The Compatriots

by Andrei Soldatov

  In democratic countries, he said, intelligence is about gathering information. Under authoritarian regimes, “intelligence is about protecting the regime and policing émigrés.”

  The KGB’s intelligence branch and all its descendants belong to the latter category.

  CHAPTER 34

  THE FEARS OF THE SUPER-RICH

  The generals on Lubyanka and Yasenevo might stick to old KGB methods, and Putin may be working hard to reinstall a Soviet style of authoritarian control. But for all that is the same, a new X factor unthinkable thirty years ago: the Russian super-rich, a new tier of influential elites with a say in the country’s affairs and ways to channel their thoughts to the Kremlin privately and directly.

  Thousands of them populate the most expensive neighborhoods and properties in the world, from the south of France to London to New York to Miami. Some made their fortunes in the decade before Putin came to power. Many have substantial assets in the West, out of reach of the Kremlin. Such assets could make them independent—maybe even capable of challenging Putin—if things go too far wrong.

  Pretty recently, two super-rich Russians put this theory to test. Both were in more privileged positions than the rest of the oligarch crowd. They made their fortunes and reputations under Yeltsin, so they’d had time to become well established in the West. They used this time wisely—globalizing not only their money and property but also their businesses.

  And both came from the KGB, so they knew better than many how to play on both the Russian and Western chess boards.

  St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt was packed. Top German officials, businessmen, and foreign investors took their seats in the round, light-filled hall.

  St. Paul’s was no longer used for prayer. A seat of the first German parliament in 1848, its political symbolism made it a perfect venue for gatherings of the German establishment. Instead of holding Bibles, these attendees held programs detailing the schedule for the 2017 German Economic Forum.

  In November 2017, the forum had invited Evgeny Kaspersky, founder of the eponymous security software company, to give a talk. He was wearing a deep-blue jacket and blue shirt, his graying hair waved Richard Branson style. Kaspersky was slightly obsessed with the British business magnate: His company sponsored Branson’s Virgin Racing team. He had Sir Richard’s book on his table in his office. And he bought a ticket for a journey into space from Branson’s company.

  Usually relaxed in public, Kaspersky looked anxious at St. Paul’s. On stage, he fidgeted in his chair and joked so awkwardly that the host often failed to grasp his humor.1

  The billionaire’s anxiety was completely justified. Times were hard for both his company and for him personally. A few months earlier, at a series of public hearings held in the US Senate, six top American intelligence officials—including the heads of the FBI and the CIA—said they didn’t feel comfortable having Kaspersky’s antivirus software on their computers.2 Soon the secretary of Homeland Security ordered all government agencies to remove Kaspersky software from their systems. Just a month earlier, Kaspersky antivirus was caught downloading NSA files from the poorly secured computer of an agency contractor. It caused an uproar that Kaspersky’s products had been stealing confidential information from American users.3 All of this badly harmed Kaspersky’s company, which was truly global. Although headquartered in Moscow, Kaspersky had offices, and customers, everywhere.

  More problems followed, this time from the Russian side. The FSB had Kaspersky’s deputy, the head of the company’s most sensitive department—computer crime investigations—arrested and locked up in Lefortovo prison.4 He was accused of espionage for the United States.

  Eugene Kaspersky understood perfectly well that after that arrest, his company could easily be attacked by the security service. He knew the rules—Kaspersky himself had started his career in the KGB, the FSB’s predecessor.

  Now Kaspersky had come to Frankfurt to fight for access to the German market, the biggest in Europe. And he wanted to make a good impression.

  The host, a German journalist from the national weekly publication Die Zeit, was well prepared for the talk. When Kaspersky said he was “a product of a mathematical school,” the journalist added, “The KGB.” Kaspersky was not happy with this remark, so he countered the journalist’s claim, calling it just a “cryptographic institute.” Then he started talking about how great Russian engineers and hackers are. But the host was not going to let him get his way.

  “Did you read Andrei’s book?” the journalist asked. He meant our book, The Red Web: The Kremlin’s Wars on the Internet.5 Andrei had participated in the panel before Kaspersky’s appearance and talked about the pressure the Kremlin was exerting on Russian IT companies after the annexation of Crimea and the Russian hacking attacks in the United States.

  “No,” said Kaspersky.

  “Oh, you didn’t?” The host in his black suit smiled. “It’s interesting—you are in it. Andrei describes the situation with IT companies after the 2014 changes. The Crimea crisis changed something. Did you see it change? Did you feel it change?”

  “No,” said Kaspersky. This sounded firm enough, but Kaspersky decided his denial needed to be enforced and added, “Zero.” And he made a zero figure with the fingers of his two hands. It looked like he wanted to show to an invisible Putin in the sky that he was firm enough not to succumb to provocation. “That’s why I am not interested in this book. I think Soldatov and I, we live in different realities.”

  The host said his last question was about the Russian government, and Kaspersky laughed nervously. The journalist asked why Kaspersky thought his employee had been arrested.

  “I have no idea,” said Kaspersky. “The only thing I know is that he was arrested because of something he did before he joined our company. So it’s not related to our business and his activity working in the company.”6

  The interview ended, and Kaspersky quickly descended to the hall flashing an inviting smile. He may have come to Frankfurt to win the trust of the German establishment, but as the interview played out, it looked as if he had another listener in mind. He was so eager to please this listener that he was not going to defend his man who was, at that moment, in jail but had not been convicted.

  If the Russian IT industry had fooled itself into thinking being truly international made it independent from the Russian authorities, now was the time to wake up.

  The wake-up call rang in other industries too, including the most sensitive one: finance.

  On a sunny Sunday in July 2018, it was nice to drive a car through the manicured woods along the Rublyovka, the famous Russian road that has been, since the imperial era, a route for the elite. In Soviet times, the Kremlin granted summer homes in the villages on Rublyovka to high-ranking party members, famous artists, and prominent scientists. After the fall of the Communists, the new Russian elite took over the area.

  After making a turn into the village of Razdory and into a parking lot, Andrei stopped the car. This was where Alexander Lebedev, the Russian-British media magnate, financier, and former KGB intelligence officer, had told him to come and wait.

  Tall and fit, with blond hair always close-cropped, Lebedev had been born to a well-connected family that was part of Moscow’s intelligentsia. His father was a professor at the Moscow Technical School, and he himself had gone to an elite school where he had become friends with many smart young men from good families.

  In the late 1970s, he enrolled in the prestigious Institute of International Relations, followed by recruitment into the First Chief Directorate of the KGB in Yasenevo, the economic intelligence unit—actually just a group of a dozen operatives who thought highly of themselves because they knew something about the Western economy.

  Next he was posted to London as an officer with the economic intelligence section at the KGB station. It was the late 1980s, just before the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

  For the young and the enterprising, it was good to be in Moscow during the perestroika yea
rs. But if you were young, Russian, and really enterprising, London was an even better place to be. Many people who fell into that category were KGB officers at the Soviet embassy. A number of spectacular post-Soviet careers started there as Soviet-era go-getters found themselves in the right place at the right time.

  Alexander Lebedev was one of them. Rules were changing rapidly, and soon he took to driving emerging Russian oligarchs around the city in his blue Ford.7 They needed to open accounts in the British banks, and he was there, ready to help.

  When he left the KGB’s foreign intelligence department in the early 1990s, he founded a bank that started working with Russia’s debts. Thanks to his time in London, he knew most of the emerging players in the Russian banking business. It also helped that this area was supervised by foreign intelligence, so his KGB connections came in handy.

  That brought him a fortune. In the late 1990s, he became one of the first billionaires in Russia.

  From that time on, Lebedev built his career by benefiting from both worlds—the KGB and Moscow’s intelligentsia. Lebedev was smart and easygoing and took the trouble to make friends among journalists. He began supporting the liberal and respected Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and bought it outright in 2006.8 He became friends with Mikhail Gorbachev and funded his foundation.9 Lebedev well understood what it meant to have a good reputation in the West.

  In the late 2000s, his good reputation in the West helped him achieve the unthinkable for a former officer in London’s KGB station: Lebedev was allowed to acquire two influential, although financially troubled, British publications: the Evening Standard and the Independent.

  There comes a point when making money crosses with politics, and Lebedev set off playing his political game. In the mid-1990s, he gave money to the Yeltsin reelection campaign and owned shares in Aeroflot, the major Russian airline run by Yeltsin’s son-in-law. Lebedev was successful under Yeltsin, and he remained so under Putin.

  In the 2000s, he got himself elected to the Russian parliament and ran for mayor of Moscow. He never forgot to consult with the Kremlin—Lebedev had a number of personal meetings with Vladimir Putin. As a tycoon with a background in foreign intelligence—he’d held the rank of lieutenant colonel, the same as Putin—who was better positioned to benefit from Putin’s time at the helm of government?

  Lebedev became one of very few Russian tycoons who became truly international—at a level much higher than any other “global Russian.”

  In the United Kingdom, Lebedev’s media business thrived. His two publications, run by his son Evgeny, were doing surprisingly well; circulation was increasing. Evgeny, a bon vivant who sported a perfectly trimmed beard and always-extravagant outfits, was accepted by the British establishment; he was friends with Elton John, Tom Stoppard, and Boris Johnson, as well as minor members of the royal family.10 And although Lebedev was not a Global Russian in the way of Masha Gessen and her friends, his son surely was; he had joined Snob’s community of Global Russians right after its launch.

  In Russia, Lebedev’s good luck began to run out when a small Moscow newspaper he had just launched reported on the widespread rumors that Putin had left his wife and was about to marry a twenty-four-year-old Olympic champion gymnast. The year was 2008; Putin was just prime minister at the time, not president, and it was unclear whether he would run for the presidency again. Putin was furious. “Nobody should ever interfere in others’ private lives. I’ve always reacted negatively to those who, with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies, prowl into others’ lives,” he angrily commented on the ensuing scandal.11

  Lebedev shut down the offending publication, but it was too late. It quickly became clear that he had angered Putin. And now, as in the times of the tsar, he was looking into an abyss.

  Lebedev soon found most of his projects in trouble. The FSB raided his bank. He had to shut down his airline. He even sold his shares in Aeroflot to save his bank, which also got into trouble.12 It was a downward spiral, and Lebedev was angry. In December 2011, he came to the hundred-thousand-strong protest rally on Sakharova Prospect, just like his fellow unhappy oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, and listened to Kasparov and Nemtsov.13

  In 2011 Lebedev was appearing on a TV talk show when the second guest, a developer known for erratic manners, announced that he had a big desire to punch Lebedev in the face. Lebedev calmly stood up and knocked the guest to the floor. The fighting was soon on air, and the general feeling was that while Lebedev had lost his temper and maybe his mind, the preemptive assault would not get him into any real trouble.

  But it did. After months of interrogations, Lebedev was tried, found guilty, and convicted to 130 hours of labor. He was sent out to clean the Moscow streets and to fix up a village’s kindergarten 120 miles from Moscow. State TV showed Lebedev sweeping with a broom.

  It was meant to be a humiliation, and it was. It sent a clear message: you might be a former high-ranking KGB officer and an oligarch with newspapers from Moscow to London, but don’t forget you are totally at the mercy of the Kremlin. Had the most globalized Russian oligarch actually gotten the message? That’s what Andrei was interested to find out.

  As Andrei parked his Opel Astra as he was told, a guy who looked like a former special forces officer jumped out of a black SUV idling nearby. “Andrei? Your passport. Now follow my car, but slowly.”

  After fifteen minutes driving along a narrow path winding among the woodland pines, the two cars arrived at a fence with a big gray mansion behind it. Andrei was told to park his car in front of the gate. Another guard in camouflage fatigues came up and asked for a passport. He took it and disappeared. While the passport was presumably being checked, Lebedev approached from the garden. In a gray T-shirt and shorts, he looked like he was about to finish his workout. He guided Andrei briskly around the house and into an adjoining veranda overlooking the garden. There was a table and two chairs. Tea was served, along with two cookies on a china plate. Lebedev excused himself and went off to a meeting inside the house. Andrei took a cup and looked around. In the well-kept garden was a trampoline, a grill, and, attached to the fence, a small bucket with a pull-rope that apparently served as an outdoor shower. A wall of glass doors divided the veranda from the house, and all of them were kept shut.

  Twenty minutes passed, and Lebedev still hadn’t returned. Andrei considered eating the second biscuit. Then the rain started. As the rain grew heavier, one of the glass doors opened and Lebedev appeared, motioning Andrei to come inside. Then he disappeared again.

  Andrei found himself in a sitting room with two beige sofas matching the beige walls and a big fireplace. Two huge abstract paintings, both portraits of Lebedev’s wife, were waiting to be hung. Bookshelves featured an odd mix of books: Ayn Rand and Sue Townsend; a history of underwear next to a John Le Carré paperback; and the memoirs of Markus Wolf, the head of the Stasi’s foreign intelligence. Two copies of a recent issue of Elle magazine featuring Lebedev’s wife and daughter on the cover were on display on the table, and a golden clutch had been left on the back of one of the sofas.

  Another thirty minutes passed, and no biscuits were left. Andrei looked through an open door at what seemed like Lebedev’s study—a small room with a table, a chair, and bookshelves filled with jars of nutritional supplements and the collected works of Leo Tolstoy and of Ivan Ilyin, a White émigré and philosopher beloved by Putin.

  A door suddenly flung open, and a man in a chef’s cap ran into Lebedev’s study, calling, “Alexander Evgenevich, your lunch will be served in five minutes!” In a few minutes, Lebedev reappeared. He looked at Andrei, slowed for a moment, then changed his mind. “Do you want more tea?” he asked. Then he excused himself again and went in through the door his chef had come through. Andrei made another circle around the room. After the rain had stopped, he stepped back outside.

  Almost two hours passed. In the garden a man was busy burning wood in the grill. Was he preparing for dinner? No sign was heard from inside, no movement from Lebedev’s study.
If the host wanted to convey the impression that he was a busy and important person, he overdid it.

  Finally Lebedev showed up. Now he was ready to talk. Andrei said he was happy to catch him at home—Lebedev was always somewhere, always in the middle of a trip. He said he had come from Crimea where he was celebrating his wedding anniversary.

  “I feel like a fish in water everywhere—in Italy, in France; no matter, hah! I just don’t like France. It doesn’t matter to me, whether I’m in Botswana or Tanzania or on the Barents Sea—there is no difference. The important thing is that it should be interesting.” He thought for a second. “It was very strange behavior on the part of the Bolsheviks to close the country. Why do that? All those fences guarded with dogs? It’s a big achievement now that we can travel.”

  He wanted to look energetic and busy, but instead he sounded a little desperate. The conversation turned to the new wave of Russian emigration, and that seemed to worry him. “The logic of our country now is to spend on defense, not to invest in human capital, and the best and brightest are leaving. We have lost hundreds of thousands of smart people, and the measure of the loss has yet to be calculated. It’s done major damage. It could seem like not very many are leaving, but those who are leaving are the best. And if they succeed somewhere else—well, it doesn’t look very good.”

  The conversation had turned to Lebedev’s career when Andrei suddenly asked, “Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr. is your friend, right?”

  Lebedev was instantly alert, “Yes, I know him well. His wife was my schoolmate. What happened to him? We are friends, but I have not seen him for ages.”

  It had not exactly been for ages. The two had stayed in contact, and when Lebedev had entered the mayoral race in Moscow, Kara-Murza Sr. had campaigned for him.14 In December 2011, at the protest rally on Sakharova, Lebedev listened to Kasparov and Nemtsov standing in the crowd with Kara-Murza Sr. and, of course, his security detail.