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July 3, 2024 - The Tucker Carlson Show

01:55:46

Andrey Melnichenko (One of Russia’s Richest Men) on Nuclear War and Why Biden Wants to Destroy Him

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andrey melnichenko

01:30:20

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23:01

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Speaker	Time	Text
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		The U.S. government is now orchestrating a bombing campaign within Russia.
		I mean, the United States is in a hot war with Russia because the president was just convicted, former President Trump, but there's a lot going on in the U.S. They're both nuclear-owned powers.
		What are the chances that this becomes a nuclear exchange?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		For now, I don't see forces which are seriously working to de-escalation.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Do you think Trump is capable of stopping this trajectory of escalation?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How many countries are you banned from visiting?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		European Union, UK, Switzerland.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Canada, United States, New Zealand, Australia, Japan.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Japan?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		To be honest, I'm not sure about Japan.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I need to check.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think taking Putin out as president of Russia became the number one objective of the US government?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think it's pretty straightforward.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Climate protesters in Europe have been destroying Renaissance paintings in the name of ending climate change.
		How do you get from a concern about global temperatures to destroying art?
		But what is that?
unidentified		Andre, thank you for coming.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So we had dinner this winter in the Middle East.
		It was one of the most interesting dinners I've ever had in my long life.
		And we've been texting ever since.
		And I wanted to set down some of that conversation on tape because I thought people would be edified to hear it.
		And I knew that you were on the sanctions list for some reason.
		I didn't really understand why.
		I still don't understand why.
		But we are now in El Salvador because we couldn't.
		We couldn't meet anywhere else.
		We couldn't meet in the EU. We couldn't meet anywhere in the Anglosphere.
		We couldn't even meet in Switzerland, which has given up its sovereignty to NATO somehow.
		And so we're meeting here, very far from where you live.
		Tell us who you are and how you wound up on the sanctions list.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I'm Andrey Melechenko.
		I'm 52 years old.
		I'm a self-made business person.
		I started my business when I was 19 years old during my study in the Moscow State University.
		Pretty well.
		I've built a couple of companies which became world leaders in their fields of activities.
		Trust Fund, which is taking care of the assets of my family.
		On Yevrohim, which is the top three global producer in fertilizers.
		And also Suek, which is one of the biggest world energy companies.
		So that's what I did.
		I never worked for any state, Russia or any other.
		I never participated in any privatization, any big government activities.
		So that's it.
		What else do I do?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you are described in the US press as an oligarch.
		Oligarchs, at least in my understanding, were people who, as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, grabbed state industries because they had inside connections and they killed people.
		But I think you were a teenager when the Soviet Union collapsed, correct?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I arrived at Moscow when I was 16 years old.
		I was studying in the school, which is part of the Moscow University.
		Yes, then I was studying in the Moscow Physics Faculty of the Moscow University.
		That was a moment when the Soviet Union collapsed.
		I did not have any connection, I was in the new city for me.
		So what I did, I started to organize different businesses at this age.
		So, most interesting, it was a bank.
		I received a banking license when I was 21 years old.
		A little bit later...
		This bank grew, become one of the biggest banks in Russia, biggest private banks in Russia, and I sold it in 2017. And then you went into the fertilizer business?
		During the 90s, my bank did not participate in anything that you're referring to.
		So we did not participate in privatization, we did not grab basically government assets, so we grew up like a market institution.
		So that was only what I did during the 90s.
		In the beginning of 2000s, I started to be interested in industrial businesses also.
		But again, we did not participate in privatization.
		We bought it mostly from the secondary market, from people who bought it during the middle 90s.
		So why I did not participate in privatization?
		Very simple.
		I was 23, 24 years old.
		I did not have resources and this opportunity passed.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you are self-made?
unidentified		I am definitely self-made.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So then 2022 arrives and Russian troops move across the border into eastern Ukraine.
		You are not working for the Russian government.
		I don't even know if you live in Russia at this point.
		You're not a political figure.
		You don't elect to do anything.
		You're not a close friend of Putin's.
		You don't seem to have anything to do with the invasion of Ukraine.
		Is that fair?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Definitely.
		I have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine.
		That's absolutely true.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So from an American perspective, we read that...
		The U.S. government is seizing Russian assets, and we imagine these are state assets.
		I'm opposed to it anyway, because I think it's bad for the United States, but the story that we are told is that these are Russian assets, but your assets are not Russian assets, they're your assets.
		Is that correct?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so what happened with me in 2022, certain Western countries start to impose sanctions on me.
		What does it mean?
		What sanction means in general?
		Sanction means that your assets are, so to say, basically arrested, and like a result, there is also a risk of confiscation.
		After that, any businesses or any companies to which you are connected, if they have an operation on the West, this operation basically cannot be performed going further.
		So you cannot do business in the Western countries which apply sanction.
		And third, I'm banned from visiting Western countries.
		That's what sanction means.
		Answering your questions.
		There are different types of sanctions.
		There are economic sanctions.
		So usually the sanctions are applicable either towards some states, like, for example, against government or against state, central banks or whatever.
		Exist sanctions which are targeted to the economic sector.
		For example, oil or gas industry, or I don't know, some in other sectors which bring to certain government revenue.
		After that, there are sanctions which are targeting companies.
		So all of these sanctions have a meaning, a purpose to Basically, weaken the economy-based of your adversary.
		That is a little bit understandable.
		There are, after that, personal sanctions.
		It's slightly different.
		Usually, this sanctions targeting individuals, people.
		So, for example, they will target politicians or government officials or people who do certain kinds of promoting violence, etc.
		So, that's understandable.
		So, the purpose of this sanction is that people change their behavior.
		They stop to do what they are doing.
		So, that is the purpose of this sanction.
		There exists a third type of sanction.
		These sanctions are applicable not because you did something bad.
		They're applicable because of who you are.
		So that's how it works.
		They're applicable to a certain class of the people.
		In my case, I was sanctioned not because I did something bad.
		I was sanctioned because of who I am.
		And I'm wealthy Russian.
		That's why I was sanctioned.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You're familiar with the phrase due process?
		It's part of the Anglo-Saxon...
		The basis of our legal code in the United States and in Great Britain and other enlightened countries.
		And the idea is that you cannot be punished until you are proved to have done something, until you're guilty.
		Was there a process that you participated in before your assets were taken?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so there are two different legal systems, European one and American one.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		In European one, they're done the most simple way.
		They say that there exists criteria which allow them to sanction anyone who is going under this criteria.
		The criteria is very simple.
		It's called leading business person.
		So if you're a leading business person, it means wealthy person who is doing well, what otherwise it can mean.
		So that is already a good enough criteria to put sanctions on you.
		After that, full discretion is given to authorities.
		So it's not necessary that each and every leading business person will be sanctioned, but authorities have discretion to decide.
		With whom to do it, with whom not to do it.
		So the first question is, of course, it looks like people are not equal in terms of the law.
		Because that's a process which is basically unclear.
		It's not clear criteria.
		In the United States, probably such simple criteria like to sanction a business person would not be explainable to the society.
		At the end of the day, it's so un-American.
		It just cannot be like this.
		That's why in the United States, other criteria is used.
		For example, in the United States, I was sanctioned in August 2022 because of my participation in financial sectors.
		That's it.
		So that was a reason of my sanctioning.
		Yes, it's true.
		I have been participating in financial services.
		At the age of 21 years old, I created a bank together with my partner from the Physics University.
		So this bank had initial capital about, I don't know, $50,000 at this moment.
		When I sold it in 2017, The value of this bank was about three and a half billion dollars.
		Buyers was the most respected Western institution.
		For example, AFC, part of the World Bank Group and a number of other first-class investors.
		So, after that, I never participated in any financial services.
		So, I'm sorry, I said 2017. It was 2007. It means I have not participated in financial services 14 years before sanctions were implied for me.
		That's it.
		So that's the official reason of my sanction.
		So what does it mean?
		It means, of course, it's formality.
		American law gives possibility to the administration to, again, use their discretion, but they need to follow certain rules.
		So if you're in financial services, they can sanction you.
		I have been in financial services 14 years ago.
		If any reason to sanction for this, I don't see why.
		That's why I think that in reality, it's the same like in Europe.
		I was sanctioned not because I did something.
		I was sanctioned because of who I am.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And we should be clear about what sanction means in this case.
		It's not simply that you're not allowed to do business in this or that place or you can't travel to this or that country.
		They stole your personal property.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		For now, they seized my property.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They seized, okay.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		For now.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What's the difference between seizing and stealing?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Seize, you cannot touch it.
		You cannot use it.
		You cannot...
		Basically, it's blocked.
		If you have money on account, they block on account.
		If you have private house...
		Basically, you cannot go in your house.
		That's more or less like this.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How much would you estimate the value of the assets of yours, personal assets that they seized?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		A couple of billion dollars.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		A couple of billion dollars.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And there was no trial?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's a good question.
		So this sanction, how I said, is it applicable not because you did something bad, but because of who you are.
		Basically, they're applicable to the class of people.
		So what kind of trial it can be?
		So now you can go and say, I'm not a Russian business person or I'm a Russian business person.
		That's kind of the trial.
		So basically, power was given to authority to use just this criteria.
		They don't need to justify that you did something bad.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you're just a kulak and that's it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You're in the wrong class of people.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		You're in the wrong class of people.
		Of course, you can challenge it.
		You said about due protest.
		Of course, this concept is very familiar to me.
		In the United States, it's the Fifth Amendment to the American Constitution.
		And basically, the question is about if the rights and privileges of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution are applicable to me or not, or to other people.
		Normally, in the United States, it will be unusual that people can basically not allow access to the new process because they belong to a certain class, be it race, be it wealth, be it something else.
		But in our case, the situation is exactly like this.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Are you going to get your assets back?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I hope so.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Who decides?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Who decides?
		I guess it's a political decision.
		So on a certain moment, one way or another, the situation will change and rules about sanctions, I hope, will also follow these kinds of changes.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you are not, as you said, in financial services anymore and haven't owned a bank since 2007, long before any of this began, seven years before 2014. But you do own one of the world's biggest fertilizer companies.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Is that correct?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Again, it's a little bit more complicated, but yes, Trust Company, which manage assets on behalf of my family, own a couple of the companies.
		One of them is Yevrahim, one of the biggest world fertilizer companies.
		That company which supply to the market about, I don't know, 7% of the global trade in the fertilizer.
		So it's a pretty big company.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		7% of all global fertilizer?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Something like this, in the world trade, because a lot of domestic consumption.
		In the trade, it's something about this.
		And of course, sanctions against me affect this company's big deal.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But you, I mean, it's one thing to shut down a global arms dealer, but to try and punish a global fertilizer dealer when fertilizer provides food that people need to live, that does seem, maybe that's not the person you want to sanction.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Once again, so sanctions, how they work in the beginning, they were done in a hurry, in a stress.
		I don't think that the authorities who use this tool look very carefully for the consequences, what may happen in which case.
		Especially it's applicable to the situation of this sanction, which is, how you can call them?
		Class sanctions.
		Class sanctions.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Collective punishment, we call it.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Collective punishment for the rich people.
		Because it's very difficult to predict.
		If you touch this, what else will be touched?
		What happened in the fertilizing sector?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Has anyone ever accused you formally of doing anything wrong?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Never.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Anything?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Never.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you are innocent of any crimes.
		No one's even accusing you of crimes.
		But they stole billions of dollars worth of your assets.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I consider myself a collateral damage of the bigger conflict.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't think it was anything personal.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But what does that make you think of the system that did that?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		The system was not ready for this type of actions.
		Actually, if I may return a step before about the fertilizer, what really happened?
		Mostly it was the European problem.
		Because the European Union used, like I said, the fact that somebody is a leading business person, a wealthy businessman, like a criteria for sanction.
		In order to say this, they need to explain what exactly your wealth is.
		In the case of mine, And in the case of some other owners of a fertiliser company, it's become connected.
		Basically, my Wells is a fertiliser company.
		It means I'm connected with the fertiliser.
		So that's a justification to put me in the category of the leading business person.
		But at the same time, how interesting it works.
		So if I'm connected with whatever company, operation of this company must be blocked in the European system in this way.
		So Russia and Belarus totally supply about 20-22% of the fertiliser to the world market.
		So, the situation which happened to me happened with other owners of Russian fertilizer companies.
		What was the result of it?
		The result was predictable.
		In 2022, during about 11-12 months after sanctions were applied, supply on the world market was dropped on about 18 million tons.
		It's a huge number.
		So, that was the only reason for the drop of the supply was a personal sanction.
		It's well studied, it's reported.
		So, that's basically what's happened.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, people are...
		Really?
		So, I mean, you will cause famines if you do something like that, won't you?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That's exactly what happened.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between Republican and Democrat or Socialist and Capitalist, right, left.
		The real battle is between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth.
		It's between good and evil.
		It's between honesty and falsehood.
		And we hope we are on the former side.
		That's why we created this network, the Tucker Carlson Network.
		And we invite you to subscribe to it.
		Go to TuckerCarlson.com slash podcast.
		Our entire archive is there.
		A lot of behind-the-scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn when only an iPhone is running.
		Tucker Carlson.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So when 20% of the world market disappeared, actually not 20% disappeared, because only supply which went through Europe, meaning through the European ports or other means where Europe had control, this part of supply disappeared from the world market.
		What happened like a result?
		Prices of the fertilizer shut up, so about three times during 2022. So it's, let's say, from average $300, we start to experience prices about $900.
		What happened like result?
		Basically, demand dropped.
		So farmers did not have money to buy fertilizers.
		But what kind of farmers were?
		It was disproportionately farmers from the poor countries.
		Because in the rich countries, governments will help to the farmers.
		They will give subsidies or something else.
		Also, consumers are ready to pay more for production produced by these farmers.
		But that is not the case in the poor countries.
		Governments don't have means to help farmers and otherwise consumers are not ready to pay because they don't have enough income, enough possibility to do it.
		So mostly the disproportional effect of the sanction was felt on the poor countries of Africa, some countries of Latin America, some countries of Asia.
		So that's where the supply of fertilizer dropped.
		Now think about it.
		So these countries are poor.
		They mostly are not able to substitute domestic production of agrofoods by import.
		Why?
		Because it's much more expensive.
		So it's much cheaper to import fertilizer and grow products domestically rather than import grains or other products.
		So if you don't have money to pay for fertilizers, you definitely would not have money to pay for the end product, for the grain or for something else.
		So what's happening?
		If farmers did not buy fertilizers...
		It means domestic production of agriculture, products fell down.
		Like result, what happened?
		Domestic prices went up.
		What means when domestic prices of agriculture products go up?
		Supply meets demands.
		In this case, it's very simple.
		What means supply meets demands?
		Supply is less, demand becoming also less.
		What it means?
		It means before people eat three times a day, and some of them starting to eat two times a day.
		That's what means demands in terms of the food.
		We have numbers and we have researchers which show effect of this action on certain countries, country by country.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, global food prices have gone up.
		I mean, that's a well-known fact.
		That's almost never in American media connected in any way to sanctions, though, or the war in Ukraine or the war against Russia.
		I mean, but you think that's in part a result of...
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Not exactly.
		It's two different stories.
		So, the story about fertilizers in 2022, it was a story which was alive for about one year.
		After that, the story basically resolved itself.
		Why it's resolved itself?
		Because Russian fertilizers found other way to the world market.
		Instead of going through European ports, Baltic country ports, or I don't know, ports of Ukraine.
		So these fertilizers start to go via Russian ports.
		It took about one year for the system to adjust.
		So issue resolved itself.
		When you're referring to the food prices, they're not exactly world food prices.
		It's a traded commodity.
		That's, for example, not so much effect of the people in the most of the poor countries.
		Of course, some countries import food, like Egypt, like many other countries.
		But most really poor countries, they import inputs to produce food.
		So that's why effect was felt mostly of the fertilizer crisis, mostly in the very poor countries.
		Countries which were not able to import inputs for the food production.
		Because what is fertilizers?
		Fertilizers input for food production.
		So that's how it works.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that the lawmakers in the United States who impose sanctions and endorse them, which is almost all of them, very few American lawmakers oppose sanctions.
		Do you think they thought this through?
		Do they know the effects of it downstream?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		About a particular crisis about fertilizers?
		Yes, they know.
		And I must say that the United States authorities dealt much more in a better way compared with Europeans.
		This problem was created purely by Europeans.
		So, administration, American administration...
		State Department and other authorities actually dealt with the crisis pretty responsible.
		So they gave opportunity to the sector to receive so-called general licenses, which isolated a company, a fertilizer company, from this type of facts.
		That's why I would not say nothing bad from the United States in terms of the food security story.
		This issue was taken seriously and we are very, well, basically, the world should be thankful for this.
		But Europeans done a mistake.
		So in this particular case, it was like this.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How do you think the war in Ukraine and the response to it, the sanctions, changes in energy distribution, how is that affecting Europe?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's affecting a big deal.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It seems that way.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		How?
		In a certain moment, when the supply of the cheaper energy to Europe was cut, this energy naturally...
		It was replaced by the more expensive energy.
		That's how it affects.
		You used to pay X and now you're paying X plus.
		So that's it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But that's affected Europe's industrial capacity.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you see BASF moving a lot of its production out of Germany.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Of course, that's right.
		But what does that look like in 10 or 15 years?
		What's the European economy look like?
		What does Europe look like?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I would not remember exact number, but I think it will be pretty Correct to say that in 2019, European GDP was something about $15 trillion.
		And the United States GDP at that time was about $15.4 or something like this, slightly bigger.
		So what is today's GDP of the United States?
		If I'm not mistaken, it's something about $25 trillion.
		In the Europeans, it's about $16.5.
		So it was not much growth during this period of time.
		Of course, no company which built their business on access to the cheaper energy would consider putting new investment or continue operation in Europe, because now European prices for energy is much higher in the United States.
		Of course, because European prices today, it's a derivative of the price of LNG, liquefied natural gas.
		So if American consumers, industrial consumers pay Henry Hub, domestic price of the United States, for example, then European consumers need to pay Plus, plus, plus, a lot of logistic costs for the same products to be delivered in Europe.
		So it's a big difference compared with the situation it used to be before the war.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How has Russia been affected by the war?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Bad.
		In one way.
		Because it's a big destruction.
		It's a tragedy.
		It's a tragedy for the Russian people, for sure.
		And that's how it's been affected.
		If you think, if you're asking about economy...
		Okay, the economy is doing much better than many people expected and many experts expected.
unidentified		So...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Why?
		Because a lot of new production is coming in place.
		A lot of new production is connected with military-industrial complex.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Did you expect that?
		I mean, the idea of the United States was once we imposed these sanctions and funded Ukraine, the Ukrainian military, that it would destroy the Russian economy.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't think that idea to destroy Russian economy on the short run is a very feasible one.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's a quite adaptive economy.
		It's a quite big economy.
		It's basically quite smartly run economic system.
		So I'm pretty sure there are underestimations of what Russian economy is capable to do.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Apparently, how is it smartly run?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		We have a good team of technocrats working in the government, working in the central bank, and still now, biggest part of the Russian economy, basically, it's a market-based economy.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So companies, under the scenario of the stress, are trying to find their way to survive, and it looks like doing this more or less successfully.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What do you think Russia learned from...
		I mean, you said you got to Moscow at 16, you were 19 or something in 91 when the...
		Soviet Union collapse, and then there was what looked like a pretty dark period in Russia for the next 10 years-ish.
		How bad was that time, and what do you think Russia learned from it?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it was bad for some people.
		It was good for some people.
		So, of course, it was a moment of the dramatic change.
		Something was happening maybe once or twice during normal person life.
		So, it was changed from the...
		A system where suddenly people receive a lot of freedom, but did not receive a lot of responsibilities.
		So that is what happened at this time.
		So when you receive a lot of freedom, but don't receive responsibility, then society is not ready to be responsible for what it does.
		So it leads to chaos.
		And that is exactly what started to happen.
		So at this moment of time, many people who felt comfortable with the previous system were disoriented.
		It was pretty difficult for them to cope with a new situation.
		At the same time, completely for this reason, it was a good ground for the people who were not basically connected with the previous way of life, for young people, for people who in the simple way had nothing to lose at this moment of time.
		So that's a moment when entrepreneurial energy or ability to do something allow you to do what's impossible to do in other periods of time.
		And I'm very grateful that I was able to live through this period of time.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How did Putin change Russia?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It was a quite natural reaction on the situation of the 90s.
		The 90s brought a lot of, let's say, chaos in Russia.
		Chaos.
		Yeah, a lot of chaos in Russia.
		So many people suffer.
		It was pretty difficult.
		So society was crying for the stability.
		That was really what was needed.
		And it was a great achievement what Putin did.
		He brought stability to Russia.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Are you close to Putin?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I never met him one-on-one.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You've never met Putin one-on-one?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Never.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, so you have absolutely no role in any of this.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		In this?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, in the governance of Russia.
		I just can't get past the fact that you're a bystander with a Russian last name and the West stole billions of dollars worth of your assets.
		That's not kind of what we're told the system does.
		You don't seem mad about it.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		How you can be mad on something that you cannot control?
		It's like to be mad on the rain.
		It will pass.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What do you think the effect on the United States has been of this war in Ukraine?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Effect?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I mean, if you take sanction and economic part, actually, what I don't like, I don't like when I hear from a certain politician when they say it's great for American economy.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That's what I don't like.
unidentified		Really?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Like when people say it's great for the jobs.
		It's great for the economy.
		It's great for something.
		Honestly, it makes me sick.
		Because to kill other people, if it's even great for your economy, it should not be great.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I agree with that.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		You cannot be proud of this.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That's what I think about this part of the input.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's disgusting.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I agree.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		From another side, I would say that I know more or less what will be the effect of the sanction.
		So I think it will be the end of the many institutions which were traditional for a number of years.
		Such institutions like the US dollar, for example, like a global currency.
		What we see already in this year, for example, the foreign trade of China, more than 50% of the foreign trade of China is not in dollars anymore.
		And it used to be about 90% just 12 years ago.
		So that is what's happening.
		In Russia, the dollar was a dominating currency for any outside export-import operation.
		Today it's, what, 14% more or less like this.
		And the same process is going in other countries.
		So that will be one major effect.
		Basically, I think the dollar will lose its position, like the world-dominating currency, much bigger, like the result of all of what happened.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What will be the effect on the United States of losing the dollar as the international currency?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think it's one of the three or four major assets which country has.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But as a former banker, what are the practical effects?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Practical effects?
		So if less investors want a dollar, it means interest rates are higher, inflation is higher, it's more difficult to refinance debts, etc., etc.
		It means a lot of things.
		When you cannot emit world currency, it means a completely different world where you're in.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		This seems obvious as a non-banker.
		That was my first thought when these sanctions were imposed.
		This will scare people out of using the dollar because it's being used as a political weapon, not just a medium of exchange.
		It's not a safe haven anymore.
		If I could see that with no education or background at all in this area, why wasn't that obvious to you as policymakers?
unidentified		Hard to say.
unidentified		Thank you.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Perhaps they're comparing pluses and minuses of such policies, they put balance on the pluses.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What would be the pluses from an American perspective?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's hard for me to say.
unidentified		Well, I am an American, and I don't understand any of this.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't understand why you would want to kill or depose Putin, which is, of course, the whole point.
		I mean, you can like Putin or not.
		I don't have to live under Putin, so I don't have strong feelings either way.
		But why do you think...
		Taking Putin out as president of Russia became the number one objective of the US government.
		It doesn't seem obvious that that would be your objective.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think it's pretty straightforward.
		You need to look at history not so long, but at least for the 20 years back.
		So, in reality, cooperation between Russian government and Western governments deteriorated during the last maybe 20 years.
		So that was a process.
		See how it developed.
		It developed with the increase of NATO presence closer to the Russian borders.
		It was many other things which basically contributed to this deterioration of relations.
		And I would not say it was like from one side or from another side.
		It was a number of the things which basically brought us where it's brought it.
		It's become more and more and more difficult during the last 15 years.
		What is really...
		From my understanding, all of these events in Ukraine are just moving of the conflict on the next level of escalation.
		That's what it is.
		So that was 2014. So what is the reality?
		It's events of 2022. It's again, it's a movement of the story which was in the process, maybe 15, 20 years of basically unresolved situation of security in Europe to the next level of escalation.
		So basically, it's one process.
		Ukraine, for my understanding, it wasn't like an issue by itself.
		It's a process of non-understanding, of not ability to communicate, to find the common solution between West, United States first of all, and Russia, which led step by step to step to the new and new levels of the escalation.
		That was a process.
		And what happened during this process?
		Parties lost trust to each other.
		So Russian government, Russian leadership lost trust in the Western system, inability to find solutions with the Western leaders.
		Same happened from the Western side.
		So Western leaders lost trust, inability to make, to find understanding and to resolve complex issue with Russian leadership.
		So that is what happened.
		So when it happened, that's probably answering your question why.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So it's just a kind of process of forward movement that.
		We'll go on on the principle of entropy forever until something stops.
		It sounds like there is no motive.
		It's just organizations keep going until they don't.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Dynamic, it's not very good.
		So dynamic, it means that because basic issues, basic problems are not resolved or even not articulated sometimes, more and more and more different means of confrontation coming into the play.
		For my understanding, basically, what's happening in Ukraine, it was one more step towards this escalation.
		But then again, it can be another step and can be another step.
		So, unfortunately, we are moving towards this direction, for my opinion, right now.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Where are we right now, would you say?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I would say in a very dangerous moment, in the moment which perhaps we did not experience for last, I would say, from 1984, something like this, for the last 40 years.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the U.S. government is now basically orchestrating a bombing campaign within Russia.
		I mean, the United States is in a hot war with Russia.
		And this is because the president was just convicted, former President Trump, but there's a lot going on in the U.S. I don't think that most Americans fully understand we're in a hot war with Russia.
		So, I mean, they're both nuclear-run powers.
		What are the chances that this becomes a nuclear exchange?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Unfortunately, each conflict has its own dynamic.
		So for now, I don't see forces which are seriously working to de-escalation.
		Because it's not defined yet what victory means.
		It's not defined with what purpose of each conflicting party really is.
		In reality, it's described, but today these goals are not really discussed.
		It's like one party moving one direction.
		What, for example, the Ukrainian Party is saying?
		The Ukrainian Party of this conflict is saying, okay, we want something like to go back to the situation when everything was in 2014. Okay, so they want to do de-escalation in two steps compared to the today's situation.
		Step not 2022, but step 2014. At the same time, from the Russian perspective we are hearing when we are listening to news or whatever, Russia is saying, no, we want something bigger.
		We wanted to do de-escalation even further.
		We wanted to come back to a situation when security arrangements in Europe are done in such a way that Russia does not feel endangered from different sides.
		So that's what Russia's leadership is referring.
		So why do we do one step of de-escalation?
		We need to do two-step de-escalation.
		So that is like two completely different languages.
		So you cannot discuss one part, one type of basic problem, and don't discuss another.
		So when two parties don't hear each other and each of them kind of living in their own world with their own limitation, what you should predict?
		You should predict that more people will die, that escalation will continue, and God forgive us, but the next threshold of escalation can be crossed.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Both sides are now openly, sort of openly, talking about using nuclear weapons.
		I never thought I would live to see that.
		That seems crazy.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's extremely scary.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Are the Russians worried?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Of course they are.
		Of course they are.
		But once again, even from Russia's side, I can understand basically dynamic.
		But what I don't understand, I don't understand why West is not worrying about.
		What today's situation reminds me very much of the situation which was in the autumn 2021. So what we saw in the autumn 2021, we saw military maneuvers near the Ukrainian border.
		We saw the proposal to come back and to discuss Different types of arrangements, which can make the situation a little bit more secure.
		Not a little bit more, but more secure, more predictable.
		When security is basically working on both sides, not only against Russia, but also such and such arrangements where Russia feels secure.
		That was a major discussion somewhere in the autumn 2021. So Russia came with a certain proposal.
		It was a lot of discussion.
		What was the result?
		The result was actually noise.
		The result was okay.
		It will not happen.
		The result was, okay, just try to do it, and we'll do something more terrible to you.
		That was kind of the discussion at this moment of time.
		What Russia did at this time, move the situation to the next level of escalation, on the, basically, situation in the beginning of the special military operation.
		That's what Russia did.
		So that happened once.
		So compare with the situation today, military maneuvers, with a tactical nuclear weapon at this time.
		A lot of basically comments like, oh, don't take it seriously.
		Mr. Putin did not use bomb for two years.
		For sure, he will never use it anymore in the future.
		All of this kind of the discussion.
		We need to ignore it because if basically Russia will do it, we will do it something even more terrible.
		What did it remind you?
unidentified		For me, it's remind to 21 and beginning of 22. But Putin did roll across the border in the end.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Putin did roll across the border in the end.
		So why?
		If one time, the escalation move, on the next, basically...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So we're almost getting to, like, theological questions here.
		Do you think the West wants a nuclear war?
		I mean, is this an effort to commit suicide?
		Like, what is this?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think just an ability to propose a scenario which, basically, Western leaders can explain and find the right balance with...
		Actually, it's a very difficult question.
		It is a very difficult question.
		Western society was so supportive to the cause which was promoted by the Western politicians until a certain moment.
		Because it's a simplified narrative, like unprovoked aggression.
		Unprovoked aggression means an existing aggressor.
		If an existing aggressor exists, what can you do?
		You need to react to the unprovoked aggression to punish.
		So how can you change this narrative?
		So this narrative, it's very difficult.
		If you're a politician who is dealing with this limitation, how to deal with this?
		That's very difficult.
		Sometimes it's easy just to follow inertia, just to do...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Sure, I mean, of course I understand that, and their prestige is at stake, and no one wants to admit mistake, and no one wants to be seen as siding with Putin or being a disloyal American or Belgian or, you know, Frenchman or whatever.
		the media control people by attacking them.
		But you would think that a nuclear exchange would be the moment where people would say, well, I don't care what you call me.
		We're not going to have a nuclear war because that would be the end of people.
		And I would do anything I could do to stop that, anything, including accept responsibility for dumb statements I made before, be embarrassed or being called names.
		I don't care.
		I'm going to try and stop nuclear war.
		I thought that was the red line for people, but it's not.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		If American society understands the moment where we are.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't think they do.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But you think we're at that moment.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think that next level of escalation, it's very possible.
		After that, if you take it like, effect, that next level of escalation, it's possible.
		What next level of escalation may be?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's all that's left.
		But again, it raises the theological question, like, what is, why...
		Why did Europe decide to destroy itself in 1914?
		Why is the West once again on the brink of destroying itself?
		What is that?
		It doesn't seem rational at all.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think it's pretty understandable.
		I believe in the Western democratic system.
		In a certain moment, it's allowed to change the course.
		So leaders change and then if some leaders follow some particular scenario, it's very difficult for them to change their opinion, to change the position which they took towards the population of their countries.
		But when democratic system makes a change, then the course of society may change also.
		So I think this problem will pass in one way or another.
		The problem is how fast this will pass if some tragedy will not happen before.
		That's what we're going to say.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So if the leader of the West, the American president changed his view on this, then you think he could lead Europe to de-escalate?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		We don't have choice, but we must escalate.
		Do I believe it's realistic?
		Honestly, the dynamic looks like it's not very realistic right now.
		It's very difficult.
		So, I don't know.
		Some Americans need it in such situations.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So, your read as a non-American who's not allowed in the United States, but I know you follow this carefully, do you think Trump is capable of stopping this trajectory of escalation?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Is there any other leader in the world who is?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		I think today, the world in general have a problem with the leaders who can look not on the polarized way to say that is true or that is true, but people who can look a little bit more globally.
		I think we have a deficit of these people right now.
		So, and the idea of this constant conflict, of these things with raptured The world, on part, has become very dangerous.
		So I think the world needs a moment for a little bit of cool down.
		And then, probably, the process will start.
		Remember what stopped the war in Vietnam, actually?
		I think it was only one way to stop it.
		It was a slogan.
		Remember this?
		Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?
		So I think that was probably one of the most important things which happened during this period of time.
		Because it's very simple.
		And that goes directly to your conscience.
		So you repeat something and suddenly you start to think, okay, maybe it's not about communism, capitalism, I don't know, detente or something else.
		Maybe just about something a little bit bigger.
		That it was what stopped the war at this time.
		What will stop war at this time?
		I don't know.
		But I don't believe somehow in the deals between politicians right now.
		I don't believe it somehow.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		In Europe, Is there...
		I mean, you're in Europe.
		I guess you're not in Europe anymore.
		But do you think the rest of the world understands how close we are to nuclear war?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		I think it's like in this movie.
		Don't look up.
		Something happening.
		Something coming closer.
		But so many other more interesting things.
		Hate the fundraiser.
		Hate some other interesting stories happening.
		Why to concentrate on such big issues?
		But in Europe, I think...
		Understanding of the situation growing.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What's China's role in all this?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Hard to say, but I think China behaves like very responsible power trying to basically say everyone, please calm down, please calm down.
		How strong what China really can do about it?
		That's another question.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		President Nixon went to China famously 50 years ago in probably a lot of objectives, but the main objective was to solidify the split between Russia and China because you don't want them to align against you.
		Of course, if you're the United States, in one day that seems to have changed.
		Is the Russia-China alliance strong?
		Is it enduring?
		Is it, you know, for the next hundred years will those two countries be in an alliance, do you think?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's a country with a huge trade compared to the size of our economy.
		It's a country with a very long land border.
		So China is definitely a growing world superpower.
		Probably only two superpowers now we can really count.
		So yes, of course, Russia and China would have a strong correlation.
		I hope they will.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Is there any chance in our lifetimes that Russia and the United States have any kind of reasonable non-antagonistic relationship?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		We should.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I agree.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		We should.
		It's no any reason.
		It's no fundamental reason why it should be otherwise.
		Neither with the United States, Russia, not with Russia and Europe.
unidentified		What would happen if you tried to come to the United States?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		If I will come to the United States?
		I don't know.
		I would not get a visa.
		So how can I come?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Same?
unidentified		Yes.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Do you think you might be arrested?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
		I will simply not allow to come there.
		Why to arrest me?
		I did not done nothing wrong.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How many countries are you banned from visiting?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		European Union, UK, Switzerland, Canada, United States, New Zealand, Australia.
		That's it.
		Japan.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Japan?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		To be honest, I'm not sure about Japan.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I need to check.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So since you live outside what we think of as the West, and Japan kind of is part of the West in a way, it has American troops on its soil, how do you see the world changing now that you've been forced outside the old world into the emerging world?
		Where are the new, where are the freest places in the world?
		Where's the power coalescing?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think the world is agonized now.
		It's unclear where and what will happen where.
		Definitely China is growing with incredible speed.
		I spent quite a lot of time on China lately, and it's amazing.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		In what way?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Like when you see what they've done and you compare what was on the same places 10 years ago, so you see the difference.
		My private foundation, Charity Foundation, supports kids, talented kids in different areas.
		One of our projects, we support chemical, let's say, competition between kids from different countries.
		Students.
		So this year we hold this event in Shenzhen, in China.
		I remember the city 25 years ago, and I saw the city now.
		It's unbelievable.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		There's an emphasis, I notice, on building in China, in making things, whereas the emphasis in the West seems to be on banking.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What's the difference between a society that builds things and a society that lends money and interest?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I mean, at the end of the day, both societies trying to resolve the same issue, to make people in this country to feel better.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So there are many ways which lead to the top of the mountain.
		One society going one direction, another going another direction.
		Hard to say what's better.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Which is a stronger society?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		American.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		America.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Democracy.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Good history of democracy, rule of law, traditions.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that, and I agree with you completely, I strongly believe in democracy and, of course, rule of law, but I wonder what the lesson the rest of the world is taking from the last couple of years.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, do you think there will be other countries that want to sign on to the democratic project?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's very difficult to say what the democratic project is, but, I mean, we are going through the period of time when dominance of one superpower of the United States, it will not bear.
		It will not be in the future like it was before.
		For sure, China has done a great, incredible job.
		And we will see at least two superpowers which will, in one way or another, agonize world affairs going forward.
		At the same time, we see a number of countries who will become strong regional leaders.
		So we're going to a completely different arrangement of the world.
		A world which is, you can call it multipolar, but the world which is with a completely different dynamic.
		That's where we are moving now.
		From my understanding.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And what does it look like in, say, 10 years?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So I imagine it's the English-speaking countries, Europe, maybe Latin America, maybe not, and then everybody else.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Again, it's very hard to say.
		So let's assume that situation which we are talking about, this escalation level will not be crossed.
		Let's assume that some miracle will happen, which will bring the world to the de-escalation.
		And slowly, slowly, new order will start to emerge.
		So how the situation will develop in this scenario?
		Hard to say.
		There are bad scenarios and good scenarios.
		Bad scenarios, it's, again, to come back to the cycle of the Cold War, basically, to come back 40 years ago, where there are a couple of blocks, let's say, United States, one side, China from another side, a couple of countries which are trying to...
		I mean, do something independent a little bit.
		So something like this.
		That's a dangerous world, for my understanding, because it will be just a repetition of something that we've already seen.
		So competition, where there are only two polars, a couple steps after, can lead to nothing else but to the very difficult confrontations, very difficult fight for the different resources, for access to this and this.
		That's, for my understanding, a situation which...
		Not very sustainable, to put it this way.
		So if there's another scenario, if there's a scenario where something else may happen, perhaps.
		So what it can be?
		It means there should be a possibility for some other countries to basically work with both sides, to work with one superpower and for another superpower.
		To work, it means to have security arrangements.
		To have understanding, to have investment from both sides, to have trade with both sides.
		And if such countries, such actors will be, basically, more and more of them will be forming the world, that's, from my understanding, what can make the world more solid, more stable, more sustainable.
		So how to make sure that we did not come to competition where either you are with us or you are our enemy, but how to come to the situation when acceptance of the I'm following every
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		word.
		Let me ask you, the stated objective, I don't know officially, but certainly policymakers and lawmakers say it, is to kill Putin or knock him out.
		Of his position to get rid of Putin.
		I know you don't live in Russia, and you don't know Putin, but as someone who knows the country, what would happen if Putin disappeared tomorrow?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Firstly, I live in the country, and I consider myself Russian.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So it's not correct to say that I'm not living in the country.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you're not?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay, great.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so for the last three years, I spent in Russia more time than any other countries.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That's changed a lot.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So what would happen if Putin disappeared tomorrow?
		What would happen to Russia?
		It's such a big, complicated country, and it seems like, whenever you think of Putin, he holds it together.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Chaos.
		Chaos.
		Any type of...
		It will increase the level of uncertainty.
		Like in any system which is basically very centralized, and Russia became a very centralized system in the last decade or so.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So any unexpected changes only will increase chaos.
		So where exactly this increase of the chaos will lead, that is, again, very much depends on many other situations during this particular time.
		But I think it's a very bad scenario, and I don't even want to think about it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that bad?
		I mean, it seems that way as a total outsider, if you have the biggest country in the world with very complicated demographic mix and a lot of different parts of the country that don't have that much in common with each other.
		It seems like with a lot of nuclear weapons, that could be bad for the world.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Chaos, it's a very dangerous weapon.
		So when this weapon applies, it's creating stability in the system.
		When chaos was applied, let's say, in Afghanistan or in Iraq or in Yugoslavia 30 years ago, how long it took before stability was brought to the same places?
		So in a situation like Russia...
		Any type of chaos, I don't think, firstly, the system will be destroyed by the chaos.
		Because Russian people, Russian society already came through a very different period of time in the 90s, where it was a lot of chaos.
		And society received kind of the vaccination against this type of disease.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They had chaos, they don't want it again.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		So that's why I'm pretty sure what will happen if more chaos will appear in the system.
		Our system will react with more centralization, with more concentration of the power, with less freedom.
		That's what will happen.
		But is it good or bad?
		I think it's very bad for Russia and very bad for the rest of the world.
		Because when the system becomes more concentrated on defending itself, when it's dangerous everywhere instead of the opportunities.
		Even if dangers not exist, they will appear.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		And we will follow and we will come to next conflicts.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's exactly right.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		A little bit late.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So what happens to Ukraine?
		Since you are, in some sense, in the agriculture business, and that's a...
		I mean, I know you know a lot about Ukraine.
		Do you have a Ukrainian parent?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		My mother is Ukrainian.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		So you're familiar with Ukraine.
		Zelensky has apparently, I heard from the Ukrainian two days ago, backed a new law that will allow foreigners to...
		Buy own property in Ukraine.
		It does feel like maybe the effect of this war is, you know, foreign companies buying a lot of Ukrainian land and moving a new population in.
		Maybe that's just a dark guess.
		What do you think the future looks like for Ukraine?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's a tragedy what happens there.
		That's exactly the situation when country became a stage for competition with outside powers.
		So that's exactly what should not happen with any other country.
		It was a chance that the same scenario could happen before in Georgia.
		Since God, it did not happen.
		It was a possibility that the same scenario could happen before in Belarus, probably in Kazakhstan.
		Now, Armenia is living in a period similar to this.
		So, it's very dangerous when a country becomes a competition, a ring between...
		Superpowers between even the regional power and global power.
		So that is what happening there.
		So that's an example which is very, very bad.
		And such example, unfortunately, exists not only in this ex-Soviet sphere.
		Such examples we can see elsewhere.
		So, for example, take the Horn of Africa.
		So you see a conflict in the Sudan.
		So more people were killed or injured in Sudan than Ukraine and Gaza combined.
		How often do you speak about it?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Never.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That's a disturbing question, of course.
		So as soon as competition is starting to happen like this, that's the worst scenario for any country to be in.
		So that is what happened with Ukraine.
		Hopefully other countries will look at an example and try to not be there.
		That's why I think as a model, it's much more positive.
		It's a model when countries are not trying to be one side or another side, not trying to find which house is better, to compete in the competition where they have nothing to gain.
		So I think the best way for such countries is to try to find the balance and to be good with everyone.
		So that is, I think, a much better way.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about climate and the response to climate change.
		So I live in a place that had glaciers 15,000 years ago, and it's very obvious from the landscape as it is in many parts of the world.
		So from my perspective, there has very obviously been Radical climate change that has nothing to do with human behavior.
		And yet my government and most Western governments, in fact, world governments in general, all agree that climate change is caused by human behavior.
		And we need to stop climate change by changing human behavior in ways that will kill humans.
		You're very closely connected to agriculture and watch world politics carefully.
		What's your view of what causes climate change?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I don't think it's so important to tell the truth.
		I think more important is the fact that the temperature of the surface of the planet is changing.
		That's true.
		That's a matter of fact.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So it's also true and very possible that the number of dangerous nature anomalies will increase, like the consequence of the warming of the surface of the planet.
unidentified		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So intensity of hurricanes.
		More floods, more droughts, so this kind of things will increase.
		It's very possible.
		Very possible they will bring more damage, material damage to the property or damage to the way of living for the people.
		That's all nice.
		That's all understandable.
		But I think what's wrong if from these facts we are jumping to the question and starting to discuss who is guilty.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Who's guilty?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That is what is, I think, very wrong.
		Of course, it's a more natural way to start discussion from this, because we're all following a certain type of the thinking, which is, maybe it's coming from really, how you said before, from a religious perspective or whatever, because it's always the same circle.
		Firstly, exists a sin.
		Somebody done something bad.
		Then exists punishment.
		Something bad happened because somebody done sin.
		Then exists, how you say it in English, you recognize.
		Basically, you admit that.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You repent or atone.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so that is next stage.
		And then after, only after, basically, you can come back to the paradise or whatever people call it.
		So that is more of the same pattern.
		In the same pattern, when you speak, somehow distract from the issue on the table.
		Because what is the issue?
		Issue is how to deal with the problem.
		So instead of the question how to deal with the problem, you suddenly start to think how to deal.
		With the person who caused the problem.
unidentified		I think you're exactly right.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		As a matter of fact, if you assume that CO2 emissions drive climate change, which is an assumption.
		I don't think we've proven that, but that's everyone's assumption.
		What percentage of CO2 emissions come from people and human behavior as opposed to natural phenomena?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so let's look on it from the different perspectives then, if I may.
		So firstly, I think it's not important who calls the problem.
		So the same answer goes to everything.
		In the climate change, I don't think it's important who calls it.
		The question is, we need to address it.
		All right, so let's start it from there.
		Let's start to address the problem instead of looking for a person who did it.
		By the way, the same pattern goes about everything.
		Maybe in some conflicts, instead of looking for it, it's better to think about it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I understand about casting blame.
		I think you're absolutely right.
		And it does become a political vehicle to punish your enemies and people who don't vote for you.
		It's clearly what's happening.
		But you also can't solve a problem if you don't know its source.
		If you don't know why it's happening, how can you fix it?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		So how you can fix it?
		So in the case of the climate, I think it's better to start from the facts.
		Normally, there are two types of people.
		Two kinds of people.
		People who like to learn and people who like to believe.
		So, I think in this type of the question, we need to concentrate more on learning, on understanding rather than on beliefs.
		So, coming back to the learning.
		The surface of our planet receives radiation from the sun.
		Approximately, I don't know, 340 megawatts per square meter.
		So that is what happens.
		What?
		Sorry, not megawatt, of course.
		After that, that is heating the source of our planet.
		But part of this heat, it's reflected.
		It's going back to the space.
		In case if we don't have atmosphere, what happens?
		So temperature of our planet will be perhaps 35 degrees lower than it is now.
		So why it's not lower?
		Because we have atmosphere.
		What is atmosphere?
		Inside of our atmosphere, there are certain gases which we call greenhouse gases.
		Major of them, it's water vapor.
		Second, it's CO2, then methane, then others.
		So, what these gases do?
		They reflect heat back to the surface.
		About three quarters of the heat, it's reflected, it's going back to the surface.
		So, we experience kind of infrared sound effect when basically… Firstly, direct sun exposure, and after that, reflected heat waves coming.
		So that's how it works.
		So why am I explaining this?
		Okay, so let's imagine we are not looking for whom to blame for the problem.
		But in reality, we are just trying to put the temperature a little bit down.
		Let's say a degree or two down.
		We are trying to find these knobs, how you call it, on the thermostat to turn them down and make the temperature a little bit lower.
		So, what you normally would consider?
		So, question number one.
		You want to increase reflection of the heat from the surface of the planet, wouldn't you?
		So, that will be the first question.
		That's what, in science, they call albedo.
		So, it's the ability of the surface to reflect waves coming from the surface.
		Albedo.
		So, white color.
		Basically, if you have a mirror, your albedo is one.
		If you have a completely dark something, your albedo is zero.
		Everything else goes in the middle.
		So if you want that surface heated less, what you do?
		You increase albedo.
		Step number one.
		Step number two, what you want to do?
		You want to decrease reflection in the atmosphere, which is going back to the surface.
		In other words, you want to decrease the concentration of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
		That's two.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So the heat can escape.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Then heat will not go back, but will escape.
		So that's actually two actions which you want to take.
		Are there any differences?
		No, because it doesn't matter.
		Either you basically send more out of the surface, or you allow less to come back to the surface.
		It works in the same direction.
		You want to address this all.
		Now, one more fact to add here.
		So when we're talking about greenhouse gases, so another, just numbers.
		So our planet emits about 800...
		20 gigatons of equivalent of CO2 per year.
		Humans emit about 54 gigatons out of this 820. So it's about 6%.
		So that is input of the human greenhouse gases emission.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's 6% of the total.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		6% of the total.
		That's why if you look on all of it combined, it's really unexplainable.
		No, I mean, from the logical perspective, why all attention given not to the changing of the albedo of the surface of our planet, and not to addressing other 94% of the emission, which is coming from the nature, but why all attention concentrated on this 6% of total?
		That's very difficult to explain from the logical perspective.
		So that's what's beginning.
		After that, naturally, question number two can be asked.
		Is it possible to address either the remaining 94% of greenhouse gases, or what does it really mean to change albedo of the surface?
		Is it feasible?
		What does it mean?
		Of course, it's feasible.
		So, what means to change natural emission, this 94%?
		Plant forest, that's about it.
		So, meadows, it's about this.
		To deal with the permafrost, which is covering big storages of the carbon underneath.
		It's also to deal with the CO2, which is trapped there.
		So there are different ways to affect natural cost emissions.
		That's called natural-based solutions.
		There are estimations and numbers which show the potential of it.
		It's about 18 gigatons, 20 gigatons, so numbers like this.
		About half of the anthropogenic emissions can be much more cheaply mitigated by a natural-based solution.
		So that's story number one.
		Story number two about albedo.
		I'm sorry, I'm going to leave.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		May I ask you to just pause on one question?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So planting forests is number one?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's one of the options.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		In the natural-based solution, planting forests, it's one of the options.
unidentified		That seems easy, cheap.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It creates beauty.
		It helps everybody to plant forests.
		Why is that being done?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it's done, but not on a very big scale.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Where is it being done?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		In many places in the world.
		Planting of the forest is happening now.
		China, by the way.
		The biggest place where about 250 million tons of the emissions now absorbed by the forest plant in China during the last 20 years.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why isn't it being done in more places?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		We will come to this, I promise.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I like that idea so much that I had to pause.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		But forest is only one of the possible solutions.
		There are many others.
		Forest is one of them.
		But once again, there are opportunities to react on the greenhouse emission from the natural sources.
		That's story number one.
		Second big story, which is unlike...
		Let's say, a natural-based solution, almost not used today at all.
		That's to affect albedo.
		It means to affect how much energy basically reflected out of the surface of the planet.
		What does that mean?
		For example, to paint roof whites, that means change albedo.
		It was black, become white.
		Or to change color of the roads.
		Or for example, To plant certain types of the grass, of meadows, or something like this.
		I'll give you numbers.
		So, typical, let's say, gas power plant in Texas will produce maybe 2.5 million tons of CO2 per year.
		So, in order to absorb it by albedo, it will need to be, I would say, 15,000 hectares.
		You need to change albedo for 0.04.
		I'm sorry for technical details.
		It's not very much.
		So, for example, when you plant in the black soil cotton, It's increased albedo about five times bigger.
		So that's how you can compensate one by another.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, you can fight climate change by planting cotton?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's a very good instrument to change albedo of the surface.
		It's one of many.
		You can paint the surface of the buildings.
		You can, I don't know, do certain techniques which allow...
		Ice to melt a little bit later, because when it's ice, it's a kind of mirror.
		So albedo of the ice is very high, it reflects a lot.
		And when ice, for example, melts during summer period of time, what's happening is basically what is underneath ice becoming exposed to the atmosphere.
		And that is usually black color.
		So albedo is increasing.
		So if you can find solutions which allow ice to melt a little bit for the shorter period of time in the Arctic, that's...
		Also, very effective way.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And you mentioned painting the roads white?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		What's wrong about it?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I never thought of that.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Or painting the roofs.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		When it's very hot, what you do on the street, you're trying to wear white.
unidentified		Of course.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		When it's very cold, you're trying to wear black.
		Why?
		Because black makes you warmer.
		White reflects sun.
		Same goes about any other things.
		But the amazing thing is that it's very simple, very cheap.
		And basically, numbers which can be achieved by this are comparable to what we are doing now with anthropogenic emissions.
		Like I said, to offset emissions by the typical gas power plant, you need 15,000 hectares.
		Maybe 10,000 hectares will do.
		So one versus another.
		So what I'm trying to say is that there are holes, there is a problem, a change of the temperature.
		There is a desire to do it.
		So, there is a very strange way how we deal with this today.
		We found someone whom to blame, humans in this case, and trying to reduce what humans do.
		But there are a number of other options.
		What is the good news?
		You can do something with Albedo and you can do something with a number of natural-based solutions.
		And from my understanding, we don't have other ways forward.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you're a private sector businessman.
		I'm around politicians a lot.
		So it's obvious to me why we're pursuing the less effective way, which is that it gives political leaders more control over their populations.
		If I paint every house roof white, or if I plant cotton rather than some other crop, it doesn't give me any more power.
		But if I control what kind of appliances people...
		Or if I close down coal plants and replace them with ineffective means of electricity generation, then I'm more powerful.
		Isn't that the answer to the question?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That's partially an answer.
		In reality, I think if you go back a little bit to the history, how happened that suddenly humanity started to concentrate on this climate change story.
		Actually, it started, I would say, End of the 80s.
		So it started maybe from the speech of the Prime Minister of England, Margaret Thatcher, which was delivered in 1989 in the United Nations.
		So what was the moment at that time?
		Basically, it was a moment when the world seems to move away from the previous big danger, from the nuclear war.
		So that was a moment of...
		It's a kind of reorganization of the world.
		And that was exactly the idea of her speech.
		So she said that, okay, now when one problem passes, we have the ability to concentrate on another, on dealing with climate change.
		It's always good to have something that you're fighting against.
		Don't you think so?
		Yes.
		So that was the beginning of the story.
		After that, three years after that, in Rio de Janeiro, a convention was signed.
		In the day of the Earth, a convention was signed.
		A convention which started to put in place a formal mechanism of combating There are many strategies which can be applied in order to move forward with this task.
		But at this moment, a particular strategy was chosen.
		A strategy which was concentrating on killing fossil fuels or reducing dependence from the fossil fuels in different industrial processes.
		So that was a moment when it happened.
		So the question is, why it happened at that time exactly?
		In this way.
		I think it's happened because at this moment of time, international institutions which were concerned with this issue, United Nations and others, were basically dominated exclusively by the Western influence at this moment of time.
		They were basically because it was not other powers in the world at this moment of time.
		As some people call it, it was the end of the history moment.
		So it was one power and all institutions in one way or another basically moved towards goals more beneficial for this power at this moment of time.
		So why Western countries took away combatting climate change through this specific mechanism?
		So, the combating of the dependency on the fossil fuels or the dependency of the industrial processes from the fossil fuels.
		Very simple, because it was two benefits.
		Benefit number one, to reduce dependence of energy imported from the faraway places.
		Energy security.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's a good reason.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's a pretty good reason.
		And the second reason was that new technological New technologies which are needed in order to produce energy, not from the fossil fuels, but, let's say, from renewable and other sources, or new industrial processes which need to be developed to do other jobs without using fossil fuels.
		Basically, the idea was that countries who will start to do it first will get a technological advantage and will create not only Something good for their own economy, but later we'll be able to provide the same solution to other countries and maintain technological leadership.
		So that was a logic.
		So why basically directions move towards this?
		Think about it.
		If you're talking about planting of the trees, it's nice, but where to plant it?
		In Russia, in Brazil, somewhere in Africa?
		So definitely not in Europe, because not so much space.
		Available, which basically not used for other purposes, for agriculture or other productive purposes.
		So that's why the idea moved towards this direction.
		Also, it was more easier to, let's say, to sell to the voters because investments done at your home, working places created at your home, but at the same time, you're kind of fighting a global problem.
		In this situation, climate change is a very specific story.
		Because we have one atmosphere for all the planet, it's very unusual compared with other problems.
		If you want to give people access to the water, you need to do something where these people live.
		If you want to do something with climate change, you can do investment in your own territory, benefiting your industry and your taxpayers, but still fighting global good.
		So this is kind of asymmetry.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's the idea, and that's how it's been sold.
		But in effect, you know, Climate policy has reduced the standard of living of people in the United States and Europe.
		It's made energy more expensive, it's made them poorer.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Actually, what happened, happened exactly what it should happen.
		So, by applying something that is relatively expensive, slowly, slowly, local industries start to be not very competitive.
		Like a result, vacant places and production start to...
		Shift away to the countries where it's more competitive to do.
		So, like result, that is what really happened.
		So, who is leader today in terms of the solar panels, in the wind, basically?
		Of course, China, electric cars.
		So, that's what happened.
		So, basically, Western countries started trend with decarbonization, trying to achieve one result, but in reality, another result was achieved during the same period of time.
		What Western countries do today?
		First of all, I'll tell about Europe because they're in forefront of all of these processes.
		So, okay, domestic industry becomes not competitive.
		So what do you do?
		So firstly, you try to subsidize them using basically different budget money.
		Okay, but then your competitors are starting to do the same.
		I'm talking about China or other countries or United States.
		Like the famous inflation reduction act of President Biden, which is bringing a lot of money to subsidize renewable energy.
		So we start competition of this.
		Okay, one story.
		But poor countries cannot compete.
		They don't have money for this.
		Second, what Europeans are doing and what will happen in other countries as well.
		You start to create a barrier for the goods which is produced in other parts of the world, but which should enter your territory.
		Meaning, if carbon reduction in your domestic place costs, I don't know what it costs today, maybe 80 euros, and if some producer produces goods in another place of the world where carbon reduction costs zero, so his products, when they're coming to Europe, he will need to pay duty.
		It's the so-called CAPM mechanism.
		They will need to pay duties to compensate the difference with the cost with European producers.
		In other words, The story is pushed for other countries to follow the same agenda.
		So that's basically where we are.
		Step number one, it was logical to choose from the perspective of the Western countries to choose the scores on a certain moment of time.
		So number two, it did not brought them too many good because basically simply they start to kill the industries which start to move to another place.
		Now they're starting to do Step number three, trying to be protective, to create certain type of trade barriers based on the different carbon prices.
		So that's where we are going.
		Everything is nice, only it has nothing to do with the climate.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, if you're focusing on reducing the activity that produces only 6% of greenhouse gases, then, I mean, you're probably not going to have a big effect on global climate, right?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		No.
		What we know is that whatever we do, Temperature keeps rising.
		Concentration of greenhouse gases and atmosphere keeps rising.
		But at the same time, when we read numbers of the resources allocated towards the fight with human pollutions, what we see today, numbers are about $5 trillion annually.
		In order for the world to be on the trajectory till 2030, where we are trying to be, it requires about $5 trillion to be spent annually for this.
		Roughly 5% of the whole GDP. It's comparable with the numbers which spend for all defense globally.
		It's about 3.5 trillions, for example.
		So, of course, these resources are not easily available.
		And especially, they're not easily available in countries which don't have...
		Financial means to attract this money from the market or don't have strong budgets or other possibilities.
		So, like result, what happened?
		Ability of the humanity to react on other important issues was greatly reduced.
		The United Nations counted 17 sustainability development goals, like fight poetry, access to electricity, etc.
		So climate, it's goal number 13 in this list.
		Really, number 13. But that's the goal.
		Allocate most of the resources.
		And that's the problem.
		So what I'm trying to say, maybe on a certain stage, it was a good idea that Western countries start to follow a particular way to combat climate.
		Who cares?
		If rich guys want to spend their money doing something good for the world in their own territories, you can only say thank you, nothing else.
		But now this story starts to affect others very much.
		More poor countries, countries who cannot really compete with the Western countries in this type of arrangement.
		And what it means?
		It means this policy is more or less clear now for everyone.
		It's not about climate anymore.
		It's about something else.
		It's about business.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Clearly, the concern, I think, just as an American, is that, you know, the country runs on electricity.
		On energy, and the alternatives to hydrocarbons don't seem like they work very well.
		I mean, you're in business, you use a lot of energy in your business.
		Could you run the United States on renewables?
		Will that be possible anytime in the next hundred years?
		What would happen if you tried to run the United States on wind and solar?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I mean, price of energy will be higher.
		That's what will happen.
		Price of energy will be higher.
		It will be much higher than we do have now.
		So, is it good or not?
		It very much depends on what will happen in other countries.
		Because by itself, it's important if the American industry will be competitive with these prices.
		Because if it's competitive with these prices, the market will adjust itself, and at the end of the day, it will be good for American people rather than bad.
		But I don't think other countries will follow this agenda.
		Agenda where just All basically added profit in the supply chain staying in few particular places in the world.
		I think this type of world order is not sustainable and unlikely it will be possible to maintain it for a very long time.
		And also, don't forget one thing.
		So all of this is done in order to fight climate change.
		What I'm trying to say, all of these arrangements have nothing to do with fighting climate change.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I've noticed.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		They have something to do in order to justify certain type of trading policies or investment policies.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Can I ask you one last question about energy before I get into the solutions that you think would actually work?
		And that's AI. Server farms are a massive draw of energy, and AI seems to, as projected, be one of the biggest consumers of electricity in the United States.
		So, I mean, doesn't that kind of make the transition away from hydrocarbons impossible?
		How could you power all that?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Everything possible if you have money.
		Is it reasonable to do everything that's possible?
		Usually in life it's not.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Good point.
		I noticed that AI seems to be exempt from climate concerns.
		Like your car is bad, but server farms are not bad.
		What did you mean when you said specifically permafrost?
		If you wanted to reduce greenhouse gases, you would deal with permafrost.
		What would you do?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		What is permafrost?
		So, beneath the permafrost usually there are organic matters.
		So, meaning some time ago it was forestry, it was, I don't know, meadows, it was something else.
		And then the glacier came, cover, but what was there before remains under.
		So, what's happening when permafrost is melting?
		And it's melting now.
		By the way, I should say that the average temperature of our planet increases about 1.5 degrees.
		That's more or less a number.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Over what period?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I mean, compare with the pre-industrial level, how to say.
		But that's not distributed equally.
		So in the Arctic, it's warming much faster.
		So the temperature in the Arctic increases maybe 4-5 degrees on average.
		So, like the result, ice is melting.
		Permafrost is melting.
		It means during summer period of time exist longer periods of time when what sits beneath permafrost, organic matter, meets the atmosphere.
		So what happened during this period of time?
		It's the same as what happened with your apple when you eat part of it and left it on the table.
		It's getting rusted, how to say it, yeah?
		So basically microbes start to work with this organic matter and like result...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It starts to rot.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		So it's basically either CO2 or if it's very wet, then it will be NH4, methane.
		So that is what's happening.
		So what I'm saying is that more exposure for organic matter, which is underneath permafrost, longer this exposure with the atmosphere, more emissions coming out of that.
		So, that is what's happening now.
		So, what are the numbers?
		Actually, it's strange, but numbers are not well known now.
		Not so good research exists in this area.
		It's accelerating now, but for now, we don't have reliable numbers.
		There are a number of publications, but differences in measurements are very big.
		But mostly, estimation will be about 7-8 gigatons of emissions in the, let's say, 10 period of time.
		So, numbers are like this.
		It's slightly bigger than the United States' anthropogenic emissions.
		So, basically, it's a significant number which is coming from there.
		So, when we talk about natural-based solutions on the permafrost, if I understood the question correctly, the idea is very simple.
		So, how you can reduce time which organic matter exposed to the atmosphere?
		How you reduce this time?
		Basically, you need to keep the surface cooler.
		For a little bit longer period of time.
		That's what you need.
		And there are a number of techniques how you do it.
		There are techniques where you basically apply some things on top of the ice, and it melts much slower than it will melt otherwise.
		There are things which include natural solutions.
		For example, you can put animals in a certain area, and when animals are walking in this area, they are pressuring snow.
		And what means pressure of the snow?
		So if snow is, let's say, 3 meters, then on top of the snow, you will have temperature maybe minus 40 degrees, but beneath, you will have, I don't know, minus 5. It's kind of a blanket.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		But if you pressure it, then basically temperature beneath the snow will be much less.
		Like you're walking on your, I don't know, country house on the, let's say, on some walk.
		And you will see that snow there will melt much later than will be snow somewhere else.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Exactly, right.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		In fact, you can see the footsteps.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		The ice footsteps, yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So, like result, temperature beneath the snow, which was pressed by the animals, will be lower, and like result, exposure of the surface to the atmosphere during summertime will be shorter.
		So, no, that's another possible technique.
		So, in reality, these techniques align to mitigate quite a lot in terms of the emissions.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What kind of animals?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I mean, what kind of animals love to live in this kind of environment?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Reindeer?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		For example.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So, many solutions.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Is anyone trying that?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Yes, people trying.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		People trying.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And is there any way to know whether it works?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It definitely works, but again, so...
		Natural-based solution, it's an area where there are very many problems with accounting, with correct measurements and everything.
		So, the problem is that we don't have a system which allows us to objectively control the flow of the greenhouse gases to the atmosphere or absorption them from the atmosphere.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Where is the world's permafrost?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		65% of Russia's territory is permafrost.
		Alaska, it's permafrost.
		Yukon, a big part of Canada, permafrost.
		And a little bit in Scandinavian countries.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Those are the four?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Big four.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Big four.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But 65%?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		65% of the Russian national territory, it's permafrost.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Are the Russians trying this?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Trying to do it?
		No.
		Why?
		Today, basically, why you will do something what doesn't make sense for you.
		Okay, stepping backwards.
		If warming of the planet is good or bad for Russia, honestly speaking, it's rather good than bad for a number of reasons.
		Of course, some areas will experience maybe more complicated conditions for agriculture and everything.
		But on average, our agriculture production will move more north, which will allow to grow more rather than less.
		Because we are a northern country, so we spend a lot of energy to allow people to live in this condition.
		So when the temperature is going up, again, you spend less.
		So what I'm trying to say, economically, the increase of the temperature is actually good in Russia if you take it in combination of the factors.
		So why somebody will do something in case it's good for him to do nothing?
		That's one question.
		No, it's possible.
		But then it should be some market for this.
		So for Russia, it's good.
		But for somebody, it's bad.
		Perhaps some arrangement can be done when somebody paying for the basically decrease of certain emissions and use it against their country obligation or something like this.
		What I'm trying to say.
		So market is needed.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Who makes these decisions?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		United Nations border.
		Exists the so-called Paris Agreement and exists a certain bureaucracy.
		There are certain bureaucracies that work as part of the secretariat of this agreement.
		Today, that's how it's organized.
		Today, countries are concentrated on the reduction of anthropogenic emissions.
		But it's perfectly feasible, without changing anything in the Paris Agreement, to organize two things which are needed.
		Firstly, to go to the other solution.
		Natural-based solution with emission and actually to include all better effects also in the consideration, like another possible option to affect temperature on the planet.
		So that can be perfectly done, like part of the Paris Agreement.
		Step number one.
		And step number two, we need a global market for the carbon.
		So when basically, because only global market can distribute resources in the best possible way.
		For the unit of economic resource, you can get more value.
		In this case, value is how many emissions you can cut.
		So we need two things.
		One, technological neutrality, to don't concentrate on the human guilt, but try to do all what works, regardless how you've done it, on nature or with humans.
		And second, what you need to do, you need to do a world market.
		Paris Agreement envisioned the world market.
		It exists Article 6.2, 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, but these articles are blocked today and they're not operational.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		If you were to say to a leading spokesman for the climate change agenda 2024, whether it was John Kerry or Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, actually what we need to do is put more reindeer on the permafrost, paint the roofs white, and plant more forests.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How do you think they would respond?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Firstly, I'm not saying we need to do this or this.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think we need to do whatever.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Whatever.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So market should decide.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But if you were to make the case you just made on the basis of what emissions actually are and what might...
		I mean, is there a market for these ideas?
		I guess that's what I'm asking.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		How I said Paris Agreement, it's a creation of the certain historical period.
		So, it was sold to many countries at this time.
		It was very strongly supported by developing countries at this time.
		Why, for example?
		Because developing countries didn't have an obligation to cut their emissions by part of this.
		But they expected to receive a lot of support in order to follow the agenda, which they didn't realize at the end.
		So, actually, it's realized, but in a way that now you can take money for something green.
		But you cannot take money for hospitals, water, or other things which are important for you because it's the same money.
		So, what I'm trying to say.
		So, basically, movement in any case will move towards the direction where anthropogenic emissions will not be enough.
		So, that is happening in any case.
		Firstly, because fighting just anthropogenic emissions would not bring us where we want it to be.
		And second, because this course creates so many uncertainties and disproportions in the world that one by one by one by one, different players will find that it doesn't make sense for them to be part of this agreement.
		That's what will happen.
		That's why, what to say here?
		So, if time is coming that this question should be addressed seriously, I mean, the question of the fighting temperature of the surface.
		Not a question of fighting, of killing the economic activity of the guilty humans.
		So if the question is really starting to be addressed seriously, then it takes, of course, a strong leader, just to say it.
		This leader, it's a question when it will come, but I'm pretty sure it will happen.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But right now, I mean, there's no lawmaking, regulatory, political body rational enough to say what you just said, is there?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Today, this Paris Agreement process basically run by the bureaucracy.
		How it works, for example.
		I told you that Article 6.2 and Article 6.4 is blocked.
		That's a good example.
		So, by whom they block?
		By Europeans.
		By European Union.
		So, I explain why.
		It's pretty simple.
		So, price in Europe today...
		It's about €80 per ton of CO2 reduction.
		So let's imagine we have a global market where basically you don't need to reduce emissions just on the European territory.
		But when a European company can basically buy a reduction which happens in the places where it's cheaper to do.
		Let's imagine we're in this market.
		What will be the price of such a global market?
		I would say $30 will be my estimation.
		So it will be much less.
		What will happen with the countries which already exhaust the opportunity to cut emissions cheaply and brought the economy on the situation when price is 80 euros?
		Let's imagine price tomorrow collapse from 80 euros to 30 dollars.
		What will happen then?
		Oh, crisis will happen.
		Huge financial crisis will happen.
		Because who basically took risks that certain investment will be paid back?
		Banks or governments?
		So if price is going down, So basically, many renewable sources becoming not competitive compared with fossil fuel sources, because this price of $30 moving prices down.
		What is the result?
		Big, big financial crisis.
		So that's why, from one side, we are talking about how nice climate, and from another side, we are blocking the best possible mechanism to do it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Because they bet too much on this.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		The United States is not in this situation.
		The United States did not have done this bad because it's a more rationally run system.
		The United States, today, basically, what it does is subsidizing many producers, like part of the Inflation Reduction Act, subsidizing producers, giving money from the federal budget towards companies which are cutting their emissions.
		Very big money, by the way.
		$100 sometimes per ton of CO2, $80, $110 for certain applications.
		So why do you need to spend federal money on something which is like $100 if you can purchase the same for about $10 somewhere else?
		Where?
		For example, in an African country.
		Why you're not purchasing something where you can purchase for $10 and give jobs and something to the African country?
		But at the same time, why are you sending grant money there, or basically help there?
		Does it make any sense?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think you said at the outset that you think a lot of this is a religious impulse, or it follows a religious template, where you identify the sin, you find the sinner, you force the sinner to repent, and then you get to paradise.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think Western countries, which are not religious, Have chosen that rather than a scientific approach to a scientific problem?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I mean, firstly, climate was not the major issue.
		Climate was a nice slogan to resolve other issues.
		Like, for example, issue of energy security or issue of finding new engine for economic growth.
		So that was logic number one.
		Now, you're asking a question from...
		Other area, cultural question.
		So how happened, basically, that society become so much involved in the process of punishing humans in this process?
		I don't know.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But what's interesting is, I personally think energy security is a valuable goal.
		It's important.
		But the United States achieved...
		So after 9-11, you heard people say, well...
		These countries are crazy.
		We can't rely on them.
		They're driving our foreign policy.
		We're getting all these wars because we need their energy.
		And then the fracking revolution happened in the United States and we were energy secure with gas.
		We have more gas than we could.
		We flare it still.
		So why didn't we just declare victory at that point?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		That's exactly my hope.
		Because there is only one country in the world who can actually change all of this paradigm in the climate agenda.
		It requires strong leadership, and I see only one country in reality who can really do it, and that's the United States.
		And why this reason can be?
		Because exactly what you said.
		So other considerations like energy security, etc.
		are basically not a problem for the United States anymore.
		So because it's not a problem, it's not objective reasons to basically go against this trend.
		You remember, President Trump went out of the Paris Agreement when he became a president.
		He suspected that the Paris Agreement, it's not exactly about climate.
		He suspected that it's kind of the instrument to redistribute works, working places, or investment between different parts of the world, and perhaps not for the benefit for the American citizens.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Perhaps.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		So, time show.
		That basically his suspicions were very correct.
		We've spoken some minutes ago about the achievement of China in terms of the electric cars, wind turbines or solar panels.
		So basically, yes, that was like this.
		So after that...
		When President Biden came back to the White House, he reversed the decision of President Trump.
		And the idea was, of course, because it was a noble goal, still climate crisis needs to be addressed somehow.
		So that was basically a decision from another side.
		So that's where we are.
		To be honest, I don't see why something cannot be done.
		Which achieve both results at the same time, which keep the United States very much engaged in the process of the global climate agenda from one side, being the leader of the Paris Agreement or any other agreement which may come in its place.
		But at the same time, to propose solutions which are basically beneficial for the whole system and specifically for the United States.
		Because now in the United States it's not dependent anymore from the import of energy as such.
		I mean, it's a little bit exported, a little bit imported, but the total balance is good in the United States.
		So it will be economically much better, from my understanding, for American economy like its whole, to move to the direction where it's not a market which is closed in terms of the carbon market.
		But open market, where basically American companies can do what they do and find a way how to deal with the emission in the best economically possible way.
		Either decrease it domestically or go and purchase offsets produced in some other places.
		So do what American business always know to do the best.
		Adapt and see better opportunities.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But I think, I guess I agree with everything you're saying, except I think that this is what we're watching is less rational than you assume.
		I think if you said to people, what we're going to do is increase the number of trees and big mammals, which seems to me inherently good, they would say that's not enough punishment for people.
		They're not suffering enough for their sins.
		I do think that would be the reaction in the West.
		Well, what good is that?
		It doesn't hurt us enough.
		Do you sense that?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		What I can say.
		That requires strong leaders to basically move people towards solution rather than towards looking who is guilty.
		That's required not only in the climate.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why are there no strong leaders in the West anymore?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Because people follow public opinion.
		They follow what public wants.
		So they adapt what public wants.
		Strong leader.
		Should translate some new senses.
		Should translate innovation.
		That's what leader means.
		Give new senses and then make the people understand you.
		And like this, you move forward.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Bring the people with you.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Don't follow the people.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But the West has had leaders like that through history.
		It has none now.
		Not one that I can see.
		It's strange when the entire West, every leader of every country, is weak.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It will happen.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It always does.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What's China's actual thinking on climate?
		So Trump made the case that China is playing us.
		They're benefiting from this.
		They don't care about the climate, global temperatures.
		They care about industrial capacity.
		They care about their economy.
		And they're using the Paris Accords to help their economy.
		What is their thinking on climate, do you think?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think they behave like a responsible global power.
		And today, actually, China is in more or less the same situation where Europe was some time ago.
		Basically, energy security is also a big issue for China because a lot of energy is imported and also domestic production of energy is mostly coal in China.
		And what's happening with coal production?
		Depths of the shafts and everything increasing because most profitable reserves are getting exhausted.
		That's why energy security is getting...
		That's an issue for China.
		So that's why for them to build more and more renewables, it makes perfect sense from their perspective, because they deal with two problems, not only with the climate.
		And that's perfectly competitive, how to say, it's perfectly aligned with what Western countries do today.
		So for them, renewables, it's needed.
		For them, energy transition, it's needed, because firstly, they need it for their energy security.
		And second, They're really able to create new industries in a very fast and very organized manner, because their system allows to concentrate resources on strategic goals maybe faster than normal market economy would do.
		So they can establish a group of the industries, call them champions, support these industries by all government means, and perhaps these industries...
		Can take a global leading position much faster.
		That is what's happening in China.
		So, yes, the insight of this paradigm of the fighting of the fossil fuels, yes, they have their reason why it works for them.
		But at the same time, China also doing a lot.
		Today, it's the biggest, actually, contributor to natural-based projects.
		However, they plant most of the trees than other countries did in order to offset emissions.
		The Chinese company looking on the other markets in order to do projects, they offset their home emissions.
		So I think they're doing pretty well, pretty logical.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Does coal have a future?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Will people be burning coal in 50 years?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		I think so.
		I think so.
		Because again, it's nothing bad to use any fossil fuels, especially if you can offset emissions out of it.
		I would say that emissions from the coal...
		Again, maybe I even need to step back one step before.
		So, people sometimes mix between ecology and climate.
		So, ecology is something that pollutes.
		It's, I don't know, dirty rivers, some particulates, something of this.
		Can modern coal power plants deal with these questions?
		Yes.
		Modern coal power plants don't produce black smoke.
		And they don't destroy nature like previous generation of coal power plants used to do before.
		So, answering these questions, yes, ecology can be basically resolved.
		Question number one.
		Another question, it's emissions.
		So, let's imagine.
		The global price is $20.
		In this case, coal will fly forever.
		If the global price will be, I don't know, $30, $40, That will create a little bit different scenario.
		So, in reality, it's nothing wrong to emit when you produce something, be it from the natural gas or from the coal or whatever.
		As long as you can offset.
		And if price of offset is low, it gives particular types of fossil fuels a longer future, then it will be a different scenario.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What about natural gas?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the emissions from natural gas are much lower, correct?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Also.
		It's not black and white.
		So, natural gas is NH4. It's methane.
		So, methane and CO2 are two different greenhouse gases.
		So, the question is, how do you compare, let's say, harm caused by one greenhouse gas versus harm caused by another greenhouse gas?
		It sounds like a simple question, but actually it's not.
		Why?
		Because the molecule of CO2, when it sits in the atmosphere for half a lifetime, It will be much longer than half-life time of the molecule of methane.
		So, what it means?
		It means you have 100 molecules of methane in the atmosphere.
		Seven years after, it will be 50 molecules remain in the atmosphere.
		With the coal, basically, it will take, let's say, 100 years before half-life will be achieved, something about 100 years.
		That's why you don't have a clear answer on how harmful it's one molecule versus another molecule.
		So, how you can answer now on this question?
		So, if you take a period of time, let's say 100 years, today's number is 32. It means one molecule of methane is more harmful in terms of global warming than one molecule of CO2, 32 times.
		But it's on the period of time, 100 years.
		But if you take not 100 years, but 30 years, numbers will be very different.
		The number is 83. So, during this period of time, a molecule of methane...
		More harmful than the molecule of CO2 on another number.
		You understand the logic?
unidentified		Yes.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Because half-life is very different.
		That's why, if basically you use a ratio of 32 on the 100 years' time, and if your goal is to equalize two harms on the 100 years' term, then most of the basically power plants which are running on the gas will be better than power plants running on coal.
		Coal will die.
		But if you're trying to orient basically on the shorter period of time, like 30 years, for example, that is something that's interesting to you.
		Opposite will be the truth.
		That's why it's not so simple question.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, given how hard it is to measure even something that straightforward, it seems straightforward, how do we know what global temperatures are doing?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Approximately.
		Approximately.
		So basically, this measure is pretty good right now.
		So that you can do.
		You have satellites, you have a certain network of things in the oceans.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Is sea level rising?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Apparently so.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's what?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Looks like.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Looks like.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		In some places rising, in some places getting probably a little bit less.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		But on average, in the planet, definitely rising.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You hear that this is going to unleash a series of catastrophes on humanity.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Do you believe that?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		There are certain reverse loops, and we don't understand how exactly they will work.
		So, when surface of the planet is heating, for example, ice is melting.
		When ice is melting, more emissions coming underneath of this ice if it's permafrost.
		Or, for example, more water vapor coming in case if it was Ice on top of the ocean.
		That increases the effect of the heating once again, because all of these gases are coming to the atmosphere.
		So, certain loops exist.
		Exist other loops in the climate system.
		So, where is the big danger?
		The danger is we don't really know.
		The system is so complicated, the total balance in the atmosphere is so complicated that we don't really know what can be...
		What they call tipping point, the moment when the system will start to behave abnormally, when the number of events, not good events, will start to increase faster than it's doing now.
		So we don't know it for sure.
		We don't know it for sure.
		So again, there are people who believe and there are people who learn.
		So, of course, the more complex question you go, the amount of believers becoming...
		Much bigger than the amount of the learners.
		Can I ask you a question?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Why not just admit that?
		Why don't leaders just say there are some things we don't understand?
		They're very complex and there are too many variables and we don't really know where this is going, but we're concerned.
		Why not just be straightforward with the global population rather than predicting in a way that's impossible to really know what's going to happen?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Simplicity.
		People learn to do very simple messages.
		And to admit that you don't know something does not sound like a very strong message, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but don't you discredit yourself?
		It's hard to believe you when you lie a lot.
		And it does have a counterproductive effect.
		I mean, if they're telling me that the Maldives won't exist, you know what I mean?
		But they still exist.
		I just don't believe you after a while.
		Don't they destroy their credibility talking like that?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Apparently not.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		You see, the world is still working and people still think that basically what they heard, it makes perfect sense.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So last question, which I really don't understand, but climate protesters in Europe have been destroying Renaissance paintings, no modern art, but all Christian art, in the name of ending climate change.
		How do you get from a concern about global temperatures to destroying art?
		What is that?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		It's a way to express yourself.
		Why certain people, in a certain moment of change, choose to express themselves in this way?
		How do I know?
		That's a realm of another science.
		I'm not a specialist in psychiatry or other types of things.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But you'll admit there's something very deep going on here.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		When there are too many changes happening in a very short period of time, it's increased.
		Basically, stress in the humans.
		When stress in the humans increase, the stress going to very different manifestations.
		So, maybe it's not so bad that global warming chosen like big enemy, which we need to fight.
		Just a little bit change the angle.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Are we beginning a change period, or are we in the middle of it, or are we coming to the end of a change period, globally?
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		We are starting.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		We're starting.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		We are starting.
andrey melnichenko ▲ ● ▼		Most dangerous time ahead.

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