Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech to the Russian people

Arnold Schwarzenegger became known with films like “Conan the Barbarian” or “Terminator”. His acting career is characterized by roles in which he, as a taciturn muscleman, sees violence as a legitimate means of achieving his own goals.

The private person and politician Schwarzenegger, who has now turned to “my Russian friends” in a ten-minute video message to tell them “the truth”, sees it differently. There are terrible things that you are trying to hide from them and that they need to know about. The video with Russian subtitles – in the text also by theatlantic.com reprinted – had been distributed via social networks and had already been clicked on more than a million times by Friday morning.

In his video, Austrian-born Schwarzenegger combines his own life story with descriptions of the war in Ukraine and appeals to the Russians and their President Vladimir Putin.

Nothing but “affection and respect for the Russian people”

In 1964, at the age of 14, he was allowed to shake hands with Yuri Petrovich Vlasov, who was starting for the USSR, at the World Weightlifting Championships in Vienna, according to Schwarzenegger. Born in Makeyevka, Ukraine, Vlasov won gold for the Soviet Union at the time. He hung a picture of Vlasov over his bed, he continues, which his father did not approve of because he was wounded in Leningrad during World War II. Schwarzenegger specifically says that his father was part of the “Nazi Army” that committed terrible acts against Leningrad and its “brave citizens”. Later, when he was filming “Red Heat” in Moscow – the first American filming ever allowed on Red Square in Moscow – he met Yuri again.

He mentions this because he has had nothing but affection and respect for the Russian people since he was 14 years old. His strength has always inspired him, so he hopes they will listen to him now, even though no one likes criticism of their own government. “I understand that.”

Such sentences may sound pathetic and pandering to some ears. On the other hand, a bodybuilder and action hero like Schwarzenegger has admiration for an exceptional Soviet athlete, and as an American politician he is no stranger to a certain pathos in his rhetoric.

Schwarzenegger takes up the “denazification of Ukraine” cited by the Kremlin as a reason for the invasion. The Ukrainian President Selensky is Jewish, his grandfather fought against the Hitler army. The former governor of California describes the situation in Ukraine, speaks of flight and war crimes and refers to Moscow’s international isolation: “Russia is now alone in the world community because of its brutality.”

He also talks about the Russian soldiers in Ukraine, thousands of whom have already died and many of whom have simply been lied to about their role in this war.

“When I see babies being pulled from rubble, I feel like I’m watching a documentary about the horrors of World War II, not today’s news.” At this point, Schwarzenegger goes back to his biography and his father’s experiences. After his experiences as a soldier in Leningrad, he spent his life in pain: not only physically because of the injuries he suffered, but also because of the guilt he felt.

It is not possible to judge from the outside how much Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father Gustav, who after all SA man and NSDAP member, felt remorse and guilt. In earlier interviews, Schwarzenegger had said about his father’s SA past: “That’s irrelevant because I don’t know anything about his past, and he never explained anything to us.” He also repeatedly emphasized that his views were contrary to those of his father, which at least indicates that he did not completely distance himself from his past. Arnold did not appear at his funeral in 1972, the media reported.

“With every bullet you shoot, you shoot a brother or sister”

The reference to the guilt-plagued father is primarily to be understood as a rhetorical trick: he doesn’t want the Russian soldiers to become broken people like his father was. The war in Ukraine is not a defensive war like the one “your grandfathers and great-grandfathers” waged. “This is an illegal war.” The Russian soldiers would be sacrificed for a senseless war condemned by the whole world. He points to the family ties between Russians and Ukrainians: “With every bullet you fire, you shoot a brother or sister.”

Schwarzenegger also opens up a way out rhetorically. “I don’t think the Russian people are aware of what’s happening in Ukraine.” So he makes no accusations, does not accuse the people of approving the war and standing loyally behind Putin. ignorance as an excuse. Everyone can still distance themselves: He pleads with the Russian people and soldiers to be aware of the propaganda and disinformation to which they are exposed. And further: “I ask you to help me spread the truth so that your Russian compatriots learn about the humanitarian catastrophe.”

With this sentence, those addressed are offered the opportunity to help a well-known actor and action hero in his mission. However, it is questionable whether people who largely live in their own “truth” suddenly trust Schwarzenegger more than their own media and their president – ​​who in the past had presented himself as a shirtless action hero in a martial pose. Maybe Schwarzenegger just grossly overestimates his influence.

Tesla founder Elon Musk already believed that he could influence Putin by calling on him to fight man against man via Twitter. Although one would probably calculate Schwarzenegger’s chances at this point.

But bodybuilder Schwarzenegger only addressed a few sentences directly to Putin: “You started this war. You are fighting this war. You can stop this war now.” He ends his speech with an address to all Russians who protest against the war and are beaten and imprisoned for it: “You are my new heroes. You have the strength of Yuri Petrovich Vlasov. You are the true heart of Russia.”

It is not Schwarzenegger’s first speech of this kind

It is not the first time that Schwarzenegger has addressed the public with videos and in the pose of the rescuer. After the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he addressed his “compatriots and friends all over the world” in a similar manner. As urgently as he warned in the case of the Ukraine video against the infamous Russian claim that Nazis were in government in Kyiv, he drew parallels between January 6, 2021 and the Reichspogromnacht in 1938 just as insensitively.

At the time, he also used set pieces about his father and his generation, which was broken “by the physical pain from the bullets in their bodies and the emotional pain because of what they saw or did”. And in this video, too, Schwarzenegger offered himself as the savior of democracy, which the “good guys” can still join.