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Masha Lipman

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Masha Lipman

Russian journalist

Masha Lipman was deputy editor of the Russian weekly newsmagazines Ezhenedel’ny zhurnal, from 2001 to 2003, and Itogi, from 1995 to 2001. She has written extensively on Vladimir Putin and the Russian media and is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The Washington Post.

This is the transcript of an interview with FRONTLINE's Michael Kirk conducted on July 11, 2017. It has been edited in parts for clarity and length.

This interview appears in:

Putin’s Road to War

The Putin Files

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Putin's Political Rise

Let’s start when Putin becomes president.If we need to, we’ll go in the backstory a little bit.Tell me the feeling in the country, as you perceived it, when Yeltsin names Putin as his replacement.

We are talking here about very late ’99.The country is in a state of misery and turmoil.If we look back at the ’90s, two state coups, one of them in the middle of Moscow with lots of casualties; a collapse of the habitual Soviet safety net for many people.For some, of course, an opportunity of enrichment, but this is a minority.For many, this is the time when they're losing their jobs; they're losing their habitual environment.Their jobs, [which] used to be prestigious if not well-paying, such as teachers or engineers, suddenly lose all prestige, or the job is lost altogether.

The economic reforms, the liberalization of prices led to high inflation, so people are in a state of turmoil and frustration and confusion.Suddenly, there is this crying inequality that is obvious on a daily basis.There is corruption.There is corruption, inequality, injustice everywhere, and President Yeltsin, who rose on immense popularity with the people, a sense of love and admiration, was progressively losing that.He was re-elected in ’96, but then, very soon after that, he was quickly losing popularity.By the late 1990s, his popularity is in single digits, and something around like 2 or 3, rather than 8 or 9.

Add to that the decline of the oil prices, and of course the Russian economy depends on oil a great deal.So the price of oil, at some point, was just over $10 per barrel, and the average was around $20 in those years.All of this has led to this state of misery and confusion and a loss of trust in every institution of power in the country—the parliament, political parties, the presidency itself, which is very unusual for Russia, because Russia, for centuries, was, or should I say has been a country where power is centralized.This center of power is very powerful, actually omnipotent, and other institutions are weak, and the society is actually powerless.So that is a habitual pattern for Russia.

In the ’90s, the central power of the state itself was weakened quite dramatically.So on top of that all, the very late ’90s was the time of the financial crash in the world, which also affected Russia.So by the very late of 1990s, President Yeltsin barely escaped impeachment.It was clear that he got to the very bottom of his popularity or unpopularity, if you like, and it was clear that he would not stay on through the end of his term.It is just a scene of collapse of power.He was also getting very sick, tired, aged a great deal over the years that he was president of post-communist Russia.The need for a major move to maintain power in the center was really needed.

That was when President Yeltsin anointed a successor, named Vladimir Putin as his successor, who was acting president for a while and then was elected president.Of the advantages that Vladimir Putin had compared to Yeltsin, some were really obvious to the people.He was younger when Yeltsin was old.He was athletic where Yeltsin was sick.He was younger.He also was sober, which is important.It is sometimes exaggerated.People tend to say, “Well, Yeltsin was drunk all the time.”This is not true.He was not drunk all the time, but this was a problem that people were aware of.

On the surface, Vladimir Putin had many advantages.Of course he did not have the advantage that President Yeltsin had at the very beginning, this very broad love of his people.Rather, he was not very well known to the public at large.He held very important positions before, but he was not a popular figure, and he had never stood in elected office, never was running in any election.However, when he was anointed president and he demonstrated all these differences, all these advantages over Yeltsin, and also, [he] showed decisiveness and presence in the face of explosions—we had terrorist attacks; we had apartment buildings explosions in Moscow and elsewhere at the time—he demonstrated that he would stand up for his nation.

He sounded firm.He was present.And that led to a rise of his popularity.He was gaining popularity very soon after he came to power.Then, rather soon after he became president, he had an immense stroke of luck.The price of oil began to rise—not his achievement, but he was immensely lucky.To people in Russia at large, and I'm talking now about a majority of the population, they compared the ’90s to early 2000s, in the time when Russia was building a democracy, was associated with turmoil and misery, and the time when democracy was curtailed, people began to live better, Putin was able to deliver.

… What were the grievances that the people of Russia felt about the rest of the world and the way the world had treated Russia during the post-Soviet years?

It should be pointed out that in late ’80s, and especially during that time, the West was seen by quite a lot of people in the Soviet Union as a model to emulate, as a source of things desired that people in the Soviet Union were denied.It could be mass consumption to some.It could be pop music to others.It could be things, cultural, more in culture, literature, film, what have you, to another constituency.And to some, maybe not a majority, it was also a place where they had democracy, where there was a multiparty system instead of the Soviet system of one party and basically dictatorship of the Communist Party.So the West was this model to emulate.

The yearning in the Soviet Union among many was, “We want to be a normal country.”So when reforms began, and then we had Gorbachev, and he was experimenting with popular elections, this was a very common line.We want to become a normal country, and “normal” implied like in the West.

So when the Soviet Union collapsed—and this in itself, by the way, I want to point out that the collapse of the Soviet Union was not something that people in the Soviet Union wanted.In the Baltics, for sure, they sought independence.Some other republics of the Soviet Union, there have been such sentiments.But certainly in Russia, people were not yearning for a collapse of the Soviet Union.They wanted the end to the dictatorship of the Communist Party.They wanted a cancellation of an article of the Soviet Constitution that proclaimed the dominant role of the Communist Party.It was called Article 6, and there were mass rallies in the late ’80s that called for an elimination of Article 6.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in itself already was if not a disappointment, then at least a very confusing development.Still, the Westernizing reforms that President Yeltsin launched after the collapse of the Soviet Union, after Russia emerged as a post-communist country, they worried about emulating the West.From the Russian Constitution—and this was a charter that was framed by Russian lawyers who were looking at the best constitutions of the democratic countries, including the United States, they got the inspiration from those charters to the political system with checks and balances, a multiparty system to the country’s economy, because this was a transition in early ’90s to a market economy.

It was believed that if we emulate the West in all of these realms, we will become a normal country.We will live like in the West.And this, of course, did not happen.And this caused a gradual, I would say, fast, rapidly growing disappointment among many, that emulating the West is taking us in a wrong direction.Some even believed—and this was not an unpopular belief at the time—that the West lured us into a trap, and this was done intentionally.They wanted us weakened.

Add to that the fact that the Soviet Union, of course, was one of the two poles in the two-polar world, and it held—well, roughly speaking—half the world under its sway.Then suddenly the Soviet Union was no more, and Russia lost its sphere of influence.It lost part of its territory.It was economically very weak.It was militarily radically weakened.So suddenly there was this country that was much, much weaker than the country that people had lived in just very recently, nothing to celebrate.

… If you look at the graph that shows a very simple graph showing positive/negative perception of the West, and especially the United States, you see roughly about 80 percent take a positive perception of the United States in the late ’80s, maybe still very early ’90s, and a very small number of those who feel negatively about the West and the United States.

Then the graph goes down, but it’s not very steep, with a few negative peaks, with a few moments when the negative becomes very intense and shared very broadly.And one—the first of such instances is the bombing of Yugoslavia.It was interesting that, at that time, a Soviet—a Russian film was produced that was about a Russian Rambo, you can say, a veteran of the Chechen war who comes back to the peaceful world, and he undertakes a revenge on the enemy.The enemy is not a Chechen; it is an American.I will not go into the plot, but he goes all the way to America to kill the enemy, and he succeeds.

The film was immensely popular, immensely popular, so much so that, in a fast-forward, President Putin quoted from that film, from the scene of the assassination, after he annexed Crimea.His nation recognized the quote, of course, because of the popularity of the film, so this is—

What's the phrase he quoted?

The phrase that he quoted was, “Russia’s power is in truth.”In his last encounter with America—actually first and last, he finally reaches the man, reaches his nemesis, and he says: “So tell the American, where is the source of power? Do you think it’s in money? No, it is in truth.”And the idea is that the Americans may be wealthier, but we have the power of having the truth on our side.And of course, with these orders, he kills the American.

Putin's Vision for Russia in his First Term

So does Putin come in with a kind of mandate in some way, a, to shrink the democratic impulse, and b, to restore a kind of nationalism, a kind of national pride?

It should be pointed out that not everyone was happy to see Putin in power.I was talking about the majority of the population, and to go back for a second to the ’90s, in two parliamentary elections, in ’93 and ’95, pro-Kremlin, pro-Yeltsin party never gained a majority, so it was clear that the sentiments of the majority were not on the Yeltsin side, were not on the side of those who call themselves democratizing reformers, Westernizing reformers.

When Putin comes to power, and he sees the sentiment—Yeltsin narrowly escaped impeachment.People are frustrated and exasperated because of the economic hardship and the collapse of the safety net.I mean, which politician would not use this sentiment to rise, to consolidate his power?I think this was a very natural move.Should he have continued Yeltsin’s policy, he would never have gained popularity.

But he did the opposite.Call it a mandate, or call it shrewd political gain, you capitalize on the grievances, and you try to send a message to the public that “I'm different, and I will try to make your lives better.”Of course not everyone was happy with that.People in the liberal circles, people who supported Yeltsin’s government, who were in favor of those reforms, were really apprehensive of seeing a person who had his background in the KGB to become the leader of the country.Also, very quickly after coming to power, Putin began to take on the control of all those checks and balances that had been defined in the Russian Constitution but had not taken root.Before the end of his first term, he took on the control of the Russian Parliament, which, in Yeltsin’s days, was referred to as irreconcilable opposition, dominated by irreconcilable opposition, torpedoing his every initiative.

So Putin took that under control.He also reined in Russian oligarchs, Russia’s wealthiest people, who had gained a lot of clout and power in the ’90s.He did that by forcing into exile two of the wealthiest and most influential men in Russia.Also political parties, also major television networks, the most mass audience, the largest audience media in Russia, and Russia federalism.Local governors who also had gained a lot of power, that even superseded the power of the center, they now were under control.And Putin did that with little resort to violence, to the use of force.

For political resistance?Were people, generally speaking, happy to see him do this or just sort of willing?

Some were, but mostly people at large, at that time, were much more concerned about their own situations.Again, I would say that people saw this—many did—as a choice between democracy and order, and somehow see these two as mutually exclusive.Most importantly, the checks and balances, the democratic political system had not taken root, and people had not gotten used to seeing it, did not get used to seeing it as something that was a safeguard of their power, their ability to hold the government into account.Those political reforms were much more associated, again, with misery and turmoil.

So it’s not that people wanted Putin to crack down on the fledgling democracy, but they appreciated, of course, growing incomes that had nothing to do with that process but with Putin’s stroke of luck.They didn’t care very much about those independent institutions of power being taken under control.I think this process of reinstating Russia’s traditional political pattern, omnipotent center, with all other institutions of power much, much, much weaker and the society at large basically powerless, it was traditional, and it was accepted naturally.

You talk about, you’ve written about—David [Hoffman] says you have individual authorship of an idea of the nonparticipation pact idea.Explain to me what's at work there.

Before too long, during Putin’s presidency, he did achieve reconciliation of the nation, and he rose to high popularity.This was not done by a major crackdown.There was a lot of manipulation, and there was an acceptance.There was an acquiescence on the part of many of this new arrangement.I would describe it, and I described it at the time, as a three-pronged pact, one with the society at large, the majority.The government delivered, and it delivered, no question about that, much, much better than the government could deliver in the ’90s.And the government, in exchange, expected people to support the government, to vote for it, to vote for the pro-Kremlin party, and people did.

I would say another prong of this pact was with the elites, who were allowed to enrich themselves and to take advantage of this fast-growing price of oil, from about $20, or even under $20, to over $100 in the course of years.But they, too, were expected not just to support the government, but to respond to any requests or favors that the government might have.Of course if they felt differently, if they had their doubts about the government, they were not to reach out to the broad public.That was totally ruled out.And it was clear that they would not mess up with politics other than supporting the Kremlin.

And the third was with a minority of more critically minded, maybe liberal-minded, Westernized constituencies, a minority, but still it was not totally negligible.And with those the pact was: “You can criticize us, but in your limited space, in your limited venues.Your website later on, your publications early on, before the Internet became so widespread your small venues, you're free to criticize us.You don’t have to agree with us. You don’t even have to support us or vote for us. But don’t you go beyond your limited space.”

Those spaces in the lingo of those people over the years were referred to islets, as ghettos.People actually did not have a bad life.You know, if you are a journalist, you preach to the converted; you have a loyal and interested audience, and you feel good.This audience is not large, it’s certainly not national, but you can do your job.You're paid reasonably well, and you can express yourself.

Another way to describe it was, there was a freedom of expression within certain limits, but no freedom of speech as an institution that the people, the society at large, could rely on to hold the government to account.

… What can you tell us about how Putin’s aspirations were articulated to [President George W.] Bush and America—what he hoped for; what the Russian people hoped for; where we were at that moment when Putin, who obviously, as a former KGB agent, researched Bush; when the cross moment happens, all of that?Help me understand the Russian perspective and Putin’s perspective on what the aspiration was for that interaction with America.

Putin had not been an ardent supporter of Gorbachev perestroika or President Yeltsin early on.He had a different history.He had been a KGB officer.He served his motherland, the Soviet Union.He was not overinspired by what was going on in the country in the late ’80s.That eventually led to the collapse of the communist system and the Soviet Union, and I guess—of course I don’t know— that he had a sense of humiliation.He used to serve a very powerful nation, one of the two most powerful nuclear powers in the world, and when he became president, Russia had only the tiniest fraction of that influence.So this is humiliating.This contraction of—other nations went through this, the collapse of the empire, Britain, France.It’s never pretty or pleasant to begin with.

I think he shared the sentiments of humiliation with, I would argue, a majority of the nation.This may not have been an acute feeling of an average Russian, but he knew, and he used this much later, that such sentiments are not difficult to enhance, that you can always tap into the sentiment and capitalize on it.But in his capacity as the leader of the country, I think he saw his goal as to work with the West so that Russia would not be humiliated the way it was at the time of the bombing of Yugoslavia.He wanted respect.It can be argued that he was not happy with how the Cold War ended; that there was an obvious winner in the West, and the West then capitalized on its new power.I think it was the time of the highest power of the United States, the 1990s, as the one pole of the world, by far the most powerful nation in every way.

My guess is Putin thought of it as unfair.The instances when Russia was taken for granted, beginning with the bombing of Yugoslavia, and even before that with the NATO expansion, another NATO expansion; and they were in Iraq when Russia vehemently opposed this policy, and again was waved off, was dismissed; the recognition of Kosovo independence as a precedent of tearing away a part of the country and announcing it as a new country now; and of course the withdrawal of one of the important arms control agreements—all of this, I think, amounted to the West taking advantage of Russia’s weakness and capitalizing on its new power.And of course the West is always focused—the perception, the attention in Russia is always focused on the U.S.

So he tried. He tried to adjust.He tried to at the same time cooperate with the West economically, thinking of it as a lucrative policy that is profitable for Russia, and at the same time reduce the influence of the West on Russia.Quite a few of his policy moves point to this, that he tried to cut down the influence of the United States.I think he saw the hypocrisy in the policy of democracy promotion while at the same time the United States was building up, continuing to build up its military might.So this combination: You promote democracy, but at the same time, you interfere in various countries with your military force as you please, knowing that there is no force in the world that can oppose this.

All of this created through the 2000s this paradox, or maybe a contradiction of sorts, that Putin wanted to cooperate with the West so that Russia would get the technology; the investment would be developed.But at the same time, he’s always wary, and he’s always apprehensive, and he’s always suspicious.And time after time, he realizes that the West is not to be trusted, that it takes advantage; [it] always takes advantage of Russia’s weakness.

Arguably, a very important moment in this perception was Putin’s Munich speech in 2007, when he expressed his grievance and his exasperation with the West, with the United—

Before we go to Munich, there's just a couple way stations I have to stop at along the way.So he comes to Bush and sort of says: “I’d like to be friends. Let us help you.”9/11 happens; he’s the first phone call into Condi Rice.He says: “We’ll help. We’ll give you bases. You can launch from here.You can do whatever you need. We, too, have a terrorism problem. Let’s cooperate. We know terrorism here in Russia.”He finds himself almost begging for their recognition and their acknowledgement of his generosity.

Instead, we go forward to Iraq.We disregard what he says.We don’t let him help.It does look like we’re continuing our policy of just “You're irrelevant; you don’t matter to us.” …

Indeed, when Putin expressed his sympathy with the 9/11 tragedy, he probably expected—and indeed, he offered assistance.And it was the kind of assistance that the United States not only accepted, but that was very important, the ability to fly across the Russian territory.So I think he meant it. I think he meant that he wanted to assist.But he wanted something in compensation. He wanted something in return.And he wanted an understanding of Russia’s policy.And he wanted the United States to stop criticizing Russia for excessive use of force in Chechnya, for instance; for Russia’s poor record on democracy; and in general, to stop treating Russia as a bad student, as a student of democracy which always is given only satisfactory grades at best, and maybe bad grades.

This perception of Russia as “You're a bad student, and we are the teacher, and by virtue of being a democracy with experience, with decades and centuries of democracy in our country, we can judge you,” he did not want this judgmental attitude.He didn’t—he very strongly—I think even personally disliked it.So he probably expected respect, and respect is what he implied: “Don’t criticize us. We are not a student. We are a powerful country.”

He wanted an understanding of Russia’s policy, and he did not want the criticism.He tried to reach out to Americans and to say: “You have a terrorism problem; we have a terrorism problem.You should understand us. Don’t criticize us for excessive use of force. We have this horrific problem, and we are handling it as we can.”

Are you referring to Beslan [school siege] as an example of that?Something that we were critical of.

Putin launched a second Chechen war.The first one was launched by President Yeltsin.Chechnya, when Putin just became president, was indeed a horrific problem, a source of terrorism.So Putin was fighting this war, whether it was excessive/not excessive use of force, it was an atrocious, horrific war, with horrific atrocities on both sides.

There were also lots of terrorist attacks in Russia.The world remembers the major ones, but there were lots of others that were not so major, but also with quite a few victims.Beslan was, of course, the most horrific.And by the way, after Beslan, there were a few years when we didn’t have any terrorist attacks beyond the territory of North Caucasus of Chechnya.So in a sense, Putin delivered security to his people—

What did he do?

—to his people outside of North Caucasus.And while Putin was calling for the West to understand that Russia has its own terrorism problem, in fact I think the two sides, the United States and Russia, they did not regard terrorism in the same way.To Russia, the source of terrorism was Chechnya.The West looked at Chechnya, at Russian performance, Russian war in Chechnya, as excessive use of force.For quite some time, it was seen as Russia fighting against a secessionist movement in Chechnya.

Russia would never recognize, for instance, Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, so we had different terrorists we were for and against.And this called for, “Let’s understand; let’s all understand that terrorism is a horrific problem that is threatening all of us.”In fact, there was a lot of hypocrisy behind it, I think on both sides.Different problems, different policies, different terrorists.

And we just didn’t take Russia seriously.

Well, when they say it is probably natural, this is how global politics is played.If you have a rival, I think, in a sense, the perception of Russia as a rival, as a competitor, persisted.If after decades of acute rivalry, your opponent, your adversary gets much weaker, you take advantage of that.I really cannot see how else global politics is played.So Putin expected Bush to make up, to compensate him for his act of goodwill and his assistance and his sympathy with the tragedy of 9/11, but he never got it.

Putin Consolidates Power in his Second Term

So what is Munich then?When he goes to Munich, what's that?

When Putin was beginning to lose patience, seeing the developments in Yugoslavia, the movement toward recognition of Kosovo independence, the expansion of NATO, he saw this as the West continuously taking advantage of Russia’s weakness and treating Russia as a threat, because what else was there behind NATO expansion, for instance?Countries in Central Europe, which had been occupied by the Soviet Union for decades after World War II, were begging for the West to defend them, to make them members of NATO, so that this occupation would never happen to them again, and the West listened to those fears.

But the West did not listen to Russia’s fears of NATO, right?Russia had a similar argument: “We are afraid of NATO.NATO was our enemy, and now we don’t have our Warsaw Pact, and you still have your NATO.And this NATO is building up military power.”There is certainly a disparity of perception.We are sympathetic to the fears of Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, but we are not sympathetic of Russia’s fears.

Anyway, at the same time, treating Russia, I would not deny that, as an aspiring democracy in the ’90s, this perception was fairly common.“You are a new member of the democratic family; we embrace you as such; we do economic assistance, and we do business with you.But at the same time, somewhere in the back of our minds, we remember that you are an adversary.”This ambiguity, I think, is something that affected their relationship.

By the time of the next phase of NATO expansion is being prepared, Putin gave his speech in Munich, in which he sounded really angry and exasperated by what he saw as the American hegemony.

How did that play in Russia?Some people have told us there's no such really thing as a foreign policy in Russia.It’s a domestic audience that he has to appeal to, with his foreign statements; that it’s really about “We’re big boys. We’re at the table now, with the United States and others. It’s a bipolar world we’re seeking.”

Russians never see it, by the way.Post-communist Russia has never said it’s seeking a bipolar world.It’s always said it wanted a multipolar world, and this is not the same.But I would disagree that everything is domestic politics only.I think it’s always both, and I think it’s the same in any country, in any large country, big player on the global scene.In Russia, whatever anybody might be thinking in the ’90s, has remained.This was Putin’s concern, that Russia should remain a global player.

So domestic audience is very important.Of course it is, and it should—in Putin’s mind, of course, reinstating Russia’s greatness was always a very important task, important goal.But I would disagree that this only had to do with domestic politics.I think Putin had an acute sense of being a leader of this country, which in his younger days was a major nuclear power.In seeing the West taking advantage of Russia having become smaller and weaker was not something that he wanted to accept, not just for the domestic audience.And by the way, through the 2000s, he could deliver to the people because of the high and rising price of oil, and he didn’t have to resort to foreign policy and Russia’s stature on the global scene to the extent that he has to now.

People were acquiescent.He could play this three-pronged pact with his nation without resorting too much to pugnacious statements on the global scene.

So this really is a statement to the world that Russia’s back.

I would certainly say this.I think Putin wanted to—he sent a warning.He sent a message, a warning message to the West in Munich in 2007, that Russia claims its place on the global stature, and Russia would not make do with something very secondary.I think by then it was pretty clear that Russia was too large to become a member of NATO, European Union, you know, wait in line somewhere after Poland, before Ukraine, to be accepted.This was not a position for Russia.By 2007, this was pretty clear.

Russia, at the same time, lacked the attraction to become a power with a number of allies around it, so it was a difficult situation in a sense.But Putin claimed a bigger role for Russia, and his message to the West was that the current situation was not to his liking, and he would not put up with it.And, by the way, next year, in 2008, the expansion of NATO, well, I would say stopped when the Western countries changed their mind and did not offer a Membership Action Plan [MAP], something that they had planned to do, to Georgia and Ukraine.

The Reset and Arab Spring: Putin as Prime Minister

Let me ask you about [Dmitry] Medvedev and the switch.Did people at first—I have many questions about it, but did people in Russia buy it, that it was a genuine switch, that Putin was going to disappear and hand it over to Medvedev at the very beginning?

Well, if somebody did, it was a tiny minority.It was pretty clear to everyone that Putin remained number one, even though throughout Medvedev’s presidency he held a position of the prime minister, which is of course inferior to the president.I think this was a very clear indication that what matters in Russia is personality, not office.Even the office of the president, for during the four years of Medvedev’s presidency, was weaker to the power and the influence of Putin as a person now—well, as a prime minister—one might say.But power rested with him.

And even though presidency went to Medvedev, and it was clear to everyone that Putin actually anointed Medvedev, that at the time when Putin stepped down, after two four-year terms as the constitution required, he enjoyed a popularity of 80-plus percent.It was clear that the public in Russia would accept anything.If he stayed on, if he changed the constitution to extend the two consecutive terms to three or indefinitely, it was a matter of his choice.He chose to step down, but in a way that he would, for all practical purposes, stay on.

And did the United States—there's another new president.Bush is gone.Stephen Hadley from the Bush administration said, “I think we threw the Russian relationship in the toilet,” he says at one moment.Along comes a new president and a new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.And they seem—they call it the “reset.”Is this just political theater, or do they, from what you can tell, and do Russians believe that they really misunderstand and believe that Medvedev is the president now, and that they’ll have a whole new way of dealing with Russia?

I wouldn’t underestimate the U.S. administration at the time.I think they perfectly well understood what is going on, that there is this one man who does not hold the most important position in the country right now but is the ultimate rule [maker] and the ultimate decision maker, especially as far as foreign policy is concerned.I would remind that, at the time of the Georgia war, when French President [Nicolas] Sarkozy came to Russia as a peacemaker, Putin would not leave him alone with Medvedev.He was present at the scene.Even though this looked very bizarre, it should have been president to president, but Putin was also present, because apparently he did not trust Medvedev, a new leader at the time, and he did not trust him fully to make the decisions, to be with the French president at this very acute moment.

So I think the U.S. administration at the time had a very challenging task.Medvedev was a formal president of the country, and of course they treated him as such.But at the same time, they realized who was the real boss, so there was this delicate game being played.My sense is the U.S. administration probably tried to somehow help Medvedev, maybe help him rise, but this was beyond their capacity.

President Obama’s very first visit to Russia was, I think, a characteristic in this respect, because of course he met with the president; he met with Medvedev.But when then, he went to talk to Putin, who, according to various accounts, dressed him down and criticized him harshly for the policy of his predecessor.So they tried to play this game, but I don’t think there was any solution, any easy policy solution, given the situation in Russia, where, as they understood, Medvedev was the formal leader.But Putin was more important and was behind the scenes, especially as far as foreign policy is concerned.

Something is happening in the world around then.The Arab Spring has started in Egypt, Tunisia and Egypt, moving its way to Libya, moving its way.The United States has had sort of funny relationships to it, but is encouraging it in some ways.Sitting in the prime minister’s office is Vladimir Putin, who must be watching what's happening. …

The years of Medvedev’s presidency were the years of more verbal freedom, and quite a few statements that Medvedev made, some of his policies domestically, his very image of a person who is softer, younger, did not have a KGB background.He was a softer face to Putin’s regime.I think it’s a fair description.And people in Russia took advantage of that, those who cared, those who wanted to use this verbal freedom, those who wanted to somehow take further these small openings that were associated with Medvedev’s presidency.That was a time of more verbal, and not just verbal, freedom.

There were people in the political class who tried softly, delicately, to somehow boost Medvedev, to somehow make him look bigger than he is, knowing that Putin is still number one.But God knows what's in store.Will Medvedev stay on?Maybe eight years of this verbal freedom, maybe this will change something in Russia.Maybe we are in for more openness and more democracy.So there was this attempt to boost Medvedev.

At the same time, indeed, developments in the world, Arab Spring, which took Putin off course.Yet again the West is behind a regime change, installing leaders that the United States believes are better for this country or better for America, using its military might sometimes still, or using it before.So this is again an example or more evidence for Putin that the language of democracy, democracy promotion, support of a popular uprising, democratic regimes, and at the same time done by a country which is by far the most powerful military power in the world, so very alarming to Putin, and I think the combination of several factors: Medvedev’s softness; the very rapid penetration of the Web; and the great popularity of social networks during that time—we’re talking about very late of the 2000s—and the rise of a class that is referred to differently, but urban people in large urban centers, people who are employed in post-industrial economy, people who are more open-minded, more critically minded, the rise of this constituency.So these three factors—Medvedev and his policy, or his face or his bearing, however you call it; the Internet and social networks; and the rise of this constituency—eventually led to the protests in 2011 and 2012.There was a trigger, a political trigger for the protests, but the protests happened.

Arab Spring was also part of the background.To Putin, this was, I think, a very important and alarming signal.Finally it is coming to Russia, something that he had been apprehensive of.It has come to Russia.And of course, quite memorably, his first reaction was to blame Hillary Clinton for giving the inspiration to those people, which sounded totally absurd to the actual protesters.But at the same time, Putin used this word “signal,” that they heard this “signal” from Hillary Clinton.

I would add to that another development of 2011, and this is Libya, which as some people who claim that they have the inside information from the Kremlin, said that Putin took it as the last straw.The West cannot be trusted.Russia abstained.It is still argued in Russia whether it was Medvedev’s decision and Putin had disagreed with it, or maybe Putin had endorsed it at the time.Whatever it was, Russia abstained in the U.N. Security Council, and in Putin’s mind, the West had taken advantage of Russia’s vote of abstention and took the operation much farther than the mandate, the U.N. mandate implied.

To him, it was an act of deceit by the West, and, as some say, people who claim that they have the inside information, to Putin this was his last straw.The West is not to be trusted.The West always does the same thing: regime change by force under the pretext of democracy promotion or supporting the force for good against the force for evil.

And it couldn’t have helped that he sits there and watches the murder of [Muammar al-] Qaddafi on video.There's that incredible moment where Hillary Clinton hears the word—we used it in a film one time—and she’s, like, excited, and “We came, we saw, he died,” you know.She’s saying things like that.This cannot be lost on Vladimir Putin, that this is the proof positive of what you are articulating.

It wasn’t lost on Putin. Of course not.He saw this as outrageous, and his language at the time was—it was clear that he was totally outraged by what he saw as deceitful behavior on the world scene and as an outrageous act in a foreign country, right, in Libya.So the West interfered, and the leader is executed, basically executed.

And Hillary Clinton is attached to that in some way for him?

I think this episode, as well as others— … It was no secret to anyone at the time that there had been animosity between the two, between Hillary Clinton and Putin.I think it was reciprocal.I think it was a mutual dislike of each other.And the statements that Hillary Clinton made about Putin—and I think there was enough coming from her—plus the general background of the Western policy, that Putin would think of Hillary Clinton as somebody he really strongly disliked personally, as well as a politician.

Putin Returns to the Presidency, Sparking Protests and a Crackdown

When Medvedev actually makes the announcement that they're going to switch jobs, how do the Russian people respond to that?

Well, there was a constituency in Russia, and I think it was larger than we thought at the time, maybe younger people, maybe people who were maybe a little bit naive about how politics is played, people who liked Medvedev for these very things—him being younger; him being softer; his rhetoric; his background as not a KGB man, something that was appreciated by maybe a sizable constituency in Russia who associated with Medvedev a softer, more open future, and more modernizing development under Medvedev’s presidency.Modernization became a mantra.This “M” word was all over him, and people liked that.We want to modernize.

When it was announced that he would not stay on, he would not run for his second legitimate term, and he was fairly popular—his popularity was almost on a par with Putin’s at the time—there was a disappointment because there was a constituency that wanted him to stay on.There was also this sense, especially among the young, just imagine, you know, Putin will come back for 12 more years because the constitution has been changed from four-year presidential term to a six-year one.People are saying: “Well, I'm 20 years old now.I will be 32.”When you're 20, 32 sounds like you are an old man.“So I will be 32, and Putin would still be president?”It was this sense.It may sound like a very lighthearted perception of politics, but I think it was common, this sense of 12 years for a young person is quite a lot.

Plus, there was a sense of humiliation, because the way they switched—the trading places was announced by both, and Medvedev and Putin both announced that—it was done in full contempt for the public opinion, because Medvedev especially—Medvedev is not as good in public as Putin is, and he sounded very lame about it.He probably was very upset, disappointed—we can suggest that—so he said, “We actually had decided a long time ago, between the two of us, that whoever is more popular at the time when my term is up, my first term is up, would be the next president, would be the next president of Russia, would run for president.”This sounded like they decided it between the two of them.How about us?We are voters, by God.

Again, I would not say that the sentiment was shared by everyone, but it was this sentiment, certainly, and it played a role.And I think it played a role in the protests in 2011 and 2012.

So when they're out there shaking their fists at Putin, complaining about the switch and many other things, and he’s about to take over again, … To what extent does he recognize that there are new forces, the force in the web, for example, that he’s going to have to contend with, that he hadn’t really anticipated as a problem that now he must address?

The protests came as unexpected.And I think for the protesters themselves—I remember the atmosphere in the country very well, and they never missed a single of those protests at the time—people had no idea there would be so many.And of course the Kremlin had not been prepared for that.It was seen as a very serious challenge.Actually, for the first time in Putin’s presidency, it was a challenge.One can say, OK, there was never 100,000 people in the streets in Moscow, and of course much fewer in other cities.But still, when you have 100,000 people in Moscow coming to the streets and shouting, “Russia without Putin,” this is quite something.

What is also important is the actual protesters may not have been so many.We saw much larger protest rallies in late ’80s in Moscow.But the perception, the attitude to the protest and protesters was actually approving among many Russians.Putin’s approval rating, which used to be 80-plus percent at the time when he stepped down in 2008 and anointed Medvedev for presidency, dropped to 60-plus percent.Sixty-plus is fine for an American president, or a president in a democratic polity, it’s perfect.It’s a solid majority.But not in Russia.Not in Russia, where the political system is about this dominant center.And Putin, who had been, through his first two terms, a leader of no alternative, a leader whose power was unchallenged and uncontested, and also the trend itself, from 80 to 60, the trend is unmistakable decline.

Quite a few people at the time, in public opinion polls, were saying that come the 2012 presidential election, that they would like to have somebody else for president, not Putin.The protest sentiments were shared rather broadly by up to one-third of the Russian people.This was a real challenge, even if just 100,000 were in the streets of Moscow, and Putin had to deal with the challenge.

… So he did that by reaching out to the conservative majority.Of course he still, even at the time of the protests, enjoyed a 60-plus percent popularity.It was not that his popularity entirely dropped.He had this conservative majority to rely on.The idea was to ostracize and antagonize the audacious, the urban, the modernized, and to juxtapose, to even you can say to pit the conservative majority against this modernized minority, the excessively modernized Russians, by claiming—and of course Russian state television, which is state-controlled television, was a very important instrument there—portray[ing] the protesters as unpatriotic, as un-Russian, to use the paraphrase of un-American in the United States.They don’t share our traditional values.They are a fifth column, which was a common term.So they are unpatriotic because they share the Western values.He reached out to the conservative majority with this message.This constituency is unpatriotic because it lives by Western values, not ours.

It was a very important part of the policy that Putin used, consolidating the conservative majority and vilifying and ostracizing the excessively modernized.And it worked.It was also combined with a crackdown.People who took to the streets, some of them—not too many, but still enough for others to be scared—were detained and arrested and tried and sentenced to rather long terms in jail.So the policy of intimidation, consolidating the conservative majority against the too-Westernized, too-modernized minority, and a very intense anti-Western rhetoric on television.

Putin Asserts Himself on the World Stage in his Third Term

Let’s go to Ukraine.Let’s go to Sochi and Ukraine and Crimea, all in a sort of basket in 2015. …

… Putin wanted to demonstrate to the world a Russia that was modern, that was efficient, that was welcoming guests from all over, that could build new facilities in Sochi, that had been a mostly decrepit place before that.That was a project that, by the time when the Olympics were finally held, was sort of out of date already.It belonged in earlier times when Putin sought to charm the West, to demonstrate this modern Russia that was beautiful and impeccable and could offer the state-of-the-art facilities.In fact, by the time the Olympics began, or rather even before the Olympics began, the Western press was very negative, finding faults, looking for something to criticize during the process of preparation for the Olympics, which I'm sure exasperated Putin quite a bit.The press was generally negative, looking at how Russia was behind schedule, at how nothing worked, of how money was stolen, of how human rights were violated in the process of vacating space for the Olympics.

But at the end of the day, I think the opening ceremony was gorgeous.I mean, personally, I admired it.By the end of the Olympics—of course later on we learned about very unsavory operations [involving] Russian people, Russian athletes’ performance, but at the time, Russian athletes did really well.Nothing of the fears that had existed before the Olympics—because Sochi is not too far from North Caucasus—terrorists, terrorism scare, nothing like that, thank God, materialized.

Actually, it was the Olympics like any Olympics.Went smoothly, Russian athletes did well.Nothing terrible happened to either the athletes or spectators or the guests.Even the press began to change toward something more favorable.The coverage and all was growing more favorable there at the end of the Olympics.

And then of course Ukraine.By the time of the end of the Olympics, here is news about the Ukrainian crisis.Then Ukraine President [Viktor] Yanukovych fled, and Ukraine is basically in a state of a bloody civil conflict, and the scene changes.

But again, I want to emphasize that the Olympics themselves were part of an earlier project in which Putin was on a charm offensive and wanted to strike the world, to impress the world with quite another Russia.By the time the Olympics were held and the Special Olympics were over, Russia is in a state of a broadening and deepening conflict with the West.

And his response to the unrest in Ukraine was in some ways—what was he doing there?In some ways, even forget Crimea—we can kind of understand that—but the Donbas, everything that happens down in there, what is that?What is he doing, and why is he doing it?

Ten years before this crisis in Ukraine took place, anybody who was interested could see just how strong Putin felt about Ukraine.I'm talking, of course, about the Orange Revolution.Putin personally campaigned for his candidate in Ukraine, I mean literally so.Went to Ukraine, spoke on television, did a thing that was unthinkable: A foreign leader, a leader of a major nation, goes to his neighboring country and campaigns for one of the candidates.He never made it a secret just how important it was to him to prevent the unwanted candidate from winning.

What happened, of course, the unwanted candidate did win.It was President [Viktor] Yushchenko.Yanukovych did not make it that time, and Putin was really very angry.Some of the statements that he made at the time, especially that had to do with the actual procedure, a third round of an election that was not to have happened—he was really, really angry.And I think that was—if the world needed another signal, this was a signal of just how important Ukraine was to Putin, that for him to lose Ukraine to the West—and that was how he saw it, the pro-Western government in Ukraine is a failure, a loss for Russia—that this was the end of the world.

The end of the world did not happen, even though Orange Revolution took place, and Yushchenko became president.But later on, you know, Ukraine is never very good with keeping their country together and with national development, so there was a series of political crises, political turmoil, and eventually Yanukovych became president of Ukraine.So it had not been the end of the world, but we knew, and everyone who wanted to know knew just how important it was for Putin to keep Ukraine in Russia’s orbit.

What happened in Ukraine during Maidan revolution was—I mean, one way to look at it was Putin was thrown back to square one, where he had been at the time of the Orange Revolution: pro-Western government in Ukraine.But even worse, with his candidate, the president with whom he had been dealing with, President Yanukovych fled, and there is a bloody conflict.He sees the West behind it.Of course to him it was all yet another example of how the West meddles and how, in supporting forces for good against the forces for evil, the West seeks to undermine Russia.

Being thrown back to square one, I think it’s a fair description.Putin acted in a fairly risky way by annexing Crimea, arguably the most adventurous and the riskiest move in his whole career.And, of course, at the same time, he wins Crimea.This is an immense asset for him domestically.His popularity immediately surges back to 80-plus percent.People are really celebrating, genuinely so.I want to emphasize, this was a genuine sense.Those who did not approve of the annexation were a tiniest minority in Russia in those days.

Why? What did it matter?

Well, I think it was a combination of several things.If you look at public opinion polls throughout the post-communist period, invariably over 80 percent of Russians thought of Crimea as ours, as Russian.Crimea has a checkered history.It used to be part of the Russian Federation within the Soviet Union.But there was this sense.This was how people felt.This is a unique territory anywhere, of which Russian people had a strong feeling that it should be Russia.It was not enough for people to take action and recapture Crimea—of course not.But when it happened, to quite a lot of people in Russia, to the vast majority in Russia, this was a sense of historical justice.

And he knew this.

Of course he did.Of course he knew about this unique situation with Crimea.Besides, the way the annexation of Crimea was framed by the Russian media was like an echo of World War II.It was ours against fascists. Those were the terms used. It was not Russian-Ukrainian.Television coverage avoided these ethnic terms.It was ours against fascists, against junta, against—those were the words that were used at the time.It sounded like a replay of those events that are seen in Russia as the most important historical events And by the way, the event that—there is a national consensus about the importance and what happened during World War II, and the importance of the victory, etc.So another victory, but not a victory of 70 years back, a victory of today.We are again victors.

What is very important is that that victory, the annexation, did not require any costs from the Russian people—not back then; not material costs; no human lives lost, God forbid; nobody fought there.It was done almost overnight, and it was a present, in a sense, of President Putin to his nation.Crimea became ours without our sacrificing anything, not at the time.And all of that converged to this very major support of “Crimea is ours.”This gave people a sense of triumph now, not because of a victory 70 years back.

But the concern still was to keep Ukraine within Russian orbit, and there was no longer a chance of that.So after the annexation of Crimea, no chance.Ukraine was—I'm not sure for how many years it did, but right now it looks like Ukraine is lost.It is not in the Russian orbit.Because Putin could not achieve that, at least he could give Ukrainians a hard time, well, to put it very simply.But of course with this civic conflict, with a Russian involvement on the border between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine could not develop as many people in Ukraine, I'm sure, wished, as an aspiring European country, maybe on the path of eventually becoming a member of the European Union.

So all he was doing was giving them a hard time, knowing that he couldn’t win it?Didn’t he take one hell of a big risk at going in down there?I mean, isn't that almost foolhardy?

I think beginning with the annexation of Crimea, Russian policy, it was a turning point.It was a very important watershed.What had been this delicate game of we want to cooperate with the West; we are partners and—President Putin loves this word—“partners” with the West.We do business together; we attract the investments; we benefit by the investment, Western investment that comes with technology.We have big-time projects with the West, especially in the energy sector but not only.And at the same time, we are always wary of the influence that the West might have, and we always keep a close eye and crack down here and there, impose constraints on the influence of the West upon our nation.So that was a delicate game that Putin had been playing.But Crimea, crisis in Ukraine, Crimea, Donbas, was a watershed.Since then, the policy has never been the same, not domestically, not on the global stage.

In America, there's a real argument at the White House and in the State Department that we should be arming the Ukrainian people with lethal defensive weapons, and maybe even more, a real argument.Part of that argument says that you’ve got to teach Putin a lesson here.You’ve got to say to him: “You can't be the bully in the schoolyard.These people are not in your country, and we should be able to come and encourage them to join the European Union or NATO or whatever, certainly further democracy.”What about that argument? …

This is a very difficult question, and I'm really glad I'm not a policymaker.But I don’t think this would be a wise move.Right now, Putin has this 80-plus support of his people, 80-plus approval rating.There is a sense, and this is a strong and genuine sense, that even if our economic situation is not as good as it used to be, this is the right policy.We will not concede to the West.

So if you deal with a president, with this kind of popularity in his own country, no alternative to him, he still is seen—and I think people should not be mistaken that 80-plus percent approval rating means this is a nation of ardent supporters of Putin.Some 20 percent may be his passionate supporters; others see him as a leader of no alternative.And there is a general clinging to the status quo and a sense that change is bound to make things worse, not better.

Challenging further and punishing further the leader who delivered to his people a sense that we are stronger now, if you look at public opinion polls, people are much more proud of Russia’s military might and Russia’s stature on the global scene.They may be critical of the socioeconomic, but this is what they see as Putin’s main achievement.Challenging him further, I don’t think one should count on concessions on Putin’s part.Putin is not a kind of leader who concedes under pressure, especially if it is done in public.I don’t think he’s totally averse to deals, transactions, maybe not.But—so it would not look like he conceded.

Further escalation of Ukrainian crisis I think will not make the world better.Let me put it this way.The policy of teaching Putin a lesson, I mean, I can understand the emotion of it.I can understand this desire.But I don’t think that emotionally driven foreign policy is the best foreign policy.

Intervention in the U.S. Election

We find ourselves in 2016 with a presidential election in the United States.What is the view, from what you can tell, of Putin, the 80 percent of the people who support him, of that election, that time, the two opponents, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?

Well, the animosity between President Putin and Hillary Clinton was nothing new.At the time when the campaign began and Hillary Clinton announced that she would run, she looked like a favorite.Before too long, she looked like a favorite.Well, a few months before the election, I think it was an understanding or anticipation she had very broadly in the world that she was there to win.I'm not sure it was different in Russia.I don’t think President Putin, or those around him, had a different idea of what would happen in November 2016 in the United States.

I think the prospect of having Hillary Clinton as the leader of the United States was not something that made the Kremlin happy—an understatement, of course.The personal animosity, the hawkishness of Hillary Clinton’s policy, her proneness to the use of force, her general inclination toward this kind of policy, American exceptionalism.I think shortly before the election, she repeated that word in her speech somewhere in one of the military schools in the United States.Anyway, American exceptionalism, use of force, aggressive foreign policy, belief in democracy promotion, all of these, I think, made the Kremlin really nervous about that.

As to the other contender, I don’t think the Kremlin laid expectations on Trump.I think the focus was on Hillary Clinton, and I think the expectations in Moscow, like anyplace else, were that Hillary Clinton would win.Those were the expectations in the United States and elsewhere.And Russia was not an exception, and that prospect presaged difficult times for Russia.

… What was the response by Russians to the announcement that this may be Russian meddling in our election?

The reaction was of two different kinds, and not necessarily—I mean, it could be both in the same head.One was, well, of course they're always blaming us for doing evil things in the world.They always portray Russia as this if not empire of evil, then an evil country that does horrific things, and we don’t believe them.

By the way, I would point out that at the time when the Malaysian jet was downed over Ukrainian territory, the world was positive, even before there was any solid information, that it was done by pro-Russian insurgents, maybe with the Russian assistance.In Russia, a mere 2 or 3 percent believed that it was pro-Russian forces.An overwhelming gigantic majority believed that it was done by Ukrainians, maybe with American assistance.It was like a mirror reflection.

I think we’ve reached a point in the world these days when everyone has his and her, its truths.You believe who you want to believe, not because the arguments are persuasive.It depends on the source much more than it depends on listening carefully to the argument.

So the accusations of hacking, meddling in elections, back then as well as now, so their reaction to those was a, of course they always blame us; they always portray us black; they always say that we do horrific things, whereas, of course, they are the same; they are themselves to blame.But at the same time, there is this sense of maybe peculiar pride.See, you know, they are afraid of us now.See, well, they think we can interfere in their election and even have some influence.I think it was both.And I think probably even the same people would think the same things, both things at the same time.

Putin and Trump

The perception by Russians of Trump and Putin as similar characters?Is there an affinity there?Once Trump wins, what is the reaction in Russia?

Well, what do we know about foreign leaders, in this country or elsewhere?We know what the press tells us.We don’t have our immediate experience with that person.In this sense, anything that’s foreign policy is very unlike things domestic.We know that prices go down because our pocketbook tells us so, but what we know about a foreign leader is what we watch on television, listen to on the radio, read in the paper.

Beginning late in the campaign, the Russian media started to sound quite positively about Trump, much more negatively about Hillary, but positively about Trump.So when he was elected president, there was triumph in the Russian legislation up to a point when they cheered.Some said that they even drank champagne. Not sure about that.But there was this cheering that Hillary Clinton lost and Trump won.And television, television coverage was along these lines.

Immediately there was a hike in Trump’s popularity in Russia.People started thinking of him as our man, and the man who is good for Russia.And since [then], whatever expectations there may have been did not materialize.It turned out that Trump actually is under fire, that the establishment is against him, and you know, more and more mainstream media coverage is very negative.He certainly, even if he had wanted to, cannot deliver a rapprochement with Russia or easing of sanctions or whatever the expectations may have been.And, by the way, I'm not sure Putin had those expectations.I think he’s savvy enough to realize what happened and how Trump would be viewed.

So the expectations did not materialize.According to some sources, the Kremlin sent a message to national television: “Tone it down. We don’t want Trump to be portrayed as this wonderful leader who is the best partner that can be for Russia.”And it went down a bit.The perception was no longer as fond or as admiring as it was for the brief period of time I think shortly before the election and, of course, after.

Still, I think the American polling agency, the Pew Research, shows Russia thinking of the current administration much better than the previous administrations, Russia is unique.There is no other country which has this big difference.Today’s administration is much better than the administration of President Obama, and the difference is quite significant.

What people think about Trump is a product of what television is telling them.And I think, indeed, the coverage has been toned down.We hear less about President Trump.At the time of the meeting in Hamburg just very recently, the coverage of course is all on Putin and on how the meeting was successful for Putin and how the meeting went well.But the focus is much more, of course, naturally on our own leader, not on the American one.

What do you think Putin wanted?

Well, I think what Putin, what the Kremlin wants is generally referred to by the Russian media as a “normalization.”Normalization, of course, would imply an easing if not a lifting of sanctions.I don’t think there is a chance of that, not in the near future.But I think this is the most important thing.The Russian economy is in dire straits.The sanctions [aren't] the only factor.It’s the price of oil.It’s basically no growth of the Russian economy, and the sanctions, and the increasing problems with borrowing in the West, no investment, no technologies, and almost no borrowing.All of these is affecting the Russian economy.So of course Russia would want those lifted.

There is no other source of growth in sight.The economy is not growing, and nobody can think of anything that can be done domestically so that growth would be resumed.Improvement, rapprochement, more economical operation, more investment coming with technologies, would be a solution.I think this is what normalization implies.Let’s go back to business and the usual.We don’t have to be friends.We don’t have to be close partners, but we want economic cooperation.

So “normalization” is the word.Even in public opinion polls, and public opinion polls fluctuate with the coverage.At the time of raw and extremely aggressive anti-Western rhetoric on television, mostly after Maidan and after Crimean annexation, when the war in Donbas began, there was—the hike in anti-American sentiments, was really, really significant.Well, it softened now.But the sense, especially in focus groups, is, so we have proven to the world and to the United States that we are strong and we cannot be taken for granted.Time for them to realize it and come back to get back to business as usual.

If there were a rapprochement, I think it would be well taken by quite a few in Russia, but I'm afraid there is no chance of that.And the current conflict between Russia and the U.S. is deep and not reparable in conceivable future.On a broader scale, I think Putin would want some kind of finally a post-Cold War arrangement, not a unipolar world, with America, with the United States as the big hegemon at the top, but some kind of another arrangement which would respect other countries, and especially Russia’s sovereignty, and a sphere of influence.

Let’s see what we've missed.

Putin's Vision for Russia in his First Term

I have just one question.Just to go back to 2000.What was it like being in the media for reporters, for the press, as Putin comes in?Can you sense that? What did that feel like?

… One of his very early crackdowns was on the Russian media.During the ’90s there emerged in Russia what in retrospect was referred to as oligarchic media, national television channels being owned or controlled not by the state, but by very wealthy and powerful people.Of three national television channels, by far the largest audience medium in Russia, one was created from scratch by one of the wealthiest people in Russia, and another was controlled by another major tycoon.So it was a scene of pluralism, because those tycoons did not always agree with each other, but it was not a scene so familiar in the Russian history, and of course the Soviet history, of state-controlled media, like all media subject to state control, and in the Soviet days, of course, state censorship, preliminary censorship.

That was the scene.And of course, there was always a media scene that developed in the ’90s with not just television, newspapers, magazines, newsweeklies, radio; it was a scene that was full of life, and it was a scene that was rapidly developing, not without its own drawbacks, not without corruption and unsavory practices sometimes.But on the whole, and since I personally worked in the media at the time for a newsweekly, not for television, it was a very interesting, exciting and creative life for people who were in the media in those days.

When Putin came, one of his very first moves in terms of establishing control was to take television under control, and he achieved that very quickly by chasing, by forcing those two oligarchs, those two major tycoons, out of the country and taking all three national television channels, by far the most powerful instrument to control the public opinion, taking them under state control.

To those who cared about freedom of speech, about checks and balances, about the possibility for the society to hold the government to account, that was a very alarming signal.But that constituency was not a majority in Russia.

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