Ian Proud

So I would submit you get a rather biased picture comes out in the national media.

And then if you look at the question of diplomatic engagement, which after all is what you are meant to do with potential adversaries, We may have discussed before, Ian Proud was a diplomat.

He was a commercial counselor in Moscow between 2014 and 2019.

And he's written a book entitled A Misfit in Moscow.

I actually, before we get into sort of the wider picture, because it really plays very well into the wider picture, your personal experience.

You were a British diplomat, and...

Apparently, you made the great crime of traveling to a summit as a retired diplomat at Valdai this year, October 2nd, and you were detained at Heathrow Airport.

Can you tell us about what that was about? What happened?

So, Brendan, thanks for the question.

I mean, I left Russia at the end of my diplomatic posting in Russia.

february 2019 and i hadn't been back since one of the reasons was that in after the war started in 2022 i authorized about half of all the uk sanctions against russia so there's that reason big reason but when i left the diplomatic service in 2023 i started to express my concerns about you know the the direction of western policy essentially that that it just wasn't working There's no way that Ukraine could win the war.

We should seek a diplomatic solution.

And it's trying to rile up the population for war.

I guess you were not surprised when our friend and colleague Ian Proud, a former British diplomat assigned to Moscow, he was with you at the Valdai Discussion Club, and then he returned to Great Britain and he was arrested and detained for three hours and his mobile devices were seized.

I guess this didn't surprise you as repellent as it is.

No, I think, well, I talked to him there and he said there was something that could be expected.

Indeed, I know that he's not the only one.

Most British will face this threat if they will go to a conference that's not approved by the government.

But of course, the fact that they went after Ian Proud, I find quite remarkable.

Again, he worked as the economic counselor at the British Embassy, I think between 2014 and 2019.

I think because we actually still have, uh, at least some genuine freedom of speech here.

I, I complain about a lot of it that goes on, but I mean, you see there's people in, in UK, many of whom we have on our show here, who are, do have integrity and are telling the truth, like Ian Proud.

Ian Punnett has been on our show a lot of times.

He takes some heat for that.

It's interesting.

First, there was the Ian Proud case that I covered previously, the British diplomat who was stopped and questioned after he came back from attending the Valdai conference.

Now we have Leonid Rogozin.

A Russian journalist who left Russia, has been living in Latvia, very critical of Putin and indeed of the war, but also very critical of a lot of Western policy towards it, as I would suggest is his right.

All right, you guys.

Introducing Ian Proud, the peacemonger, and, um, this is his Substack, The Peacemonger.

And look at this, detained at Heathrow.

Unintimidated.