Authors: Angus Roxburgh

Strongman (44 page)

If only Putin had combined his intuition with an instinct for democracy, and trust in the people’s choice, he would have been a great leader.

But Putin does not really understand democracy. As we have seen, he believes that American presidents can have pesky newscasters removed from their jobs. He falls for conspiracy theories (the
Georgia war was started to help Senator McCain) and believes nonsense served to him by his intelligence service (America has separate poultry factories producing substandard chickens to sell to
Russia). He has created a system where (he believes) nothing will happen properly if he does not personally supervise it: after the outbreak of wildfires in the summer of 2010 he even had CCTV
monitors installed in damaged villages so that he could monitor the progress of reconstruction work from his own office.

His style of leadership includes publicly berating officials on television, sometimes forcing them to change their policies on the spot, because the cameras are whirring. An example:

Vladimir Putin:
I want to understand how many Russian airplanes Aeroflot is going to buy. Otherwise the situation is that you want to dominate the domestic market,
but don’t want to buy domestic equipment. That’s no good.

Vitaly Savelyev (Director General of Aeroflot):
But we are buying Russian-built planes ...

Vladimir Putin:
Not enough of them.

Vitaly Savelyev:
All right, we will draw up plans. I will report back.

Vladimir Putin:
Good.

Putin instituted a tradition (continued by Medvedev) of having the opening of every cabinet meeting recorded and shown on television news, apparently in the belief that this demonstrates
openness and democracy. In fact, it means that government sessions turn into shows. Instead of a natural and perhaps difficult discussion in the privacy of the cabinet room, there is a speech by
Putin and, at best, a stilted dialogue with ministers. No Western government televises its cabinet sessions, and no one would expect this to happen, because difficult decisions can only be taken in
private. Putin has thus taken a superficially ‘democratic’ idea – televising the decision-makers – and turned it into an instrument of dictatorship.

Putin revealed his flawed understanding of media freedom when he visited the studios of Channel One in February 2011. He told journalists: ‘I think representatives of all authorities and
ministries not only can but must appear on federal television, explaining what goes on in their departments, explaining the processes that happen there, so that people hear from the horse’s
mouth about the intentions of officials, about their plans.’ At first sight it sounds liberal. But what Russian television lacks is not ‘explanation’ of the government’s
‘intentions’ and ‘plans’ that have already been made, but free and informed debate of policies
before
they become government plans.

For all the iniquities of the Putin system, however, it is
not
‘like the Soviet Union’, as is so often glibly stated. I was struck by ex-President Bill Clinton’s
sarcastic comment to Putin after the latter’s homily about how to reform the capitalist economy in Davos in January 2009: ‘I’m glad to hear Prime Minister Putin come out for free
enterprise. I hope it works for him.’
The Baltimore Sun
ran an article in 2011 about the Russians’ love of fast food restaurants under the headline: ‘We’re
lovin’ it, comrade.’ Comrade! It’s 20 years since Russians were comrades – but it seems they are still lumbered with the stigma of communism.

You only need to see the queues of excited families at Moscow airport, heading for holidays abroad, or visit the Gulag Museum with its displays from Stalin’s camps, or go to a theatre
production of Solzhenitsyn’s
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
, or look at Russian websites and blogs, or simply eat and shop in Moscow today, to understand that communism is well
and truly buried.

I am tempted to end by quoting Sir Rodric Braithwaite, a former British ambassador to the Soviet Union, whose affection for the country and understanding of its people leads him to a rare
understanding of Russia’s situation. ‘There are many flaws in the Putin system’, he wrote. ‘But it has restored Russian self respect, and laid the ground for future
prosperity and reform. As the process goes forward, the rest of us are better employed in keeping our mouths shut, rather than offering advice which is sometimes arrogant and insulting, and often
irrelevant or useless.’
³

That is precisely what the Clinton and Bush administrations failed to do, and, as the events described in this book show, the advent of a new Cold War was probably due as much to American
insensitivity as it was to Putin’s stridency in pursuing his legitimate goal of restoring Russian pride and status. As we have seen throughout this book, both sides fall too easily into
stereotyped thinking, rooted in an era when two ideologies fought for world domination. That era is gone: there is no ‘Russian ideology’, and wishing to have a say in world affairs is a
far cry from the Soviet ambition to spread communism around the globe. Yet the Cold War thinking and frictions remain – on both sides, each winding the other up instead of trying to
understand the other’s fears.

Russians showed during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin period that they aspired to democracy and freedom, but they hated the chaos that accompanied it. Putin brought greater stability but curtailed
democracy. Russians have yet to find a leader who can provide them with both.

NOTES

Chapter 1. The Secret Policeman’s Ball

1
. Strobe Talbott,
The Russia Hand
(New York: Random House, 2002), p 416.

2
. Interview with Konstantin Kosachev, 16 December 2009.

3
. Talbott, p 397.

4
. Stephen F. Cohen,
Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia
(New York: W.W.Norton & Co, 2000), p xii.

5
. Interview with Toby Gati, RIA Novosti, 22 March 2011.

6
. Vladimir Putin,
Ot pervogo litsa
(http://archive.kremlin.ru/articles/bookchapter3.shtml – last accessed 7 September 2011).

7
. For a good account of this part of Putin’s career, see Peter Baker and Susan Glasser,
Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia
and the End of Revolution
(New York: Lisa Drew, 2005), pp 47ff.

8
.
Ibid
., p 53.

Chapter 2. Courting the West

1
. Interview with George Robertson, 9 March 2011.

2
. Interview with Jonathan Powell, 9 March 2011.

3
.
Guardian
, 18 April 2000.

4
. Interview with Mikhail Margelov, 29 April 2010.

5
. Interview with Condoleezza Rice, 14 April 2011.

6
. Interview with Stephen Hadley, 24 January 2011.

7
. Interview with Colin Powell, 3 March 2011.

8
. Interview with Igor Ivanov, 11 December 2010.

9
. Interview with Sergei Ivanov, 29 October 2010.

10
. Yelena Tregubova,
Bayki kremlevskogo diggera
(Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2003), pp 160ff.

11
. Bob Woodward,
Bush at War
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p 119.

12
. Interview with Colin Powell, 3 March 2011.

13
. Interview with Condoleezza Rice, 20 June 2011.

14
. Bolton interview with Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, quoted in
Kremlin Rising
, p 131.

15
. Interview with Sergei Ivanov, 29 October 2010.

16
. White House translation, quoted in Woodward,
Bush at War
, p 118.

17
. In 2009 the Russians finally tried to force the Kyrgyz government to eject the Americans from Manas by offering loans worth $2 billion. The
price paid by the US to be allowed to stay was a quadrupling in the rent and the renaming of the air base into a less permanent-sounding ‘Transit Centre’.

18
. John Bolton,
Surrender is not an Option
(New York: Threshold Editions, 2007), p 71.

19
. Interview with Gerhard Schröder, 8 June 2011.

20
. Interview with George Robertson, 9 March 2011.

21
. Interview with Sergei Prikhodko, 30 June 2011.

22
. Interview with George Robertson, 9 March 2011.

23
. Interview with Colin Powell, 17 May 2011.

24
. Interview with Stephen Hadley, 24 January 2011.

25
. Interview with Igor Ivanov, 11 December 2010.

26
. Interview with Colin Powell, 17 May 2011.

27
. Interview with Sergei Ivanov, 29 October 2010.

28
. Interview with Condoleezza Rice, 20 June 2011.

Chapter 3. The Battle for Economic Reform

1
. Interview with Alexei Kudrin, 14 December 2010.

2
. Interview with German Gref, 7 December 2010.

3
. Interview with Andrei Illarionov, 27 January 2011.

4
. Interview with German Gref, 7 December 2010.

5
. Mikhail Kasyanov,
Bez Putina
(Moscow: Novaya gazeta, 2009), p 216.

6
. Interview with Mikhail Kasyanov, 16 February 2011.

7
. See Marshall Goldman,
Petrostate
(New York: OUP, 2008), chapter 5.

8
. Interview with Vladimir Milov, 16 February 2011.

Chapter 4. The Darker Side

1
. Interview with Viktor Shenderovich, 14 December 2010.

2
.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
, 11 February 2000.

3
.
Novaya gazeta
, 27 March 2000, reprinted in Anna Politkovskaya,
Nothing but the Truth
(London: Harvill Secker, 2010).

4
. Mikhail Kasyanov,
Bez Putina
(Moscow: Novaya gazeta, 2009), p 217.

5
. Interview with German Gref, 7 December 2010.

6
. David E. Hoffman,
The Oligarchs
(Oxford, Public Affairs Ltd, 2002), p 449.

7
. John Browne,
Beyond Business
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010), p 145.

8
. Interview with German Gref, 7 December 2010.

9
. Martin Sixsmith,
Putin’s Oil
(London: Continuum, 2010), p 52.

10
. Interview with Mikhail Kasyanov, 16 February 2011.

11
. My account of this meeting is based on interviews with those present, on (edited) video of the event and on the versions given by Sixsmith,
Putin’s Oil
, and Andrei Kolesnikov in
Kommersant
, 20 February 2003.

12
. Interview with Leonid Nevzlin, 14 May 2011.

13
. Interview with Andrei Illarionov, 27 January 2011.

14
. Interview with Mikhail Kasyanov, 16 February 2011.

15
. Kasyanov,
Bez Putina
, pp 199ff.

16
. Quoted in Sixsmith,
Putin’s Oil
, p 153.

17
.
Observer
, 2 November 2003.

Chapter 5. New Europe, Old Europe

1
. Interview with George Robertson, 9 March 2011.

2
. Interview with Jonathan Powell, 9 March 2011.

3
. Interview with Dan Fried, 27 January 2011.

4
. Interview with Nicholas Burns, 15 July 2010.

5
. Interview with Nicholas Burns, 21 January 2011.

6
. Interview with Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, 20 June 2011.

7
.
Die Zeit
, 5 April 2001.

8
. Interview with Gerhard Schröder, 8 June 2011.

9
. Interview with Alexander Kwa
ś
niewski, 24 November 2010.

10
. Interview with Igor Ivanov, 11 December 2010.

11
. Interview with Nicholas Burns, 21 January 2011.

12
. Interview with Sergei Ivanov, 29 October 2010.

13
. Interview with Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, 20 June 2011.

14
. Interview with Condoleezza Rice, 14 April 2011.

Chapter 6. Putin Mark II

1
. Interview with Igor Ivanov, 11 December 2010.

2
. Interview with Nino Burjanadze, 29 March 2011.

3
. Interview with Mikheil Saakashvili, 9 May 2005.

4
. See Thomas de Waal,
The Caucasus: An Introduction
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp 194–5.

5
. Interview with Colin Powell, 3 March 2011.

6
. de Waal,
The Caucasus
, p 197.

7
. Interview with Mikheil Saakashvili, 31 March 2011.

8
.
Wall Street Journal
, 30 August 2008,
Daily Telegraph
, 23 August 2008.

9
. de Waal,
The Caucasus
, p 199.

10
. Interview with Eduard Kokoity, 4 April 2011.

11
. The cause of the fire, which left only the outer walls intact, has never been fully established. The destruction of the historic building
(erected after the Napoleonic fire of 1812) provided an excuse for its total reconstruction, which was criticised by conservationists for distorting the original architectural vision.

12
.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
, 28 September 2004.

13
. Surkov on Chechen television, 8 July 2011, quoted by Interfax and Reuters.

14
. Dmitry Trenin,
‘Moscow the Muscular’: The Loneliness of an Aspiring Power Center
(Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center
Briefing, volume 11, issue 1, January 2009).

Chapter 7. Enemies Everywhere

1
. Interview with Leonid Kuchma, 22 March 2011.

2
. Interview with John E. Herbst, 16 May 2011.

3
. Interview with Gleb Pavlovsky, 18 February 2011.

4
. Interview with Sergei Markov, 30 June 2011.

5
. Interview with Oleh Rybachuk, 28 November 2010.

6
. Interview with Viktor Yushchenko, 29 November 2010.

7
. Interview with Alexander Kwa
ś
niewski, 24 November 2010.

8
. Interview with Leonid Kuchma, 22 March 2011.

9
. Interview with Alexander Kwa
ś
niewski, 24 November 2010.

10
.
Washington Post
, 9 February 2010.

11
. Gleb Pavlovsky,
Nezavisimaya gazeta
, 7 December 2004.