8. On the murder rate, see Mikhailovskaya 1994; on racketeering, see Gilinskiy 2000, 89–94; quotation in Volkov 2002, xi. I knew both Starovoitova and Manevich, Starovoitova well.
9. Putin n.d.; Gessen 2012 is highly accurate in her assessment of Putin, but she is too negative on Sobchak.
10. Stiernlöf 2000; on the Astoria: conversation with my late friend Boris Fedorov at the time.
11. On Warnig, see Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky 2008, 61–62; on Putin’s trips to Finland: personal conversations with four senior Finnish diplomats on various occasions.
12. Dixelius and Konstantinov 1998; Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky 2008.
13. The sums vary significantly with the time, as exchange rates changed swiftly, from $92 million to $122 million; the commission’s report of 101 pages is widely available on the Internet, e.g., Compromat 2007. On Putin receiving protection, see Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky 2008, 71–82; and Dawisha 2014, 106–125.
14. Kumarin adopted his mother’s name, Barsukov. Dawisha 2014, 132–141, quotation on 137.
15. For the Petersburg Fuel Company scandal, see Volkov 2002, 114; on the arrest for money laundering, see Dawisha 2014, 141–145; for the sentencing, see Kommersant 2016; and Vedomosti 2016.
16. Business Insider 2017.
17. Galeotti 2018.
18. Anin, Shmagun, and Velikovskiy 2016.
19. Dawisha 2014, 63–64.
20. On Bank Rossiya, see Dawisha 2014, 64–66; on Kovalchuk, see Milov et al. 2011; on Timchenko, see Reznik and Petrova 2008; on Warnig, see Dawisha 2014, 63–70; and Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 33; on the Moscow Times, see Stewart 2008.
21. Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky 2008, 107–108, 257.
22. US Department of the Treasury 2014a.
23. On Timchenko, see Melnikov 2012; and Dawisha 2014, 111–112; on Surgutneftegaz, see Gustafson 2012, 125.
24. Gunvor was apparently the first name of Törnqvist’s grandmother; Melnikov 2012.
25. Badanin 2016.
26. US Department of the Treasury 2014a.
27. Melnikov 2012; for stock prices, see stock symbol NVTK:LI.
28. Melnikov 2012.
29. US Department of the Treasury 2014a.
30. Yarosh and Bulavinov 2010.
31. Biografiya Arkady Rotenberg, www.peoples.ru.
32. Yaffa 2017; Forbes Russia 2018c; on the contract, see Milov et al. 2011.
33. Vedomosti 2010; Mostotrest n.d.
34. Nemtsov and Martynyuk 2014, 8, 11–12.
35. Levinsky 2016; Schreck 2016.
36. Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 34–36.
37. US Department of the Treasury 2014a.
38. Reznik and Petrova 2008.
39. Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 27; Lee Myers, Becker, and Yardley 2014; Polman 2016.
40. Nemtsov and Milov 2008; Reznik and Petrova 2008; quotation in Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 24–25.
41. Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 27, 32–33.
42. On Shamalov, see Novaya Gazeta 2009a; quotation in Lichtblau Dougherty 2008; US Securities and Exchange Commission 2008; Albats 2012.
43. On the palace, see Shleinov 2010; quotation in Anin 2011.
44. Nemtsov and Martynyuk 2012; Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky 2008, 108; Sebag Montefiori 2005.
45. Albats 2012.
46. Albats 2012; Anin 2011.
47. An earlier version of this section was published in Åslund 2017a; Putin 2000a, quoted in Yaffa 2017.
48. Whitmore 2015.
49. Reznik and Petrova 2008; Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 24–28.
50. On Kirill Shamalov, see Milov et al. 2011; on his marriage, see Stubbs et al. 2015; on his wealth, see Savchuk 2016; on Tobolsk, see Kuzmin, Zavyalova, and Grey 2016; and on his divorce, see Reznik, Arkhipov, and Sazonov 2018.
51. Grey, Kuzmin, and Piper 2015; Whitmore 2015.
52. On Ivanov, see Alrosa 2017; on Patrushev, see Bloomberg, “Russian Agricultural Bank Atle Staalesen 2015 Patrushev Junior in charge of Prirazlomnaya,” Barents Observer, April 8, 2015; on Sechin, see Moscow Times 2015; on Bortnikov, see VTB 2017; on Fradkov, see VEB 2015.
53. Whitmore 2015.
54. Dawisha 2014, 337; International Consortium of Investigative Journalists n.d.; Moscow Times 2017.
55. Putin 2017b.
56. Putin 2014a; Kovalchuk and Timchenko are Ukrainian names, while Rotenberg is a Jewish name.
57. Putin 2014b. In fact, only the United States had sanctioned Putin’s cronies, not the European Union.
58. Putin 2014e.
59. On Italy’s freezing of assets, see Rudnitsky and Sirletti 2014; on the Rotenberg Law, see Kramer 2014a; on the transfer of ownership, see Chellanova, Filatov, and Fedorov 2014.
60. The motto is ascribed to Óscar Raymundo Benavides Larrea, who was president of Peru in the 1930s, though many people have ruled along these lines; Economist 2012. On Platon, see Moscow Times 2016a.
61. Putin 2015c; on the payment, see Yaffa 2017; on the protests, see Filipov 2017; and Bovt 2017.
62. Moscow Times 2016b.
SIX How Large Is Russian Wealth, and Why Is It Held Offshore?
1. Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 32–33, 2010a, 2010b.
2. Quotation in Browder 2017; Åslund 2015, 88–90.
3. Gans-Morse 2017; Medvedeva 2018.
4. Browder 2015; Kar and Freitas 2013.
5. Lally 2011.
6. Hirschman 1978.
7. Gentleman 2013.
8. Åslund 1995.
9. Baker 2005, 163.
10. Interview with Vladimir Milov on April 18, 2018.
11. IMF 2015b, 20, GDP values in current USD from IMF 2017.
12. OCCRP 2017.
13. On offshore havens, see Houlder 2017; and Casey 2017; Elgot 2016; quotation in Houlder 2017.
14. US Department of Treasury 2015a, 2; Hodge 2018.
15. Ensign and Ng 2016; Judah and Sibley 2018.
16. Quotation in Judah 2014b.
17. Casey 2017; Judah and Li 2017, 19–20.
18. Findley, Nielson, and Sharman 2014, 72, 74.
19. Browning 2009; Wayne 2012; FACTCoalition 2017.
20. Transparency International UK and Bellingcat 2017
21. Michel 2017; Mance and Houlder 2016.
22. Judah and Li 2017, 22, 24.
23. Bullough 2017.
24. Layne et al. 2017.
25. Nickerson 2016; Mance and Houlder 2016.
26. Ensign and Ng 2016.
27. Three that are particularly laudable are Wayne 2012; Ensign and Ng 2016; and Layne et al. 2017.
28. Berliner Zeitung 2018.
29. Kar and Freitas 2013, j.
30. Stewart 2016.
31. Novokmet, Piketty, and Zucman 2017, 8, 21, 23.
32. Piketty 2013, 165; Novokmet, Piketty, and Zucman 2017, 16.
33. Novokmet, Piketty, and Zucman 2017, 16, figs. 12b, 11b.
34. Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 32–33.
35. Yaffa 2017.
36. Anin 2011; Albats 2012.
37. Yaffa 2017.
38. Stewart 2008.
39. Nemtsov and Milov 2008; interview with Vladimir Milov, May 18, 2018.
40. Ignatiev quoted in Voronova and Nikol’sky 2013.
41. Biyanova 2013.
42. Nemtsov and Martynyuk 2012.
43. Belkovsky 2013.
44. Albats 2012; Blomfield 2007; Belkovsky 2006.
45. Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 20–21; Balmforth 2016.
46. Wile 2017; Belkovsky 2013.
47. On Browder’s claim, see Taylor 2015; quotation in Browder 2017; on the Panama Papers, see Anin, Shmagun, and Velikovskiy 2016.
48. Anin 2011; Albats 2012. After having discussed with people of real insight into these matters, I have gradually increased the numbers.
49. Kozyrev 2017; Shleynov 2017.
50. Badanin 2017; Forbes Russia 2018b.
51. Harding 2016a; Anin 2016; Anin, Shmagun, and Velikovskiy 2016.
52. Gaddy and Danchenko 2006; Forbes Russia 2018d.
53. Forbes Russia 2018a.
54. Interview with Steven Lee Myers, July 2016; Lee Myers 2015.
55. European Commission 2015b; NataDutilh 2017, 4–5.
56. NataDutilh 2017, 5.
57. Transparency International UK 2017; NataDutilh 2017, 106–121.
58. Davies 2017; Sabbagh 2018.
59. FinCEN 2017; Nehamas and Rodriguez 2017.
60. Interview with Gary Kalman and Clark Gascoigne of the FACTCoalition, April 5, 2018.
SEVEN From International Economic Integration to Deglobalization
1. Guriev 2015.
2. Åslund 2010, 224–228.
3. On hyperinflation, see Granville 1995; on 1992–1994 prices, see Michalopoulos and Tarr 1997; and Michalopoulos and Drebentsov 1997; on suspicions of Russian initiatives, see Olcott, Åslund, and Garnett 1999.
4. Yeltsin 1994, 113; Olcott, Åslund, and Garnett 1999.
5. Putin 2000a, 93; Putin 2005a.
6. Bush 1991.
7. Yeltsin 1991.
8. Åslund 2002, 421. This amount includes only EU grants, not commodity credits.
9. Brzezinski 1983.
10. Åslund 2006.
11. The concept of BRICS had been invented by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs in 2001 as a marketing device (Wilson and Purushothaman 2003); Medvedev 2009a.
12. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation n.d.
13. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. http://eng.sectsco.org/about_sco/.
14. This section draws on Åslund 2010 and Åslund and Hufbauer 2012, 55–58.
15. Osnovnye 2000.
16. Putin 2002.
17. On the estimated impact, see Jensen, Rutherford, and Tarr 2004; on gains, see Yudaeva et al. 2002.
18. Cooper 2006a, 2006b; Oomes and Kalcheva 2007.
19. Connolly and Hanson 2012.
20. WTO 2012; Browder 2015.
21. US Congress 2016; US Treasury Department 2017c.
22. Åslund and McFaul 2006.
23. Tarr 2007.
24. Coalson 2014.
25. Roberts and Moshes 2016.
26. Movchan and Giucci 2011.
27. United Nations 2014.
28. Roberts and Moshes 2016, 548–549; Adomeit 2012; Krickovic 2014 expresses a similar analysis.
29. Åslund 2013b.
30. Carneiro 2013.
31. On Nazarbayev’s claim, see Roberts and Moshes 2016, 543; World Bank 2012.
32. Garbert 2013; Åslund 2013b.
33. Putin 2012e.
34. Movchan and Giucci 2011, 11. For a list of other studies, see Åslund 2013b.
35. Ivanter et al. 2012, 40; Eurasian Development Bank 2012, 29 (cf. Putin 2013a); Moshes 2013.
36. Libman and Vinokurov 2012; Dutkiewicz and Sakwa 2015. Roberts and Moshes 2016 do a nice job taking them apart.
37. Aleksashenko 2016 offers an excellent and detailed analysis.
38. IMF 2015c.
39. Central Bank of Russia n.d.
40. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2017; Kramer 2014a.
41. Gros and Di Salvo 2017.
42. Deutsche Welle 2017; Reuters 2017a.
43. Gillum and Davis 2017.
44. Heavey and Devitt 2018.
45. Hufbauer et al. 2009.
46. As discussed in chapter 5.
47. Soldatov and Borogan 2017, 314–319.
48. Agence France-Presse 2015.
49. IMF 2018, data for 2017.
50. Åslund 2015, 215.
51. Reuters 2018a, 2018b.
52. Movchan, Saha, and Kirchner 2018.
53. Alexander Gabuev 2015 offers an excellent overview of China-Russia relations.
54. Ibid.
55. On realpolitik, see Walt 1987; on Putin’s visit to China, see Putin 2014c.
56. Gabuev 2015.
57. Guriev 2012.
58. Åslund and Hufbauer 2012.
59. US Department of Commerce 2016.
60. Soldatov and Borogan 2017; Meduza 2017.
EIGHT Liberalism versus Statism, or Reform versus Corruption?
1. On the Washington Consensus, see Williamson 1990. On the Leszek Balcerowicz program, see Balcerowicz 1992; Gaidar, a prolific writer, expounded his ideas at length (Gaidar 1993, 1999, 2007, and 2012), while Chubais has done so more sparsely (Chubais 1999; Gaidar and Chubais 2012).
2. At the Gaidar Forum in Moscow in January 2017, Chubais sat in the first row in an audience of a thousand people. Although he did not say one word, the panel referred to him incessantly, showing his authority.
3. I first met Glaziev in 1990, and I was surprised how socialist his views were. We kept in touch until the Ukrainian conflict in 2013.
4. I have known Kudrin since 1990 and have maintained friendly and regular contacts with him; Glaziev 1996, 2005.
5. This section draws on Åslund 2013c.
6. See especially Glaziev 2005, 22–23, where Glaziev summarizes in fifteen points his differences with Putin.
7. Glaziev 2013a.
8. Glaziev 2013b, 2013a, 24.
9. Glaziev 2013a, 2.
10. Glaziev 2013c.
11. Glaziev 2013a, 18, 23.
12. Glaziev 2013b.
13. Glaziev 2013a, 45–48.
14. Putin 2012b.
15. E.g., Mau 2013b; Tsentr Strategitcheskikh rasrabotok 2017.
16. Yasin 2013; Kudrin 2013.
17. Mau 2013a, 16–17.
18. Ibid., 6.
19. Ibid., 17, 9.
20. Elder 2011.
21. Clover 2013.
22. Putin 2012e.
23. Putin 2013b.
24. Putin 2012e, 2012d.
25. Putin 2016a.
26. Ibid.
27. Putin 2017b.
28. Kudrin 2017.
29. Kudrin and Gurvich 2014, quotation on 33. I checked this with Gurvich in June 2017.
30. Ibid., 33.
31. Kudrin 2016.
32. Dmitriev 2016; Prokopenko 2016.
33. Stolypinsky Klub 2016.
34. Institute of Economic Growth P.A. Stolypin 2017.
35. Ibid.; Stolypinsky Klub 2016.
36. Hille and Foy 2017.
37. Hille 2017.
38. Putin 2012a; Trading Economics 2018.
39. Shleifer and Vishny 1993.
40. Transparency International Russia n.d.; INDEM 2001.
41. Nemtsov and Milov 2008, 2010a, 2010b.
42. BBC 2010.
43. Reilhac 2017.
44. Ibid.
45. Anti-Corruption Foundation n.d.
46. Anti-Corruption Foundation 2015; “Chaika” means Seagull and is the name of one of Anton Chekhov’s most famous plays. Putin 2015f.
47. US Congress 2016; US Department of the Treasury 2017a.
48. The title refers to a widely ridiculed statement by Medvedev’s press secretary Natalia Timakova, complaining that people were talking too casually about the president. Pal’veleva 2013. Anti-Corruption Foundation 2017.
49. Novaya Gazeta 2017.
Conclusion
1. On Russian state capitalism, see Kurlantzick 2016, 42.
2. Houlder 2017; Ensign and Ng 2016.
3. This is inspired by a conversation with Vladimir Milov, May 17, 2018.
4. Michels 1911; Yergin and Gustafson 1993, 136.
5. On China, see Lardy 2014; on Russia, see Pei 2016; and Shambaugh 2016.
6. Pipes 1974.
7. Putin 2000a, 91, 200, 202; Freeland 2000; Hoffman 2002. Note that the same was true of the coteries of both Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev, though not of Boris Yeltsin; Breslauer 1982, 2002.
8. Fukuyama 2011, 17.
9. Shevtsova 2005.
10. Åslund 2007a, 228.
11. Anin 2011; Stewart 2008; Anin, Shmagun, and Velikovskiy 2016.
12. Mandelbaum 2005.
13. Fish 2005; Freedom House 2016; Wright 2017; Shevtsova 2007; Huntington 1991.
14. Krastev 2006.
15. Library of Congress n.d.
16. Tr
ansparency International 2017.
17. Åslund 2017b.
18. Ibid.
19. Eichengreen, Park, and Shin 2013; Aiyar et al. 2013.
20. Acemoglu and Johnson 2005.
21. Acemoglu and Robinson 2006; Linz 1978.
22. Acemoglu 2003.
23. For an empirical study of the deinstitutionalization and personalization of the state, see Baturo and Elkink 2016. For an analysis of this process, see Shevtsova 2005.
24. United Nations 2015.
25. IMF 2018; Arkhipov, Martin, and Colitt 2017.
26. IMF 2018.
27. The SIPRI numbers are significantly larger than the Russian numbers for the Ministry of Defense, because many military expenditures in Russia are paid for by other ministries, for example, the Ministry of Interior finances the substantial internal troops. SIPRI 2017.
28. Rutland 2008.
29. Putin 2000a, 169; 2012f.
30. Putin 2008a; Gudkov 2015, 58.
31. McFaul and Stoner-Weiss 2008; Shevtsova 2007, 83.
32. Dunlop 2014; Satter 2003; Treisman 2011.
33. Levada Center 2017.
34. Ibid.
35. Zoria 2018.
36. Von Mises 1920.
37. De Meneses 2009; IMF 2018.
38. Zubarevich 2015, 31; Gudkov 2015, 56.
39. Gozman 2017.
40. Allison 2017, 82.
41. Goldgeier and McFaul 2003, 356.
42. Levada Center 2017.
43. Stent 2014.
44. Gerasimov 2013.
45. Galeotti 2016; Bartles 2016; Gerasimov 2013.
46. Putin 2000a, 19.
47. Galeotti 2016.
48. On social network interference, see Harding 2017; and Isikoff and Corn 2018. On Kremlin interference in elections, see Soldatov and Borogan 2017.
49. Blake et al. 2017; Leopold et al. 2018.
50. Fried 2017.
51. Aron 2017.
52. Moscow Times 2012.
53. Michel 2017.
54. I owe this point to Gary Kalman of the FACTCoalition.
55. Ensign and Ng 2016.
56. Judah and Li 2017, 28.
57. Michel 2017.
58. Lipset 1959; Diamond 2008.
59. I have done so repeatedly, notably in Åslund 2007a.
60. Ibid., 239–282.
61. I discuss that in Åslund 2015, 138–146.
References
Acemoglu, Daron. 2003. “The Form of Property Rights: Oligarchic vs. Democratic Societies.” NBER Working Paper 10037. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Acemoglu, Daron, and Simon Johnson. 2005. “Unbundling Institutions.” Journal of Political Economy 113: 949–995.
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