He could be just another Moscow commuter driving home from the office. Except that’s President Vladimir Putin behind the wheel as filmmaker Oliver Stone quizzes him on the fugitive Edward Snowden in a scene from his new documentary on the Russian leader. 
 
 The unusually smooth car journey through Moscow’s normally traffic-clogged streets isn’t the only strange moment in The Putin Interviews, the Oscar-winning director’s four-part documentary. While Putin expounds on favorite subjects including U.S. geopolitical overreach, he’s also shown staring stone-faced at the classic Cold War doomsday satire Dr. Strangelove. He explained that he never has an off day as president because he’s a man. 
 
 Vladimir Putin works out. Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images 
 
 “I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days,” he tells Stone while giving a tour of the Kremlin’s gilded throne room. “I am not trying to insult anyone. That’s just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles.” 
 
 The director of JFK and Wall Street enjoyed extensive access to Putin for numerous meetings from July 2015 to February 2017, giving viewers a peek into the life of one of the world’s most powerful and secretive leaders. The first two hour-long episodes of the Showtime special that airs June 12-15, which were made available to Bloomberg before their release, offered little that’s new about the former KGB agent who’s ruled Russia for more than 17 years. 
 
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 The documentary follows on the heels of Putin’s interview in this week’s debut of NBC News’ “Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly,” as controversy swirls in the U.S. over alleged Kremlin meddling in the 2016 presidential elections and ties to President Donald Trump. Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump last month, is due to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday about investigations into the allegations. Trump has dismissed the claims as “fake news.” 
 
 Flexing Muscles 
 
 On the former National Security Agency contractor, Putin told Stone that “our first contact with Mr. Snowden was in China,” as he explained that Russia offered asylum because “we were told back then that this was a person who wanted to fight against violations of human rights.” 
 
 Elsewhere, Putin is shown indulging his now-familiar passion for playing ice hockey, and flexing his muscles on an exercise machine. He told Stone that he lifts weights and then swims every day. Putin’s also seen feeding carrots to a thoroughbred horse named after Dutch theoretical physicist Johannes Diderik van der Waals at his residence. 
 
 Throughout, the three-time Oscar-winner uses an interview style that allows the Russian leader to set the tone, while the documentary avoids fact-checking Putin’s remarks or interviewing opposition figures. 
 
 ‘Judo Master’ 
 
 At times, it’s the Kremlin leader that seems to be the voice of moderation. Stone, who’s previously made films lauding the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, asks, “is Wall Street actively working to destroy the Russian economy in the interests of the United States?” Putin demurs, saying only that the U.S. Administration views Russia as “a competitor.” 
 
 In the barest hint of criticism, Stone also asked Putin if a law passed in 2013 outlawing gay propaganda to minors meant homosexuals faced discrimination. “There are no restrictions whatsoever,” Putin said, contrasting Russia with some Islamic states where he said gays face the death penalty. 
 
 But asked if he’d take a shower in a submarine next to a gay man, the Russian leader replied, laughing: “Well, I prefer not to go to the shower with him. Why provoke him? But you know, I’m a judo master.” 
 
 While Dr. Strangelove apparently left him unmoved, Putin became more animated discussing what he sees as modern-day challenges to the nuclear theory of mutually assured destruction, particularly the U.S. program to develop a missile-defense shield. 
 
 “As of today a missile shield would not protect the territory of the United States,” he tells Stone after the director points out that it was U.S. Independence Day. “Nobody would survive” a war between nuclear superpowers, he said. ||||| When America sends its people to interview Vladimir Putin, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending an Anderson Cooper or a Christiane Amanpour, intrepid journalists well-versed in geopolitics and the art of the spiel. They’re sending people like Megyn Kelly, a race-baiter who rode the wave of one semi-challenging debate question all the way to a cushy gig at NBC News, or Oliver Stone, a revisionist history buff who’s spent the past few decades cozying up to dictators like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Putin. 
 
 Yes, in addition to qualifying Hitler and claiming the Jews run the media, Stone helmed the 2014 documentary Ukraine on Fire—a bizarre slice of Kremlin propaganda alleging that the CIA orchestrated the 2014 Ukrainian revolution (based on scant evidence), and featuring cameos from Viktor Yanukovych and Putin. If that weren’t enough, in September, the JFK filmmaker posited that the Democratic National Committee hack was an inside job and not, as 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded, the work of Russian agents. Stone’s The Putin Interviews, a new four-part series debuting on Showtime on June 12, should thus be viewed as nothing short of hero worship; the rough equivalent of a Twihard probing Robert Pattinson or Donald Trump interrogating a tacky gold chair. 
 
 The Putin Interviews, a documentary comprised of conversations with the Russian president that took place between July 2015 and February 2017, is clearly intended to humanize Putin and demonize America. In the first two parts provided to press, there are scenes of Putin feeding horses and strolling through lush gardens as string instruments sound; footage of the sexagenarian schooling men one-third of his age in hockey; and fawning Stone comments ranging from “You have a lot of discipline, Sir” to “You are a very lucky man” to “What do you bench?” OK, that last one I made up. 
 
 Stone not only fails to challenge Putin, but essentially cedes him the floor, allowing the cunning ex-KGB operative to spin more than the president’s toupee in a tornado. Putin denies Russia was the aggressor in virtually every global conflict, including the invasions of Georgia and Ukraine. He champions Russia’s economy over that of the U.S., despite his GDP being a little more than half that of California’s. He even blames the Cuban Missile Crisis on the U.S. 
 
 At one point Stone, in an apparent effort to name-drop one of his movies, asks Putin: “Is Wall Street actively working to destroy the Russian economy in the interests of the United States?” He shrugs it off. “Do you think the National Security Agency had gone too far in its eavesdropping?” Of course he does. 
 
 Some of the director’s lame questions bear fruit in spite of themselves. When Stone asks Putin, “Do you ever have a bad day?” during a tour of the throne room, the Russian strongman giddily answers, “I’m not a woman so I don’t have bad days.” He then doubles down on the misogyny, explaining that, “There are certain natural cycles which men probably have as well, just less manifested. We are all human beings. It’s normal. But you should never lose control.” 
 
 A conversation about whether gays can serve in the military in Russia leads to the Stone question: “If you’re taking a shower in a submarine with a man and you know he’s gay, do they have a problem with that?” 
 
 Putin’s answer is not only homophobic, but completely bonkers. “Well, I prefer not to go to shower with him,” exclaims a cackling Putin. “Why provoke him? But you know, I’m a judo master and a SAMBO master as well. And I can tell you this, that as head of state today, I believe it’s my duty to uphold traditional values and family values. But why? Because same-sex marriages will not produce any children. God has decided, and we have to care about birth rates in our country. We have to reinforce families. But that doesn’t mean that there should be any persecutions against anyone.” 
 
 The lion’s share of The Putin Interviews’ B-roll consists of news clips from RT, the propaganda arm of the Kremlin, and pro-Russia graphics. Putin admits to never having seen Dr. Strangelove, and, in the first two episodes’ most surreal sequence, the two sit down to watch Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire. “[Kubrick] foresaw some issues even from a technical point of view, things that make us think about real threats that exist,” Putin says in his mini-review. “The thing is that since that time, little has changed. The only difference is that the modern weapons systems have become more sophisticated, more complex. But this idea of a retaliatory weapon, and the inability to control such weapons systems, still hold true to this day. It has become even more difficult, even more dangerous.” 
 
 Stone and Putin chat in various locations throughout the doc, from the halls of the Kremlin to the great outdoors. In one exchange aboard Putin’s plane, he reveals his unvarnished thoughts on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 
 
 “There is no longer an Eastern Bloc, no more Soviet Union. Therefore, why does NATO keep existing? My impression is that in order to justify its existence, NATO has a need of an external foe, there is a constant search for the foe, or some acts of provocation to name someone as an adversary,” says Putin. 
 
 “Nowadays, NATO is a mere instrument of foreign policy of the U.S. It has no allies, it has only vassals. Once a country becomes a NATO member, it is hard to resist the pressures of the U.S.,” he continues. “And all of a sudden any weapon system can be placed in this country. An anti-ballistic missile system, new military bases, and if need be, new offensive systems. And what are we supposed to do? In this case we have to take countermeasures. We have to aim our missile systems at facilities that are threatening us. The situation becomes more tense. Why are we so acutely responding to the expansion of NATO? Well, as a matter of fact, we understand the value or lack thereof, and the threat of this organization. But what we’re concerned about is the following: We are concerned by the practice of how decisions are taken. I know how decisions are taken there.” 
 
 Huddled inside a car with Putin behind the wheel—in what is without question the worst episode of Carpool Karaoke ever—they discuss the plight of whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who was granted asylum in Russia after leaking top-secret government documents revealing a complex web of surveillance conducted by the U.S. against its allies and own citizens. Putin claims that the U.S. refused to agree to a deal years back that “stipulated for a mutual extradition of criminals,” and since “Snowden didn’t violate any [Russian] law,” and since “the U.S. has never extradited any criminals to us who have sought asylum there,” they refused to extradite Snowden back to America. 
 
 While he doesn’t agree with what Snowden did, Putin refers to him as “courageous” several times and asserts, “Snowden is not a traitor. He didn’t betray the interests of his country. Nor did he transfer any information to any other country which would have been pernicious to his own country or to his own people. The only thing Snowden does he does publicly.” 
 
 The 2016 U.S. presidential election is briefly mentioned during a February 2016 chat within the halls of the Kremlin, with Putin maintaining that Russia is “going to be ready to work with whoever gets elected by the people of the United States.” When he adds, “I believe nothing is going to change no matter who gets elected,” he can’t help but unleash a knowing smirk. 
 
 Stone suggests that Putin could influence the U.S. election by endorsing a candidate, thereby causing his or her popularity to plummet. “Unlike many partners of ours, we never interfere within the domestic affairs of other countries,” replies Putin, smiling wide. “That is one of the principles we stick to in our work.” 
 
 The Putin Interviews offer, first and foremost, a staggering display of mendacity on the part of both interviewer and interviewee. During a back and forth aboard his jet, Putin claims to have in his possession a letter from the CIA admitting that they provided technical support to the Chechens—including terrorist organizations—during the Second Chechen War. When Stone requests that he provide the letter, Putin responds, “I don’t think it would be appropriate. My words are enough.” 
 
 For Oliver Stone, they most certainly are. ||||| Oliver Stone’s ‘Putin Interviews’ Will Teach You Little About Putin, and Even Less About Russia 
 
 There is a documentary to be made about Russia under President Vladimir Putin that shares the Russian perspective, dispels American myths about the historic U.S. foe, and offers Putin’s perspective on some of the thorniest questions on Russia today. 
 
 Oliver Stone’s The Putin Interviews is not that documentary. 
 
 The Putin Interviews, a four-part series created from two years of conversations between Oliver Stone and Putin, somehow manages to both spout the Kremlin line and fall back on the laziest American clichés about Russia. In the opening credits, a map of the Soviet Union is transformed into a matryoshka doll. In at least the first two of the four parts, Stone aids and abets Putin, who lies by omission and pushes conspiracy theories, all while adding in such helpful information as “Russians are strong” and “Russians are macho.” 
 
 Showtime is touting the series as offering “Unparalleled access to the most controversial man in the world…in his own words.” And there is indeed some information that viewers will get from this access. They will learn that Putin feels he does not have bad days because he is not a woman (women, he explains, have natural cycles). They will learn that Putin has a flexible mentality because of judo. They will learn that Putin’s daughters are not interested in politics and corporate business, but in education and science (“You’re a very lucky man,” Stone says, not mentioning that one of Putin’s daughters is indeed allegedly tied to big business). 
 
 But when Stone recounts Putin’s rise to presidential power, they will learn that he at first rejected Boris Yeltsin’s attempts to make him prime minister, and that he won the office of president the first time with 53 percent of the vote based the successes of his first term. Nowhere is it mentioned that all of this was orchestrated by very wealthy, very powerful anti-communist forces of the day. They will hear Putin say that he did not put an end to privatization, but rather halted unfair schemes that only oligarchs who disrespected rule of law wanted to see continued. And privatization schemes did make oligarchs fabulously wealthy in ways that were not lawful in the 1990s, which were something of a Wild West. But the viewer will then see photos of Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Viewers will not learn that Berezovsky is one of the men who orchestrated Putin’s rise to power. Nor will they learn he fled to London after he began criticizing Putin, falling out with his his former protege, or that his death in the United Kingdom is still shrouded in mystery. The viewer will not learn that Khodorkovksy’s public accusation of government corruption got him a decade in a Siberian prison cell. 
 
 Viewers will learn that Putin worked as prime minister before returning to the presidency with 63 percent of the vote. If Putin has thoughts about the protests that surrounded his return to the Kremlin, viewers do not learn them; if Stone asked, both question and answer were left on the cutting room floor, at least in the first two hours. 
 
 Stone and Putin discuss Putin’s hesitancy to delegate, and Putin agrees with Stone’s assessment that he is the CEO of the company that is Russia. This could have been an opportunity to hear what Putin thinks of the idea that Russia is a mafia state, or of the connection between business and politics in Russia. Instead, we learn that Putin has “to have this sense of completion” when he begins a task. 
 
 Perhaps most insulting to the viewers, Putin says that he has evidence that the United States provided technical support to the Chechens, against whom Russia waged the first and — and Putin the second Chechen war early in his presidency. Putin says he cannot show Stone that evidence, however. Stone accepts that he cannot see this evidence and says it is contradictory that the United States would fight terror in Afghanistan while supporting it in Russia, which is perhaps the most simplistic rendering of the Chechen wars possible. Stone’s documentary doesn’t discuss how the Second Chechen War boosted Putin’s approval ratings, or that the Moscow bombings that the Kremlin blamed on Chechens were carried out by Russian agents. We see graphics showing the death tolls in the 2002 terror attack on a theater in Moscow and that of a 2004 attack on a school in Beslan. That many of the casualties in both cases were caused by a bungled Russian security response is not brought up. 
 
 It would be one thing if Stone just let Putin speak and reveal himself, allowing the audience some unique insight into a famous politician, similar to what Eroll Moris did with former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in Fog of War. But Stone is not content to hear Putin’s side. He wants to encourage Putin’s side. He says he fears American neo-conservatives and their hunger for war (Putin fears them, too). He presents Foreign Affairs as an official government outlet. Foreign Affairs is many things — a journal, a leading publication, an outlet often confused with Foreign Policy — but it is not an official government publication. 
 
 In fact, the essays Stone presents to Putin come from the May/June 2016 issue, “Putin’s Russia: Down But Not Out.” Maria Lipman, Sergei Guriev, Gleb Pavlovsky (who used to advise the Kremlin), Daniel Treisman, and Stephen Kotkin all contributed writing for that issue. The authors are academics and think tank analysts and Russians. 
 
 Nevertheless, Stone tells Putin that he’s up against the official line. He points out the irony of Edward Snowden defecting to Russia — Soviet citizens, after all, used to defect to the United States. It’s not ironic, Putin says, because Russia is a democracy. That protesters from the Bolotnaya Square case — twelve of the 400 activists who were detained protesting Putin’s regime — were on trial as Snowden stayed in the Sheremetyevo Moscow airport is not a point Stone felt compelled to raise. 
 
 To be fair, there is one moment at the end of the second hour in which Putin gets a chance to respond to claims that Russia is not democratic. He says the issue is that the Russian people don’t want to vote for any of his opponents. And this may be true. We are then treated to a series of clips of opposition figures who are backed by the Kremlin. They are candidates from parties other than Putin’s United Russia who run with the Kremlin’s blessing to show some semblance of opposition. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, one of the men shown, is one such longstanding figure. Alexei Navalny, the actual opposition candidate of Russia currently running for president, is nowhere to be seen. 
 
 At the very end of the second hour, Stone, who filmed the interviews prior to the 2016 presidential election, asks Putin what he thinks of the candidates. Putin declines to comment on the candidates. This is not his place; he will work with whoever is elected. Stone marvels at this restraint. “If you say you didn’t like Trump, he’d win,” Stone tells Putin. “You have that amount of power in the U.S.” 
 
 This isn’t true, of course. Though hardly effusive, Putin’s statements about Trump during the election were generally positive. And Trump won. But the exchange is telling as emblematic of the entire series: at best, misguided, and at worst, just wrong. 
 
 Photo credit: OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP/Getty Images ||||| It is a coup de grâce of American filmmaking that in “The Putin Interviews,” Oliver Stone first strongly recommends and then sits down to watch “Dr. Strangelove,” Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 comedic masterpiece about nuclear apocalypse, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s a combination of proper nouns that sounds like the setup to a one-liner. Putin shifts uneasily in his chair, apparently unused to even the simulated experience of leisure time, as onscreen President Merkin Muffley calls the Russian premier, Dmitri, to inform him that America is about to accidentally nuke the U.S.S.R. Stone then gifts the dinky DVD to Putin, as a kind of good-faith gesture between the director/documentarian/journalist and a strongman leader famously suspicious of anyone who questions his motives. Putin takes it into his office, but just before the door closes, he pushes it back open, confronting Stone and the cameras with his gift. The DVD case is empty; the producers left it in the DVD player. Through his translator, Putin jibes: “Typical American gift.” 
 
 The setup has a punch line after all. 
 
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 Showtime’s “The Putin Interviews,” which might be the most high-stakes documentary the network has ever aired, occasionally carries the lighthearted tone of farce. Love them or hate them, both Stone and Putin — men whose ideologies and reputations precede them — are so idiosyncratic and arresting that their dynamic has a hint of slapstick comedy. “The Putin Interviews” makes use of seemingly dozens of camera angles in every sit-down interview, building a portrait of Putin that is both comprehensive and dizzying — as if no matter how we approach the subject, we cannot slide under his defenses. Stone approaches the material with a slight buffoonery that may be just for show; he has just enough entitlement to blunder past Putin’s politesse, which reveals the Russian leader’s steely reserve underneath. Putin, on his part, is an adept self-spinning machine, with much more deadly charm than comes across in his state appearances. While discussing the Reagan presidency, Stone observes that the former president would have said he faced many of the same obstacles that Putin did. The Russian president retorts, with a sliver of a smile on his face: “Almost being broke and actually being broke are two entirely different things.” 
 
 Stone, a leftist firebrand who has advanced both well-regarded critiques and fringe conspiracy theories in his body of fiction and nonfiction work, put together “The Putin Interviews” from more than 30 hours of footage spanning 12 different conversations with the controversial Russian leader. Stone is less invested in investigating Putin than he is in re-narrativizing the history of American dominance in the post-Vietnam era; Putin is eager to assist him on this journey. The two go deep on America’s long game with NATO and its Middle East strategy that threw arms and money, catastrophically, at fundamentalist Muslims in unstable states. More often than not, Stone and Putin agree — on Edward Snowden, on American overreach, on Hillary Clinton. At times, Stone is skeptical of Putin, but for a leader strongly criticized for his civil rights abuses, it hardly seems that Stone is skeptical enough. On the other hand, there is some value in a profile that the subject finds flattering—it reveals who he wants to be. And Putin is revealed to be a terrifyingly competent leader, with a wide-ranging skill set that has spun circles around American presidents since the Clinton era. Putin gets many opportunities to brag about himself, in a disarming, down-to-earth way. It makes his baldfaced lies and bigotry all the more shocking. But it does not make him seem less dangerous. While enumerating what he sees as American betrayals of Russian trust during the Chechen War, he flicks a speck of dust off of his trousers with controlled, focused intensity. He gives the impression of carefully stoked simmering rage, hovering just at the edge of boiling over. To complete the image of sprawling feudal dominance, in one scene on Putin’s private jet, his administration’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov holds the boom mic as if he’s a lackey waving a palm frond. “The Putin Interviews” identifies him with cheeky specificity, delighting in his embarrassed look to the wide-shot camera. 
 
 In the two installments released to critics, Putin and Stone have not yet broached much on the topic of President Trump’s ties to Russia or the widely acknowledged Russian involvement in influencing the American 2016 election. But in the interviews that precede the election, Putin repeatedly points out that America meddles in Russia’s internal affairs, and the internal affairs of other countries, with impunity. He is, as far as we know, entirely right about that. So now what? 
 
 “The Putin Interviews” is a destabilizing documentary that challenges Americans’ narratives about ourselves and asks the viewer to engage in a conversation with a slippery subject. It’s riveting in how dangerous and intimate it feels, leveraging its multiple camera-angles and hand-held shots to make the viewer feel as if they, too, are in the room with Vladimir Putin. Foreign Affairs will likely have much to dissect in the dialogue, which often sounds like Stone and Putin are playing an invisible game of chess. It’s sobering to realize that if Putin is playing invisible chess with Stone, he is playing garishly lit 3-D chess with America — playing, and winning. ||||| (CNN) President-elect Donald Trump signaled Thursday that he will look to "strengthen and expand" the US's nuclear capability hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to enhance his country's nuclear forces. 
 
 The exchange appeared to raise the prospect of a new arms race between the two nuclear superpowers, which between them boast more than 14,000 nuclear warheads, the still deadly legacy of their four-decades long Cold War standoff. 
 
 But the comments by Putin, who is presiding over a project to restore Russia's lost global power and influence, and Trump, who will shortly become the US commander-in-chief, did not spell out exactly what each side is proposing or whether a major change of nuclear doctrine is in the offing. 
 
 Trump weighed in with a tweet just hours after Putin spoke following a meeting with his military advisers to review the activity of the past year. 
 
 "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," Trump wrote. 
 
 On Friday, Putin downplayed the risk of a new nuclear arms race between Russia and the US and said there was "nothing new" in Trump's tweet. 
 
 "During his election campaign, (Trump) said US needs to bolster nuclear capabilities and armed forces in general and there is nothing new," Putin said at this annual news conference. 
 
 It was not immediately clear if the President-elect is proposing an entire new nuclear policy that he would begin to flesh out once he takes office next year. 
 
 Trump could also be referring to plans to modernize the current US nuclear arsenal that are currently underway and will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The Obama administration has outlined a plan to modernize delivery systems, command and control systems and to refurbish warheads in the US nuclear triad -- the US force of sea, airborne and missile delivered nuclear weapons. 
 
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 But the plan keeps the size of the nuclear force at existing levels. 
 
 Trump's tweet appeared to envisage an expansion of the size of the US nuclear force, but it was not immediately clear if that is the case. 
 
 Trump communications director Jason Miller sent a statement to try to explain the President-elect's tweet on nuclear capability. 
 
 He suggested Trump was "referring to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the critical need to prevent it," although that was not referenced in the tweet. He also said Trump was emphasizing the need to "modernize our deterrent capability." 
 
 In Moscow earlier Tuesday, Putin said in a defense speech that Russia needs to "enhance the combat capability of strategic nuclear forces, primarily by strengthening missile complexes that will be guaranteed to penetrate existing and future missile defense systems." 
 
 Putin's remarks appeared to suggest that he was talking about new weapons systems that could overcome US missile defenses, a development that could force the US to respond. It was not clear, however, if he was contemplating an expansion in the total numbers of Russian weapons or of the stocks of those arms that are deployed. 
 
 Trump and Putin have suggested Trump's inauguration next month will ring in closer relations after the two sides retreated to their most entrenched positions since the end of the Cold War. 
 
 The ambiguity and timing of Putin's remarks also suggested that he may be laying an opening gambit in his relationship with the new US President-elect. 
 
 The Russian President is seeking to return Russia to the front ranks of global influence, a project that is key to his domestic political survival and often involves actively seeking to undermine US power. 
 
 His power plays in Ukraine and in Syria and military maneuvers close to the borders of former Warsaw Pact states have alarmed Western leaders and stoked tensions in Europe. 
 
 Photos: Cult of Putin Photos: Cult of Putin Putin plays with his Yume, an Akita dog, prior to an interview by Nippon Television Network Corporation on December 7, 2016. Hide Caption 1 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin visits Russia's Przewalski horse reintroduction center in the Orenburg Reserves, near the border with Kazakhstan, on October 3, 2016. Hide Caption 2 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin While his nation waded deeper into the Syrian civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, spent his 63rd birthday on the ice Wednesday, October 7, playing hockey with NHL stars and various Russian officials and tycoons in Sochi. For years, Russia's leader has cultivated a populist image in the Russian media. Hide Caption 3 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a cat as he inspects housing built for victims of wildfires in the village of Krasnopolye, in a region in southeastern Siberia, Russia, on Friday, September 4. Hide Caption 4 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin, left, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev jokingly toast at a lunch during a meeting at the Black Sea resort in Sochi, Russia, on Sunday, August 30. Hide Caption 5 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin exercises during his meeting with Medvedev on August 30. Hide Caption 6 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin sits in a bathyscaphe as it plunges into the Black Sea along the coast of Sevastopol, Crimea, on Tuesday, August 18. Putin went underwater to see the wreckage of an ancient merchant ship that was found in the end of May. Hide Caption 7 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a Persian leopard cub in February 2014 at a breeding and rehabilitation center in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Perhaps the most important vote in Russia's public selection of a new Olympic mascot was cast when Putin said he wanted a funky leopard to represent the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Hide Caption 8 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a pike he caught in the Siberian Tuva region of Russia on July 20, 2013. Hide Caption 9 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin enjoys some fishing during his vacation to the Tuva region on July 20, 2013. Hide Caption 10 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin submerges on board Sea Explorer 5 bathyscaphe near the isle of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland on July 15, 2013. Hide Caption 11 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin plays with his dogs 'Buffy', right, and 'Yume' at his residence Novo-Ogariovo, outside Moscow, on March 24, 2013. Hide Caption 12 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin studies a crane during an experiment called Flight of Hope on September 5, 2012, in which he piloted a hang glider, aiming to lead the birds into flight. It's part of a project to save the rare species of crane. Hide Caption 13 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin takes part in a training session for young ice hockey players before the "Golden Puck" youth tournament final in Moscow on April 15, 2011. Hide Caption 14 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin rides a Harley-Davidson to an international biker convention in southern Ukraine on July 14, 2010. Hide Caption 15 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin The Russian president aims at a whale with an arbalest (crossbow) to take a piece of its skin for analysis at Olga Bay on August 25, 2010. Hide Caption 16 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin A wetsuit-clad Putin embarks on a dive to an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula on August 10, 2011. Hide Caption 17 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Famed for his love of martial arts, Putin throws a competitor in a judo session at an athletics school in St. Petersburg on December 18, 2009. Hide Caption 18 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin during his vacation in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009. Hide Caption 19 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin swims the butterfly during his vacation outside the town of Kyzyl in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009. Hide Caption 20 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Assisted by a Russian scientist, Putin fixes a satellite transmitter to a tiger during his visit to the Ussuriysky forest reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Far East on August 31, 2008. Hide Caption 21 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin carries a hunting rifle in the Republic of Tuva on September 3, 2007. Hide Caption 22 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin A shirtless Putin fishing in the headwaters of the Yenisei River in the Republic of Tuva on August 13, 2007. Hide Caption 23 of 24 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin in the cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber jet at a military airport on August 16, 2005, before his supersonic flight. Hide Caption 24 of 24 
 
 And while Russia's economic and conventional military strength pales beside that of the US, its nuclear arsenal remains the root of its power and prestige. 
 
 It is also unlikely to be a coincidence that Putin's remarks came three days before the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union, a collapse he views as a disaster of history. 
 
 Trump, who sees foreign policy through the eyes of an ultimate deal maker, may have felt the need to respond to Putin's remarks. He did so a day after meeting with his incoming military officials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. CNN's Barbara Starr reported that the talks included discussion of plans to modernize the US nuclear arsenal. 
 
 The President-elect's choice of Twitter to make such an important and sensitive statement was characteristic of his operating style. 
 
 But it underlined how the shorthanded communication of policy by social media is imprecise and open to multiple interpretations that are already posing problems for foreign governments as they seek to divine Trump's true intentions. 
 
 Still, the suggestion that he could preside over a new nuclear arms race will spook critics who argued he showed himself unfamiliar with basic nuclear doctrine during the campaign. 
 
 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had argued that it would be a mistake to hand the US nuclear codes over to a man who could be "baited with a tweet." 
 
 The President-elect also caused consternation in Asia by suggesting that Japan and South Korea who are protected under the US nuclear umbrella might think about developing their own weapons, a move that could unleash a new global nuclear arms race. 
 
 Trump's comment on Twitter also strikes a sharp contrast with the early months of the administration of President Barack Obama, who committed himself to the symbolic goal of a world without nuclear weapons -- an act that helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize. 
 
 Obama also concluded a new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (START) with Putin's predecessor as Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev. The treaty imposed new limits on the numbers of launchers and warheads each side have deployed. 
 
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 During the campaign, Trump argued that the US needs to modernize its aging nuclear infrastructure. 
 
 "Our nuclear program has fallen way behind, and they've gone wild with their nuclear program. Not good. Our government shouldn't have allowed that to happen," Trump said during his second debate in October against Clinton. "We are old. We're tired. We're exhausted in terms of nuclear. A very bad thing." 
 
 America's nuclear submarines are all more than 30 years old and its most dominant long-range bomber remains the 60-year-old B-52s. The Pentagon has also called for upgrading the US arsenal of ICBMs, or intercontinental ballistic missiles. 
 
 The Pentagon has estimated that it will need to spend as much as $18 billion per year over the next 15 years -- for a total of $270 billion -- to modernize the nuclear triad. 
 
 The United States has 7,100 nuclear warheads while Russia has 7,300, according to the non-partisan Arms Control Association. 
 
 The US has 1,367 warheads deployed on inter-continental ballistic missiles, heavy bombers and on submarines, the State Department said in September. Russia has 1,796 in the same category. 
 
 Russia's inventory of deployed warheads has risen in number owing to fluctuations in Moscow's modernization program and is not seen as a strategic worry by the US military. The United States currently has fewer total weapons, including those in reserve, than Russia because it has dismantled more obsolete devices.
– Oliver Stone's The Putin Interviews, a four-part documentary for which the director got "extensive access" to the Russian president between July 2015 and February 2017, airs on Showtime June 12-15, and Bloomberg got early access to the first two episodes. Bloomberg notes that they offer "little that's new" about Putin, but that doesn't mean there aren't interesting moments, such as Putin being shown working out on an exercise machine, feeding a horse, or playing ice hockey. Three notable quotes: No bad days: "I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days. I am not trying to insult anyone. That’s just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles." On whether he'd shower in a submarine next to a gay man: "Well, I prefer not to go to the shower with him. Why provoke him? But you know, I’m a judo master." On the prospect of a war between nuclear superpowers: "As of today a missile shield would not protect the territory of the United States. Nobody would survive." Reviews for the documentary are varied, with many criticizing Stone for seeming to encourage Putin instead of challenging him. Foreign Policy says the documentary "somehow manages to both spout the Kremlin line and fall back on the laziest American clichés about Russia," while the Daily Beast calls it a "wildly irresponsible love letter" to Putin. But other outlets are not so critical; Variety, for example, says it's "a surprisingly intimate set of conversations" that creates "a destabilizing portrait" of Putin. (Putin was also recently interviewed by Megyn Kelly.)