said of their country since the…

— Masha Gessen

What's going on in Russia is not that the public is homophobic, but that the Kremlin has unleashed a war. You don't…

— Masha Gessen

Putin needed an enemy, an Other, against which to mobilize. LGBT people are really convenient: we're sort of the ultimate foreign agent.

— Masha Gessen

The thing about the Russian secret police and the Soviet secret police is that one never leaves the secret police. Once a…

— Masha Gessen

It's not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same…

— Masha Gessen

What Trump is not smart enough to even grasp is that the kind of popularity that Putin has can only be achieved…

— Masha Gessen

I wanted to show something that Americans don't usually think about when they think about Russia, which is the extreme stratification of…

— Masha Gessen

“[following the Kursk disaster].. "Putin appeared on CNN's Larry King Live. When King asked "What happened?", Putin shrugged, smiled - impishly, it…

— Masha Gessen