Yuri Orlov quotes from Lord of War (2005)

Yuri Orlov

Remember Yuri, take sides

Yuri Orlov

There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?

Yuri Orlov

The first and most important rule of gun-running is, never get shot with your own merchandise.

Yuri Orlov

They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."

Yuri Orlov

Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947, more commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the worlds most popular assault rifle, a weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple nine pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood, it doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It will fire whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy even a child could use it, and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.

Yuri Orlov

The second rule of gun-running is always ensure you have a foolproof way of getting paid, preferably in advance, preferably to an offshore account.

Yuri Orlov

I sell guns to every army but the Salvation Army.

Yuri Orlov

I even shipped cargo to Afghanistan when they were fighting my fellow Soviets. I never sold to Osama Bin Laden. Not on any moral grounds, but because back then he was always bouncing cheques.

Yuri Orlov

There are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it.

Yuri Orlov

Where there's a will, there's a weapon.

Yuri Orlov

I sell to leftists, and rightists. I sell to pacifists, but they're not the most regular customers.

Yuri Orlov

The problem with dating dream girls is that they have a tendency to become real.

Yuri Orlov

Funny how you always resort to your native tongue in times of anger. And in times of ecstasy.

Yuri Orlov

The first time you sell a gun is a lot like the first time you have sex. You have absolutely no idea what you're doing, but it is exciting...and one way or another it's over way too fast.

Yuri Orlov

Some of the most successful relationships are based on lies and deceit. Since that's where they usually end up anyway, it's a logical place to start.

Yuri Orlov

The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted. I do rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today. But some of these men are the enemies of your enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss--the President of the United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year--sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So. You call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I'm a necessary evil.

Yuri Orlov

Say what you like about warlords and dictators; they always pay their bills on time.

Yuri Orlov

There's no problem with living a double life. It's the triple and quadruple lives that get you in the end.

Yuri Orlov

I don't put a gun to anybody's hand and make them shoot. I admit, the shooting war is better for business, but I prefer people to fire my guns and miss, just as long as they keep firing.

Yuri Orlov

Ahh...the new MP5. Would you like a silencer for that?

Yuri Orlov

Interpol Agent Jack Valentine couldn't be bought. At least, not with money. For Jack, glory was the prize.

Yuri Orlov

Selling guns is like selling vacuum cleaners; you make calls, pound the pavement, take orders. I was an equal-opportunity merchant of death; I supplied to every army but the Salvation Army. I sold Israeli-made Uzis to Muslims...I delivered Communist-made bullets to fascists...I even shipped cargo to Afghanistan while they were fighting my fellow Soviets. I never sold to Osama bin Laden—not on any moral grounds; back then, he was always bouncing checks.

Yuri Orlov

You know who's going to inherit the earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other. That's the secret to survival. Never go to war, especially with yourself.

Yuri Orlov

You don't have to worry. I'm not gonna tell you a pack of lies to make me look good. I'm just gonna tell you what happened. My name is Yuri Orlov. When I was a boy, my family came to the America, but not all the way. Like most Ukrainians, we congregated in Brighton Beach. It reminded us of the Black Sea. I soon realized we'd just swapped one hell for another. Even in hell, an angel sometimes makes an appearance. I'd worshipped Ava Fontaine since I was 10 years old. Of course, she didn't know I existed. I was starting to think she had a point. For the first twenty-odd years of my life, Little Odessa was to me what it is to the Q train: the end of the line. Oh, I did lie about my name. It's not really Yuri Orlov. There have been few occasions in the 20th century when it's been an advantage be a Jew. But in the '70s, to escape the Soviet Union, our family pretended to be Jewish. Little about my life has been kosher ever since.

Yuri Orlov

That's Vitaly, my younger brother. He was as lost as me. He just didn't know it yet.

Yuri Orlov

My father took his assumed identity to heart. He was more Jewish than most Jews. Which drove my Catholicism mother crazy.

Yuri Orlov

Growing up in Little Odessa, murder was in everyday part of life. Russian mobsters had also migrated from the Soviet Union and when they came to America, their baggage came with them. There is always some gangster getting whacked in my neighborhood, but I have never seen with my own eyes. I had the knack of showing up five minutes before something went down or five minutes after, not that day. It hit me. It couldn't have hit me harder if I was the one who was shot. You go into the restaurant business because people are always going to have to eat. That was the day I realized my destiny laying for fulfilling another basic human need.

Yuri Orlov

The next sabbath, I went to temple with my father. However, it wasn't God I was trying to get close to. My contact at synagogue landed my first Israeli-made Uzi submachine gun.

Yuri Orlov

Gentlemen, the new Uzi machine pistol. Big firepower in a small package. This little baby uses 9 mm hollow points, 20, 25-round extendable mags, rear-flip adjustable sights. Silencer comes standard. Excellent recoil reduction, muzzle jump reduced forty percent, sixty percent improved noise suppression. You could pump a mag into me right now and never wake the guy in the next room. [client points Uzi at Yuri's chest] Of course, that would eliminate your opportunity for repeat business.

Yuri Orlov

Fortunately, back then a video camera was a big as a bazooka. Here, I've been running away from violence my whole life, and I should've run towards it. It's in our nature. The earliest human skeletons had spearheads in their rib cages.

Yuri Orlov

I don't know what was going through Vitaly's head that day. What I do know is that Vitaly broke the cardinal rule of gun-running: never pick up a gun and join the customers.

Yuri Orlov

The problem with gun-runners going to war is that there's no shortage of ammunition. This was the chaos that the Old Guard had always feared. As far as they were concerned, I was giving arms dealers a bad name. But they could hardly report me to the Better Business Bureau. And Ukraine wasn't the only former state with an unpaid army and stockpiles of guns. There was Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Belarus all there for the taking. Of all the weapons in the vast Soviet arsenal nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947, more commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle, a weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple nine pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It will shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy even a child can use it, and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin, Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure: no one was lining up to buy their cars.

Yuri Orlov

The end of the Cold War was beginning of the highest time in arms dealing. The arms bazaar was open: Guided missiles, Unguided missiles, mortars, mines, armored personnel carriers, whole tank divisions.

Yuri Orlov

After the wall came down, thirty two billion dollars worth of arms were stolen and resold from Ukraine alone — one of the greatest heists of the twentieth century. The primary market was Africa: eleven major conflicts involving twenty three countries in less than a decade. a gunrunner's wet dream. At the time the West couldn't care less. They had a white war in what was left of Yugoslavia. I did the bulk of my business in Liberia — "land of the free" — originally established as a homeland for freed American slaves and has been enslaved by one dictator after another since then. The latest dictator is American-educated self-declared president Andre Baptiste Sr.

Yuri Orlov

It's not our fight.

Yuri Orlov

President Baptiste was my best customer, but I was in no hurry to meet him. He got the reputation for routinely hacking of the limbs those who opposed him. His seven years of civil war has been described as a relentless campaign of sadistic wanton violence. That kind of sums up Andy for me.

Yuri Orlov

Monrovia itself was like being on a new planet. Planet Monrovia. From the temperature, it was obviously planet close to the sun I rarely saw another white man. And, I never left town alone. Outside town was hell of the edge of hell. I didn't want to even gaze into it.

Yuri Orlov

In the most AIDS-infested region of the globe, where one in four is infected. Andre's idea of a joke was to put a young Iman and a young Naomi in my bed. And no condom within 100 miles.

Yuri Orlov

Conflict diamonds are a common currency in West Africa, also referred to as "blood diamonds" since bloodshed is what they generally finance. By the late '90s, my wealth had caught up to my lies about my wealth, even surpassed my lies. I could even afford to become a patron of the arts.

Yuri Orlov

I was now the best merchant of death alive. I didn't own my own plane; I owned a fleet running guns into Liberia, Sierra Leone, or the Ivory Coast at least once a week. Most trips I had phony paperwork. If the deadline was tight and I had to cut corners, I had no paperwork at all, but I wasn't overly concerned. There was hardly any radar over most of Africa and even fewer people to watch it.

Yuri Orlov

What a cargo crew at Heathrow Airport does in a day took a bunch of malnourished Sierra Leonean locals ten minutes. By the time Agent Valentine got there, you could find more guns on a plane full of Quakers.

Yuri Orlov

Truce? What do you mean, truce? The guns are already on their way. Peace talks? All right, forget it. I'll reroute the shipment to the Balkans. When they say they're going to have a war, they keep their word!

Yuri Orlov

Thank God there are still legal ways to exploit developing countries. The only problem with an honest buck is they're so hard to make. The margins are too low. Too many people are doing it.

Yuri Orlov

Most people are happy just to get out of jail. I expect to be paid to leave. I'm not a fool. I know that just because they needed me that day didn't mean they wouldn't make me a scapegoat the next. But I was back, doing what I do best.

Yuri Orlov

Beware of the Dog? You don't have a dog. Are you trying to scare people?

No, it's to scare me. Remind me to be aware of the dog in me. The dog that wants to **** everything that moves, wants to fight and kill weaker dogs. I guess it's to remind me to be more human.

Yuri Orlov

Isn't being a dog part of being human? What if that's the best part of you, the dog part? What if you're really just a two-legged dog?

You need to see somebody.

Yuri

But in the Iran-Iraq War, you sold guns to both sides.

Simeon Weisz

Did you ever consider that I wanted both sides to lose?

Can you bring me the gun of Rambo?

Yuri

Part One, Two, or Three?

I've only seen Part One.

Yuri

The M-60. Would you like the armor piercing bullets?

Please.

How can we make you happy?

Yuri

By leaving.

Is this how you want to be remembered?

Yuri Orlov

I don't want to be remembered at all. That means I'm dead.

Yuri Orlov

Enjoy it.

What?

Yuri Orlov

This. Tell me I'm everything you despise. That I'm the personification of evil. That I'm what- responsible for the breakdown of the fabric of society and world order. I'm a one-man genocide. Say everything you want to say to me now. Because you don't have long.

We're with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Yuri Orlov

Let me guess... this isn't about the alcohol or tobacco.

Yuri Orlov

Vitaly, stop **** around. I want to talk to you. You read the newspapers, Vit?

Newspaper? It's always the same.

Yuri Orlov

You're right. Every day there's people shooting each other. You know what I do when I see that? I look to see what guns they're using and I think to myself, why not my guns?

Yuri, what the **** do you know about guns?

Yuri Orlov

I know which end I'd rather be on.

What, are you thinking of opening a gun shop?

Yuri Orlov

Already more of those in America than McDonald's. Even with all the gangs around here, the margins are too low.

You've worked out the margins?

Yuri Orlov

I've already made the first sale. We're already in business.

We?

Yuri Orlov

I need a partner.

I don't know, Yuri. I don't know.

Yuri Orlov

Vitaly, I've tasted your borscht. You're no **** chef! I can eat in the restaurant for free and I still don't eat there!

**** you!

Yuri Orlov

We're doing nothing with our lives! I mean, it's a shit! It's a shit! It's a ****!

It's true. But maybe doing nothing's better than doing this.

Yuri Orlov

Maybe you'd like to come to my room and I'll show you my cannon. [to Simeon] You look a little lost, Simeon. Is the world changing too fast?

Simeon Weisz

I'm here, aren't I?

Yuri Orlov

Not all of you, I think. You've gotten so rich selling for the CIA you can't seem to get that ideology completely out of your head.

Simeon Weisz

Oh, the Cold War had its uses. Kept the tensions frozen. Now it's harder to determine which side one is on. Things have become more complicated.

Yuri Orlov

No. It's gotten simpler. There is no place in gun running for politics anymore, Simeon. I sell to leftists, I sell to rightists. I'd sell to pacifists but they are not regular customers. Of course, you're not a true internationalist until you supply weapons to kill your own countrymen.

Simeon Weisz

This current state of chaos won't last forever. There will have to be order. Instead of cutting each other's throats it may be beneficial if we work together. What do you think?

Yuri Orlov

You know what I think? I think you are the amateur now. I think you should go with your instincts — with your first instinct. I am the same man who was not good enough for you before and I'm just not good enough for you now.

Simeon Weisz

You know, the problem with gun-runners going to war, is that there's no shortage of ammunition.

Yuri Orlov

What is this?

Six kilos of pure cocaine.

Yuri Orlov

I can't hand this to my **** bank teller at Chase Manhattan!

Listen, asshole, you should be thanking me! Have you checked the street price today? With the seizures at the border last week, it's jumped thirty percent.

Yuri Orlov

I sell guns. I don't sell drugs.

Diversify.

Yuri Orlov

I've got standards. You don't pay, you don't play!

Andre Baptiste Sr.

These are my Kalashnikov kids, my boy brigades. I can see what you are thinking, but we need every man we can get.

Yuri Orlov

Even if they're not men?

Andre Baptiste Sr.

A bullet from a fourteen-year-old is just as effective as one from a forty-year-old. Often more effective. No one can stop this bath of blood.

Yuri Orlov

It's not "bath of blood." It's "bloodbath."

Andre Baptiste Sr.

Thank you, but I prefer it my way. I am not going to pay your asking price. We are not a rich people. Besides, the market is already flooded with your Kalashnikovs. Do you realize in some parts of my country you can get one for the price of a chicken?

Yuri Orlov

But you can't just look at the unit of price. You forget ancillary costs. End user certificates need to be forged and notarized, shell companies set up, insurance purchased, pilots and crews hired, not to mention the bribes! You can't get a nut and bolt out of the Eastern Bloc without a bribe. There's one bribe for the nut, another for the bolt. Andy. Andy! Listen to me! This is an expensive proposition!

Andre Baptiste Sr.

"Andy". I am going to pay you in timber or stone.

Yuri Orlov

I'll take the stones. It's kinda hard to get a tree trunk into my hand luggage. I know you're planning a new offensive. If you can delay a week, I can get you armored personnel carriers. They'll greatly reduce your casualties, and give you a significant strategic advantage.

Andre Baptiste Sr.

You know, they call me the Lord of War. But perhaps it is you.

Yuri Orlov

It's not "Lord of War", it's "Warlord".

Andre Baptiste Sr.

Thank you, but I prefer it my way.

Yuri Orlov

The Glock is interesting. It is made of a polymer composite. Many of my clients feel that they can go through airport security without seeing a lot of bells and whistles. Personally, I do not recommend that. [Andrei chuckles glancing over at a guard flirting with a female staffer] On the other hand, if you are looking for traditional wheel gun, there is no substitute for six inches of muzzle energy of 357 mag, and of course, it will never jam. [Andrei shoots the guard flirting with the female staffer] WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!

Andre Baptiste Sr.

What did you say?

Yuri Orlov

Well, now you're gonna have to buy it. It's a used gun. [takes pistol from Andre with his son and bodyguards all aiming rifles at an entirely-still-business-focused Yuri] How can I sell a used gun?

Andre Baptiste Sr.

A "used gun"? A "used gun"?! [chuckles] That's a good one. You know? There is no discipline with the youth today. I tried to set an example, but it is difficult. [gestures to the body of the dead guard being dragged away] Personally, I blame MTV. [gunfire is heard in the distance, Andre smiles and Yuri nods in acknowledgment] A "used gun"? [chuckles heartily, gets up and extends hand for handshake] I think you and I, we can do business.

Andre Baptiste Jr.

This is your hotel. Two stars. Can you bring me the gun of Rambo?

Yuri Orlov

Part one, two or three?

Andre Baptiste Jr.

I've only seen part one.

Yuri Orlov

The M60. Would you like the armor-piercing bullets?

Andre Jr.

Please. My father left a welcoming present to you. Enjoy. [laughs]

Hello, Mr. Yuri.

Yuri Orlov

Hi.

We'd be happy to make you happy.

Yuri Orlov

Uh, I can't. I'd love to. But I can't.

Don't worry. We don't have anything.

How do you know? Do we look like it? What if I have AIDS? Don't you worry? You worry too much. Why do you worry about something that can kill you in ten years when there are so many things that can kill you today? Now... how can we make you happy?

Yuri Orlov

By leaving. [shoves them outside his room]

Hey, Ava knows, right?

Yuri Orlov

I never want to say anything, She doesn't have to know. She understands. She's a survivor, like me.

She may be a survivor, but she's not like you. Really? She doesn't know how you pay for all this?

Yuri Orlov

We don't talk about it. How many car salesman talk about their work? Huh? How many cigarette salesmen? Both their products kill more people every year than mine. At least mine has a safety switch. If those guys can leave their work at the office, so can I.

] is firing on Yuri's cargo plane over Sierre Leone] Yuri, what the **** is going on?!

Yuri Orlov

Hello, Southern? It's Yuri. I am sorry to call you on this number, but I've got Interpol all over my ass!

I can't know you right now. It's uh, not a good time.

Yuri Orlov

Not a good time?! Mother****er!

I'm putting us down!

Yuri Orlov

If you land, we're going away! I don't have paperwork!

We're in a flying **** bomb! They're firing bullets at our bullets! I'm putting us down!

Yuri Orlov

We're gonna be okay! Where are you going?!

As far from the evidence as we can get!

Yuri Orlov

Wait, there's not going to be any evidence!

Agent Valentine

Yuri Orlov.

Yuri Orlov

Ow! ****!

Mbizi

You run from us?!

Agent Valentine

No, Mbizi! No!

Mbizi

Can you run with no legs? Let me make him disappear, Mr. Valentine! Around here, people disappear all the time!

Agent Valentine

I can't do that!

Mbizi

Look where we are. Who will know?

Agent Valentine

We will! He's gonna get what's coming to him.

Mbizi

I'm not as certain.

Agent Valentine

All right, get up.

Yuri Orlov

What's the charge?

Agent Valentine

What are you doing in Sierra Leone?

Yuri Orlov

I'm on safari.

Agent Valentine

Yeah? You're hunting wildebeests with a submachine gun?

Yuri Orlov

Do you also work with the Park Service? Hunting without a license, is that the charge?

Agent Valentine

Why are we playing games? You traffic arms.

Yuri Orlov

Trade.

Agent Valentine

Trade, traffic. You get rich by giving the poorest people on the planet the means to continue killing each other. Do you know why I do what I do? I mean, there are more prestigious assignments. [sits on crate facing Yuri] Keeping track of nuclear arsenals, you'd think that more critical to world security, but it's not. No, nine out of ten war victims today are killed with assault rifles and small arms like yours. Those nuclear missiles, they sit in their silos. Your AK-47, that is the real weapon of mass destruction.

Yuri Orlov

I don't want people dead, Agent Valentine. I don't put a gun to anybody's head and make them shoot. I admit, a shooting war is better for business, but I prefer people to fire my guns and miss, just as long as they're firing. [Valentine stands in frustration] Can I go now? You've got nothing on me. Except cuffs.

Agent Valentine

Since you're so concerned with the law, you must know that I'm legally permitted to hold you for twenty-four hours without charging you. You might ask why I would do that and I can assure you it's not because I enjoy your company, because I don't. No. The reason why I will delay you for every second of the permissible twenty-four hours is I am delaying your deadly trade and the deaths of your victims. I don't think of it as taking a day from you, but giving a day to them. Some innocent man, woman or child is going to have an extra day on this Earth because you're not free. So, I will see you in twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes, hmm? [drives away and local Sierre Leonean villagers disassemble plane overnight with Yuri watching]

Yuri

How many Kalashnikovs do you have?

Forty thousand.

Yuri

Is that a four? Doesn't look like a four to me. Looks more like a one.

No, it's a four.

Yuri

It's whatever we say it is, because no one else will know the difference. Ten thousand Kalashnikovs for a battalion... your stocks are badly depleted, Dimitri. You should order more from the factory.

Someone will work it out. What happens then?

Yuri Orlov

We'll cut them in.

Yuri Orlov

What the **** are you doing here?!

Andre Baptiste Sr.

We are here for peace talks at the United Nations.

Yuri Orlov

So at the same time you thought you'd drop in on your arms dealer?

Andre Baptiste Sr.

You know, I was wondering if that still is your profession. You are a hard man to get a hold of, all of a sudden. It is a shame. My son and I, we were hoping to do a little shopping while we are here in New York.

Yuri Orlov

You know they're watching you.

Andre Baptiste Sr.

Yes, I know they blame me. They blame me for everything, those hypocrites! They are on a hunt for a witch.

Yuri Orlov

Witch hunt.

Andre Baptiste Sr.

Hostilities have escalated. They are making it very difficult for me to resupply. And that requires a man... of your rare ingenuity.

Yuri Orlov

I can't help you; I'm sorry.

Andre Baptiste Sr.

I understand. But you should know this. Under the present circumstances, we are compelled... to be unusually generous.

You still haven't brought me the gun of Rambo.

Andre Baptiste Sr.

So I will see you soon. Lord of War.