The Putin Files

Putin Consolidates Power in his Second Term

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, strongly opposed by Putin, turned U.S.-Russia relations toxic. The suspicion from Moscow deepened when Putin blamed the West, and Washington in particular, for the “color revolutions” in several former Soviet republics. After the deaths of hundreds of children in the town of Beslan, when Russian forces stormed a school taken by terrorists, he moved to consolidate power. As the West grew increasingly wary of Putin, he forcefully denounced the U.S. during a 2007 speech in Munich, signaling a deepening antagonism.
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“In politics, either one shows his strength, but then one has to have strength, or one has to break another man’s strength, which is easier.”

Gleb Pavlovsky

Former adviser to Vladimir Putin

“We get the color revolutions. And that was a turning point, much more than the Iraq War. We did not appreciate, at the time, that Putin actually thought we were behind it, because we knew we weren’t.”

Daniel Fried

National Security Council, 2001-05

“They perceive the world as this great playing ground of secret forces. They believe in conspiracy theories of every kind.”

Ekaterina Schulmann

Russian political scientist

“You have this image, from Bush's telling anyway, of Cerberus, dripping from the fangs or whatever. And Putin says to him, “This is my dog, bigger, stronger, faster than Barney.”...”

Peter Baker

The New York Times

“We thought it was very important to work closely with our allies, to throw U.S.-Russian relations and Western-Russian relations into the toilet.”

Stephen Hadley

National Security Adviser, 2005-09

“Putin’s Munich speech is a reaction to “We’re being disrespected. People aren't taking us seriously, and I need to lay down a marker. Here is the marker.”...”

Thomas Graham

National Security Council, 2002-07

“You have a lot of military bases around Russia, not on your own territory. And this is the great, great question mark: For what purpose?”

Andrei Klimov

Russian Senate

“My head snapped. You know, it was—it was so searing and blunt and—and I felt this was the real guy.”

Strobe Talbott

Deputy Secretary of State, 1994-2001

“There are only two things that Vladimir Putin is genuinely afraid of. The first is mass protests on the streets of Russia.”

Vladimir Kara-Murza

Opposition politician

“It was a declaration of a new Cold War against the West. It was a manifesto of the fight against the West.”

Vladimir Ryzhkov

Opposition politician

“He comes to the security conference in Munich and says, basically: 'I don’t have to mince words, do I? I can say what's on my mind.' And then he just lashes out, and he lists all these resentments...”

Masha Gessen

Author, "The Man Without a Face"

“I was four rows back, and you could almost feel the humidity from the spittle that was spewing.”

Victoria Nuland

U.S. ambassador to NATO, 2005-08

“There was no chance the Russians weren't going to sit back and say, 'OK, you got us.' The Russians were going to come back and extract their pound of flesh.”

Steven Pifer

U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, 1998-2000

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