"So, the KGB was really looking at the party leadership as to a degree, an effective corrupt and who was on their way. And from what I understand, that’s exactly the attitudes that people like Putin and people of his circle brought to power in Kremlin. So, the methods that KGB use they can use now, and there is no party or no other institution actually stopping them from doing that. And they think about, my understanding, the operations abroad about foreign policy in general in terms of the KGB mindset of planning operations and executing particular operations and so on and so forth. I think a lot of culture that came into existence in the Soviet KGB now became part of the culture of the Russian establishment. War in Ukraine"

"Because I think he believes in things. One of those things was that if he a president and he is in the presidential office, he is there to play his role to the end. And another thing, my personal, again, I never met Volodymyr Zelensky. My personal understanding of him is that he has talent that helped him in his career before the presidency and then helps now. He feels the audience, and then channels the attitude of the audience and amplifies it. And I think that another reason why he didn’t leave Kiev was that he felt the audience, the audience in that particular context for the Ukrainians."

"I was. I was and I think that the mini-series are very truthful on a number of levels and very untruthful on some others. And they got very well the macro and micro levels. So the macro level is the issue of the big truth and the story there is very much built around the theme that I just discussed now. It’s about the cost of lies and the Soviet Union lying to the people. And that’s what the film explores. So that, I call it a big truth about Chernobyl. And they got a lot of minor things really, really very well. Like the curtains on the windows, like how the houses looked from inside and outside. I didn’t see any post-Soviet film or any western film that would be so good at capturing those everyday details."