https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGSNBjBv8g4
Aleksandr Liubimov’s talk show One on One staged debates between public figures who disagreed strongly with each other. When nationalist provocateur Vladimir Zhirinovskii and liberal reformer Boris Nemtsov met on air in as the First Chechen War was just beginning, sparks—and piece of the set—flew.
Post-Soviet
1995
One on One, a political talk show hosted by Aleksandr Liubimov (an alumnus of the popular news show Vzgliad and co-founder of the influential media company VID) aired on Boris Berezovskii’s ORT network from 1995–1997. It pitted two guests against one another to spark heated discussions of political ideas and strategies. The show’s most famous episode came in June 1995, when Liubimov invited the leader of the (misnamed) Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovskii to debate the young reform-minded governor of Nizhny Novgorod, Boris Nemtsov.
The discussion took place just days after a group of pro-Chechen terrorists had taken over 1200 people hostage in a hospital in Budennovsk, in the Stavropol region of southern Russia. The terrorists demanded an end to the Russian military operation in Chechnya and the beginning of negotiations with Dzhokar Dudaev, the leader of the self-proclaimed independent state of Chechnya. On the show, Nemtsov suggested negotiating with the hostage-takers while Zhirinovskii insisted that only a military response would be effective. But the debate soon moved beyond strategy and descended into ad hominem attacks. Zhirinovskii was a known flamethrower and Nemtsov proved as fearless as the show’s producers had hoped. Nemtsov, for instance, asked why Zhirinovskii would continue to favor military intervention in Chechnya, given that he had celebrated the anniversary of Chechen independence with Dudaev himself just the year before.
When the show turned to Nemtsov’s reforms in Nizhny Novgorod, Zhirinovskii claimed they were a total failure. The city, he said, had one of the country’s highest levels of venereal disease. Nemtsov, though, came prepared. He pulled out an issue of Playboy Russia in which Zhirinovskii had claimed to have slept with more than 200 women. That many partners, Nemtsov said, must have led to health problems. And Nizhny Novgorod had developed programs for that. “Syphilis?” Nemtsov asked, “We can cure you. Two shots and you’re done!” Zhirinovskii responded with a string of expletives and then threw a glass of mango juice in Nemtsov’s face. Nemtsov responded in kind. Then Zhirinovskii threw his glass, which shatters off camera. Liubimov managed to close the show before things escalated much further, but in the last frame before the credits roll, the still livid Zhirinovskii grabs Nemtsov’s now-empty glass as his next projectile.
Liubimov, Aleksandr (Alexander), Nemtsov, Boris, and Zhirinovsky, Vladimir
Chechnya, Nizhny Novgorod, and Russia
Aleksandr Liubimov, et al. "Odin na odin 1995 (18.06.1995)," YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGSNBjBv8g4 (20:30 or so)