Angus Roxburgh is a respected British foreign correspondent and Russia specialist. He was the Sunday Times Moscow correspondent in the mid-1980s and the BBC’s Moscow correspondent during the Yeltsin years. He is the author of The Second Russian Revolution and Pravda: Inside the Soviet Press Machine.
‘A sober assessment of the Putin years, illuminated by Angus Roxburgh’s first-hand experience and long acquaintance with Russia.’
Bridget Kendall, BBC diplomatic correspondent
‘Using his personal experiences and material from new interviews with key figures, Angus Roxburgh lifts the lid on a decade of murky Kremlin politics and points the way towards the new Putin era that is about to dawn.’ Martin Sixsmith, author of Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East
Published in 2012 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
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Copyright © 2012 Angus Roxburgh
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ISBN: 978 1 78076 016 2
eISBN: 978 0 85773 036 7
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CONTENTS
Introduction
1. The Secret Policeman’s Ball
2. Courting the West
3. The Battle for Economic Reform
4. The Darker Side
5. New Europe, Old Europe
6. Putin Mark II
7. Enemies Everywhere
8. A New Cold War
9. Media, Missiles, Medvedev
10. The Descent into War
11. Resetting Relations with the West
12. The Strongman and His Friends
13. Tandemology
Conclusion
Notes
Endnotes
List Of Illustrations
INTRODUCTION
When you shake hands with Vladimir Putin you scarcely notice whether it is a firm or a weak handshake. It is his eyes that consume you. He lowers his head, tilting his eyes upwards towards you, and fixes you for several seconds, as though memorising every detail, or maybe matching your face to a picture he had memorised earlier ... It is a glowering, piercing, highly unsettling look.
Russia’s ‘national leader’ is like no other country’s president or prime minister. The former KGB spy was rather reserved and gauche at first, when he was unexpectedly propelled into high office in 1999. But he has grown into a man with no inhibitions – a strongman and a narcissist, who flaunts his physical strength in ever more frequent photo-shoots. In the beginning we saw only a few selected images – Putin the judo champion, Putin at the controls of a fighter jet. Later – particularly after he moved from the president’s office to that of the prime minister in 2008 – he began to invite camera crews on expeditions designed solely to project a film-star image. They showed him putting satellite tracking devices on polar bears, tigers, white whales and snow leopards. He took the cameras along to see him swimming the butterfly stroke in an icy Siberian river, and riding a horse through mountains, with bare chest and dark shades. He personally put out wildfires, drove snowmobiles, motorbikes and Formula One cars, went skiing and scuba-diving, played ice hockey, and even crooned ‘Blueberry Hill’ in English and played the piano in public – unembarrassed by his inability to do either. In August 2011 he had a cameraman on hand when he stripped to the waist for a doctor’s examination.
What other world leader acts like this? Having muscular policies is one thing; but no one matches Putin for sheer vanity.
In conversation he is attentive, combative and sometimes explosive, when he touches upon sensitive matters. He is exceedingly well-informed, but also surprisingly ignorant about aspects of Western life. He is courteous, but can also be boorish. As president and then as prime minister he has run Russia with a strong, and tightening, grip. In recent years he has taken to dressing down his ministers in public, creating an atmosphere in which most of his subordinates are terrified of contradicting him, or even of voicing an opinion in case it might contradict him. He has created a top-down system – the ‘vertical of power’ – which instils fear and stifles initiative.
Russia has become a state contemptuous of its people’s rights: a country in which the head of the electoral commission says his guiding principle is that whatever Putin says must be correct, and the chairman of parliament describes it as ‘no place for discussions’. It is a country in which the most important decision about who will become president is effectively taken in private by two individuals, with no reference to the populace. This was what happened in September 2011, when Putin’s protégé and successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed to retire from the top job after one term to allow Putin to return as president in 2012 for, potentially, another 12 years. The two men cynically admitted what people had suspected but did not know for sure, that this had been the plan ever since Putin had stepped aside from the presidency in 2008: Medvedev’s stint in the Kremlin was a mere seat-warming exercise, designed to keep Putin in power for as long as he wished, while paying lip-service to (or, in fact, flouting) the constitutional ban on a president serving more than two consecutive terms.
Putin did not start out like this. Back in 2000 many Western leaders at first welcomed his fresh, new approach, and his willingness to cooperate and seek consensus. It will be the task of this book to try to chronicle and explain how everything changed: why Putin became more and more authoritarian, how he challenged the West and how the West challenged him too; how each side failed to see the other’s concerns, causing a spiral of mutual mistrust and lost opportunities. On the one hand there is what the Americans and the West observed: Russia’s political crackdown, the brutal war in Chechnya and murders of journalists, the corrupt mafia state and growing bellicosity, culminating in the invasion of Georgia and the gas wars against Ukraine. On the other, there is Russia’s view: America’s domineering role in the world, its missile defence plans, the invasion of Iraq, the expansion of NATO, Russia’s positive gestures that went unanswered, the perceived threat to spread revolutions from Georgia and Ukraine to Russia. And there is each side’s failure of vision: Putin’s inability to see any connection between his own repressions at home and the hostile reaction abroad; George W. Bush’s inability to understand Russia’s age-old fear of encirclement or its fury at his high-handed foreign policy adventures.
At the time of writing Putin remains the most popular politician in Russia, perhaps because of the measure of stability and self-esteem he restored to people’s lives, and because living standards improved during his rule, due largely to high oil prices which benefit Russia. And yet he has failed in many of his stated goals. Having come to power promising to annihilate terrorism, the number of attacks has grown; corruption has soared, and cripples the economy; the population has slumped under his leadership by 2.2 million people; foreign investment has been far lower, as a percentage of Russia’s economic output, than rival fast-growing
emerging markets such as Brazil or China; and, despite the massive inflows of energy revenues in the past decade, Russia has failed to create a dynamic, modern economy. This book looks at the struggle for reform inside Russia, and asks whether Dmitry Medvedev as president was (as it often seemed) a frustrated liberal or mere window-dressing.
Politicians are prone to oversimplify complicated issues, especially if it is in their interests to do so. This has been especially true of the discussion in recent years of what is perhaps the trickiest of all international political problems – the right of small nations to self-determination. Kosovo, Chechnya, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria ... gallons of ink and roomfuls of hot air have been expended in explaining, usually with categorical assurance, that one small country’s independence is or is not a precedent for others. Usually it is the big ‘mother country’ that insists all other cases are unique (Russia vis-à-vis Chechnya, Georgia vis-à-vis South Ossetia and Abkhazia), while the small nations demand to be treated the same way as those who gained their freedom. It is an issue of exceptional importance in Russia, a multinational state like no other, where dozens of nationalities coexist, some with greater or lesser autonomy, and where the Kremlin has a pathological fear of the state disintegrating if any one of those nations is allowed to set a precedent by gaining independence. The issue runs through the history of the last decade, from the war in Chechnya and the welter of terrorist incidents in Russia, to the short war between Russia and Georgia in 2008. Usually no side is ‘right’ in any of these conflicts, and it would be simplistic to pretend otherwise – just as it would be simplistic to pretend that the West’s decision to recognise Kosovo and NATO’s decision on future membership for Georgia and Ukraine had no bearing on relations between Russia and its neighbours. Perceptions and misperceptions of the other side’s intentions often play a greater – and usually more harmful – role than reality.
This is my third book about Russia, and I am aware of the presumptuousness of any foreigner who claims to understand that baffling country. The Russian political scholar Sergei Karaganov wrote of the ‘feelings of resentment and rejection that we Russians have when reading unpleasant notes about our country written by foreigners’. There is much that is unpleasant in Russian politics today, and it deserves to be written about. Russia is sometimes its own worst enemy, seeing ill intentions abroad where there are none, and fearing the spread of democracy rather than welcoming it. But there is also a failure on the part of the West to understand the processes going on there or to treat Russia with respect as a country that wants to be part of the world, not shunned by it.
***
This book stems partly from my work as chief consultant on a four-part BBC television documentary titled ‘Putin, Russia & the West’, made by the Brook Lapping production company. For the series, we conducted hundreds of hours of top-level interviews not only in Russia but also in the US, Britain, France, Germany, Ukraine and Georgia. These original interviews cast fresh light on many of the events covered, and are at the heart of my narrative.
I also draw, particularly for Chapter 9 of the book, on my personal experiences while working for three years as an adviser to President Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov. When the Kremlin decided in 2006 to take on a New York public-relations company, Ketchum, and its Brussels-based partner, GPlus, I found myself making an unexpected detour from my career as a journalist. Neither Ketchum nor GPlus had anyone on their staff who knew much about Russia, and suddenly they needed someone and offered me a job. After eight years covering the European Union, the idea of immersing myself in Russia again was appealing. Most of my career had revolved around it: I had studied and taught Russian, worked as a translator in Moscow and for the BBC Monitoring Service, been Moscow correspondent of the Sunday Times and later the BBC.
There was one piquant moment in my biography that made the offer even more tempting. Back in 1989, when Putin was a KGB spy in Dresden, his bosses deported me from Moscow in retaliation for Margaret Thatcher’s expulsion of Soviet spies from London. I was then the Sunday Times correspondent and was one of three journalists and eight diplomats who were kicked out in the last big spy scandal of the Cold War. How ironic, I thought, to return to Moscow as Putin’s adviser! I accepted, and became a Kremlin media consultant, based in Brussels but travelling regularly to Moscow. I was part of a team of some 20–30 people worldwide, but the only full-time consultant. I came to know Peskov and his team very well, and although they always kept up their guard, I was as close as any foreigner in those years to the corridors of power. My personal observations form the basis for much of what I describe during the years 2006–2009.
Our main task as media advisers to the Kremlin was to persuade them to open up to the press, on the rather obvious premise that the more you speak the more your views will be heard. The Russian political class proved remarkably resistant to this idea, and remained so long after I left the PR world and returned to journalism – as I discovered while working on the BBC television series. Persuading senior Russian politicians to give interviews was immensely difficult, and several key figures refused altogether. Others agreed, but only after many months of obstruction by their subordinates who seemed unwilling or afraid even to pass on our request. President Medvedev’s spokeswoman, Natalia Timakova, refused point-blank even to speak to us. Ironically it was easier to gain top-level access to the Kremlin in the final years of communism, when I worked on the BBC series The Second Russian Revolution, than it is now. Our task became even harder as political uncertainty crept in during the year prior to the 2012 presidential elections. The entire administration was in limbo, as Putin and his president, Dmitry Medvedev, refused to reveal which of them would run for re-election. Suddenly we found that interviews that had been promised were declined. It became clear that canny politicians and functionaries did not dare to stick their necks out in such a time of flux.
Nonetheless we did interview more than a hundred people (either on or off the record) for the TV series and this book. They include heads of government, foreign ministers and senior advisers in eight countries. In Russia we spoke to Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Anatoly Antonov, Stanislav Belkovsky, Vladimir Chizhov, Boris Chochiev, Arkady Dvorkovich, Viktor Gerashchenko, German Gref, Alexei Gromov, Sergei Guriev, Andrei Illarionov, Igor Ivanov, Sergei Ivanov, Grigory Karasin, Mikhail Kasyanov, Viktor Khristenko, Yevgeny Kiselyov, Eduard Kokoity, Andrei Kolesnikov, Konstantin Kosachev, Alexander Kramarenko, Alexei Kudrin, General Marat Kulakhmetov, Sergei Kupriyanov, Sergei Lavrov, Fyodor Lukyanov, Mikhail Margelov, Sergei Markov, Vladimir Milov, Oleg Mitvol, Dmitry Muratov, Gleb Pavlovsky, Dmitry Peskov, Sergei Prikhodko, Yevgeny Primakov, Dmitry Rogozin, Sergei Ryabkov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Viktor Shenderovich, Dmitry Trenin, Yuri Ushakov, Alexander Voloshin and Igor Yurgens.
In the USA we interviewed Matthew Bryza, Bill Burns, Nicholas Burns, Eric Edelman, Daniel Fata, Daniel Fried, Philip Gordon, Rose Gottemoeller, Thomas Graham, Stephen Hadley, Lt-Col Robert Hamilton, John Herbst, Fiona Hill, General James Jones, David Kramer, Michael McFaul, General Trey Obering, Stephen Pifer, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Sestanovich, Dean Wilkening and Damon Wilson.
In Georgia we spoke to Irakli Alasania, David Bakradze, Giga Bokeria, Nino Burjanadze, Vladimer Chachibaia, Raphael Gluckmann, Natalia Kinchela, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Daniel Kunin, Batu Kutelia, Alexander Lomaia, Vano Merabishvili, Mikheil Saakashvili, Eka Tkeshelashvili, Grigol Vashadze, Temur Yakobashvili and Eka Zguladze.
In the UK we spoke to Tony Brenton, John Browne, Nick Butler, Jonathan Cohen, Michael Davenport, Martha Freeman, David Miliband, Craig Oliphant, Jonathan Powell, George Robertson and Alexander Temerko.
In Ukraine we interviewed Leonid Kuchma, Hrihoriy Nemyria, Oleh Rybachuk and Viktor Yushchenko, and in Poland Alexander Kwaśniewski and Radoslaw Sikorski.
In Germany we interviewed Rolf Nikel, Alexander Rahr, Gerhard Schröder and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and in France our sources were Jean-David Levitte and Maurice Gourdault-Montagne.
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I would like to thank the producer of the Brook Lapping series, Norma Percy, and the executive producer, Brian Lapping, for giving me the opportunity to work on this long but rewarding project. My thanks go to directors Wanda Koscia and David Alter for reading some of the chapters, and to assistant producer Tim Stirzaker for his indefatigable research and organisational help. Above all I am indebted to the series director, Paul Mitchell, and the Moscow producer, Masha Slonim, for their stream of advice and insights. Neil Buckley and Fiona Hill kindly read the manuscript or parts of it and made many sensible suggestions, for which I am very grateful. Lastly, warm thanks to my agent Bill Hamilton, and my excellent editor at I.B.Tauris, Joanna Godfrey.
1
THE SECRET POLICEMAN’S BALL
A new millennium
The Putin era began at midday on the last day of the twentieth century. Taking the entire world by surprise, a wheezing, faltering President Boris Yeltsin appeared on television to announce his resignation, six months ahead of schedule. In a voice breaking with emotion he asked Russians to forgive him for his mistakes and failings, and told his people that Russia should enter the new millennium with ‘new politicians, new faces, new intelligent, strong and energetic people’.
Yeltsin had recorded the address in the Kremlin earlier that morning. The first people to know about it, apart from his daughter Tatiana and his closest advisers, were the television technicians who loaded his script into the autocue machine. When he finished he turned away and wiped tears from his eyes, then opened a bottle of champagne, poured a glass for the camera crew and the few presidential staff who were present, clinked glasses and downed his own one in a single go. Even as he did so, his designated successor, Vladimir Putin, was being made up behind a screen in the same room to record his own New Year’s address to the people.
Strongman Page 1