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| FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS | |
 July 27, 2000  | |
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TERENCE SMITH: Our foreign correspondent is David Filipov, Moscow bureau chief for the "Boston Globe." David, welcome home. DAVID FILIPOV, Boston Globe: Thanks for having me. TERENCE SMITH: Vladimir Putin-- is the Putin era different than the Yeltsin era? DAVID FILIPOV: Well, I think that the Putin era started when Putin became prime minister and started running the country, last August. And we already saw... we've seen the major difference, which is the second war in Chechnya. Certainly we're now seeing a lot of action surrounding business leaders-- the people known as the oligarchs in Russia-- surrounding certain leaders of mass media companies, and surrounding the regional governors in the Kremlin's efforts to bring them under control. So we're definitely seeing a flurry of activity, which, at least in politics and business, make it look a lot different than the last few years of the Yeltsin era. TERENCE SMITH: And from the President's office, is it a different style? DAVID FILIPOV: Well, certainly, I mean, with Putin, he's always moving around, and when you look at his performance at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of Eight in Okinawa. He's moving around, he's doing judo demonstrations, and that's not the kind of thing that Yeltsin could do. Yeltsin carried this kind of... this sense of authority, this sense of history. Putin's not like that. He's very active. He's a good listener, by all accounts. By all accounts, he's a good speaker when he's in those talks. Certainly when I've heard him speak, the thing that impressed me most is his ability to adjust what he's saying to the people who are listening to him, which is not that common a quality among Russian politicians. It's clear he's had some training there. So, in that sense, he looks a lot different. TERENCE SMITH: You referred to his crackdown on the oligarchs, these powerful business figures in Russia. Explain that. What's going on there? DAVID FILIPOV: Well, there are, indeed, several leading businessmen who are known as oligarchs in Russia, who by all accounts gained huge amounts of power and influence through their connections to the government, to the Kremlin, and often using state money through various different semi-illegal and legal-but-questionable methods to build huge business, media and financial empires. These people, who are very closely related to the middle part of the Yeltsin era and the end of the Yeltsin era, and now many of the leaders of this group, this informal group, have had criminal cases launched against their companies, or they've had... been visited by the tax police, who have this way of showing up in their masks with machine guns, and all very theatrical. But the point is, is that there's a sense that these people are not going to be the leaders of Russia, one way or another, the way that they were in the middle of the 90's, for much longer. That was an election campaign promise that Putin made, and with this action he appears to be acting on that. TERENCE SMITH: Now, at the same time, there have been crackdowns with tax police, with guns at the ready, on media organizations as well. DAVID FILIPOV: Well, in Russia it's the same thing. One or two, well, actually two or three of the more well-known "oligarchs," and let's use that in quotes because it's a loaded term here... TERENCE SMITH: All right. DAVID FILIPOV: But these people, one of the things that they purchased when they were building their empires was a vast holding of media companies; TV, radio. One of the more professional media companies, most media, is run by Vladimir Gusinsky, who was briefly held in prison, who has had a lot of pressure put on him, and there's clearly more on the way. He's not allowed to leave Moscow. He's had his personal property confiscated. This is clearly the main target right now in this crackdown against "oligarchs." TERENCE SMITH: Is it political pressure? DAVID FILIPOV: Well, I mean, these guys made their millions and their billions in the mid-90's. The prosecutors have always been there. They only start right now. You know, put two and two together, there's clearly a political element. You know, where were the prosecutors in 1997 when all the privatization deals, that are now suddenly being reviewed, were done -- or 1995? On the other hand, to say that these "oligarchs" deserve it, and they're getting what they deserve, or that the methods are their just desserts, that's also probably putting it a bit too... that's pushing it a bit too far because we're not seeing, necessarily, due process here. We're seeing political revenge. So, it's a complicated situation right now, and there's a lot of room for Putin to... you know, he's walking through sort of a minefield here. The other question that keeps coming up is whether all the people who illegally acquired huge amounts of money are being investigated right now -- or whether there are some Kremlin-friendly "oligarchs" who are getting a buy. All indications are that there are certain people who aren't involved in these probes, and that makes it sound all the more like, you know, typical-- unfortunately-- Russian situation where one group comes in, pushes the other group out. TERENCE SMITH: Another thing that is, of course, on President Putin's plate is the war in Chechnya. It's the war that won't go away. Every few months, it seems to me, the Russian military says that they have the rebels under control, and then there's another outbreak. DAVID FILIPOV: Well, I used to... I used to make the comparison to Lebanon, although I guess I can't do that anymore. The situation in Chechnya is very complicated. There are indications that Putin and his generals knew what they were getting into. They were able to portray this as a small, victorious war that reached its culmination at the time when Putin was getting elected President. He very adroitly... well, I won't go so far as to say that the war was started to get him elected, but it certainly served as the kind of issue that Russians could rally around. "Oh, here's an energetic leader that knows how to get things done." Certainly, Chechnya's autonomy was not making Russians very happy. There were a lot of kidnappings, there was a lot of violence in the region. So, it looked really good. The problem was, by putting a huge army into a place where there are people running around- - guerrilla fighters running around-- who can basically fight, like, by night and then hide by day, that's going to be a very explosive situation. Now we're seeing the bitter fruit of that: 20, 25 dead Russian soldiers per week, casualties in the close to hundreds. TERENCE SMITH: And what's the prospect? Is it likely to keep going on? DAVID FILIPOV: Well... Well, if you listen to the Russian estimations of the rebels' strength, on the one hand, if you count all the Russian estimations of rebel losses, then the rebels have lost over 20,000 people since the fighting started last August. But if you look at how many are left, according to official Russian estimations, they've always said, "3,000 to 4,000," "2,000 to 3,000." And so, we're still in a situation where, according to official figures, there's still 2,000 to 3,000 well-trained, well-motivated rebels who are able to blend in with the civilian population and clearly feel confident enough walking out in broad daylight, like they did the other day, and opening fire on Russian troops in the capitol, Grozny. Meanwhile, the Russian army has been withdrawing some of its units because they don't... they can't afford to pay combat pay, which is close to $1,000 per month, to a 90,000-man force. So, really what we have now is a situation where the Russian army is committed to keeping control over Chechnya. They're not going to pull out. TERENCE SMITH: Right. DAVID FILIPOV: They've decided that they're not going to let this happen. They let Chechnya be autonomous, they're not going to let it happen again. At the same time, they've got enough strength there only to control their own... the place where they stand. The rebels move around freely and take potshots. It's a mess, and it looks like a quagmire that will go on for as long as quagmires go on. TERENCE SMITH: Which is a long time. DAVID FILIPOV: Which is a long time. TERENCE SMITH: David Filipov, thank you very much. DAVID FILIPOV: Thank you. |
