#8
The Russia Journal
October 26-November 1, 2001
Kremlin plays double game
Pro-Western views are ditched at home
By DMITRY PINSKER
If anybody had forgotten about the Prosecutor General’s Office, they were given a sensational reminder when Boris Berezovsky was put on the federal wanted list in connection with a criminal investigation into the Forus company, and Railways Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko was called in for questioning about misappropriations in the Railways Ministry.
Berezovsky, predictably, called the whole thing political persecution, while Aksyonenko called it an attempt to discredit the executive authorities. That Aksyonenko should be at a loss is no surprise – a little more than two years ago, he was one of Yeltsin’s favorites and was even tipped at one point to become his successor. Aksyonenko was a so-called "Family" man, and rumor has it he helped the Kremlin raise money for pro-Kremlin party Unity’s (Yedinstvo) Duma election campaign.
The prosecutors may very well have proof of embezzlement at the Railways Ministry and evidence of Berezovsky’s personal involvement in financial scams. The problem is that ever since the events surrounding Vladimir Gusinsky’s Media-Most in 1999-2000, and other major companies headed by "oligarchs," the Prosecutor General’s Office has lost all claim to independence and revealed itself to be active only when the Kremlin wants to either give someone a scare or settle scores.
There are at least three basic reasons for the accusations against Aksyonenko. First, part of the presidential team wants to put on a show of "actively fighting corruption." Second, various representatives of Russian big business have their bones to pick with Aksyonenko, and could be going through the Kremlin to get the Prosecutor General’s Office to go after him.
Finally, restructuring the railways monopoly should lead to the creation of a major corporation under the name RAO Russian Railways. Rumor has it that head of the Presidential Administration Alexander Voloshin would like to swap his stressful Kremlin job for the calm and profitable post of the head of the new company – all the more so as he began his working career in the rail yards. The only problem is that Aksyonenko had his own eye on the job.
These reasons are not mutually exclusive. But ultimately, political motives are behind the Prosecutor General’s Office’s latest moves. The proof is that the authorities look to be going after Berezovsky at the same time. This suggests that the second phase of operations to "cleanse" the political landscape of Berezovsky’s legacy has begun.
The first phase was a year ago, when Alexander Rutskoi and Alexander Nazarov – two of the regional governors who helped initiate the Unity party – were conveniently removed out of suspicion that their loyalties were not so much to Unity as to Berezovsky. Now, the time has come to go after other "Berezovsky people."
The Kremlin has been closely following Berezovsky all this time. Like all of Russia’s political analysts, the Kremlin spin doctors agreed that the fallen oligarch would never reconcile himself to the humble role of political emigrant and would look for a way back to Russia and his former glory.
Kremlin fears were all the more acute as Berezovsky is widely recognized to be a master of intrigue. The presidential team worries that Berezovsky might strike, catching it off-guard. At the same time, the team knows that President Vladimir Putin will always give the go-ahead for action against the oligarchs.
After the Kursk disaster, Putin accused the media-owning oligarchs of twisting the facts to put him under pressure. Contact had only just been established at that time with Gusinsky, who was already abroad, but was immediately broken off as the order came through to go after Media-Most. That was also when Putin broke off all relations with Berezovsky, the man to whom he owed his fantastic career rise. Relations were already strained by then, as Berezovsky fiercely criticized Putin’s federal reforms and plans to replace the regional governors in the Federation Council with appointed representatives.
The reaction was swift in coming – Berezovsky had to give up control of the ORT TV channel, and his friend and loyal ally Sergei Dorenko was taken off the airwaves. Several months later, faced with arrest or emigration, Berezovsky left the country.
Kremlin sources say that Putin is highly sensitive to any mention of Berezovsky’s role in his appointment. Kremlin spin doctors are working hard to rewrite recent history and make it look as if the natural flow of historic processes led Yeltsin to the one and only correct decision to appoint Putin. It was never really the done thing to point out that Berezovsky was the author, director and producer of this scenario, but now it’s positively indecent to say so.
For now, the Kremlin is just going after people linked to Berezovsky and trying the NTV trick to liquidate TV6, using LUKoil this time. As for putting Berezovsky on the wanted list, this is no more than a warning for him to stay away. Vladimir Ustinov, the prosecutor general, hasn’t turned to Interpol, but merely said that Berezovsky would be arrested if he came to Russia.
The Kremlin would like to attack Berezovsky, and if it is not now, that’s perhaps because, as one high-placed Kremlin official put it, there are fears that Berezovsky has compromising material against Putin and his entourage, which he’d make public if Moscow pushed him too far. But then again, the Kremlin’s reticence could just be because it hasn’t yet recovered fully from the long campaign against Gusinsky.
Whatever the case, the latest moves by the prosecutors are evidence of the Kremlin’s double game. Putin is doing all he can on the foreign-policy front to prove he is committed to Western values, but on the home front the Kremlin doesn’t want to give up playing by rules more suited to authoritarian regimes. To paraphrase an old saying, the Kremlin’s relations with political opponents, especially those it fears, follow the principle of "it’s not business, just personal."
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