March 24, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4193 • 4194   4195

Johnson's Russia List
#4195
24 March 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AFP: Putin urges Russians to vote Sunday, Communist warns 
of rigging threat.
2. Reuters: TEXT-Putin's appeal to voters ahead of Kremlin poll.
3. Rossiiskaya Gazeta: Irina Nevinnaya, LIFE IS BETTER IN A 
STRONGER STATE.
4. The Guardian (UK): Ian Traynor, KGB veteran says Putin's 
rule is return to Soviet era. (Oleg Kalugin)
5. Boston Globe: David Filipov and Brian Whitmore, Putin's record 
suggests alliance with insiders. Deals as city official raise 
reformer doubts.
6. Reuters: Putin can't defeat Russian oligarchs -- Berezovsky.
7. New York Times: Michael Gordon, Putin, in a Rare Interview, 
Says He'll Use Ex-K.G.B. Aides to Root Out Graft.
8. ABC Nightline: Freedom of the Press?] 

*******

#1
Putin urges Russians to vote Sunday, Communist warns of rigging threat

MOSCOW, March 24 (AFP) - 
Acting President Vladimir Putin on Friday urged Russia's 108 million electors 
to vote in weekend presidential elections, as his Communist challenger warned 
he may contest the results of the poll.

Oozing presidential gravitas Putin, widely expected to secure outright 
victory in Sunday's first round, urged Russia's 108 million voters to ensure 
the ballot clears the 50 percent hurdle needed to make the vote valid.

"On the eve of the most important event in the life of a country, I simply 
must appeal to you, my fellow citizens, to follow through on your 
constitutional duties," Putin said in comments broadcast on NTV television.

"It is imperative to go to the polls on Sunday, and name the name of the 
president of the new Russia," he said from his Kremlin office, the Russian 
tricolour flag in background.

A high turnout is pivotal to Putin's chances of winning an election in the 
first round.

Communist Party boss Gennady Zyuganov meanwhile insisted he would force Putin 
into an April 16 run-off, but warned supporters to be vigilant against 
attempts to falsify the results.

"We will enter the second round, but we must secure strict control over how 
the election is conducted," Zyuganov told a press briefing.

"We respect the police, but unfortunately they have done little to stop the 
savage anarchy which now runs the country," he said.

"We will recognise the results of the elections only in those polling 
stations which provide us with a copy of the voting lists," he said.

Zyuganov's supporters will have their own observers at every station. Some 
400 international observers led by the Organisation for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe are to help monitor the vote.

Some 450,000 troops, police and cadets have been assigned security duty at 
voter stations across the globe's biggest nation, which covers 11 time zones.

Zyuganov lost to former president Boris Yeltsin in a 1996 run-off, but 
instantly recognised the results as valid.

Other candidates were Friday maintaining the low profiles that they have 
adopted throughout the campaign.

Liberal leader Grigory Yavlinsky renewed his criticism of the Chechnya war in 
an interview, while supporters of regional governor Konstantin Titov were 
handing out fliers outside underground metro stations.

Maverick ultranationalist candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has vowed 
during the campaign to restore the Soviet hymn and flag, abolish elections 
and conscript five million people into the army, was to rally his supporters 
in a march through central Moscow.

Few doubt that Putin, 47, will secure a four-year term in the Kremlin, 
although pollsters are divided on whether he will garner the 50 percent of 
the vote needed to avoid a second round.

Few expect support for Putin to be dented by unproven allegations linking the 
race favourite to an alleged embezzlement scandal dating back to his time as 
deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg.

The Novaya Gazeta bi-weekly Thursday quoted an investigators report as saying 
Putin benefited personally from millions of dollars allegedly siphoned from 
the construction firm "Trust 20" in the mid-1990s.

The Kremlin refused to comment on the report. Putin has shrugged off previous 
suggestions of murky dealings during his earlier incarnations, and has 
enjoyed enviable popularity merely by behaving as a president-in-waiting.

Putin's meteoric rise since becoming prime minister last August has been 
fuelled by his ruthless prosecution of the war in Chechnya, which he 
transformed into a moral crusade for the very soul of Russia.

His youth, vigour and no-nonsense manner, sprinkled with a smattering of 
fruity outbursts and an occasional turn of wit, has also proven popular with 
voters, contrasting sharply with the slurred bombast of Boris Yeltsin who 
quit on December 31.

The surprise decision hurled Putin, Yeltsin's designated successor, into the 
Kremlin and placed him on the front-row of the starting grid for Sunday's 
presidential race.

*******

#2
TEXT-Putin's appeal to voters ahead of Kremlin poll

MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) - Following is the text of Acting President 
Vladimir Putin's television address to Russian voters on Friday ahead of the 
March 26 presidential election, which he is tipped by opinion polls to win by 
a comfortable majority. 

A low turnout seems to be the only hurdle that might prevent Putin from 
becoming elected president and the armed forces' commander-in-chief as, under 
Russian law, the ballot is invalid if less than 50 percent of voters go to 
the polls. 

``My constitutional duty was to ensure that the election was held on time and 
according to the law. 

As acting head of state I also had to organise the governing of the country 
during this period. I think at this stage I can say I have fulfilled my duty 
to the constitution and the people of Russia. 

But on the eve of this most important event in the history of the state, it 
is my obligation to ask you, my fellow countrymen, to carry out your 
constitutional duty. It is imperative to go to the polls on Sunday and choose 
the president of a new Russia. 

Today is the last day of campaigning. These last three months have shown that 
despite all the difficulties arising from the events in the North Caucasus 
and the action of our army, society has consolidated in the face of common 
danger. We have grown stronger. 

But while our soldiers shed blood in the North Caucasus, lies sometimes 
swirled across the country and abroad. I want to say that whoever tried to 
make use of this hard time against the state, and for whatever reason, has 
failed. Let God be their judge. 

In this regard, I think it is important to remind you that on March 26 we are 
electing not only the head of state but, in essence, appointing a supreme 
commander, as Russia's president is at the same time commander-in-chief of 
the armed forces. 

Russia is one of the biggest countries in the world and a mighty nuclear 
power. And this is something kept in mind not only by our friends. I repeat, 
we are electing a president whose duty will be to revive the economy, restore 
the country's prestige and leading role in the world and provide for everyone 
an effective system of government, stability and prosperity. 

Dear friends, on this occasion the day of the vote coincides with the 
switching of the clock to summer time. This coincidence appears meaningful 
and even symbolic. We are turning the clock forward. The old time has 
expired. The day of the election will usher in a new era. But, of course, we 
have to make the choice. 

The constitution stipulates that the Russian people are the only source of 
power. And if somebody says you need not go to the polls, this somebody wants 
to take this power away from the people. 

But we know that the Russian people are not easily tricked. 

I appeal to you and ask you to do just one thing -- go to the polling 
stations and vote. Listen to yourself. Make your choice. Thank you for your 
attention.'' 

*******

#3
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
March 24, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
LIFE IS BETTER IN A STRONGER STATE
By Irina NEVINNAYA

At its session yesterday, the government discussed major 
social issues on which, according to the acting president and 
prime minister Putin, "the quality of Russian people's life 
largely depends." They are the Conception of Public Health Care 
for Russia's population until the year 2005, and the draft 
federal targeted programme "Economic and Social Development of 
Small Indigenous Peoples of the North Until the Year 2001."

The acting president began the session by his report about 
the results of the government delegation's tour of the Volga 
Area, including the national republics of Bashkortostan and 
Tatarstan. In Putin's opinion, the main result of this trip was 
the intention voiced by the leaders of both republics to keep 
intact "the clearly expressed unified legal and constitutional 
space" in Russia. The situation has evolved over the past years 
when the Federation members, which were given greater 
independence, have been developing mostly according to their 
own laws adopted by the regional bodies of authority. More 
often than not, these laws ran counter to federal laws.
For instance, differences in economic laws disrupt the 
country's unified economic space, and this is a tangible 
hindrance to foreign investment.
During their meetings with the government delegation, the 
presidents of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan put forward the 
initiative on how to improve federative and interbudget 
relations. The finance ministry and other departments will 
continue work in this direction.
To quote the acting president, this is a "clear signal to 
the entire world community that we have certain priorities, 
which we are not going to ignore. First of all, this is the 
strengthening of Russian statehood. It is very important that 
this initiative was put forward by leaders of national 
republics themselves."
As for the conception of health care for the Russian 
population until the year 2005, even before it was submitted to 
the session by the first deputy minister of health Gennady 
Onishchenko, Putin made some remarks concerning this document.
He cited some fairly complex provisions from it and stressed 
that this document, which is interesting and important for the 
entire population, should be made clear and comprehensible and 
contain absolutely concrete proposals.
The main thing, Putin continued, is to divide health care 
duties between all the interested parties, i.e., the state, 
employers and citizens themselves. The right to free health 
service is written into our Constitution, but today people 
spend much more on their health than the state.
At the session, the fuel and energy ministry submitted its 
proposal to prolong for the year 2000 the experiment whereby 
released workers of the liquidated coal industry enterprises in 
the Perm region are granted state housing certificates. It was 
also noted that since the majority of coal miners move to some 
place within the region, certificates' validity term may be 
reduced from 6 to 3 months.

******

#4
The Guardian (UK)
24 March 2000
[for personal use only]
KGB veteran says Putin's rule is return to Soviet era 
Ian Traynor in Moscow 

A former KGB veteran who spent decades spying on the west yesterday launched 
a blistering attack on his former colleague, Vladimir Putin. He described the 
man who expects to become Russia's president on Sunday as prone to riding 
roughshod over the law and accused him of running a "corrupt and 
criminalised" Russia. 

As the prominent liberal commentator, Alexander Minkin, warned that the KGB 
was returning to rule Russia under a Putin presidency, Oleg Kalugin, a 
retired KGB major general, who was once the chief of Soviet espionage in the 
US, rounded on Mr Putin saying he displayed a "purely Soviet approach" to 
questions of justice and the law. 

"I don't believe in the Russia of Putin, criminalised and corrupt, with its 
lame justice and due process," Mr Kalugin declared in an open letter to the 
acting president. 

"In this situation, I'll be bound to seek political asylum in the free 
world." 

In a recent interview, Mr Putin bluntly labelled Mr Kalugin a "traitor" 
because a decade ago he broke with the world of KGB secrecy and, during the 
perestroika years under Mikhail Gorbachev, campaigned for public 
accountability among the security services. 

Mr Kalugin served the KGB for 30 years and was highly decorated for his 
service. But he was stripped of his awards by KGB hardliners in 1990, before 
having them restored the following year. He now works in America. 

As well as spending years as a spy in Washington before becoming the head of 
Soviet foreign counter-intelligence, Mr Kalugin also spent seven years as 
deputy head of the KGB in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, Mr Putin's native 
city. 

Mr Putin started his 16-year KGB career in Leningrad in 1975. Since the 
Yeltsin protege became acting president of Russia at the New Year, Mr Kalugin 
has spoken contemptuously of his KGB career, calling his contribution to the 
intelligence service that of a mediocrity. 

The falling out among spies worsened when Mr Putin turned aggressively on Mr 
Kalugin. "Kalugin is a traitor. I saw Kalugin in my time in Leningrad, where 
he was deputy head of the directorate - an absolute idler. 

"He doesn't remember anything," said Mr Putin. "He can't remember me. I had 
no contacts with him and did not communicate with him. It is I who remember 
him, because he was a big boss and everybody knew him." 

Gennady Zyuganov, the communist leader who is expected to be the runner-up in 
the election, said that Sunday's poll now amounted to a contest between "the 
KGB and the Soviet communist party". 

Mr Kalugin contended that Mr Putin's recurring use of the term traitor when 
describing his foes showed a "dulled awareness of the law", and a "selective 
approach to the presumption of innocence" that recalled the Soviet era. 

"The situation in Russia has changed substantially [since Mr Putin's rise to 
power]," he said. "The forces of revanchism are on the offensive. It's become 
the norm to discredit honest people." 

He went further, saying Mr Putin had raised a toast to Stalin, had a plaque 
in honour of the late Soviet KGB chief Yuri Andropov - "a symbol of communist 
despotism" - returned to its place at the security service headquarters in 
Moscow and paid a friendly call on Vladimir Kryuchkov, the "state criminal" 
who as the hardline KGB chief led the coup attempt against Mr Gorbachev in 
August 1991. 

******

#5
Boston Globe
24 March 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin's record suggests alliance with insiders 
Deals as city official raise reformer doubts
By David Filipov, Globe Staff and Brian Whitmore, Globe Correspondent, 

MOSCOW - The skeletons in Vladimir V. Putin's closet have little to do with 
his shadowy past as a Soviet spy. They have to do with his record as a public 
official in the decade before he was suddenly named acting president.

Putin, the clear favorite to win the presidency in his own right in Russia's 
election Sunday, has vowed to dismantle the corrupt system of insider 
dealings and patronage that flourished under his predecessor, Boris N. 
Yeltsin, and helped doom most of this vast nation to a decade of chaos and 
poverty. In effect, it was government of the elites, by the elites, and for 
the elites.

Far more than Putin's military campaign in Chechnya or his commitment to 
democratic freedoms, the issue that intrigues political observers is whether 
he means it when he promises to establish a ''dictatorship of law'' that 
provides ''equal conditions for all.''

Despite his calls for reform, Putin's six months in power have failed to 
dispel doubts that he is a creature of the insiders and that he will govern 
in their interest.

Documents detailing Putin's record as a city official in St. Petersburg in 
the early 1990s appear to reveal a bureaucrat who was less interested in 
enforcing the law than mining profits from the loopholes.

Putin last month announced a campaign against corruption, vowing to exclude 
''the possibility for someone to latch on to the authorities and use this 
proximity for personal goals.''

It is a message appreciated by ordinary Russians, who cope with meddlesome 
bureaucrats on a local level and who have grown to despise the moguls who 
control Russia's most lucrative industries and are widely believed to exert 
heavy influence on the government.

But Putin's early days as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg seem to have been 
spent doing precisely what he says he will eradicate. An investigation by 
city lawmakers eight years ago said that Putin had set up import-export 
schemes that allegedly caused St. Petersburg to lose out on millions of 
dollars of revenue.

Those were the wild, early days of post-Soviet Russia, when government 
bureaucrats had the power to grant favors that could make a small-time 
businessman fabulously rich overnight. They set the stage for Russia's 
economy to become the playground for politically connected insiders, known 
here as ''oligarchs,'' who divided up the country's best assets.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, the best business was politics - or having 
politicians in your pocket. And for politicians, the best way to make a 
comfortable living was to grant special favors to businessmen. 

As St. Petersburg's deputy mayor, and head of the city's Committee for 
Foreign Relations, Putin was in a position to grant such favors. His 
committee oversaw foreign investment, humanitarian aid, and relations with 
the diplomatic community. But perhaps most importantly, Putin's duties 
eventually expanded to include the regulation of local imports and exports. 

At the time, the most valuable privilege a bureaucrat could grant a 
businessman was permission to export valuable raw materials like precious and 
semi-precious metals, oil, and timber. These goods could be bought cheaply in 
Russia and sold abroad for fantastic profits.

In the early 1990s, St. Petersburg, like much of Russia, was struggling to 
cope with a deep economic crisis. The country's distribution system, which 
delivered food from the countryside to the cities, had broken down, and there 
was genuine fear of mass starvation.

In December 1991, Putin masterminded a plan to barter raw materials abroad in 
exchange for food. The following month, the government gave Putin's committee 
the right to grant licenses to selected companies to export $92 million worth 
of metals, cement, timber, and petroleum products. 

Putin signed deals with 19 companies that would act as middlemen, exporting 
the raw materials and importing food. Most of these companies were unknown at 
the time, and several had been founded just months earlier.

But the food for St. Petersburg's hungry masses never showed up. Three months 
later, all the city had to show for Putin's deal were two tankers of cooking 
oil. An investigation by the city council found that the rare metals were 
being priced at a small fraction of their value on the world market. The 
suspicion is that the profits from the raw materials sold were much greater 
than the documents reflect, but the proceeds never made it into the city's 
treasury.

Vladimir Ivanidze, a Moscow investigative journalist, has turned up documents 
showing that a company called Dzhikop received permission from Putin's office 
to sell a semiprecious metal called scandia, which is used in space and 
aviation technology, to a buyer in Germany for less than one-fortieth of its 
market price. 

''The more you study these documents, the more you find clues of the most 
simple and impudent operation using one's official position,'' Ivanidze said. 
''If someone had interrogated [Putin], he might have said where all the money 
went. But no one interrogated him.''

In a recently published interview, Putin conceded that ''unfortunately some 
of the companies did not fulfill the conditions of their contracts.'' He 
said, however, that no crime was committed and that local lawmakers were out 
to get him because of his KGB past.

In the wake of the investigation, local legislators demanded that St. 
Petersburg's mayor at the time, Anatoly Sobchak, fire Putin. Sobchak ignored 
the demand.

Sobchak, who died Feb. 20, was charged with corruption after he left office 
in 1996. But Putin's career flourished. 

He was offered a job as deputy to Pavel Borodin, who headed the Kremlin's 
property department. This massive financial empire later became the focal 
point of allegations that a Swiss company paid bribes to Yeltsin and his 
family in return for huge Kremlin contracts. Borodin was implicated, but 
Putin, as Borodin's deputy, again avoided trouble.

While Borodin was fighting off an investigation by Swiss prosecutors, Putin 
went on to head Russia's Federal Security Service, the main domestic 
successor of the KGB. Last August, Putin's rise to the top began when Yeltsin 
chose him as prime minister. Soon after, Russian forces began fighting an 
intense campaign against rebels in Chechnya, which would turn the dour Putin 
into the country's most popular politician. He became acting president when 
Yeltsin resigned on New Year's Eve.

Government powers, Putin now says, should not be used to enrich favored 
financial clans or private-interest groups. He promises to strengthen state 
control over the economy to protect it from ''illegal intrusions'' by 
bureaucrats and criminals. 

It is a useful campaign slogan. But people involved with Putin's campaign 
make it clear that little has changed.

''Everyone knows that a `strong state' in Russia is a byword for more 
corruption,'' said one Putin campaign strategist, who asked to remain 
anonymous. ''A big property owner in Russia will lose his property if he 
doesn't play politics. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows we have had no 
administration, no government, just representatives of competing 
financial-industrial groups. The big question now is the new people Putin is 
bringing in - whom they will sell themselves to.''

Last month, Putin's government looked the other way when companies controlled 
by Kremlin insiders Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky bought a 70 percent 
stake in Russia's multibillion-dollar aluminum industry. At the time, Putin 
said he was unaware of the deal. An investigation by a senior aide charged 
with enforcing antimonopoly regulations found no violations.

Abramovich and Berezovsky were also reportedly behind a management takeover 
of Russia's state oil company, Transneft, last fall in which armed riot 
police in camouflage gear ousted the previous director. Although it was 
technically illegal, Putin allowed the takeover to stand.

Analysts in Russia and the West suggest that Putin is trying to stay out of 
the oligarchs' battles until after the election, when any move to rein in 
their influence would be backed by a popular mandate. But if the tactic was 
intended to show Putin's neutrality, it has backfired.

''Putin will try to elevate his own group of oligarchs loyal to him and make 
the others more subordinate to the state,'' said Nikolai Petrov, a political 
analyst at the Carnegie Center for International Peace, a Moscow-based think 
tank. 

Putin, said one analyst close to the Kremlin, has had dealings with several 
''oligarch'' groups. The closest, at the moment, is Alfa Group, led by Pyotr 
Aven, who as Russia's foreign trade minister in 1992 approved Putin's export 
contracts in St. Petersburg. Putin's administration recently handed control 
of the Committee of State Fisheries, which earns a lucrative $2 million a 
year in licensing fees, to a group affiliated with Alfa, the analyst said.

Analysts said Putin needs a strong mandate in the election Sunday in order to 
control the oligarchs. If he fails to win an outright majority and is forced 
into a run-off, it will be easier for vested interests to exert influence 
over him.

Little will be known about Putin's plans until he begins filling key Cabinet 
slots.

One possible indicator could be Putin's choice for Russia's next general 
prosecutor, an office that in the past has been blocked from carrying out 
investigations of top Kremlin officials.

One idea being floated is to name Yevgeny Primakov, a former prime minister 
whose efforts to probe Kremlin corruption involving members of Yeltsin's 
inner circle, including Berezovsky and Borodin, were cut short by his 
dismissal in March 1999. As prosecutor, Primakov could reopen those cases and 
demonstrate Putin's independence. In an interview with the New York Times 
published today, Putin said he would make use of former KGB colleagues in the 
fight against corruption.

''This will be the litmus test,'' said one Kremlin analyst. ''If Putin 
chooses Primakov as prosecutor, then he is the government-minded patriot he 
says he wants to be. But if Putin chooses one of his old pals from the KGB, 
then his administration will steal like everyone else does.''

At the moment, even insiders are guessing.

''I don't know who Putin is,'' said one official in Putin's Kremlin 
administration. ''He himself doesn't know.''

******

#6
Putin can't defeat Russian oligarchs -- Berezovsky

MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin will be unable to reduce the 
influence of a small group of powerful businessmen known as oligarchs if he 
is elected Russia's president, one of them said in an interview published on 
Friday. 

Foreign investors hope Putin will take on the oligarchs if, as expected, he 
wins Sunday's election. The outcome of the battle to reduce their vast 
influence would be seen as an acid test of his willingness and ability to 
reform Russia's economy. 

Boris Berezovsky, one of Russia's richest men, told Vedomosti newspaper he 
considered Putin a reformer and telephoned him once a month. But he suggested 
the acting president had criticised the oligarchs just to win votes. 

``As a normal politician, he acts pragmatically. Like all the others 
(candidates), he said the oligarchs must be distanced from power,'' 
Berezovsky said. 

``That's normal, absolutely correct, but it is impossible to achieve. But the 
words are right, for voters.'' 

Foreign investors have been discouraged from pouring money into Russia by 
what they regard as the ability of a small circle of businessmen to influence 
political and economic decisions. 

They say the oligarchs have built up huge wealth at the expense of national 
interests. Berezovsky, who has had close contacts with former president Boris 
Yeltsin's family, says he acts only in Russia's interests. 

Berezovsky's role in Putin's rise, and his ability to influence him, is 
unclear. But he backs him in the election, as does the ORT television channel 
in which he has a stake. 

``I telephone him once a month. He never refuses to speak to me,'' Berezovsky 
said, adding that their recent conversations had been about the military 
campaign in Chechnya. 

He said Putin had come to his wife's birthday party last year even though 
Berezovsky had been under fire from then-prime minister Yevgeny Primakov and 
had invited no one from the circles of power to avoid putting them in an 
awkward position. 

``I told him that I had intentionally not invited (him), and he had never 
been to my or my wife's birthday before,'' Berezovsky said. 

``He came up and said: 'It's all the same to me what Primakov thinks. I think 
this is important right now.' And that of course to a great extent determined 
my relationship with him.'' 

******

#7
New York Times
March 24, 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin, in a Rare Interview, Says He'll Use Ex-K.G.B. Aides to Root Out Graft 
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

MOSCOW, March 23 -- If he is elected president on Sunday, as everyone expects 
he will be, Vladimir V. Putin says he will use a trusted group of former 
colleagues from the K.G.B. to tackle Russia's endemic corruption. 

"I am bringing into my inner-circle people from law enforcement bodies who 
are in no way connected with the people and structures which may be 
associated with any form of corruption," the acting president said. 

A former officer of the K.G.B., the Soviet intelligence service, and later 
head of Russia's domestic intelligence service, Mr. Putin made a rapid ascent 
in the Kremlin, stirring concerns among Russians who fear he may try to roll 
back the nation's hard-won freedoms. 

But in a brief interview with Ted Koppel of the ABC News program "Nightline," 
Mr. Putin sought to assure the West that his intelligence connections would 
be used to build a more fair and even-handed system. A transcript of the 
interview, which will be broadcast on Friday night, was made available to The 
New York Times. 

"Yes, I have brought some of them to the Kremlin," he said of his K.G.B. 
colleagues. "I have known them for many years and I trust them. It has 
nothing to do with ideology. It's only a matter of their professional 
qualities and personal relationships." 

Mr. Putin did not name the intelligence officials he plans to use in his 
"inner circle." The F.S.B., the successor to the K.G.B., already includes a 
deputy director who owes his position to Mr. Putin and who has been 
criticized for persecuting dissidents under Soviet rule. And former 
intelligence officials run Russia's security council and serve as mid-level 
aides to Mr. Putin. 

Many top positions, however, are held by holdovers from the administration of 
Boris N. Yeltsin and officials with no background in intelligence. It remains 
to be seen how that mix may change when, as virtually everyone expects, Mr. 
Putin is elected. 

Filmed during his visit to Nizhny Novgorod, a picturesque city on Russia's 
Volga River, the brief interview was one of few the Russian leader has given 
to the Western press. 

The answers Mr. Putin provided appeared intended to dispel his image as a 
wily survivor who is determined to rebuild Russia's influence and might. 

Mr. Putin insisted that his recent flight to Grozny in the back seat of a 
SU-27 fighter was not a campaign stunt, designed to demonstrate his support 
for a reinvigorated military. It was, he said, simply the cheapest, fastest 
and safest way to travel. 

"Frankly speaking," he said, straightfaced, "the last thing I think about is 
symbols." 

Rampant corruption has been a monumental problem for Russia and there have 
been allegations that it reached into the higher echelons of the government 
when Mr. Yeltsin was in power. Mr. Putin has taken few steps as prime 
minister or acting president to combat it. 

In the interview, Mr. Putin cast corruption as little more than a passing 
phase for a nation still trying to extract itself from the ruins of the 
Soviet Union. And he all but pledged to banish bribery and make Russia safe 
for foreign investors after he is handed the reins of power. 

"During the period of transitional economy the government often fails to 
guarantee equal opportunities for all participants of the market," he 
acknowledged somberly. "There are those who take advantage of their proximity 
to political, governmental and regional leaders." 

Describing what actions his government might take, Mr. Putin couched them in 
the context of strengthening the role of the state: "First, we will focus on 
guaranteeing the full rights of owners and investors," he said. "The right of 
ownership must become a priority in Russia. We will strive to make the 
position of the state crystal clear in its legislation. We will need to make 
the state strong enough to guarantee implementation of these rights." 

"And finally, " he added, "we will do our best to ensure equal opportunity 
for all the participants of the market." 

I hope that if these fundamental principles are observed," he told Mr. 
Koppel, "we will not have to bring up the issue of corruption in Russia the 
next time we meet." 

Mr. Putin's remarks about the K.G.B. and its successors appeared intended to 
counter the dark connotations the intelligence agency still has in the West. 

Speaking to an American audience, however, Mr. Putin seemed to be at pains to 
portray himself as an enlightened former intelligence official who was 
committed to streamlining government and fighting corruption, not rolling 
back the clock on human rights. 

When asked by Mr. Koppel about a comment he reportedly made at a gathering of 
intelligence officers to the effect that they had "succeeded in our first 
effort to infiltrate the Kremlin," Mr. Putin replied: 

"Of course it was a joke -- though I have to say that a gathering of 
employees of intelligence agencies and former leaders of those agencies is 
not unusual, even in the West." 

In speaking to Russian interviewers, he has boasted that he approached the 
K.G.B. as a schoolboy in the hope of beginning a career as a spy. He 
fulfilled his dream in 1975 when he was recruited into the K.G.B., where he 
reached the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning. Mr. Putin was named 
to head the F.S.B., domestic successor to the K.G.B, in 1998. 

As the interview approached the eight-minute mark, an aide appeared to signal 
the acting president that he had given the American interviewers enough. 

******

#8
ABC News
Nightline
March 20, 2000
Freedom of the Press? 

(This is an unedited, uncorrected transcript.) 
Prepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole
responsibility for accuracy of transcription

TED KOPPEL ABCNEWS This weekend, Russians will elect a new president.
Vladimir Putin has far surpassed his rivals. But not long ago, they were
strong candidates.

YGOR MALASHENKO These politicians were attacked once and again every day by
state-controlled channels.

TED KOPPEL In Russia’s political wars, television is the ultimate weapon.

1ST VOICE I doubt if there is any other country in the world where TV plays
such an overwhelming role as in Russia.

2ND VOICE In many newspapers or TV programs, you can buy favorable coverage.

3RD VOICE TV journalists today are like kids smoking on a barrel full of
gunpowder without understanding what they have in their hands.

TED KOPPEL Tonight, Russian Revolutions, a free press, if you can afford it.

ANNOUNCER From ABCNEWS, this is Nightline. Reporting from Moscow, Ted Koppel.

TED KOPPEL Let’s assume for a moment that you are someone who thinks ill of
American television, who believes that ours is a corrupting influence. Our
broadcast tonight is devoted to the proposition that it could be worse.
Here in Russia, it is. One of the crowning ironies of the century we have
just left behind is that the Soviet Union spent more than 70 years
preaching about the evils of capitalism. 

Russia has devoted the last few years to practicing them. On American
television, a commercial or political sponsor can buy time. On Russian TV,
you can buy a point of view. A little later on this program, my colleague
John Donna will show you what that’s all about. I’m going to begin by
telling you how it came to be.
(VO) It began innocently enough. Well, perhaps innocently is too strong a
word.
(Clips from Russian TV programs)

TED KOPPEL (VO) The Russians began with a lot of the same mind candy we put
on the air, game shows, soap operas, graphic sex shows, bloody crime
programs, lots of commercials. This is, after all, a market economy.
(Clips from Russian TV programs and commercials)

TED KOPPEL (VO) Plenty of western fare like “ER” and American movies.
(Clips from American TV dubbed into Russian)

TED KOPPEL (VO) And there’s no mistaking the latest sensation.
(Clip from “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”)

DIMITRI DIBROV (ph) It is the most successful show here on Russian television.

TED KOPPEL (VO) Dimitri Dibrov is one of Russia’s most popular television
personalities.

DIMITRI DIBROV Television is the—is the medium of escapism to world
problems or just—just to color a little bit your quite dull and gray life.

TED KOPPEL (VO) But Dibrov says, with all the crises and upheavals in
Russian life, entertainment is only part of the on-air diet.

DIMITRI DIBROV News is the main dish of television.

TED KOPPEL (VO) News broadcasts are on in prime time every night on every
major channel. There is limited choice. More than 80 percent of all viewers
in Russia watch one of the four Moscow-based networks. And in a vast
country spanning 11 time zones, television is power. A political tool that
Russian leaders, like their Soviet predecessors, have never shied from using.

It wasn’t long ago that the battle for control of this influential
instrument was just that, a battle, and a bloody one at that. When Russia
flirted with civil war in 1993, tanks turned against the Russian white
house. It was no surprise that some of the worst fighting was over
Ostankino, the central TV station. 

By 1994, the state monopoly of the airwaves was finally broken. A new
independent, private channel, NTV, devoted to news coverage, was created.
It came of age with its aggressive coverage of the first Chechen conflict.
Oleg Dobrodeyev (ph) was NTV’s news director at the time.

OLEG DOBRODEYEV (Through Translator) During the first Chechen war,
information on NTV rarely coincided with official releases. We were in very
tense relations with the authorities, with the military.

TED KOPPEL (VO) In this report, NTV showed Russian deserters fighting
alongside the Chechen rebels, a fact the Russian high command vehemently
denied.

OLEG DOBRODEYEV (Through Translator) We at NTV always depended on our
access to state transmission facilities, but we were never actually
switched off.

TED KOPPEL (VO) In 1996, the Russian press mortgaged its professional soul.
Boris Yeltsin faced an election with his popularity at an all-time low. His
communist opponent Jurgonoff (ph), who threatened to crack down on the
press, looked certain to win. The press set aside all objectivity.

ANDREI ZOLOTOV, THE MOSCOW TIMES Pretty much all the media, not just
television, but print media, as well, was on the Yeltsin’s side during this
electoral campaign. Now, the reason behind it was that is we want to defend
freedom of the press, freedom of speech is crucial to us.

OLEG DOBRODEYEV (Through Translator) The role of television in Yeltsin’s
re-election cannot be overestimated. TV actually reconstructed the image of
the president and helped to enhance his support in a limited time.

TED KOPPEL (VO) Yeltsin was able to beat back the challenge from the
communists. Even the independent station NTV rallied behind him, but at a
cost to its journalistic reputation.

ANDREI ZOLOTOV Well—well, if you’ve become a prostitute once, then it’s
very hard to prove that you are an innocent girl.

TED KOPPEL Indeed, lately, Russian television hasn’t wasted much energy
even trying to prove that point. Having lost its editorial innocence back
in 1996, Russian TV seems to have had few scruples this time around,
engineering the extraordinary emergence of Vladimir Putin, who last August
was registering an anemic 2 percent in the polls. John Donvan will tell you
the story of how television helped make Putin the odds on favorite in next
Sunday’s presidential elections when we come back.

ANNOUNCER This is ABCNEWS: Nightline, brought to you by...

(Commercial break)

JOHN DONVAN, ABCNEWS (VO) You’d heard that sex was playing big on Russian
television? Well, this isn’t just sex we’re looking at. It’s politics. The
man in the video was identified as the nation’s top law enforcement
official. The exact title is prosecutor general. He had been investigating
Boris Yeltsin and his associates on suspicion of corruption. 

The next thing anyone knew, Russian state television was showing,
allegedly, the prosecutor general, allegedly at play with some prostitutes.
Seen here in his street clothes, Yuri Skuratov has repeatedly denied that
was him in that videotape. But it seems the damage was done. Skuratov, who
had seemed a real threat to Yeltsin and his cronies, was discredited.

(VO) Now, is it just a coincidence that looming large among those cronies
was Boris Berezovsky (ph), one of Russia’s richest men? And is it only a
coincidence that Berezovsky controls the huge state television channel that
helped destroy the prosecutor general’s reputation? Russian state
television is an odd thing. Owned both by private investors like Berezovsky
and by the Russian government, it is, in a word, bent. 

The news is bent. The talk shows are bent to please Berezovsky and to serve
the interests of his friends in the Kremlin. Saturday night is big at state
television. It’s the night they put on something called “The Sergei
Darienko Show.” That’s Sergei Darienko (ph) behind the desk. A man who has
created a hit by savaging with words and sometimes even with verifiable
facts, anyone who has run afoul of his boss, Boris Berezovsky.

Now consider the real power that Darienko’s voice has. His broadcast signal
reaches virtually this entire country. That’s more than 100 million voters
his program can reach. And with no real competition on that scale, he and
his boss have an enormous opportunity to shape, or we might say manipulate,
public opinion. They can and they have influenced elections. They can and
they have made and broken political careers.

Say you were Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, an avowed enemy of Berezovsky.
Here’s what was done to you on Darienko’s show, followed up with charges
that you were a murderer and a crook. 

Say you were former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, another Berezovsky
enemy. And just when you were undergoing hip surgery, Darienko broadcast
video of someone else’s hip surgery, just to plant the idea that if you’d
been through this, you were in no shape to lead this country. Scandalous?
Sure, it’s scandalous.

Mr. ARTYEM TROITSKY (Magazine Editor): He follows the political agenda of
his boss, of his owner. And his owner is Mr. Berezovsky. He makes the—the
profession of a journalist look exactly like the profession of a prostitute.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) On the other hand, many ordinary Russians find Darienko
compelling. As this viewer we stopped at random told us, ‘Yeah, there is a
lot of dirt there. But sometimes, that’s what’s needed.’ Does this sort of
stuff really work? Well, not long ago, it was a given that either Primakov
or Luzhkov would win next Sunday’s presidential election. Not anymore.

YGOR MALASHENKO, FORMER NTV PRESIDENT They were virtually destroyed
politically. These politicians were attacked once and again, every day, by
state-controlled channels. And these channels were using even all kinds of
lies and disinformation.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) Darienko exhibits absolutely no shame about what he does
for a living. He revels in the 37 percent of viewers that the polls say
like him, and in the 29 percent that really don’t.

SERGEI DARIENKO And I have 29 percent who love to hate me. And they love
me, too. Because they love to hate me, you know.

JOHN DONVAN What is your profession? Are you—is it—are you a journalist?

SERGEI DARIENKO (Through translator) I’ve been thinking about that and
realized it would be ridiculous to try to classify what I do. My profession
is to be me. And the funniest part is, I get paid for it! Imagine that?

YEVGENY KISELYEV I don’t believe in his integrity.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) Yevgeny Kiselyev is probably Sergei Darienko’s spiritual
opposite. The respected anchor of one of Russia’s most respected weekly
news programs, airing on the independent NTV station, he recently saw
Darienko draw a bigger rating than his own show.

YEVGENY KISELYEV We always try to be balanced. We tried not to take sides.
We try just to—to—to tell the story.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) Kiselyev is what most of us would recognize as a tough but
fair anchorman. When his show focuses on the war in Chechnya, which it does
almost constantly, it includes the war’s negative consequences, the utter
destruction of a major city, the thousands of refugees. Darienko? His war
coverage simply says, Russia is right.

SERGEI DARIENKO (Through translator) On my show, I called for carpet
bombing. Just close your eyes, do it, and think about the outcome later.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) Darienko also joined the state television chorus that
blamed the Chechens for bombing several Russian apartment buildings last
autumn; that the Chechens did it is now generally accepted by the Russian
people, even if the government admits it has no proof. Russians exposed to
these loaded versions of truth are pretty adept at picking and choosing
fact from opinion. After all, they had 75 years of Soviet propaganda to
practice.

MAN (Through Translator) Before, our television was the same on every
channel. Now we receive this information from different points of view. We
can disagree with some of them, others are closer to us.

1ST WOMAN I just listen, then analyze, and that’s all. Because I think that
I’m clever enough to understand when they say the truth and when they say a
lie.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) We mentioned that Berezovsky’s channel not only breaks but
also makes careers. Lately, it’s been making much of a man named Putin.
He’s everywhere on Berezovsky’s airwaves, especially as the man who
launched the “Russia-is-right” war in Chechnya. And now he’s likely to be
Russia’s next president. It’s as though Sergei Darienko himself wrote the
script.

SERGEI DARIENKO (Through translator) Regarding Putin, I, Sergei Darienko, I
am deeply grateful to Putin for Chechnya. As long as he is working on
Chechnya, I will be taking the greatest possible care of him.

TED KOPPEL How to get your story on a Russian television news program?
Easy, there’s a price list. John Donvan will have that story when we come
back.

(Commercial break)

JOHN DONVAN (VO) Sure, there are Russians opposed to the way their state
television is pumping out propaganda. Only a few days ago, some of them
borrowed a statue of Karl Marx to register their protest. But this
gathering definitely does not represent a major force in Russia.

The real power is with and behind acting President Vladimir Putin. Nobody
really knows what will happen to press freedom, media freedom, if, as
expected, he is elected president. Theoretically, Putin would control the
nation’s broadcasting infrastructure, even the facilities that are used by
the independent TV companies. The same goes for the nation’s printing
presses. So it seems worrisome that Putin is so dismissive of journalists
that he won’t go on television to explain his political program. 

It seems ominous that the one Russian reporter covering the Chechnya war
from the Chechen side—the US-based Radio Liberty’s Andrei Babitsky (ph)—is
referred by Putin as a traitor and a criminal. It reads like handwriting on
the wall that news organizations even mildly critical of the Chechen
conflict, are finding it harder to get access to the war zone.

But nobody really knows whether Putin, who has promised to leave the media
alone, will keep that promise if he’s elected president, or crack down.
But, that said, it may be that the biggest threat to the Russian press is
the Russian press itself. During this visit to Moscow, Nightline staff
heard about a journalistic practice that sounded so corrupt, at first we
didn’t believe it was true.

(VO) But here it is—a price list put in our hands by a leading Russian
media adviser to political candidates. See those numbers? Translated, those
are dollar prices that reporters and executives at newspapers and TV
stations are charging candidates for public office in exchange for writing
and publishing positive news stories about them—not advertisements, not
editorials, news stories. A two-minute piece on the evening news, about
$10,000. A piece in a major paper, up to $4,500 a pop.
In other words, this list, which includes the biggest newspapers, the
biggest TV companies, says that in Russia you can buy yourself a good
headline, or a nice photo on page one, or some great spin on the evening news.
(VO) Do Russian readers and viewers have any idea this is happening? When
we asked some of the people we met earlier, they were clueless.

1ST WOMAN I don’t think that someone is involved in this kind of business.
Maybe, but I don’t know anything.

2ND WOMAN Of course it’s upset me because—because—because it means that if
it is like this. It means that it is not true and they cannot believe it,
believe to this person.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) But when we made the rounds of news organizations from the
head of Russian television to newspaper editors to reporters, we expected
flat denials of this practice. We got the opposite. All admitted it’s a
common practice. Not all, but some, even admitted the corruption had
reached their own staffs. The former head of NTV told us:

YGOR MALASHENKO, FORMER NTV PRESIDENT But we had a few instances, but when
we had to fire people. Just recently, we had—we had really strong
suspicions that they could accept money for certain coverage, and we made
these people to leave the company.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) The editor of the Segodnya newspaper told us:

MIKHAIL BERGER, EDITOR SEGODNYA NEWSPAPER A lot of temptations for the
journalists. If your salary’s $800 per month and somebody offered him
$1,000 for articles, it’s very big temptations.

JOHN DONVAN (VO) This could have devastating consequences. In any country,
all the journalists really have going for them is the public trust. And as
Yevgeny Kiselyev told us, that trust can go in an instant. He was party to
that pact the Russian media made back in 1996 to get Boris Yeltsin
re-elected. It was a decision that cost.

YEVGENY KISELYEV We came too close to the Kremlin. We came too close to the
power. And we allowed them to think of us as—as an instrument that could be
used this way, this way or other ways.

JOHN DONVAN And you allowed the public to think that?

YEVGENY KISELYEV And we allowed the public to think that.

JOHN DONVAN Kiselyev believes that his organization has rebuilt its
reputation for independence. But something important has happened here to
the Russian media as a whole. Not all that long ago journalists were hailed
as heroes, taking on powerful interests, such as the Communist Party. Now,
says a television executive, if the government were to crack down on media
freedom, not a lot of Russians would rush to the Media’s defense. I’m John
Donvan for Nightline in Moscow.

(Commercial break)

TED KOPPEL As our critics back in the United States correctly point out,
the liberties of a free press carry with them the responsibilities of
accuracy and fairness. Abandon those and there’s not much to defend
journalism against government interference or even a crackdown. That is now
a real possibility here in Russia. By selling their integrity to the
highest bidder, Russian reporters have made a deal with the devil. Freedom
of the press doesn’t have much of a history in this country. It may have
even less of a future.
That’s our report for tonight. I’m Ted Koppel in Moscow. For all of us here
at ABCNEWS, good night.

*******