Putin's Russia
The Sunday Times reported on the news management surrounding President Putin, a practice which dates back to the days of the Soviet Union.
I remembered writing a post about Vladimir Putin stumbling across buried treasure and how this was reported by Russia's state controlled media as another sign of their President's near superhuman powers.
Complete bollix, of course, but people seem to be taken in all the same.
Kremlin mice play as Putin lies low
The arrest of a man close to the Chechen president for the murder of Boris Nemtsov is forcing the Russian leader to choose between his two rival power bases.
Mark Franchetti _ The Sunday Times
Putin appears to be trapped between competing Kremlin cliques (Ilya Pitalev/TASS )
On Tuesday night tens of thousands of Muscovites are due to gather in the shadow of the fairy-tale domes of St Basil’s church on Red Square for a rock concert to celebrate the first anniversary of the seizure of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
Among the performers are Sergei Trofimov, whose repertoire includes “Uncle Vova”, a song dedicated to the Russian leader. The singer may also perform a sarcastic number about the sexual charms of Angela Merkel, who has clashed repeatedly with Putin over his military adventures.
Leading dignitaries, including Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, are expected to appear on stage for the event, which is to be beamed live to tens of millions of Russians on state television and followed by a spectacular fireworks display over the Kremlin.
The annexation of Crimea, although widely condemned by the West, has been enthusiastically received in Russia, sending Putin’s popularity surging to record highs.
But the question many Russians were asking yesterday was whether their leader would also be there to bask in the glory of his conquest.
Putin’s failure to appear in public since March 5 has prompted a frenzy of speculation that he had suffered a stroke, was undergoing a spot of rejuvenating plastic surgery or fallen victim to a coup.
A Swiss tabloid even suggested he had travelled to Switzerland to be with Alina Kabayeva, a retired Olympic athelete widely rumoured to be his girlfriend after she gave birth to a child.
The rumour mill has been sent spinning ever faster by a series of reports on state television in which the timing of meetings he attended had been manipulated to suggest that they had taken place more recently than was actually the case.
Even more bizarrely, the Russia 24 news channel was forced to issue a correction after errononeously reporting he had met his counterpart, the president of Kyrgyzstan, on Friday — even though their talks are not due to take place until tomorrow.
Reports yesterday suggested the most likely explanation was that Putin had a minor illness — perhaps falling victim to the flu sweeping Moscow.
Yet the secrecy surrounding the president’s disappearance — and the fascination it has prompted both in Russia and abroad — has demonstrated the extent to which Putin has concentrated power in his hands during his 15 years at the top. It has also helped fuel suspicions of an in-fighting upsurge behind the high red walls of the Kremlin in the aftermath of the murder three weeks ago of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister.
THE shooting of Nemtsov, 55, as he was walking home near the Kremlin with Anna Duritskaya, 23, his glamorous Ukrainian girlfriend, was the highest-profile political killing in Russia since the collapse of communism nearly a quarter of a century ago.
Initial suspicion fell on ultra-nationalists angered by the harsh criticism of Putin’s policy towards Ukraine by a man denounced by state television as a “national traitor”.
Last weekend, however, the FSB, Russia’s security service — which came under intense pressure from Putin to solve the high profile murder — arrested five suspects from Chechnya and brought them to Moscow. A sixth blew himself up with a hand grenade when Russian special forces tried to arrest him.
Zaur Dadayev, the main suspect who is alleged to have pulled the trigger, initially confessed. He then retracted it saying he had been tortured and claims to be innocent. Most intriguing are Dadayev’s apparent close links with Ramzan Kadyrov, 38, the Chechen president, whose forces have been accused of human rights abuses.
Until the day of Nemtsov’s murder, Dadayev served as the deputy commander of the North Battalion, an elite Chechen paramilitary unit fiercely loyal to Kadyrov.
An amateur boxer with his own private zoo, complete with pet tigers, Kadyrov, 38, is an extraordinary figure. Since taking over power from his father, when he was blown up in 2004, he has been able to wield power in Putin’s Russia that stretches beyond his tiny fiefdom in the North Caucasus.
In return for Kadyrov’s crushing of Islamic militancy in Chechnya and bringing relative stability to the region, Putin has given free rein to the Chechen leader’s associates to muscle in on lucrative business interests in Moscow.
Kadyrov’s rise has made him powerful enemies in the security services, the so-called siloviki, who in the wake of Nemtsov’s murder are lobbying for Putin to rein in his protégé. Among those thought to be opposed to the Chechen strongman are Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the feared Investigative Committee and Russia’s third-most powerful law enforcement officer.
Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, the former KGB, and Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Russia’s interior minister, are also thought to feel action needs to be taken against him.
Dadayev’s arrest — and the speed with which it happened — suggested the siloviki might be gaining the upper hand.
“It is extremely significant that someone like Dadayev, a high-ranking member of a Kadyrov battalion who’s linked to some of his closest men, should be arrested,” said a former Kremlin aide.” It’s the first time it’s ever happened.”
Most Chechnya experts doubt Dadayev could have taken it upon himself to kill a figure as prominent as Nemtsov outside the Kremlin without at best the tacit blessing of his superiors.
“Not in a place run with an iron grip as Chechnya,” said a Chechen émigré critical of Kadyrov. “He sent some very strong public signals to his people that ‘enemies of Russia’, people like Nemtsov, should be dealt with. That’s all it takes for a few overzealous loyalists to act. At worst, the order came from the president’s entourage.”
Pointing to a wider plot, Dadayev’s sister Tamara last week claimed her brother had flown to Moscow from Chechnya a few days before Nemtsov’s murder and back after the killing with his North Battalion commander, who is a member of Kadyrov’s inner circle.
According to Russian media reports, Putin was told by the FSB that the alleged mastermind behind Nemtsov’s killing was a very close ally of the Chechen president. His identity is known but he has not been arrested. Leaks to the media, such as this, which came from an anonymous Russian law enforcement official, are being read as a sign that some siloviki do not want the murder probe to stop at Dadayev — but want it to reach into Kadyrov’s inner circle, something Putin will be loath to allow.
“There’s a deep rift between many members of the security services and Kadyrov,” said a close former Putin aide who knows the Chechen leader.
“It’s about power. Kadyrov feels Putin’s uncompromising support and has become very brazen. The security services are angered and want his wings clipped, they want to teach him a lesson and see his power reduced. Putin is between two clans competing for his ear.”
The fact that, unusually, Dadayev’s arrest was announced by Bortnikov, and not prosecutors as is common practice, was also interpreted as a signal to Kadyrov.
Bastrykin was reportedly furious when two years ago several of Kadyrov’s bodyguards were allowed to go free after they were arrested in Moscow and charged with kidnapping and torturing a car thief whose crime ring they wanted to take over.
In a first, several FSB officers went public about the cover-up at the time and threatened to resign. Russian elite special forces officers were also outraged that Putin awarded Kadyrov and several of his closest allies the Hero of Russia medal — the country’s most prestigious military honour.
There has been unease, too, among some Moscow law enforcement officers about Adam Delimkhanov, a cousin of Kadyrov’s and one of his closest allies who is a member of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
Delimkhanov — who was once accused of bringing a gold-plated gun into the chamber — was wanted by Interpol in connection with the 2009 murder in Dubai of Sulim Yamadayev, a rival of the Chechen leader.
Delimkhanov has denied any involvement and the charges have since been dropped. Yamadayev’s elder brother Ruslan, also a Duma member, was gunned down outside the seat of the Russian government in 2008. Intriguingly, Delimkhanov’s brother Alibek is the commander of the North Battalion and Dadayev’s former boss.
THE rift at the heart of the Kremlin comes a time when Russia’s confrontation with the West over Ukraine has led the regime to take on an increasingly authoritarian tone.
The domestic mood is one of vicious political repression, entrenchment, isolationist nationalism and paranoia about perceived foreign threats. It is being compounded by Russia’s economic woes brought about by a combination of western sanctions imposed over Ukraine with a collapse in the oil price that has slashed the Kremlin’s revenues.
As the economy enters the worst crisis of Putin’s reign, the Kremlin is expected to turn the screws further to quash any dissent. But given the president’s control of the media and his record high popularity, internal clan battles are potentially far more destabilising than popular discontent over rising inflation and a spike in food prices.
Putin — who notwithstanding the latest spate of rumours appears to be in rude health — could legitimately run again for office in 2018 and stay in power until 2024 when he will be 72. That would make him Russia’s longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin. For that, however, he must keep his power elites in check.
Putin — who spent 16 years in the KGB — has mastered the art of “divide and rule” during his time in the Kremlin. Notoriously mistrustful even of his closest allies, he has often backed rival factions, using their in-fighting to limit their power. He is also intensely loyal to those who have shown him real allegiance — such as Kadyrov, who has said he would die for his master.
Yet he is also conscious of his traditional power base in the FSB, leaving him facing a tough choice in the wake of Nemtsov’s murder: either appease the security services by clipping Kadyrov’s wings or risk the ire of the siloviki by doing nothing — despite the glaring link between the Chechen leader and the alleged perpetrator of the murder.
Kadyrov’s grip on power in Chechnya is such that without him the region is likely to descent into a prolonged period of bloodletting between rival clans. But as the economic crisis worsens, the president needs the blind allegiance of his hawks in the security services as never before.
“Putin is between a rock and a hard place,” said the former Kremlin aide. “The analogy is this. You’re the master. Your cat’s brought you a dead mouse to your door to show loyalty and get a reward. Your dog goes after the cat and wants to maul it. Who gets the stick and who the pat on the back? It’s hard. The master though, is still Putin.”
Media spin photos, votes and Swan Lake
Russian media efforts to deceive citizens about Vladimir Putin’s public appearances are part of a tradition dating back to Soviet times to give the impression that all is well inside the Kremlin — even when it is not, writes Mark Franchetti.
In Stalin’s time, politicians who fell out of favour were airbrushed out of photographs of the politburo.
One of the most audacious plots to pull the wool over the public’s eyes involved Konstantin Chernenko, who was old and in poor health when he became Communist party leader in 1984.
As he was too ill to vote in parliamentary elections, Soviet television aired footage of Chernenko casting his ballot in what looked like a polling station.
It was, in fact, a television studio built at the hospital where he was being treated — as Mikhail Gorbachev, who succeeded him in 1985, later revealed.
In August 1991, when communist hardliners tried to overthrow Gorbachev in a failed coup that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of that year, television viewers were treated to repeated renditions of the ballet Swan Lake.
Boris Yeltsin’s serious heart problems and his hard drinking were kept secret for years. His disappearances from public view during his presidency were explained away by the Kremlin saying that he was “working on documents”.
The practice appears to have continued under Putin: he appears in public only in carefully orchestrated publicity stunts that have seen him tackle fires, tame wild animals and fly MiG fighter jets.
His embarrassed spokesman had to concede a few years ago that a dive at an underwater archeological site — where Putin at once found two perfectly polished ancient vases — had been staged.
On Tuesday night tens of thousands of Muscovites are due to gather in the shadow of the fairy-tale domes of St Basil’s church on Red Square for a rock concert to celebrate the first anniversary of the seizure of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
Among the performers are Sergei Trofimov, whose repertoire includes “Uncle Vova”, a song dedicated to the Russian leader. The singer may also perform a sarcastic number about the sexual charms of Angela Merkel, who has clashed repeatedly with Putin over his military adventures.
Leading dignitaries, including Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, are expected to appear on stage for the event, which is to be beamed live to tens of millions of Russians on state television and followed by a spectacular fireworks display over the Kremlin.
The annexation of Crimea, although widely condemned by the West, has been enthusiastically received in Russia, sending Putin’s popularity surging to record highs.
But the question many Russians were asking yesterday was whether their leader would also be there to bask in the glory of his conquest.
Putin’s failure to appear in public since March 5 has prompted a frenzy of speculation that he had suffered a stroke, was undergoing a spot of rejuvenating plastic surgery or fallen victim to a coup.
A Swiss tabloid even suggested he had travelled to Switzerland to be with Alina Kabayeva, a retired Olympic athelete widely rumoured to be his girlfriend after she gave birth to a child.
The rumour mill has been sent spinning ever faster by a series of reports on state television in which the timing of meetings he attended had been manipulated to suggest that they had taken place more recently than was actually the case.
Even more bizarrely, the Russia 24 news channel was forced to issue a correction after errononeously reporting he had met his counterpart, the president of Kyrgyzstan, on Friday — even though their talks are not due to take place until tomorrow.
Reports yesterday suggested the most likely explanation was that Putin had a minor illness — perhaps falling victim to the flu sweeping Moscow.
Yet the secrecy surrounding the president’s disappearance — and the fascination it has prompted both in Russia and abroad — has demonstrated the extent to which Putin has concentrated power in his hands during his 15 years at the top. It has also helped fuel suspicions of an in-fighting upsurge behind the high red walls of the Kremlin in the aftermath of the murder three weeks ago of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister.
THE shooting of Nemtsov, 55, as he was walking home near the Kremlin with Anna Duritskaya, 23, his glamorous Ukrainian girlfriend, was the highest-profile political killing in Russia since the collapse of communism nearly a quarter of a century ago.
Initial suspicion fell on ultra-nationalists angered by the harsh criticism of Putin’s policy towards Ukraine by a man denounced by state television as a “national traitor”.
Last weekend, however, the FSB, Russia’s security service — which came under intense pressure from Putin to solve the high profile murder — arrested five suspects from Chechnya and brought them to Moscow. A sixth blew himself up with a hand grenade when Russian special forces tried to arrest him.
Zaur Dadayev, the main suspect who is alleged to have pulled the trigger, initially confessed. He then retracted it saying he had been tortured and claims to be innocent. Most intriguing are Dadayev’s apparent close links with Ramzan Kadyrov, 38, the Chechen president, whose forces have been accused of human rights abuses.
Until the day of Nemtsov’s murder, Dadayev served as the deputy commander of the North Battalion, an elite Chechen paramilitary unit fiercely loyal to Kadyrov.
An amateur boxer with his own private zoo, complete with pet tigers, Kadyrov, 38, is an extraordinary figure. Since taking over power from his father, when he was blown up in 2004, he has been able to wield power in Putin’s Russia that stretches beyond his tiny fiefdom in the North Caucasus.
In return for Kadyrov’s crushing of Islamic militancy in Chechnya and bringing relative stability to the region, Putin has given free rein to the Chechen leader’s associates to muscle in on lucrative business interests in Moscow.
Kadyrov’s rise has made him powerful enemies in the security services, the so-called siloviki, who in the wake of Nemtsov’s murder are lobbying for Putin to rein in his protégé. Among those thought to be opposed to the Chechen strongman are Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the feared Investigative Committee and Russia’s third-most powerful law enforcement officer.
Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, the former KGB, and Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Russia’s interior minister, are also thought to feel action needs to be taken against him.
Dadayev’s arrest — and the speed with which it happened — suggested the siloviki might be gaining the upper hand.
“It is extremely significant that someone like Dadayev, a high-ranking member of a Kadyrov battalion who’s linked to some of his closest men, should be arrested,” said a former Kremlin aide.” It’s the first time it’s ever happened.”
Most Chechnya experts doubt Dadayev could have taken it upon himself to kill a figure as prominent as Nemtsov outside the Kremlin without at best the tacit blessing of his superiors.
“Not in a place run with an iron grip as Chechnya,” said a Chechen émigré critical of Kadyrov. “He sent some very strong public signals to his people that ‘enemies of Russia’, people like Nemtsov, should be dealt with. That’s all it takes for a few overzealous loyalists to act. At worst, the order came from the president’s entourage.”
Pointing to a wider plot, Dadayev’s sister Tamara last week claimed her brother had flown to Moscow from Chechnya a few days before Nemtsov’s murder and back after the killing with his North Battalion commander, who is a member of Kadyrov’s inner circle.
According to Russian media reports, Putin was told by the FSB that the alleged mastermind behind Nemtsov’s killing was a very close ally of the Chechen president. His identity is known but he has not been arrested. Leaks to the media, such as this, which came from an anonymous Russian law enforcement official, are being read as a sign that some siloviki do not want the murder probe to stop at Dadayev — but want it to reach into Kadyrov’s inner circle, something Putin will be loath to allow.
“There’s a deep rift between many members of the security services and Kadyrov,” said a close former Putin aide who knows the Chechen leader.
“It’s about power. Kadyrov feels Putin’s uncompromising support and has become very brazen. The security services are angered and want his wings clipped, they want to teach him a lesson and see his power reduced. Putin is between two clans competing for his ear.”
The fact that, unusually, Dadayev’s arrest was announced by Bortnikov, and not prosecutors as is common practice, was also interpreted as a signal to Kadyrov.
Bastrykin was reportedly furious when two years ago several of Kadyrov’s bodyguards were allowed to go free after they were arrested in Moscow and charged with kidnapping and torturing a car thief whose crime ring they wanted to take over.
In a first, several FSB officers went public about the cover-up at the time and threatened to resign. Russian elite special forces officers were also outraged that Putin awarded Kadyrov and several of his closest allies the Hero of Russia medal — the country’s most prestigious military honour.
There has been unease, too, among some Moscow law enforcement officers about Adam Delimkhanov, a cousin of Kadyrov’s and one of his closest allies who is a member of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
Delimkhanov — who was once accused of bringing a gold-plated gun into the chamber — was wanted by Interpol in connection with the 2009 murder in Dubai of Sulim Yamadayev, a rival of the Chechen leader.
Delimkhanov has denied any involvement and the charges have since been dropped. Yamadayev’s elder brother Ruslan, also a Duma member, was gunned down outside the seat of the Russian government in 2008. Intriguingly, Delimkhanov’s brother Alibek is the commander of the North Battalion and Dadayev’s former boss.
THE rift at the heart of the Kremlin comes a time when Russia’s confrontation with the West over Ukraine has led the regime to take on an increasingly authoritarian tone.
The domestic mood is one of vicious political repression, entrenchment, isolationist nationalism and paranoia about perceived foreign threats. It is being compounded by Russia’s economic woes brought about by a combination of western sanctions imposed over Ukraine with a collapse in the oil price that has slashed the Kremlin’s revenues.
As the economy enters the worst crisis of Putin’s reign, the Kremlin is expected to turn the screws further to quash any dissent. But given the president’s control of the media and his record high popularity, internal clan battles are potentially far more destabilising than popular discontent over rising inflation and a spike in food prices.
Putin — who notwithstanding the latest spate of rumours appears to be in rude health — could legitimately run again for office in 2018 and stay in power until 2024 when he will be 72. That would make him Russia’s longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin. For that, however, he must keep his power elites in check.
Putin — who spent 16 years in the KGB — has mastered the art of “divide and rule” during his time in the Kremlin. Notoriously mistrustful even of his closest allies, he has often backed rival factions, using their in-fighting to limit their power. He is also intensely loyal to those who have shown him real allegiance — such as Kadyrov, who has said he would die for his master.
Yet he is also conscious of his traditional power base in the FSB, leaving him facing a tough choice in the wake of Nemtsov’s murder: either appease the security services by clipping Kadyrov’s wings or risk the ire of the siloviki by doing nothing — despite the glaring link between the Chechen leader and the alleged perpetrator of the murder.
Kadyrov’s grip on power in Chechnya is such that without him the region is likely to descent into a prolonged period of bloodletting between rival clans. But as the economic crisis worsens, the president needs the blind allegiance of his hawks in the security services as never before.
“Putin is between a rock and a hard place,” said the former Kremlin aide. “The analogy is this. You’re the master. Your cat’s brought you a dead mouse to your door to show loyalty and get a reward. Your dog goes after the cat and wants to maul it. Who gets the stick and who the pat on the back? It’s hard. The master though, is still Putin.”
Media spin photos, votes and Swan Lake
Russian media efforts to deceive citizens about Vladimir Putin’s public appearances are part of a tradition dating back to Soviet times to give the impression that all is well inside the Kremlin — even when it is not, writes Mark Franchetti.
In Stalin’s time, politicians who fell out of favour were airbrushed out of photographs of the politburo.
One of the most audacious plots to pull the wool over the public’s eyes involved Konstantin Chernenko, who was old and in poor health when he became Communist party leader in 1984.
As he was too ill to vote in parliamentary elections, Soviet television aired footage of Chernenko casting his ballot in what looked like a polling station.
It was, in fact, a television studio built at the hospital where he was being treated — as Mikhail Gorbachev, who succeeded him in 1985, later revealed.
In August 1991, when communist hardliners tried to overthrow Gorbachev in a failed coup that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of that year, television viewers were treated to repeated renditions of the ballet Swan Lake.
Boris Yeltsin’s serious heart problems and his hard drinking were kept secret for years. His disappearances from public view during his presidency were explained away by the Kremlin saying that he was “working on documents”.
The practice appears to have continued under Putin: he appears in public only in carefully orchestrated publicity stunts that have seen him tackle fires, tame wild animals and fly MiG fighter jets.
His embarrassed spokesman had to concede a few years ago that a dive at an underwater archeological site — where Putin at once found two perfectly polished ancient vases — had been staged.
