February 10, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4099 4100

Johnson's Russia List
#4100
10 February 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. The Times (UK): Putin's empire begins to growl. Vladimir Putin has signaled that the West will be a rival rather than a partner, Richard Beeston writes.
2. Vremya MN: Tatyana Malkina, PUTIN'S CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE FORMED.
3. Moscow Times: Yevgenia Albats, Chechen War Turns Generals Into Politicians.
4. Washington Post: Jim Hoagland, The Man With A Mirror. (Putin)
5. Andrew Miller: Will Yavlinsky Save Russia?
6. ORT NEWS PROGRAM INTERVIEW WITH ACTING PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN (PART II). February 8.]

*******

#1
The Times (UK)
10 February 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin's empire begins to growl 
Vladimir Putin has signalled that the West will be a rival rather than a
partner, Richard Beeston writes 

FROM the northern Pacific coast to the Caucasus and beyond, Moscow's new
leadership has embarked on an aggressive foreign policy, which has set it
firmly on a collision course with Western interests. 

In a series of actions over the past few days, the new Government of
Vladimir Putin, Russia's acting President, has moved to bolster its
military, befriend repressive regimes and put the West on notice that it
will be a rival rather than a partner. Despite receiving a cautious welcome
in the West, where Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, praised
Mr Putin this week for his open-mindedness, his actions have sent a very
different signal. 

Mr Putin, a former KGB agent who is expected to win next month's
presidential elections virtually unopposed, seems in the space of only a
month in power to have embarked on a much more aggressive path than his
predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. 

Igor Ivanov, his Foreign Minister, visited North Korea yesterday and signed
a friendship pact with the regime of Kim Jong Il, a pariah in the
international community.

Today he will follow up that move by visiting Japan, where Russia has
indicated that it will not honour a commitment by Mr Yeltsin to resolve the
dispute over the Kurile Islands, territory seized by Stalin at the end of
the Second World War. 

Russia is further making its presence felt in the region with the delivery,
expected this month, of a guided-missile destroyer to China, the latest
addition of sophisticated Russian hardware to Beijing's growing naval
arsenal. 

The sudden activity in the Far East has been matched by other initiatives
closer to Moscow. The Kremlin has just assigned the sole right to extract
and exploit Chechnya's oil and gas reserves to Rosneft, Russia's last
state-owned oil giant. 

Last week the presidential Security Council passed a new Russian military
doctrine, which relaxes the rules of engagement of Moscow's nuclear forces.
>From next month, when the doctrine comes into effect, the Russian head of
state will be allowed to use atomic weapons in conflicts that do not
necessarily threaten Russia's territory. 

The change in policy is regarded as an important shift when coupled with
other moves on the military front. Yesterday Russia successfully test fired
a Topol-M ballistic missile, its new-generation inter-continental weapon,
which was launched from the Plesetsk site in northern Russia and hit the
Kamchatka peninsula more than 5,000 miles away in the Pacific. Mr Putin
also promised recently to double military expenditure after his campaign in
Chechnya. 

The build-up comes as relations with Nato remain largely frozen. A
forthcoming visit by Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the Nato
Secretary-General, to Moscow has been postponed. No date is likely to be
set until after the Russian presidential elections on March 26. The other
cause for concern in the West last week was the seizure in the Gulf by the
US Navy of the Russian tanker Volgoneft-147, which was found to be
smuggling Iraqi oil, thus helping Saddam Hussein to break UN sanctions. 

Despite the concern caused by Russia's recent actions, Western policymakers
said that it was still too early to tell if Mr Putin would emerge as a
friendly or hostile leader during his rule, which is likely to run for at
least the next five years. 

"Part of the problem is that we know so little about him," one senior
American official said. "What we do know is that he will be much more
difficult to influence than Yeltsin; our leverage is much weaker." 

Britain is hoping that a visit to Moscow this month by Robin Cook, the
Foreign Secretary, will help to establish where Mr Putin is heading. 

*******

#2
Vremya MN
February 9, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
PUTIN'S CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE FORMED
By Tatyana MALKINA

The campaign committee of presidential candidate Vladimir 
Putin started working at full swing as of this week. Anyway, 
two of the acting President's deputy chiefs of staff, who are 
to manage his campaign, have taken a leave of absence. Dmitry 
Medvedev, who is, in fact, Putin's confidant in the Kremlin, 
will head the committee and Alexander Abramov, the deputy chief 
of staff in charge of regional affairs, will be second in 
command.
These are the only new names, while the other committee members 
are Kremlin old-timers.
The administration's main lobbyer Vladislav Surkov is 
likely to join Medvedev and Abramov in a short while, leaving 
his protege Andrei Popov to manage Kremlin's affairs in 
parliament.
Taking a leave of absence can be regarded merely an 
acknowledgement of law in this case, because the 
"holiday-makers" will attend to their Kremlin duties if the 
need arises.
Medvedev is the least known member of the Kremlin team and 
also the closest to Putin. The two men became friends during 
their work in the St. Petersburg ex-Governor Anatoly Sobchak's 
administration. Medvedev, who was Putin's assistant at that 
time, has the reputation of a serious and nice young man, "a 
real researcher." Rumours have it that the presidential 
candidate pins hopes not only on Medvedev's legal knowledge and 
experience but also on his integrity and loyalty. According to 
Kremlin insiders, the acting President is seriously concerned 
not about Chechnya, for instance, as he seems to know what to 
do about it, but the prospect of finding himself in the 
situation which is so vividly shown in the film "Tail Wags 
Dog." Putin is afraid of the growth of the number of his 
campaign committees which will be headed by friends from his 
kindergarten years, witty spin doctors who are avid for easy 
money and other dubious self-styled campaign managers. The 
acting President who, as a rule, stoically does not care much 
about his political reputation, is disturbed this time, 
believing that to be on the safe side he should rely only on 
people who have been tested by time and concrete work.
The substance of his campaign program remains little 
known, however. It is only clear that, on the whole, unenviable 
fate lies in stock for it. It is only too natural: why bother, 
if the runaway candidate already has everything under control. 
Putin in an ingenuous manner explained students in the suburban 
Moscow town of Zelenograd that he is not in a hurry to make his 
election program public because he would not like it to become 
"a target of attacks" too early. "Once you make it public, it 
will begin to be gnawed and torn into pieces," he said. If 
there is no program, there is nothing to gnaw, because it is 
rather difficult to do so with regard to the "conceptual ideas" 
which this candidate has only in the most general form as of 
now.
What is more, Putin seems to have a nearly savage fear of 
all kinds of large-scale propaganda structures and monuments of 
the art of public relations. Even the Strategy of Russia's 
Development, the baby of Herman Graff's team which is about to 
come to life in their luxury office in downtown Moscow, brings 
about ironic smiles among experts, rather than the desire to 
make any substantive comments. As a high-ranking government 
official said a few days ago, "give me a personal computer, a 
couple of days and a dozen programs and I will write a thing 
which will shock all." This stands to show that in our harsh 
time the attitude to programs is also harsh: inasmuch as the 
Kremlin regards all programs as a phenomenon which is 
compilatory in form and speculative in nature, they are not 
worth much time and effort.
From the point of view of the mentality of the public at 
large, candidate Putin's conceptual ideas look impeccable: 
order, legality and prosperity of an integral and powerful 
country.
Their practical implementation is to be ensured by people like 
Anatoly Chubais but who will be more flexible. After Putin is 
elected president, the Cabinet is to be headed by a man exactly 
like Milhail Kasyanov, if not the man himself. Oligarchs, who 
only pretend to be half-dead and paralysed, should be actively 
used for the benefit of the country but not allowed to come any 
nearer than two or three steps to the president. Yes to 
education and culture and No to nationalism and arbitrariness. 
The world should have peace but only if it is a multi-polar 
world.
Isn't all that too little for such a candidate, 
especially, taking into consideration his sincerity?

*******

#3
Moscow Times
February 10, 2000 
POWER PLAY: Chechen War Turns Generals Into Politicians 
By Yevgenia Albats 

Whatever the Kremlin's victorious communiquÎs about the taking of Grozny say, 
the results of this war are sad. With the war has come the appearance of a 
new political force in Russia that is able to dictate its own terms, if not 
actually compete with the civilian leadership of the country. This force is 
the army and its generals. 

The first signs that the army, not Moscow, was really running the show in the 
North Caucasus turned up back in October. They "wouldn't let the politicians 
in Moscow take victory in Chechnya away from them," they told the country. 
The intrigue-hobbled Kremlin was sent spinning by these threats and had no 
idea what to do. As a result, it simply untied the generals' hands. The 
message was clear: The Kremlin is frightened of its military and has no 
control over it. 

It later seemed that Vladimir Putin in his rise to popularity took things in 
hand. The "man in civilian clothes," as the secret service people are called 
in Russia, had taken control. It will be recalled that the army and its 
generals were under the control of the KGB during Soviet times. 

But the generals in Chechnya simply changed their tack a bit. Instead of 
continuing their earlier public threats, they opted simply to continue what 
they were already doing in the North Caucasus without consulting Moscow. It 
was thus that the original plans to create a "sanitary zone" around Chechnya 
turned into an all-out war to destroy the entire male population of the 
republic. It was thus that we ended up with military controls on all 
information coming from Chechnya. And finally, it was thus that Radio 
Liberty's Andrei Babitsky, whose reports from Grozny have long irritated the 
generals, was arrested and has since appeared publicly only in edited videos. 

There is hard evidence that the Kremlin, even under Putin, has been finding 
out about goings-on in Chechnya only after they've already happened. 

When Putin came to power, he was given only two options: either leash the 
generals or pretend everything they do happens according to the Kremlin's 
plan. Putin chose the second. Here's why: Public opinion - which is heading 
to the ballot box on March 26 - envisions a victory in Chechnya as a victory 
for Putin. 

But the Kremlin is forgetting history. For the first time since World War II, 
Russian generals are smelling victory. It will be recalled that 55 years ago, 
Marshal Georgy Zhukov came back from the battle as a capable politician, so 
capable in fact that he scared Stalin. 

>From here on out, the history of the Soviet and Russian army is a tale of 
humiliation. This is why a victory in Chechnya has such resonance for 
Russia's generals: It would be not just a military, but a political victory. 
The war in Chechnya has given birth to a new breed of general who have their 
eye on politics. 

So what will Putin become? A marionette in the generals' hands? Their ally? 
Will he revisit the methods of his predecessors in the Kremlin? Whatever role 
Putin chooses, one thing is true: Russia is seeing the birth of a new 
political reality. And this reality smells like gunpowder. 

Yevgenia Albats is an independent political analyst and journalist based in 
Moscow. 

*******

#4
Washington Post
10 February 2000
[for personal use only]
The Man With A Mirror . . .
By Jim Hoagland

Western visitors find Russia's Acting President Vladimir Putin to be a
confident, supremely well-briefed leader whose own preoccupations and
interests mirror theirs. Two words spring to the lips of the diplomats,
businessmen and other foreign specialists who have had recent contact with
Putin: "pragmatic" and "clever." The former KGB agent and ex-boss of
Russia's own spy agency conducts these sessions without notes or papers and
usually with few or no aides, even when dealing with complex topics. He is
crisp and focused in manner and does not give the impression of being eager
to please.

Instead, he subtly chips away at the dubious image that he knows he has in
Western Europe and the United States because of his career in espionage and
his current assault on Chechnya. He becomes passionate only when he insists
that Americans and Europeans are also threatened by the terrorism and
Islamic fundamentalists he fights in Chechnya. He is sure the West will
eventually make common cause with Russia against this threat. "Russia is
doing the dirty job for everybody," he said in one conversation.

"He is the man with the mirror," says one American specialist who has
studied Putin. "He holds it up and lets you see what it is you want to see
in him. This is a basic art of an agent of deception, and he has mastered
it brilliantly."

When Putin welcomed Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the Kremlin
last week, he began a long discussion on Chechnya by referring to the
Western and Soviet failure to halt the rise of Nazism in the 1930s,
according to one report of the meeting. Albright has frequently cited this
failure as the key to her world view. When he saw French Foreign Minister
Hubert Vedrine last weekend, Putin was not citing Munich but emphasizing
Russia's solidarity with Europe.

Albright came away from their meeting perceiving Putin to be "more
open-minded" on the Clinton administration's desire to amend the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But French officials found no such
flexibility in their subsequent meetings with Putin and other Russian
officials. France opposes ABM modification.

Albright's reading in fact tracks closely with other authoritative signals
the Russians have been sending out about a new willingness to discuss ABM
changes after the March 26 presidential election Putin is almost certain to
win. He hopes to have the worst of the Chechen campaign behind him by then
and says he will seek a better working relationship with the United States
and perhaps with NATO.

A handful of Americans and Europeans agreed in return for anonymity to
share candid impressions of Putin from meetings held before and since he
replaced Boris Yeltsin on Dec. 31. All stressed the new energy and
generational change Putin, 47, has brought to the Kremlin. These
impressions, as limited as they are, take on importance in a vacuum of
reliable information about Putin in Western intelligence and diplomatic
files. "There are huge gaps in what we know, beyond what you would expect,"
says one senior Clinton administration official with access to sensitive
information. "We deal with some significant mysteries here."

Talk in Europe of Putin's having left the KGB under a cloud because of
corruption suspicions is discounted by U.S. sources. It is clear there is
resentment of Putin among his former colleagues in espionage, but that may
come from the brutal housecleaning he undertook of the Federal Security
Service, the KGB-successor agency, when Yeltsin put him there in July 1998.
Putin fired 10 top generals and brought in younger people, largely from his
native St. Petersburg. On a smaller scale, he is repeating this pattern at
the Kremlin, acting decisively in building his own team.

"He is a bit of a machine," says one Western official. Another adds: "The
new leader in the Kremlin always holds out the image of being someone with
whom we can work. But I have never heard it done with such attention to the
details we care about."

Western governments say they have little choice but to deal with Putin at
face value and to test his promises of cooperation as he moves to
consolidate power. 

But their public statements about Putin's record thus far seem to
underestimate the elements of calculation and manipulation in his approach,
and his seemingly visceral reaction to Chechens and other non-Russian
minorities.

On the other side of the mirror, in Russia, Putin's nationalist and
authoritarian personality comes more sharply into focus. Echoes of Putin's
KGB past can be heard in the Kremlin's conflicting, obviously falsified
accounts of the fate of Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky,
captured by Russian troops in Grozny and now missing. The Babitsky case is
an important test of whether Putin values truth and human rights as well as
efficiency and focus. And it provides the same test for Westerners quick to
hail Putin as a refreshing change. 

*******

#5
From: "Andrew Miller" <andcarmil@hotmail.com>
Subject: Will Yavlinsky Save Russia?
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000

Topic: Will Yavlinsky Save Russia?
Title: Traveling at the Speed of Lie
By Andrew Miller in St. Petersburg

If a space ship could travel at the speed of light, we could visit the moon 
in two seconds, Mars in five minutes and be outside our solar system in one 
half the time (10 hours) it takes a Russian train to cover the four hundred 
miles between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

But still, even at that fantastic speed, it would take us more than four 
years of continuous travel (that is, four times longer than the longest time 
any humans - namely, Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov and Anatoly Levchenko - 
have ever spent in space) to reach Alpha Centauri, the next nearest, 
probably uninhabited, solar system to our (seemingly otherwise barren) own.

We're alone.

And, by the way, we can't travel at the speed of light. The world's 
fastest spacecraft (which can't carry passengers) might possibly, floored, 
fly 20,000 times slower than the speed of light and might possibly, if it 
could fly that long (which it can't) reach Alpha Centauri, if it left today, 
80 millennia from now (about the time, perhaps, when Russia is electing its 
first non-former-Communist, non-former-KBG agent as president - or perhaps 
rediscovering fire and the wheel).

We're really alone - Russians, ever more so. Concerning the immediate 
future prospects in the land of the midnight gun, the following review:

It has become fashionable over the years to patronize the Russians by 
saying that they live in a rich country, and it's only matter of time until 
they actually get some money. Unencumbered as I am by fashion (I have 
several times been picked up for questioning by the gianniversacistasi), I 
would like to say a few words on this topic along the lines of the truth.

If the size of the Russian economy were to double (100% annual growth) in 
the first year of Vladimir Putin's presidency (that is, this year), Russians 
would still be living in abject poverty.

The doubled economy would then be worth $400 billion - allocated to the 
population, this would be $5 per Russian per day (compared to over $80 per 
day for an American).

More important, however, are two other facts: 1, that the economy won't 
double, and 2, that even if it quadrupled most Russians would still be 
living in abject poverty. Russia will be profoundly lucky to see 1% growth 
next year. As much as 5% is totally out of the question, while recession is 
a distinct likelihood. And even if Putin (economic genius that he is) were 
able, by his Herculean efforts, to double the economy, he still wouldn't 
have had time to reform the 850 years of Russian history that says the 
nation's wealth can't be divided equally, even by communists, that some 
people will end up with $1,000 per day and most will end up with a frown.

If the price of oil were to double in the first year of Vladimir Putin's 
presidency (say, to $60 per barrel), Russia's total annual oil production 
(two and a half billion barrels) would be worth $150 billion. Russia would, 
as it always does, consume half that production, meaning that the maximum 
value of oil exports to Russia next year would be $75 billion. Allocated 
to the population, that would be $2 per Russian per day. Beverly 
Hillbillies?

More important, however, are three other facts: 1, that the price of oil 
won't double (it will probably decline), and 2, that Russia can't export 
even half f the oil it doesn't use for "hard" currency because it has to be 
bartered in exchange for influence to former CIS colonies like Ukraine and 
Belarus, and most of all 3, that $75 billion is less than half what Russia 
owes to its foreign creditors, much less its own citizens, to say nothing of 
Soviet debts.

If the value of the Russian ruble slows to half its present rate of decline 
in the first year of former KGB spymaster Vladimir Putin's first year in 
office, the dollar will have gained 3 rubles 50 kopecks on the ruble by the 
end of the year (that is, the ruble will have lost 12.5% of its value and 
the Russian people will see 12.5% inflation in the price of foreign goods).

However, when Putin became Prime Minister, and again when he became Acting 
President, the ruble's rate of decline accelerated rather than slowed (the 
ruble lost 0.075 cents against the dollar monthly under Putin's two 
predecessors in 1999 but 0.083 cents under Putin so far).

So, we can anticipate some pressure on Mr. Putin even if the economy and 
the price of oil double and the ruble's descent halves. When the opposite 
of these things happen (the price of oil drops, the economy contracts and 
the ruble's descent accelerates), we can anticipate a mighty sultry milieu 
in Mr. Putin's kitchen (yes, what you've heard is true, he DOES peel 
potatoes and he DOES dry the dishes!). How will he respond to it? By 
jettisoning his lifelong training in the lie-kill response and becoming a 
Russian George Washington (or even George Foreman)? Or by applying his 
lifelong training? We shall see. Anybody taking action on the former? If 
so, I'm in (unless I'm in a gulag).

At the other end of the political spectrum from Putin is Grigori Yavlinsky.

If Putin is something Russians have got terribly wrong, Yavlinsky is 
something they've got right: they don't like him one little bit, nor do 
they care much for his political party, called "Yabloko" (which sounds like 
"apple" in Russian but would better be pronounced "yablokheads").

In the 1995 federal Duma elections, Yabloko collected 7% of the party vote 
(yielding it 31 party seats) and won 14 individual races - 45 seats all 
told, or 10% of the Duma as a whole (ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 
who some Russia watchers, such as the Nixon Center's Dimitry Simes, have 
referred to as a "clown," collected 51 seats - this "clown" was recently 
sent to represent Russia at the European Council to-do).

Four years later, Yabloko lost 15% of its party support (dropping from 7 to 
6 percent) and won two-thirds fewer individual races (now only five such 
seats are held by Yabloko deputies) - with a mere 22 total seats, Yabloko's 
presence in the Duma was cut by more than half to near obscurity.

In key governors' races, Yabloko fielded the ever popular "no candidate" in 
the Moscow race (while even then-lowly Right Union - Soyuz Pravikh Sil - 
offered national laughing stock Sergei Kirienko to challenge autocratic 
incumbent Yuri Luzhkov and, though getting blown away, in the process 
managed to collect one-third more Duma seats than Yabloko) and someone named 
Igor Artymev in St. Petersburg. Artymev's banality is exceeded only by his 
anonymity, and he will suffer a worse fat e at the hand of incumbent 
Vladimir Yakovlev in May than did Kirienko. Neither Yavlinsky himself nor 
his only other high profile member, former PM Sergei Stepashin, deigned to 
enter the gubernatorial frays, and when Yavlinsky contests the presidency in 
a few week's I'll have a better chance of influencing the outcome than he 
will.

Finally, following the recent condominium between the Kremlin-sponsored 
"Unity" party of Sergei Shoigu and the Communists to reelect communist Duma 
speaker Genady Seleznyov, Yavlinsky threw up his hands and walked out of the 
chamber, taking his handful of deputies with him in a petulant display 
widely reviled here. He was then forced to abandon his "boycott" days later 
without even symbolic concessions from the governing majority, a humiliation 
he will never live down.

Perhaps the worst of it, though, came long ago when disillusioned Yabloko 
co-founder Yuri Boldyrev bolted from the party and formed the competing Bloc 
of Yuri Boldyrev. In St. Petersburg's last City Council ballot, Boldyrev 
out-polled Yavlinsky by more than two to one, and Yavlinsky was left with 
only one more seat on the council than have the local communists. St. 
Petersburg is, supposedly, Yavlinsky's Mecca.

The Russian people have written the former economist off. They think he is 
in way over his head, that he doesn't, and can't, understand how to function 
in Russian politics, how to seize and wield power, someone who would break 
under the strain of actual command responsibility. They are right.

When the war in Chechnya broke out, Yavlinsky had his Waterloo. He had two 
viable options, either of which might have catapulted him into the national 
or international spotlight. Either embrace the war and the Kremlin in the 
hopes of building a legitimate powerbase from which to operate a framework 
of liberal politics after the conclusion of the war (as Nemtsov and Kirienko 
tried to do with their SPS party, though neither man has any hope of 
achieving the level of gravitas that Yavlinsky once might have aspired to), 
or come out foursquare against the conflict, assailing on all fronts, moving 
into a position of genuine full- blooded opposition which would be 
history-making in Russia and could serve as a springboard to international 
repute and a powerbase independent of the Russian scene.

Yavlinsky, oh so predictably, did neither. He continues to claim a place 
at the table of Russian politics without either a legitimate, red-blooded 
ideology or any facility whatsoever with the mechanics of realpolitik. As 
such, in Russia, he is a vaporous cloud, an apparition, a footnote - doomed 
to failure. Those seeking to support a voice of liberalism in neo-Soviet 
Russia should look elsewhere, before it is too late

There are still some few misguided, romantic souls in the Russia-watching 
world who haven't grasped this yet, and I urge them to do so. Yavlinsky is 
receiving a great deal of fawning, rose-colored attention which does nobody 
any good. Dreams of him having power in Russia are not worth the 
rose-colored clouds they are printed on, and it is now necessary to look 
elsewhere for someone who might actually stand a snowball's chance in Sochi 
of doing something useful, in a practical, tangible sense, in Russia. 
Before it is too late. Yavlinsky isn't even servicable as a Solzhenitsin or 
a Sakharov, he'll never make that kind of sacrifice or take that kind of 
risk - after all, why should we fairly expect such a thing - and he will 
soon be marching in front of an imaginary army.

Yet, of course, the Yavlinsky impulse is understandable: With just six 
weeks to go before the third- ever presidential ballot, there are no 
political commercials to be seen on state-owned RTR or ORT telly, unless of 
course you count the nightly news broadcasts which now are little more than 
45 minute infomercials for Mr. Putin (Sunday night, he was shown in full 
judo regalia tossing full grown men around like rag dolls and then peeling 
of his shirt to offer the viewers an impressive peek at his buff bod). In 
the US this might be seen as a good thing but in Russia? Is Yavlinsky 
cash-poor, or just biding his time?

*******

#6
TITLE: ORT NEWS PROGRAM INTERVIEW WITH ACTING PRESIDENT
VLADIMIR PUTIN (PART II)
(ORT VREMYA NEWS PROGRAM, 21:30, FEBRUARY 8, 2000)
SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE

Anchor: News agencies today cite the latest popularity ratings
of the Russian politicians who have said they would run for
president of Russia. Leading comfortably is acting president
Vladimir Putin. At the same time the respondents say they would
like to know more about Putin. Our viewers had a change to learn
more about his political and economic views last night when we
showed the first part of the interview with Vladimir Putin granted
to my colleague, Mikhail Leontyev. Judging from the poll, Russian
people could do with a bit more information about Putin as a
person. Today acting president speaks about himself.

Leontyev: There is something called the relationship between
the state and business. We have some kind of history there. We have
the oligarchs, the so-called oligarchs. But the oligarchs are not
what they used to be. They have gone stale a bit and their role is
different.

Putin: Well, I don't think they have gone stale, they are
pretending to be half-dead, but actually they are all right as they
have been saying themselves. But seriously speaking, the August
1998 crisis caused heavy damage to the financial sphere and to many
of our major associations in industry. How to build up the
relationships with them? We should relate to them as the subjects
in the market. They are more interested than anyone else in working
out common rules that are understandable and acceptable to all the
participants in the market, so that these rules should be observed
by everyone. And the state would guarantee compliance with these
rules, without offering any advantages or privileges or preferences
to anyone regardless of political leanings and the scale of their
activities.

Q: To what can they influence decision-making? It's a problem
in Russia. This is not just an idle question.

A: Not only in Russia. In some countries such lobbying
activities are legal. Take the United States where there is a lobby
office. In some countries this kind of activities is not legalized
to the same extent, but still the big corporations and big
participants in the market exert an influence on the making of
decisions and laws. There is no getting away from it. But one
should clearly understand that for all their influence on the
decision-making processes the country should have strong
institutions -- and by the way, the institution of the presidency
can and should be such an institution. It should stand above this
influence and it should care for the interests of the whole society
and not pile all the interests only in favor of the big companies
and monopolies. We should get away from it by all means.

We should not allow this.

Q: The opposition bears a grudge against you. They say that
this is going to be an uncontested election. That's a problem.
There is even a feeling that there is no point going to the polls
because it is a foregone conclusion. How come? Why don't you help
the opposition to put up a credible rival?

A: It is not my fault that there are grounds for saying that
it is an uncontested election. I am not to blame for it. As for my
attitude to the opposition as a whole, well, there must always be
an opposition. Otherwise, the powers that be will grow flabby an
will quickly lose a sense of reality. It's like pain in the
organism. If you feel pain, it means something is wrong with one
organ or another.

Q: Up to a point everybody assumed, including the opposition,
that being in power put one at an extreme disadvantage. When the
President named you his successor, people dismissed you. They said,
that's it, he has been marked. The President has "buried" you.

A: I agree with what you said. And indeed, initially they
didn't touch me because they thought I wasn't worth wasting time
and effort on. They thought that I could be discounted. But
subsequent actions have shown that that was done by my government
met a need in society. The opposition realized it was dealing with
a serious opponent. And since that time they have been speaking
about casualties in Chechnya and arguing that the positive results
in the economy just happened because of the oil prices and they
have been issuing warnings about an incipient dictatorship. In
other words, a full-scale attack was launched starting from that
moment.

But I don't see this as a tragedy. That is what the opposition
should be doing.

Q: A large number of people who may or may not be on favorable
terms with the authorities and with you personally have now been
lining up to pledge their support for you. Aren't you afraid that,
first, they will trample you down like a herd does? And secondly,
how are you going to forge your relationships with the former
opponents who are now your ardent supporters?

A: I would like to vigorously take issue with your words about
a "herd" and "trampling down". The people who support me -- I treat
them with great respect and gratitude. And, please, don't speak in
such negative terms about these people in my presence.

Q: I am sorry.

A: You know, our people are fed up with laxity. They are fed
up with wobbly government. So, when early steps were made toward
strengthening the state, this filled a real need and it was met
with a very positive reaction. To me that reaction is very
important because this is feedback. As for work with the former
opponents, of course, all people have their weaknesses, and I have
my share of weakness. I am not a malicious person and I am not
inclined to think that the people who were your opponents yesterday
are your enemies for life.

It is important to understand what their motives were when
they opposed your. It is often the case that people, especially if
they follow certain moral rules and pursue certain goals, at a
certain stage they become your most reliable allies because in
their work they are not guided by expediency but certain ideals and
principles for which they are prepared to make a stand, an even
stronger stand than you yourself. And such people should be sought
out and brought into government.

But there are, of course, among them some people who trim
their sails to the wind. If they feel that they can benefit from
delivering punches on the authorities they will do it today. If
they feel they can benefit more by arranging themselves with the
authorities they will do so.

Q: But you do make a mental note of the punches?

A: Yes, I try to, of course. But it doesn't always work out,
as I said. I don't have enough malice in me, although sometimes one
should have it.

Q: Who do you rely on? The economic team, but not only the
economic team? Where does it come from and who are these people?

A: I have always selected people and I have been working in
"leading positions" for ten years, various positions -- I have
always selected people not by the color of their skin or the blood
group or nationality. I have selected people and I do select people
based on their personal and business qualities. Based on whether a
person measures up to his job.

Let us look at the government. Today the de facto chairman of
the government is Kasyanov Mikhail Mikhailovich. If you ask me
where he was born, I wouldn't know. I think he was born in Moscow,
but I am not sure. Why did I make such a decision? Because during
the three months of working together with him I saw that he is a
person with a pronounced market oriented thinking, a competent and
circumspect man. He is a man who commands some authority in the
international financial circles. And besides, he is the Finance
Minister to which all the other agencies are technically linked.
This was a natural decision.

Yes, there are, in addition to him, ministers and
vice-premiers who come originally from St. Petersburg, from
Leningrad. first of all, I don't think it's bad to dilute the
capital's community from time to time. Here, everything has been in
place for years, there are established channels of mutual
incentives between business and the state apparatus and sometimes
it is useful to break these chains. But it's important, of course,
to make sure that it is done without causing damage to government
administration. But for that purpose one needs competent people.

Who are other Petersburg people in the government? The Health
Minister was until recently the head of the Military Medical
Academy located in Petersburg. He was brought to Moscow by
Stepashin Sergei Vadimovich. Then there was Klebanov Ilya
Iosifovich who is in charge of the military-industrial complex. I
think he was also brought into the government by Stepashin.
Matviyenko Valentina Ivanovna. I think she is one of the most
successful vice-premiers in charge of the social sphere in recent
times. She was invited to the government by Yevgeny Maximovich
Primakov. So, am I supposed to fire them all just because -- Kudrin
and Yuzhanov were invited to the State Committee for Land by
Chubais, I think. They are all good specialists. Should they be
sacked simply because they come from Leningrad? This is not
nepotism.

They are the people who came here at different times and by
different routes. They are in the right place and they work well.
But I can tell you that there are several hundred people in the
government. And the people from Leningrad account for maybe 0.5
percent of them. And I doubt even that.

As for my personal staff, my assistants and so on, yes, I
hired a few people recently and they come from St. Petersburg, from
Leningrad. The Secretary of the Security Council is Ivanov Sergei
Borisovich. He has been working in Moscow for some twenty years for
the foreign intelligence service. And there is another Ivanov,
Viktor Petrovich, who is in charge of personnel at the President's
administration. I simply happen to know him having worked together
with him for twenty years. I know that he is a competent person. I
trust him.

Q: Besides being a factory of good workers, St. Pete is a
grand imperial city, somewhat faded, of course. Perhaps, some of
the functions of the federal administration should be transferred
there?

A: Petersburg has long been called the second capital. This is
the setup in many countries. Let us take Federal Germany. A number
of ministries there are scattered in major cities. The Central Bank
of Germany is in Frankfurt-am-Main. So, Frankfurt has become the
financial capital not only of Germany but of the united Europe. But
it would be absurd to shift the capital there. It would be too
expensive and unjustified in my view. But some functions performed
by the capital could be more clearly identified with Petersburg. It
has all that it takes to perform such functions. But I don't think
I have a right to make such decisions by myself.

Q: The people want to know how acting president and
presidential candidate Putin lives -- a crazy question -- how does
he spend his leisure time, if any?

A: Well, my days may begin in any number of different ways.
Sometimes at 8 a.m. and at 7 a.m. and sometimes very early when I
have to go on a trip and the flight to the venue of the event takes
3 or 4 hours, you have to get up at 5 a.m. in order to start work
at 10 a.m. or thereabouts.

Q: Do you see your family at all?

A: I see them often. I do.

Q: How does your working day break down into segments between
officiating at functions, purely political work connected, perhaps,
with the election campaign?

A: As for what you describe as political and electoral, I
practically don't do it.

Q: Who does it?

A: A headquarters is being set up which will be headed by
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, until recently member of the
Leningrad, Petersburg University, the law department. I have known
him for many years and so I don't think anyone would object to such
a person heading up my electoral headquarters. That's all the
political work, electoral work. All the rest is supervising the
government or dealing with issues that are not within the immediate
competence of the government, but are within the president's sphere
of activities.

Q: You have the reputation of a reticent and not very
forthcoming person, it probably, has something to do with your
previous professional experience. Do you have friends? Do you have
many friends? What happens to them? Do they, perhaps, become
distanced from you and is your attitude to them and theirs to you
changing, perhaps?

A: Of course, I have friends. Unfortunately, there aren't
that many of them, or perhaps, it's fortunate because you treasure
friends more. These are the people with whom I have had friendly
relations for many years, since my school years with some of them.
And with some of them I have been friends since my university days.
The nature of our relations does not change. Of late, I haven't
been able to meet with them often, but nevertheless, such meetings
do take place regularly. They come here and when I visit Petersburg
we meet there.

You know, it is connected in a way with the question that you
asked earlier. The change in people's attitude to me in connection
with the change of my official position. As you know, I have worked
with the security bodies and the external intelligence bodies for
many years. When I was still in Petersburg, then Leningrad, I
shared the same office with people who had very serious assignments
abroad for 15-17 years and worked in very difficult conditions. And
it so happened that we found ourselves in the same room and at
almost the same official level. And it seemed at the time to me and
others of my age to be strange and surprising. We knew that they
were the people about whom books could be written. And yet, they
were sharing the same study with us like ordinary Soviet citizens
and seemed to be contempt with their position.

You know what impressed me very much at the time, and not only
me, I am sure. These people, there weren't many of them, a few
people, their answer was as follows. The very fact that the country
entrusted us with this assignment is already a reward and a
blessing of fortune. And we are happy because of that, we are
grateful for that to our country. We do not expect any external
rewards, you can't take everything with you to the grave.

So, that was an inoculation for the "star disease" for life.
Your position is one today and it may be different tomorrow. But
friends remain with you always, if they are real friends.

Q: Did you become aware of any attention to your former
profession and a special attitude to you on the part of your
foreign interlocutors? And to what extent does this profession help
or impede a public politician in a democratic state where the media
play an important role?

A: My Western partners today do not have any particular
interest in my former profession. To begin with, they have known
about it for a long time. I began working in Petersburg in 1992,
even 1991 and I have publicly stated it. It is well known. I often
traveled abroad. So, for specialists, politicians and foreign
missions there is no secret about it. I am sure that during the
last ten years they have long found out everything that could be
found out. I assure you that this is what happened.

It is only of interest to the press and to the broad public.
I understand that this is an interesting topic. As to whether it is
of help or a hindrance, I think that it more often helps because
one has certain horizons. In effect, what is intelligence service
about? It is information service. It is primarily information work.

As for other components of political activities, how should I
put it? There is a public element in it. I have never been inclined
that way. I cannot say that I find it a burden, but I do not derive
particular pleasure from it.

Q: One observes many people who change dramatically when they
reach positions of power. Some change of personality is obvious.
Have you changed as a personality? Has your behavior changed and
they way you feel?

A: Unfortunately, yes. The level of responsibility increases.
You realize that if you behave in a disorganized or loose fashion,
this immediately sends a signal to your subordinates. A very bad
signal for the whole system of government. So, one has to be tough
and demanding.

Q: The mass media. One constantly has a feeling that the media
is about to launch a campaign of pressure. Some signs and symptoms
have been pointed out. How are you going to deal with the media?

A: I am deeply convinced that we won't have any development
and the country will have no future if we suppress civil freedoms
and the media. This is my deep conviction. It is a key institution
that prevents the state from slipping down into the quagmire of
totalitarianism. We have already lived in a totalitarian system and
no matter how hard it tried to adapt itself to the external world,
it didn't work economically. A free press is the key instrument
that guarantees the health of society.

Q: We have observed politicians who have reacted to attacks in
the press in various ways. How do you feel about -- well, one can't
say that you are getting a lot of flak -- but still, what is your
attitude to various negative materials in the press and do you have
a certain line of behavior?

A: I consider myself to be a mature enough person. I can
assess these processes not from the outside, but from the inside,
as it were. Did you notice that I have said that a free press is
one of the most important elements of civil society and a guarantee
of the development of a democratic state? I said, a free press. In
fact, it is rather difficult to ensure that the press is free. Very
often the press caters to certain interests, the interests of the
oligarchs, whom you have mentioned, the interests of groups and so
on.

If the state guarantees equal rules for everyone, that would
mean a state of freedom for society as a whole. These various
groups will be able to manifest themselves within the uniform rules
guaranteed by the state. When I read and hear things about myself
which I consider to be unfair I resent it of course. But I should
take the view that in spite of all this I should guarantee a level
playing field because it may happen that the people I support today
and who support me will find ourselves in opposition.

Q: And a personal question. You have a very playful and
touching dog. It doesn't fit in with the popular image of you. Is
it your dog, your wife's or your kids' dog?

A: They wanted very much to have a little dog. I resisted it
because we already had a dog, a formidable-looking dog.
Unfortunately, it died, it was run over by a car. We felt very
miserable about it and for a long time we didn't feel like having
another dog. But the children wanted to have a little dog and they
prevailed upon us. It's hard to say whose dog it is, whether it is
more my dog, or my wife's dog of the children's dog. It lives here
in its own right, as it were.

Q: Plays the part of a cat.

A: Don't insult our dog. It doesn't do the cat's job. A dog is
a dog. We are very fond of her, she is a very kind dog.

Q: The house. The house you live in gives you the impression
of a temporary dwelling. Paintings that have not been unpacked. Who
runs the house?

A: Most of the things here have been provided by the
government. This is the dacha which traditionally was occupied by
prime ministers during the past ten years. But we are used to
living in temporary dwellings beginning from 1985. When we went
abroad everything there was temporary and impersonal. Then after we
came back to St. Petersburg we didn't have a flat of our own for a
long time. Then we exchanged that apartment and started settling in
a permanent apartment and the problem of moving to Moscow arose.
So, we constantly change dwellings and we perceive them a little
bit like barrack rooms. But very comfortable barrack rooms, good to
live in, but temporary.

We all live as if we have our things packed and ready to move.
The whole country lives that way for the last ten years. And this
brings us to the problem we discussed, the problem of stability --

Q: Of being sedentary.

A: Yes, sedentary. In that sense we are not much different
from most of our citizens. Although they have permanent homes, they
don't have an inner sense of stability. Let us hope that we will
all regain that feeling together.

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