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From: Jennifer Morgan <JMorgan@bell-pottinger.co.uk>
Subject: Russian media and election debate at the Frontline Club, London, transcript
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004

Please find attached a transcript of the forum held at the Frontline Club in London, 15 March 2004. The subject was: What next for Russia and what future for a free and independent media?

The discussion was chaired by Edward Lucas, former Moscow correspondent for the Economist, now based in London.

Speakers:

- Boris Berezovsky, Russian businessman and Co-Chairman of the Liberal Russia Party, recently granted political asylum in the UK
- Dr Harold Elletson, Member of the Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Team and Member of Parliament
- Professor Richard Sakwa, Academic at Kent University
- Nikolai Gorshkov, BBC

----------

[DJ: excerpts]
The Frontline Club
www.thefrontlineclub.com
15 March 2004
What next for Russia and what future for a free and independent media?

Edward Lucas, The Economist:

Thanks very much. A very warm welcome to all of you. It’s such a small world, dealing with Russia. I see a former British ambassador here, Sir Andrew Wood; I see the person from whom I inherited my dacha in Moscow, Martin Vanderbilt; I see a close friend of mine who was expelled from Russia for her journalism,and many more besides. There are probably some more distinguished people who I don’t recognise.

I think the one thing that everybody could agree on about yesterday’s presidential election in Russia was that it wasn’t a surprise ­ at least the result wasn’t a surprise. But, that’s not to say it wasn’t controversial. For the sceptics, it is a sign of Russia’s return to an authoritarian past, where those two crucial bits for free democracy ­ contested elections and a pluralist media ­ have been subverted by a power-hungry state, and for those sort of critics, this is all just part and parcel of the same other things we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years, such as the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the exile of tycoons such as Boris Berezovsky, next to me, and Vladimir Gusinsky ­ all evidence that the Kremlin wants no competition for its grip on wealth and power in Russia.

But, for another bunch of people, the election isn’t bad at all. I was amazed to see that another old friend and sparring partner of mine, Eric Krauss[?], has just released an investment banking note, where he hails President Putin as ‘Saint Vladimir’, and Vlad Sobell, of Daiwa Research, a former Economist Intelligence Unit colleague of mine, says that Putin’s dominance is just a symptom of Russia’s turnaround. Stability is a precondition for democracy and growth, he argues, and now that Russia’s put the wild years of the Yeltsin era behind it, the stage is set for evolution in a happier direction.

There’s a third view, which, I suspect, is not represented here tonight, which I call ‘forget Russia’, and those are the people who paid attention to it in the 90s and who’ve now decided that it’s just a large, poor, complicated country, rather too close for comfort to Europe’s borders.

I’d like to welcome all of you here in the audience, regardless of which of those three persuasions or, indeed, neutrality, you adopt. Our format tonight, just before I go on to welcome the panel, is I’m going to ask all four of the distinguished panellists to make a few opening remarks of, perhaps, not less than five, but not longer than ten, minutes, just to set the scene, so we have an idea of where they’re coming from on our theme of media freedom and where Russia’s going. I’m then going to throw the floor open to you, and take questions, either to the panel individually, or collectively. If there a lot of questions, I may take them in a bunch and then invite the panel to answer them in series.

Shortly before 8:30 we will have some concluding remarks of just a couple of minutes from each of the panellists. I don’t think we’re going to have a vote, because that seems a bit to crude in this sort of cerebral environment. I thought it might just be interesting to know how many actual Russians we have here, so could I just ask anybody who was born in Russia ­ regardless of their current nationality ­ or anyone who’s acquired Russian nationality, although not born in Russia ­ just to be fair ­ to put their hands up, just to see how many? One, two ­ well, a respectable sprinkling.

Let me go on to introduce the panel. Boris Berezovsky, who is next to me, needs little introduction. He was a Kremlin insider par excellence in the Yeltsin years. First a supporter ­ some people even say the man who put Vladimir Putin into power ­ but then an increasingly strident critic. Indeed, so hostile a critic now that he has to live in London.

We have Harold Elletson, a former Tory MP, with extensive connections in the British security and foreign policy establishment, a long-time specialist on Russia, and one of the very few British MPs, I believe, to speak Russian, which is not as many as there should be. He is the author of an excellent biography of Alexander Lebed, the crusty Russian general and Chechen peacemaker who was killed in a plane crash in 2002. As part of his own political journey, Harold has now become a Liberal Democrat, rather than a Conservative, and he’s a specialist on foreign policy for that that party. He works organising conferences for NATO.

I was going to have a polite paragraph about Nikolai Gorshkov, but I thought I would catch him before the debate and get his biographical details, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible, so I’m only able to say that he’s familiar to anyone who watches World Service television, since he appears on that as a commentator. He’s also a leading light in the BBC Russian service, and very welcome.

Finally, we have Richard Sakwa, who is Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations, and Professor of Russian and European Politics, at the University of Kent. He has the distinction of having spent two years as a British Council student in Moscow in what one might call the ‘deep freeze’ years ­ the late Brezhnev years of 1979-1980, and then worked in the Mir science and technology publishing house. He is the author of a new book called Putin: Russia’s Choice ­ is that right, or is it We therefore have a very well-balanced panel, ranging from strong critics of the way things are going in Russia, to people who really think it’s not so bad, and I’m going to start off I will start off by asking Boris Berezovsky to kick off with his presentation. Before I do that, I would just like to thank him for his own personal contribution to press freedom in Britain, because of the very large and beautiful advertisements that he’s taken out in most of the British press, which have bolstered our balance sheets. As we know financial independence is the bedrock of independent journalism. Boris.

Individual Presentations

Boris Berezovsky First of all, very briefly, I was asked to give my understanding of what happened in Russia ­ in five minutes ­ regarding the results of the election, and so on. I just want to refer to facts.

Spring 2000, Putin becomes President. We had an independent Parliament ­ it is true. The communists had a lot of power during Yeltsin’s time, and they even had the majority. It’s terrible, but, nevertheless, it was the real opposition. A communist opposition was not so good, but it was real opposition. Today, parliament does not mean anything in Russia. If you do not want to believe me, constitutional majority is enough. Immediately confirming any law from the Kremlin is not a parliament, just a judicial department of the Kremlin ­ nothing more.

Independence of what? Even in the Yeltsin era, we had many problems, because Yeltsin just started to reform the process. [Inaudible] not even during the Soviet time, because even the procurators who operated in the Soviet time [inaudible] surprised a lot. I will give you a recent example. Five days ago, Mr Glushkov, my friend and my partner, a very important [inaudible] criminal case in Russia, case in Switzerland, and Glushkov, three days ago, was released after three and a half years, with a cancerof blood, spending three and a half years in prison with nothing. After three and a half years, it was decided he could be released because elections had happened, and now there was no problem. Just to give you an example of what a court means today in Russia ­ nothing at all.

Putin destroyed independence of branches of power ­ the legitimate system and the legislative system. All of them depend today on the Kremlin. That’s the first step. The second step was also independence of the mass media. What does independence mean? Independence from the state, because no way in the world the press is independent from the state ­ today we do not have anyone independent from the state channel. All national channels are controlled by the Kremlin, directly or indirectly. I want to present you with the facts, not just accusations that I have the wrong feeling about Putin himself. The first step is the vertical creation of political power; the second step vertical of mass media; the third step vertical of the economy.

The case of Khodorkovsky is the very best example. What Putin wants to say is, ‘I do not want to have any independent business in Russia. Khodorkovsky is the richest and the most transparent, but it does not matter. I will put him in jail.’ It is a clear message for the whole business community in Russia. After that, you are not able to say anything against officials. Today, if you read in the newspaper that there is a new opposition political party in Russia, do not trust it, unless it is supported by Khodorkovsky’s structure or by Berezovsky’s structure, because only we have enough money, independent of the Kremlin, to support political power, because all the rest depends on the Government. It’s not good, but it’s reality. In other words, Putin created three verticals of power: political power, media and business. It’s already done. No one businessman is able to say anything on a political level against the Kremlin.

The last step was done yesterday. We don’t have democratic elections anymore. In Western parliamentary elections ­ I will be very sincere with you, the West is very hypocritical, in my opinion. It coincides completely with the opinion of one politician, who said that democracy is bad, but nothing is better. When I was in Russia, I paid attention mainly to nothing better, and now I pay a lot of attention to bad, and I would like to say the West comments on the parliamentary elections, saying it was free but not fair. Now, we may say it is not free and it was not fair. It’s absolutely clear, because no one competitor was able to present their position.

I would like to give you an example about Rybkin. There were many stories, and I do not want to go into details, but he was not allowed to present his three minute programme. They didn’t allow him to do that. It’s completely against the constitution. What happened is a reality that Putin is not a legitimate president today. We need to clearly understand that, but it doesn’t mean that Russia has returned to a Soviet past. I don’t think so. Russia did not return to a Soviet past. In Yeltsin’s time, millions of people recognised what it means to be independent and what it means to be free. What it means to take responsibility for your life and to take responsibility for the life of your families. Millions of people are prepared to do that. It’s a reality. Russia is prepared to be a democratic country; I don’t have any doubt. In spite of Putin creating those verticals, he did not prove to people that he is correct. For sure, he implemented a lot of fear again in Russia. People are afraid ­ people are afraid to speak by telephone, people are afraid to discuss openly, but that does not mean they accept it. They did not have enough time to understand they need to fight for freedom. You need to fight for independence. Every day, even in the West. Recently I was in Israel, and I gave an interview to the Israel Plus channel. They did not broadcast it. They said it was too strong about Sharon, about US policy in Iraq, and so on. I gave an interview to Maariv, and my friend, Mr Gusinsky has a 25% share in this newspaper, and they did not publish it. They said it was too strong.

I just want to say that the problem of freedom of speech is not just Russia’s. Surely, in Russia, we have a tremendous problem, because, as I told you, we don’t have a single independent TV channel. On the other hand, even though I was granted political asylum in England, I have still the leading newspaper in Russia ­ Kommersant. People say ‘you said that Putin is a dictator, but how you may keep that independence?’ The answer is very clear. Dictatorship does not come overnight ­ it takes time. First of all, they try to take control of the crowd ­ all of the people. For sure, they need to have TV, because it is the most powerful. Kommersant does not influence the crowd ­ it influences the decision-makers. For sure, I have no doubt I will try to continue to have control over Kommersant. Maybe this year, Putin will find a way how to take it back. I just want you, who present the feedback between power officials and society to present their opposition.

It does not depend on Putin himself, or his cronies, but on the system which he is trying to create, and every political system has logic ­ democratic and authoritarian systems alike. I want to stress that, today, unfortunately, Russia follows [a tired way] with all results of the necessary and sufficient conditions of this system. Thank you very much.

Professor Richard Sakwa Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent

I hope to answer, and not to talk about, at this moment. What I want to do is just make a few comments about the bigger picture, as it were. First, about the state, and something about the power-hungry state at the centre. What is at the top of this vertical? What I’m saying is that it isn’t simply a homogenous single power system at the top. What I think is that there are at least two major processes going on.

Yes, there has been a consolidation, if you like, of some sort of an administrative system, an administrative regime ­ call it what you like; a power system which, itself, is divided amongst various elements and tendencies, but there is an element that has emerged between, as it were, the legal and constitutional level of the state, and the civil society, if you like. These sort of systems have emerged not only in Russia; I think that there’s something like that has begun to emerge in Italy, and has emerged in Japan as well ­ societies which have had various difficulties in state formation over the last 100-200 years, and so. So, there’s a certain commonality between the administrative system and, on the other hand, the legal constitutional framework of the state.

What Putin is involved in, I think, and the presidency, as a political actor in the system, is to aim to achieve a certain independence. I don’t think that Putin is simply a captive of this administrative system. He isn’t a plaything, if you like, of whoever ­ the Silviki[?], that is the Power Ministry, or the FSB, the new name for the KGB, or anything like this, or even the military. It is quite clear that, in terms of policy, there is an attempt to maintain an independence of social interests, an independence of the administrative system. So, therefore, it is a far more complex system at the pinnacle, if you like, of this endless talk of a vertical. We could say much more about this, but I’m not going to go into that at the moment.

It’s quite clear, as we were saying just now, the change of the Prime Minister is, as you’ve heard ­ the number of ministers has been reduced from about two dozen to 17. Under Vradkov[?], you see that almost entirely. This new ­ or some of them are continuing ­ these ministers are extremely liberal, and many of them ­ Kozak, for example ­ have driven forward what I think are extremely positive judicial reforms. He has also driven forward a whole set of legislative proposals about local self-government. We may argue about the nature and whether the plans for improving or changing local government are good or not. The basic idea, though, is clearly in keeping with the formulations of the Council of Europe to achieve an independent status for local government, to give it financial independence, to give it autonomy and ability to act, hence the reduction in the number of this enormous number of small units, and so on. You can go through most of the ministers in the new Government ­ it is clear, it seems to me, that Putin has established a framework now for the pursuit of what would appear to be a number of [inaudible] reforms. If you talk to our friends on the communist left or on the patriotic right, both of them are extremely disappointed by the nature [inaudible]. What Putin has also managed to do, quite cleverly, is marginalise the extremists. Yes we know that [inaudible], the head of the Motherland Party, is an extremist, but he has been kept well away from any legal power. So, the system, in other words, is far more complex than any simple attempt to say that there’s a number of very simple corporatist verticals.

As for the elections, one could say that there’s contest ­ I actually found them very exciting. I think there’s a lot of things in this cycle, both on the Duma elections, and in the presidential ones at the moment. On the Duma elections of 7 December, it has been quite extraordinary, the way that Putin has fought a very strong campaign, you may say certainly administrative resources were nowhere in at least 17 regions where violations took place. On the whole, though, clearly I think that few would deny that the elections on 7 December basically reflected opinion polls, reflected the views of the Russian people.

The results, as we have seen, if you can track through the predictions of the VTsIOM public opinion agency ­ this is VTsIOM, not VTsIOM A ­ but even A has, more or less was spot on by the end, following trends for the election. So, the result, to say it was totally fraudulent and totally, perhaps, meaningless, is quite wrong. I think that these elections showed that this is ultimately reflecting the basic preferences of the Russian people. You may say the Russian people are wrong ­ I’ve said this many times in May 1979, I’ve said it in the ’83 elections, and ’87, that the British people made the wrong choice, but on the other hand, one respects it, and similarly one must say on 7 December and on 12 March that the Russian people made the wrong choice, but that, ultimately, is the choice.

I think our failure to understand the logic of that, I think reflects the value of academics and others in analysing it, in jumping very quickly to conclusions. I also think, by the way, the OSCE report by Bruce George, David Atkinson and all the others, was ­ I think there were plenty of good things in that report ­ but, overall, I think there were quite a lot of things which were extremist[?] In other words, the OSCE, not having criticised elections enough in 1999 and 2000, decided, a priori, even before the elections, that they were really going to go for the system this time, so I think that was just a minor [inaudible].

What was also interesting in the December elections was the self-destruction of the opposition. It’s not Putin who destroyed the Liberals; it’s not Putin who made SPS and Yabloko ­ the two liberal parties ­ fight themselves like two cats in a sack, you could say. Quite appalling. Of course, we know that Putin was [inaudible] keen to have Yabloko, certainly, in the Duma. As you know, in the last week before the elections, they actually opened the doors to the media, and on election night itself, Putin telephoned Yevlinsky to congratulate him on Yabloko being in Parliament. So, talking about [inaudible] elections in a managed democracy, if he wasn’t able to manage that result, it shows it was mismanaged. Even from Putin’s point of view, it was quite clear he wanted to see Yabloko in the Duma. I think all the evidence suggests that. As we know, [inaudible] the thing we perhaps don’ t know as much as we would like to know, we know that the person responsible for elections ­ Sudokov ­ his star has somewhat waned since December, because of his failure to achieve a result [inaudible].

So, the elections ­ half the problem with Russia [inaudible] that democracy has to be fought; that, after the December elections, what did the liberal parties do? Instead of learning the lessons, and that is united, it is quite clear that a united democratic party, with a left wing ­ that is the Social Democrats [inaudible] - would have been quite feasible. What has happened? The Liberals have ‘gone to the people’, as it were, in councils of despair. Yevlinsky was speaking in Washington about the end of Russian democracy.

As for the presidential elections, again, [inaudible] perhaps, quite simply, these elections did reflect a maturity of the Russian electorate to understand, yes, that Putin does possibly represent a better choice at this time for, not only stability ­ in other words, a stability which could lead to stagnation, or even order from above ­ but actually an opportunity to allow the constitutional state to [inaudible] develop. Whole rafts of laws are waiting in the wings to be adopted. We are talking about all sorts of land codes, forestry codes, economic actions. We’re talking about intensification of legal reform. There’s a whole stack of things. Yes, the Duma now has a constitution code. Of course, you can’t amend the constitution without the permission of the federation powers, and so on, but I actually don’t think that Putin is planning to change the constitution, or even to adopt a new one, which is much easier than changing the old one.

So, in conclusion, I think ­ yes, I want to say one thing about the media as well. Russia has the freest media laws in the world. As you know, there are some 5,000 political newspapers and dozens of television stations. [Inaudible], I’ve just come back from Yekaterinburg, [inaudible] local regime there, which of course, Putin himself [inaudible] of some of these regional regimes, quite a lot of which [inaudible] absolutely, but, I was astonished and deeply impressed, I will say, though, by the way that the local media in the Yekaterinburg area [inaudible] Kazan and elsewhere [inaudible]. Yes, it is mainly dominated by the system, but there are an enormous number of lay people out there, indeed, fighting for freedom.

Harold Elletson

Member of Parliament

Thank you for inviting me along to this very interesting discussion. I think I am a little rusty on the affairs of the Russians ­ I haven’t been back there for a year or so ­ but in the old days, I used to go over a lot, particularly to make a nuisance of myself when I was an MP, and in those days I also was of the official observers at the first Russian presidential election campaign, and the first Duma elections. So, I can perhaps say something about the mechanics of the elections in these parts of the world, which I think, often, we in the West get too obsessed by and hung up on, and whether international observers feel that elections have been fairly carried out.

I think there is very little doubt, probably, that, by and large, these elections have been fairly carried out. There will have been over 1,000 international observers who were sent to Russia for these, and an account of the elections, by and large, will not have been too different from an election in this country. The only difference that international observers encounter is that they say a great table laden with food and items for sale outside the polling station, and this can take them a little bit by surprise, but then they accept that, probably, this is quite a good idea to try to encourage people to come along and vote at the elections, because they can buy a bottle of shampoo, or a cake, or whatever they might [inaudible] at the time. So, people go away feeling there are cultural differences, but these are not necessarily things that totally undermine the democratic purpose of the event.

But, what is different, and what I think we really, in the West, need to pay a lot more attention to, is the climate in which these elections, and similar elections, take place, because we spend thousands of pounds sending observers over to monitor these events, but the really damaging part, as far as democracy is concerned, is the climate within which the election itself takes place, and that is something that can be influenced months, if not years, before the poll itself, and that’s the real charge about what has happened in Russia. That is really where the whole question of press and media freedom comes in, and where, I think, the Kremlin does have something to answer for, and where the West, in particular, needs to look much more seriously at what has happened, because these elections ­ not just these elections, but other ones as well ­ have been an affront to the notion of democracy because of the climate within which they have been taking place. If we are serious about democracy in Russia, then we in the West, and Western Governments, should stand up and say something about it.

The problem, unfortunately, is that we are not serious about democracy in Russia. We weren’t serious about what was happening in Chechnya. I visited Chechnya during the first Chechen war, and I know that many people in this room were down there and saw the appalling carnage that was being created as a result of the politics of the Kremlin ­ not just this government, but the previous Russian government as well. There is no doubt ­ international observers who were down there were in no doubt that that was worse than anything that was happening in Bosnia, and successive British, European and Western Governments turned their eyes away from that, because it was inconvenient; they didn’t want to know what was happening.

They won’t want to know what’s happening now about the denial of Russian press and media freedom, because it simply isn’t in their interests to do so. We have decided that we’ve got other interests with Putin, and I am afraid that what we are doing, and this is the fundamental point here, I think, that we need to consider, is that, unfortunately, British governments, certainly, and other Western Governments, don’t see Russia and Russian policy as an ends in itself. They see Russia as a means to influencing policy in other areas. Throughout the 1990s, what we were trying to do was to use Russia as a means, primarily, of influencing policy in areas such as Yugoslavia, where we wanted Russian support for a policy that we were trying to push in the Balkans.

Now, we have a different policy where we want Russia’s support, and that is over the war on terror, or the war on political objectives in Iraq. So, Russia ceases to be an end in itself, and I think that that is a very dangerous situation to be in, and I think it’s particularly dangerous when you look at it in the context of media and press freedom, because if you deny media freedom, if you seek to control the media, then you will find that that pressure which you are keeping in finds other outlets, and I think particularly in the case of Chechnya, it was actually the denial of media freedom that had a huge influence on turning people who were active in undemocratic ways to look for means of expressing themselves, and that is why you have the growth of terrorism in the Chechen context, and events such as the attack on the Moscow theatre.

I think it is time we started to take Russian democracy and Russian press and media freedom seriously as an issue within the British and European political context. If we want to do that, that means that people who are involved in journalism and in the media have to say that it is worth standing up for, and we expect our governments to register that with the Kremlin.

Nikolai Gorshkov

Correspondent, BBC

Thank you. Well, I believe that whatever happened to press freedom in Russia is good, and I have to explain myself, probably, because now, Russian journalists are beginning to feel the pressure, and beginning to understand that you have to fight to be free in their profession. I do not necessarily share the view that, by suppressing press freedoms you then invite outrages like Chechnya, because it is not journalists doing that in Chechnya. But, I am saying this with my own experience of having been a Russian journalist for 12 years. I worked for a monster of a state broadcaster ­ Gostelradio ­ which was [based on?] the BBC, and in the dying days of the Brezhnev era, we ­ the journalists ­ all felt the urge to become really independent, to speak our minds, and to be free. All of us working especially in broadcast media were envious of BBC journalists who came from time to time to visit us in Moscow.

When Gorbachev introduced glasnost, he actually did a great deal of damage, because he presented this pseudo freedom of speech to Soviet journalists becoming Russian journalists. They did not have to fight for it. And then the oligarchs came along, and simply bought up the best talent in the media. I am not quite sure whether Boris Abramovich would love to hear this, but I think he was one of those who actually put in place the system whereby the journalists had to choose either between being dependent on the state, or dependent on big business, and the notion that you can’t be truly independent ­ you can only be independent from the state, and this is the only freedom you can get ­ is a flawed one, I think, because then, of course, the choice was whoever pays more. The choice was about really being paid more, and then this choice was denied, because the state decided that they would rather pay themselves ­ the journalists ­ because they didn’t want any competition.

The problem with press freedom is, of course, first and foremost the problem of journalists themselves. Unless they start pressurising the Government and the authorities into granting them freedoms, no one is going to present them on a plate, like Gorbachev did. First of all, glasnost was not really press freedom, and then, as I said, it just took away the need to fight for your rights from a lot of journalists. If we look back at the mid 90s, probably many of you would remember the terrible media wars going on in Russia, where business interests were simply using media fighting for the prime pieces of state property. I think, partly, the roots lie there. Russian journalists were, in a way, corrupted, and there is still a great deal of cynicism among my friends who still work for Russian media. They do not really believe in any freedoms at all, in any independence, but the grassroots movement is already there.

I’ve just come here from an interview with the secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists for my programme, and they are going to pressurise the Government now and the Parliament to introduce a new bill on establishing a truly public television in Russia, because they all understand, with all those thousands of newspapers that they have, most Russians watch television. That’s the only means of communication they have access to, because it’s free. You have to buy a newspaper, and circulations are not as great as they used to be. Now they decided to really take Putin on his word, because yesterday Putin said that he would, actually, support media freedom in Russia, so they say the first thing they have to do is introduce a truly public national broadcaster. Now, that is going to be a very difficult fight for them.

Obviously, they are under no illusion that the national Government-run channels are not going to give up their positions easily, and there is entrenched bureaucracy and all that stuff, but at least now I can sense this feeling again, as there used to be, in the last days of the Soviet Union, that journalists are, again, beginning to think in terms of how free are they, and that they are not free, and what to do to become truly independent. That, I think, is a very welcome sign. That’s basically my introduction.

Edward Lucas

Thanks very much. In any discussion with the media, it’s always a danger that we branch out into other things, and I would like at least the beginning the discussion if we can avoid the question of whether repressing media freedom encourages terrorism, and also if we can just put to one side for one moment the question of whether Putin’s perhaps authoritarian rule is a precondition for economic reform or administrative reform. I’d like, at the beginning, just to concentrate on this question of the media and its freedom, or lack of it, in Russia, and, if there’s time, we can go onto the other questions later on. So, I am expecting a forest of hands.

Questions and Answers

Dr. Vadim Malkin

I’m head of Russian Axis Company, which is a newly incorporated think tank on Russian issues and processes in Russia. http://www.russianaxis.org It is not an advertisement, just introducing myself. I would like just to mark three things I heard here. First, it is a concern of freedom of mass media in Russia, of course. It is very strange to me to hear and read that the result of the elections is a real choice of the Russian people and the Russian population because of one simple thing. We did a lot of polls and a lot of research in Russia ­ I mean mass polls and focus groups ­ and I do not think I am giving anything top secret away to say that the majority of people who support Putin support him because for one reason ­ they have no choice, and they think Putin is the only one aiming to do anything in Russia. This is a result of mass propaganda. It is the result of four years of workings of state TV channels.

By the way, in these elections, do you know what is the construction of news breaks in Russia on the first and second channels? The first part is a very long story about Putin acts ­ how he opened new roads in the far East, how he increased pensions for pensioners, how he gives new grants for scientists, and things like this. Very long ­ about five minutes. After that, after all other news, we are showed a break on other candidates who just declare something, just criticise something, just say something ­ not very critical, by the way, to Putin. So, there is no real institutional and media room for opposition. What is the choice? There is no choice. That is because people are asking a simple question ­ why support Putin? Answer: we can see only Putin, the only person who tries to do something.

Also, I have to mention the thing about Liberals. I think it is a mistake to blame Liberals for the result of the December elections, because I was personally involved, because I worked as a political consultant for the Yabloko Party. I can give information first hand. What I have to say, it was ­ to be honest, I did a lot to stop this war between Yabloko and the SPS. We tried, as a political consultant, to advise that we need to stop this war. But, by the way, people that you mentioned ­ Surkov and Vladimir Putin - promised Chubais that the Union of Rightist Forces is the only party that needs to be represented in the state Duma. Vladimir Surkov agreed all black PR budgets against Yabloko. All these budgets, agreed by Vladimir Surkov.

Edward Lucas

I think there is a slight danger here of getting too intricate, and I don’t want to do a quiz, but I wonder how many people know that the SPS is the same as the Union of Rightist Forces. We all know, but maybe we don’t, so perhaps if we could keep to a slightly broader brush. I wonder if anybody has got a question they are burning to ask. Sorry, sir, do you mind asking another question a bit later on, just so we can keep the discussion ­

Dr. Vadim Malkin

Okay.

Sir Andrew Wood

I have a very simple observation and a simple question. My simple observation is it was very possible, listening to the four expositions at the beginning, to agree with a great deal in all of them, because the Russian reality is enormously complex, and I think the question we should be addressing is ‘What are the possible scenarios ahead?’ rather than too much analysis and blame of what went on in the past. My simple question is addressed, primarily I think, to Boris Abramovich. Looking back on the way the press behaved in the 1996 elections, does he think there is any cause now to regret the fact that the press, including television, was used in a good cause, but in so deeply political way? Was this perhaps not a precedent which is now being used in the present situation?

Edward Lucas

I commend you in the way in which you say we should look to the future, and then asking a very interesting question about the past. I’m going to let Boris Abramovich answer that.

Boris Berezovsky

To be short, very different, because it was competition. Let’s take ’99. It was at least competition with the Gusinsky mass media, who supported Primakov/Luzhkov, and mass media which was under control of Algo[?]/ORT, which supported Putin. It’s a big difference. But, the biggest difference…

Sir Andrew Wood

I was actually referring to 1996

Boris Berezovsky

As far as ‘96 is concerned, it is not a big difference, but the difference is that the control over mass media belonged to different parties, and this party agreed not to go back to communism. It was a principle battle. In frame of democracy, how mass media was concerned with the standard of democracy, for sure it’s not like in this country or other countries. The most important was, at that time, not to use tanks to get power, to use just intellectual pressure, and you are correct, absolutely. But, I would like to stress that what is very important for this stage, compared with ’96, it was a principle difference. In ’96, no one went to jail because he supported Communists. No one went to jail because he supported Putin. No one was killed because he supported one or other party.

I want to refer to Professor Sakwa. When I listened to you, I was reminded of a movie, Love and Marriage. There are two parts ­ one part is her story, the other part is his story, but of the same events. I am happy that we are not in a position to divorce, but I listened to you, and I had absolutely a completely different vision of the same events which you have. When you said independence of regions, I laughed, because you know that Putin tried to create sub-regions. In the case of the constitution, he said, there’s a basic question that Putin keeps the constitution. He destroyed the constitution completely, because we don’t have the upper chamber anymore. The upper chamber is no longer elected, but is nominated. People are nominated there. Putin took power to fire elected governors. How can I elect one if someone else fires him? It is completely against the constitution. I have already been in this country for three years in this country, and I accept already, not like in Russia, the other point is completely different from mine. I agree with you that we are able to compare, but we need to take the other factor as a decisive factor.

Nikolai Gorshkov

From a journalist’s point of view, many of them in Russia, and I myself, feel that the 1996 election was the beginning of the undoing of the press freedom in Russia, whatever press freedom there was, because a lot of journalists in NTV, which was the main independent channel in those days, even their leadership later accepted that they, themselves, wilfully and deliberately trampled on their own editorial principles to support Yeltsin against the Communists, for the good cause, of course, of not allowing a Communist revival. But, they shot themselves in the foot. From there, all their problems started, not also because they trampled on their own principles, and introduced this notion of being able to do that at their inconvenience when the time is right, but also, suddenly, in the Kremlin, people realised you don’t need any real reforms. You don’t need anything except for a powerful TV channel to win an election, and that was the biggest danger of what NTV did, actually. They presented to the Kremlin a very simple solution. Get control of the broadcast media, and you are safe in power, and that was the biggest mistake they made.

Edward Lucas

I’d like to take your question next, sir, but very soon I’m going to give Professor ­ we’ll take two more questions, then I’m going to give Professor Sakwa a chance to respond. Go ahead, sir.

Tom Fenton, CBS

Just two short reflections. My own reaction to some of the comments. First of all, the comment that journalists were reduced to either working for the Government or big business. I don’t know how many other choices journalists have in my own country. I don’t know any small businesses that run television networks, for example. That’s one comment. The other comment is that, for years, I watched television in which you had ‘the President did this, the President that, the Prime Minister did this.’ It was in Italy, in the 60s and the 70s. Are we perhaps asking too much of Russia at this point of its development?

Edward Lucas

The two most dangerous distractions in Russia are either trying to make comparisons with other countries, or arguing at what point Russia went wrong, because you get back to the Middle Ages very quickly, and the conversation goes on forever.

Alex Goldfarb, Foundation for Civil Liberties, New York, www.kolokol.org

My comment is this. I do not believe that the journalists’ ethics, per se, can save the day, because the journalists can exercise their ethics as long as they are sheltered by their medium. If they are under pressure of being fired, or threatened to be killed by the secret services, no ethics ­ there are exceptions of course ­ but it won’t help. This brings me to my question. The question is, now that the political discourse in Russia essentially has stopped with this election, the parties are destroyed, there is essentially a desert around Putin, and the same is true, at least for the electronic media, and probably is coming for the printed media, the society has not stopped functioning and there are millions of people who are underrepresented or not represented politically, and whose demand for news and opinion is not satisfied. So, from the past, we know that there are alternative ways of exercising this demand, and that is samizdat, anecdotes, jokes, all kinds of unofficial dissemination of information, and foreign news which now would filter to Russia much more than in the old days, over the Internet, and so on.

So, the difference, however, is that, in those days, which I still remember, there was an industry here for supporting the alternative media and alternative sources of information for the Russians, because all those people who Mr Berezovsky is talking about, who weren’t independent, still have to have means and resources, and sources of information, to exercise their independence. This brings me to this very important point of the position of the Western media and Western governments in itself, because I completely agree with the notion that, here, the West is breeding an enemy, and it’s in some way akin to the fascination with Stalin at the end of World War II, or with Saddam Hussein at the time of the war with Iran, when, because of the alliance relationship, the West was willing to sacrifice his long-term security concerns.

Edward Lucas

Thank you for that very interesting question. Professor Sakwa, we have had a lot of hard things said about Russia. I think the idea of Putin as a proto Saddam Hussein is perhaps the most striking one I’ve heard for some time, but perhaps you would like to respond, particularly on the question of whether the media is a necessary element at the moment in Russia, or are we concentrating on the wrong thing by complaining about restrictions on the media, or would you argue that the media is actually freer than some of its critics here have been maintaining?

Richard Sakwa

I would say, your earlier comment about having not heard such open partisanship is quite true. I’m shocked at myself, I must say. Usually, I hide behind pages and pages of text which I have carefully balanced in front of me, but that would take an hour or two, so in five minutes I’m afraid, therefore, I blame you all for such open, unguarded statements, even.

On a number of points which I think are extremely important, in a sense, one has to start from specifics. Almost every item we have talked about in the last half hour, one can look and actually say, ‘There is something else going on.’ On the reform of the Federation Council, for example, in the old days, when you have the governors and the heads of the legislature, both of them, in the Federation Council of the Upper House of the Federal Assembly, you quite clearly had the failure of the separation of powers, because you had governors who were heading the executive acting as legislators when they came to Moscow. It was quite clear ­ for the last few years we’ve been discussing it, and we’ve just brought out a book with Siminyagin[?] precisely on the Upper House, his major issues. But, as we know, in the UK, reforming the Upper House, as in the House of Lords, is not an easy thing. We’ve been trying to do it since at least 1911. I think we still haven’t actually got a final solution of how to get a decent Upper House in this country. In Russia it is quite clear that there’s a commission under Bubulit[?] who are now examining this question. I think that this present system clearly is an absurdity, so it’s not a very good system at the moment at all, but there are plans to change that.

On the seven federal districts ­ no, it is not anti-constitutional. The Presidency has the right to establish an administrative structure which is under the Presidency, which doesn’t actually change the constitutional status of the regions. As for firing elected governors ­ no, there’s a whole set of legal instruments which have to be gone through. First of all, Putin hasn’t actually done it, and hasn’t used it a single time, but the aim was, in a sense, to bring the governors back under the purview of the constitution, however imperfect it may be. If you talk to the constitutional court ­ and you may say all 19 members, the judges of the constitutional court, are all lackeys of Putin, and so on ­ I happen to think they are not. I think many of them are extremely courageous, including, at the moment, the chair, who is Vitaly Zorkin[?], who, of course, was the one involved in the 1993 events, and who, certainly, is no lackey of anyone’s. The fact is that the constitutional court is actually supporting the need to ensure the remit[?] of the constitution throughout the country, and other issues.

As for the first point about Putting leading on the media ­ absolutely. I think, clearly, he does, but in the old days, our old friend Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, used to start, and I don’t think that enhanced his popularity one little bit. In other words, people can see through it. As we know, for example, the British media, in the past, certainly were enormously biased, yet people managed to vote Labour. So, popular opinion simply reflected media coverage and the amount of money which goes in, because clearly it was not a fair system in the United Kingdom ­ perhaps even not now ­ so people are more intelligent. I don’t think that this is simply brainwashing, or anything like that. I will say this. I think it is an extremely important question about the political desert around Putin. I think there is an element of that. I think that it is an extraordinarily dangerous moment, both in terms of the media, and in terms of political representation. The fact is that there is no solid alternative. I personally ­ maybe I shouldn’t say it ­ I would have voted for Hakmadev[?] in the last election, precisely [inaudible] legislative programme, which, we know, which Putin has got for us. As you know, that speech on 20 February at the Moscow State University was, perhaps, his most important speech in the last four years. I don’t believe that, for four years, Putin has been lying; that every single speech that he’s made, in talking about need for economic reform, joining the World Trade Organization, changing the legal system to ensure that legal rights for individuals in Tatarstan are uniform throughout the country, and so on and so forth, are simply lies. Maybe they are, in which case I’m willing to recognise that, but in terms of the way that these are then transformed into a legislative programme, and in adoption of laws, and the laws which have been adopted in the last four years have been in the way towards the development of the ­ within the framework of the constitutional state, not in the framework of strengthening the power of the administrative regime which exists. I don’t deny it does exist.

Edward Lucas

Can I ask you a very specific question? I’ve just been making a list of all the countries in Europe from which a journalist could be expelled because of their reporting, and it’s quite a short one. It’s basically Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and you could count Belarus as pretty much part of Russia, I guess, and Ukraine as having some of the same problems. Is that the wrong thing to be looking at? Should we just not be worried? Take, for example, foreign journalists as important, which they’re not particularly, but just that Russia is a country which does like foreign journalists reporting on things that the Government wishes to see not covered.

Richard Sakwa

I think that’s absolutely right. I think that what we do see is a struggle between various forces, if you like, and one of them is the administrative system. I have no doubt, and don’t deny the existence of people whose instincts are Soviet, whose response is violent ­ and we know the Sutiagin[?] case and Pascoe[?] case ­ all these other cases ­ plus, of course, the activities in Chechnya. Absolutely right. There is an element. I also think that there are those within the constitutional court, including those in the Kremlin, who are trying to develop the other sides of the things, and that is the framework of the constitutional state. I think the Presidency - Putin himself - is caught somewhere in between. He’s a master politician, he sometimes sides with the administrative lot, he sometimes sides with the constitutional lot, but he’s a brilliant politician.

Now, I think, the interesting thing starts. We were asked ‘What will the future hold?’ Now, after these elections, we now, I think, as we know, Putin is in for a second term. Second term presidencies are often different from first term ones. I think now we will see exactly what ­ in a sense he’s been preparing for the second term, just as Labour was in its first term for its second term now. Of course, it’s squandered the opportunity in the second term. Now, will Putin squander his second opportunity? It’s a unique opportunity. He has a Duma which is ­ I think you can call it subservient ­ but it is at least now a legislature which can adopt laws, which are in favour of the way the executive wants to do it. It wasn’t so easy earlier.

It was a bit easier in the last Duma, but it wasn’t certainly earlier. So, it is very concerning, but that is why I actually do think, and I go back to the very first point, I think it is the greatest tragedy that people like Yevlinsky have squandered the opportunity, and the ability to stand up. It’s no good going to Washington and New York all the time, condemning the failings of Russian democracy. I’d like to see him leading a party, defending press freedom in Russia, in Moscow itself. That is desperately what we need. After the elections in December I was actually telling him. I even gave him the name ­ United Democratic Party, and bring them together ­ the Social Democratic Party, Gorbachev, and all of them then looked at their opinion pollers and said ‘Our electoral specialists say it won’t work.’ It is the only way it has to work. There has to be a genuine opposition, a democratic opposition.

Edward Lucas

We’ve got so many people wanting to speak, and I am going to be very brief and keep the panel back until their final remarks.

If we give every panellist an answer, answering every question, we’ll only get about three questions in, and that will be, I think, too… And I did… As I said, if we get to the business of what we compare Russia against, you can argue all night about whether Russia is a new Nigeria, or a different kind of Brazil, or a giant Ukraine or whatever. So, I think we are just going to have to put that one… and I do really want to keep as closely as we can to the media, which is actually what, I think, people have come for tonight. So, the gentleman with the microphone, first of all.

William Horsley, BBC

Thank you. William Horsley; I’m a BBC journalist who’s worked occasionally in Moscow before Nikolai Gorshkov’s time, actually. It seems to me that media freedom depends on freedom from fear. While I was there one time, there was a lot of reporting about the Ryazan[?] episode at the beginning, the supposed planting of explosives in an apartment block and the suggestion that FSB was behind that and others. I noticed myself at that time that it was very difficult to get information, even from friendly media like the Moscow Times, who actually had a front page on the story, and other news outfits; Etogi[?] was broken up, or they had their offices invaded and so on. So, there was quite clearly an atmosphere of fear going on, and I’d like to ask what the Russian media have done about that story in particular?

Secondly, I’d like to ask ­ and perhaps our politicians here would like to comment on this ­ about the role of Europe in relationship with Russia and if there is anything that can usefully be done to bring pressure or to exert influence in a positive way? Or, are the successive brush-offs by Mr Putin and his people of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and others, like the European Union, the final word?

Edward Lucas

We’ll answer that in a minute. If we pass to the lady over there with the ­

Melanie Upstake

Melanie Upstake[?], currently working for [inaudible] Trust, which is an NGO charity, a filmmaker and journalist. Freedom of expression of organisations is a smorgasbord of, sort of, possibilities that they can offer Russia, for example. There was a day that was organised by the FCO and Amnesty; lots of different organisations took part. We do humanitarian assistance to the families of journalists who have been killed, injured in prison and so on in Russia and the former Soviet republics, as well as around the world. There are other organisations that do legal reform and judicial reform; there are other organisations that do training in journalistic ethics, a variety of things. But, taking a cue from my colleague from CBS, I am sort of wondering at what point this whole area can kick in if basically there is a climate of fear, if [editors in Tolyaty?] are assassinated. Basically you have power in the hands either of the old state structures or in the hands of very powerful, wealthy men. I just wonder where civil society kicks in? For there to be freedom of expression there’s got to be something free, maybe, to express. What can journalists express, what access to information can they have? How can they do their job if the whole political arena, and the whole arena of commerce, is not free, is not transparent? And, regarding politics, if I was a voter in Russia at the moment I would kind of say, Khakamada, Yabloko[?], well, you know, when I know they don’t have any power, why am I going to vote for them when it is a distant dream? Is there any point going to a polling station? Maybe the only point is going to buy shampoo, perhaps.

Edward Lucas

We’ve got about 20 minutes to half an hour left, so just so I can get an idea of how to spend the remaining time, could I just see who would conceivably want to ask a question between now and the end? Speak now or forever hold your peace. I want to see whether we’ve got a forest of hands or a sprinkling. I see two there, and there was the gentleman from Russian Access who I cut off; I’m going to give another question if he wants. I think we have a quick round of responses so far; I think Mr Berezovsky wants to say something. Nikolai will go first, and then you, and then we’ll have another round of questions.

Nikolai Gorshkov

Thank you. On civil society, I will tell you a brief story. Right after the terrible wipe-out of liberal parties from the Duma, I went to a get together of all the leading lights in Russian political circles, commentators and, actually, members of those political parties, as well. The chair, addressing members of Yabloko and SPS[?], the two liberal parties, said, ‘Well, now ladies and gentlemen, welcome to civil society. You have to work from grassroots, from down below’, because the problem, both with the liberal parties and with a lot of journalists, was that they got used to their cosy positions in power or close to the power, as far as SPS especially was concerned. They got some nice positions ­ some of the Yabloko people as well ­ either close to the Kremlin or even consulting the Kremlin. So, they had their privileged positions and they were not really wanting to work, so to speak, using the Leninist expression, down in the masses, working with the people. That’s what the Russian communists were always good at. They won previous elections because they went from door to door, talking to people actually and explaining their position. The liberals never did that. Of course, they were on a much lesser scale, but they didn’t employ that method at all.

Now the journalists ­ a lot of editors of Russian publications, and especially in the broadcast media as well, but in the newspaper media as well ­ they were privy to some secrets in the Kremlin. They had their exclusive access to members of the administration; they got some leaks which were, in reality, managed leaks ­ spin, basically ­ put to them to influence public opinion. But they were highly prizing their exclusive positions close to the Kremlin, being able to find out something which nobody else ­ their competition ­ could not find out. But they were all treated in the same way. The Kremlin simply shamelessly used them all. Unless they stopped, sort of, this attitude and stand up and say, ‘We are the press, which is supposed to scrutinise the government, not to be in bed with them’, nothing is going to happen. But working from grassroots means actually going, I don’t know, to your neighbours; starting working from grassroots. That is the only solution for Russia. As I am saying now, both among journalists and among the politicians who I am speaking to, there is this urge and desire to do something about it, because they have realised they have come to a terrible end. There is a dead end; they have to start anew and they have to work from the grassroots level.

Boris Berezovsky

I just want briefly to comment on what point which arose as far as the responsibility of liberals; Yabloko or SPS, those two, but I want to refer to the point that it is not only the problem of the press or the mass media. I want to mention that I started to create an opposition party, Liberal Russia. We started, three of us: Mr Yushenkov, Mr Golovlyov and me. Mr Yushenkov was killed, Mr Golovlyov was killed and I am not able to return back to Russia. It is just, again, fact. I don’t want to say it was done by FSB or someone, I just give you fact.

The other story was the candidate Khakamada for the presidential election. It was several very important…I want to show how mass media works not just to support Putin, but how they work against the opposition. There were several very important articles in the Russian mass media. Dangerous for Khakamada to be killed, which was planned by Berezovsky from London. It was very famous. Hinstain[?], who has never hid that his efforts be [inaudible], he published that it was an attempt of Berezovsky to kill Khakamada. For sure it was not a message for me; it was a message for Khakamada to be afraid of. Recently, the other journalist, Mr Solovyov[?], said that he visited me and when he met me I said that we needed to kill someone to destroy Putin. He said that last December, recently. It was five days before the elections. I just want to show you that mass media not only keeps silent concerning the opponents of Putin; they try to threaten them, really threaten them, and they are really afraid. I know; I spoke to Khakamada and she is really afraid for her life. I just want to say again, to answer you, Professor, that it is not only responsibility. We need to calculate the reality where now liberals in Russia are threatened. It is reality. It is not just because they are weak, they are so stupid and so on. They are really afraid for their lives. This is reality.

Edward Lucas

Now, we will take a couple more questions. Mary, did I see your hand up? For those who don’t know, this is Mary Dejevsky[?] of the Independent.

Mary Dejevsky, Independent

I have just come back from Russia from several visits over the autumn and recently. Independent media. I think the British media is not completely responsible in the way it has been reporting the supposed crackdown on Russian media. I was listening even last night on the coverage of the election returns in Russia. You can think what you like about the elections, but it is simply not correct when colleagues of mine say, ‘And we all know there is no independent media in Russia’. Now that is simply not true. We’ve heard from Boris Berezovsky; he had denied saying… I still own a newspaper over there, Kommersant. It is true that state television is under the Kremlin, but state television is not everything that everybody has to listen to or to read. There is a whole panoply of newspapers; there are local radios, there are local television stations. There is a lot going on there which does not amount to a complete clampdown on the media or to a lack of independent media.

Second point. Russian television viewers, even of the state channels, are very sophisticated. They’ve been through the end of the Soviet Union. They know what is propaganda and what is reporting. I was told repeatedly, even in far-distant provinces way away from supposedly sophisticated St Petersburg and Moscow, that they watch the television news and regard it as straight PR. Now, PR is a word that I came to relearn in Russian; I didn’t realise it existed in Russia. It had a purely negative connotation. When people talk about PR, they are talking about spin, they are talking about presentation. They are talking about not reality. This is how people were looking at the Putinism on state television.

Edward Lucas

Another hand I saw. It is certainly true that three of the ugliest words in the Russian language are ‘image maker’, ‘spin doctor’ and ‘PR’.

Elizabeth Palmer, CBS

I’m Elizabeth Palmer, also from CBS. I’m interested in what you alluded to a little bit: the growth of independent voices, particularly in the regions. I haven’t been living in Russia now for a little over a year, and I’m out of touch, and I’d like to hear a little more from you, and particularly from Nikolai if I may, about whether you think independent voices are going up in regions which are governed in a way which would allow or encourage it, and whether that might in the end feed into something that would transform or at least nourish an independent voice in the capital.

Edward Lucas

Great. Before we go on to our final round from the panellists, is there anyone else who’s got something burning they want to say either as a question or a reflection, preferably someone who hasn’t spoken? Yes, sir.

Paddy Coulter, Reuters Foundation

Paddy Coulter from the Reuters Foundation. It’s your question, really, I’d like the panel to answer. Does it or does it not matter whether there is a national independent media, a genuinely independent media? Could we have an answer to that?

Edward Lucas

Right. I think we’ll move on then. To you from Russian Axis; I did cut you off very rudely. Did you want to say something else? A very brief point.

Speaker from Russian Axis

[Inaudible] the independence of a nationwide media really exists and so forth. Yes, of course. There are independent media on a local level, but all of the… It has very little circulation, very little audience. It is true that it is a result of the research. Actually, people basically in regions have no choice but to watch the first two channels, which have a technical[?] operation or to buy a newspaper because they have no money to buy a newspaper. They have only the ability to see two state-controlled channels. Of course, people… It’s not very straightforward; it is very complicated. But, every state channel controlled by Kremlin, it is true.

By the way, it is a real story of mine, one friend of mine who just released information that a Russian alternative[?] channel fabricated a story during the parliamentary election campaigns, fabricated a story about the primaries. He just told this story to me and I retold it to my other friends, and it was investigated and now he was just fired. By the way, about freedom of speech and state-controlled media, just one question to Professor Sakwa. I know one man in Russia who was trying to establish a united democratic opposition party; his name is Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Do you know where he is now? Where is there room for real opposition in Russia besides [Russian]?

Edward Lucas

Thank you for that very apt question. Just before we go to our final blasts from the panel, there are four things I have jotted down which seem to have come up as themes this morning. One is this eternal question of whether things are uniquely bound[?] in either time or space, in history or geography. Should we be comparing Russia with Belarus and saying it’s freer, or with Poland and saying it’s less free?

The very interesting question of whether things are worse in the centre than in the regions, and of course the role the internet plays in allowing people in the far-flung regions of Russia to at least read the websites and see what some of the Moscow independent media is saying adds some extra nuance to that. Then there is a broader question of whether the media’s problems are a symptom of what’s wrong with Russia or a motor for things that are going wrong. Whether, the very interesting point, can you have free expression when there isn’t anything free to express?

The question of what’s going to happen next. I think certainly the idea that what we’ve seen has been a prelude, a consolidation of power which might now be followed by a liberalisation, although those hopes, I think, must be seen in the context of another speech of Putin’s where he announced himself as being the greatest fan of civil society brought [Russian] into the Russian political discourse for a period briefly, and there was a wonderful meeting in the Kremlin, and then not much more was heard. And then finally, a question we might like to have addressed is the greatest of all Russian questions, [Russian]: what should we do? Is it our role as journalists and people close to the media to be toning up the criticism, toning it down, trying to differentiate it more, or whatever?

So I’m going to start, for no particular reason, from left to right, starting with you, Professor Sakwa. Plenty of questions, with sort of three minutes to answer them; 10 seconds per question, I think.

Concluding Comments

Richard Sakwa

Better not waste any time. I would just say that what Boris Berezovsky said about media freedom, I will say that the dangers of obviating Russia, certainly when we hear about the bomb blast outside Yelena Tregubova’s house… If you remember Yelena, she was, in Kommersnat I think, a journalist who wrote the book about Tales of a Kremlin Digger, which I think ­ I don’t know how many of you have had a chance to read this book ­ it is a fascinating insider’s view.

Participant

Yes and then she had a bomb outside her house….

Richard Sakwa

As I just said, yes, exactly, and it is a shocking thing. Exactly. That there are rogue elements out there and something is going on is extremely frightening. Absolutely. And so, one would say… but, I was shocked. It was a very interesting book to read anyway, and a very biased book, but full of insight. At the same time, as you say, there is still Nezavisimaja Gazeta, whose editor Vitali Tretyakov was changed when his line wasn’t quite perhaps as it should have been. I think Nezavisimaja Gazeta, another news service, is one of the best newspapers still in Russia. You have at the same time Anna Politkovskaya, who writes weekly in Novaya Gazeta; we know the travails and difficulties she has had. I think, indeed, one of the most courageous people in the Russian media scene.

Richard Sakwa

Exactly. I would say… I was going to say, I would go with this [inaudible] question. I think, certainly, deal with complexity, would be my slogan. You’re absolutely right. I think the fact is that she is published, but at the same time these things still go on. Therefore, there are a lot of things going on simultaneously, and in the sense about Russia as often, as we say, in love and marriage, that it isn’t as simple as saying that all statements are true or all statement are false. It is actually to get a hierarchy of truth in all of this. It isn’t right to say that the media is totally unfree; it wouldn’t be right to say the media is free. There is enormous diversity and a lot of contradictory processes going on at the same time, I think many positive ones as well as many negative ones. I think the fact that these things go on. There is possibly, we shall find out, a type of P2[?] organisations, as you noticed, like in the 1970s with the bombs, and so on. I don’t know what is going on. I think it’s extremely free [inaudible] and so on and so forth; the list is very long.

Cases have started; most of them. We know that Nikitin was let off, and so on. And why was Nikitin let out? As you know, the Nikitin case ­ this is the ecologist back in 2000 ­ it was because the judge actually appealed to the Council of Europe, and we come back to your question about the European dimension. I think that’s extremely important. I think, as in many things ­ and I am a great supporter of the European Union ­ I think the way the European Union has been dealing with Russia in the last few months has not been the most effective and efficient way of dealing with the country. What the danger is is always to take a condescending, hectoring, lecturing tone, and that I think is fundamentally mistaken. Russia is a sovereign… I won’t go back to Soviet times when you have to say interfering in Soviet affairs, internal affairs, is a mistake.

But, on the other hand, it is quite easy. We could have a list, as the Russian ambassador did after the OSCE report, and the list of contraventions, open and continuing, in the United States electoral process. Four million people with minor felonies who are deprived of the vote. As we know, OSCE regulations do not allow that to happen. And the list is actually very long. What should we do now with the United States? Expel it from the Council of Europe as an observer? Is that what we are supposed to do: engage it? We don’t even engage the United States in its own difficulties. Russia has difficulties. I don’t think for a second we should hide what is going on. I am certainly not saying that, and I don’t want to whitewash or even be a pan-gloss, but what I am saying is that it is very complex…and lots of good things, interesting ­ I am talking about legislative framework, the legal framework ­ and indeed it does take a lot of courage to be a free journalist in Russia today.

Just one final point, and that is about the TV. And that is, when you said all they can do in their regions is watch the central television, that isn’t. If you go out to Chelyabinsk, Tomsk, if you go to Ekaterinburg, for example, Channel 4 there, everyone watches Channel 4 in Ekaterinburg, which is very good, amazing. It comes from a little office block, tiny little studios. And amazingly free, good discussions. I was there on a panel for half an hour; everything was said, unbelievably. And what fear? This was absolutely brave talk for a whole half hour just at the time of the elections. So, complexity.

Edward Lucas

Thank you. Howard, I think you were rather deprived so I’m going to give you an extra minute if you want it for your… because you were so self-sacrificing in the earlier part, or middle part, of the discussions.

Harold Elletson

I think the gentleman there asked whether it really matters whether we have an independent national media, and I think the obvious answer to that is, yes, it does matter, and the primary reason why it does matter is because of its ability to influence an election campaign. That happened in 1966 ­ 1996 ­ just as it has happened now. Boris Abramovitch possibly had a little involvement with that at the time; he has had a bit of an epiphany now and we rejoice in that. But, it does matter that there should be a fully independent national media. That is what we should hold for as an absolute basic.

What can we do about it? The gentleman here asked what international organisations could do about it, and I think the obvious answer is a great deal more. We have taken on in all sorts of international institutions, whether it’s NATO or the European Union, a completely different relationship over the last 10 or 15 years with Russia. That is something that is partly built on trust, but it must be something that is also built on expectation. We should expect a lot more from President Putin just than fine words. I don’t think it really matters what he said in a speech two or three weeks ago because we should be grown up enough about Russian politics to understand that what is said and what actually happens are often very different things indeed. We only need to look back to the old Soviet constitution for an example of something which on paper was an absolutely fantastic democratic document but wasn’t, literally, worth the paper it was written on.

So, what can we do? I think you were right, Professor Sakwa, to say that, actually, a lot more can be done by Europe, and particularly by the Council of Europe. I personally don’t think Russia should ever have been allowed into the Council of Europe in the first place, when its admission was originally debated in the context of the Chechen war, and I spoke in Parliamnet against it, but unfortunately the decision went ahead. I think it is now time to look very carefully at how organisations like the Council of Europe, and particularly the parliamentary delegation of it, raise issues related to press and media freedom, and what they can expect in return. I think that is one area, certainly, where we should be looking very carefully at Russia’s continued membership.

Edward Lucas

Well, if that is going beyond a hectoring tone, hectoring actions, but probably widely applauded in some quarters. Mr Berezovsky, just an [inaudible], do you think Russia should be expelled from the Council of Europe?

Boris Berezovsky

Not now. I recognise four questions. Unique or not, symptoms or the process, and what the next and what to do. I would like to be very quick with the answer, very short. Unique? No, we never return back to Soviet. Never return back, because millions of people recognise self-responsibility from Yeltsin’s time. They recognise they are better to try to be self-sufficient and not ask the general secretary, president or the state to help. Millions of people recognise that. In spite of that, Putin is trying to press again to take control from government over simple points of life of everyone. There is no chance to go back. Unfortunately, I am generally optimistic but I really think we are taking a step back, but not enormous return.

The second, symptom or process. I think it is process. It will become now, I think, the other question of the next. You know the Russian poet Svetlov? One day he was asked, ‘How are you?’ He said, ‘Today, worse than yesterday, but better than tomorrow’. I would like to say, as far as I am an optimist, I wouldn’t answer like he answered. I say, ‘Today, better than yesterday, but tomorrow will be better, I am sure’.

The last point, what to do. I would like to say what not to do: not to relax. I am sure that Russia today accumulated a lot of power to move forward, I don’t have any doubts, particularly young generations. I would like, even if I agree with the Professor about everything that is going well there, the constitution is not destroyed, and so on, I would like to agree with the point that we have a new dimension in Russia compared with the Soviet Union, with two important points. People recognise that they are able to make money. In the Soviet Union no one could imagine; just salary and nothing more. A lot of people recognise it depends a lot on themselves; they are able to make money. It is very important. The second point. We have an open country; people are able to travel. I am sure that Putin doesn’t have power if all KGB will again arise and try to stop people to travel, no chance. The most important: people watch the other world, watch England. I meet every day a lot of young people in this country, I know there is a lot of travel. I think the future of Russia, nevertheless, is very complicated but it will be completely different from what we had before. Thank you.

Nikolai Gorshkov

Thank you. On the question if the West is doing enough to encourage democratic tendencies in Russia, a simple litmus test: does anyone here know of such a thing as an independent TV channel in China, a national, independent TV channel in China? Not yet. The US and Western investment in China is how many tens of times bigger than in Russia? That’s the Chinese lesson they are aware in the Kremlin of. That’s the problem. A lot of people in the high echelons of power think that as long as they can produce this managed democracy, they can get all the investment they need to develop the economy.

We are ­ that is, the BBC’s Russian Service ­ we are doing something. We broadcast into Russia and we pride ourselves on being probably the only independent broadcaster in Russia these days ­ a national broadcaster, obviously, because we are broadcasting to the whole of Russia. There are pockets of local resistance, so to speak. Ekaterinburg has been mentioned; actually, Ekaterinburg is the home to the BBC’s School of Journalism. There are very many bright young Russian journalists who has already finished the school or studying at the school, and they’re very keen on actually taking on the principles of editorial freedom and responsibility. Ekaterinburg is a fine example of some press freedoms, at least. There are other examples, like Nizhny Novgorod in the Volga region, or Tomsk, which has a very good TV channel. Sometimes it’s not the pure independence or freedom of local media there, but simply that they happen to belong to competing political interests. In any given region you will normally have a TV station which is under the governor, as they say, pursuing the governor’s agenda. The other one, not less important, which is under the mayor of the major city in that region, which is competing with the governor for influence and what not. There are business interests, as well. Even when MTV was in its heyday, it was not because it was really free, editorially free, but because it offered a choice. It had its own agenda, as well, just like ORT had its own agenda. Because you had so many competing agendas, the Russian public had a choice. The biggest problem now is of course that the agenda is the Kremlin’s ­ Putin’s ­ agenda, and that’s it. In a way ­ and I have already said this ­ that’s good, because people are now starting to think this is not right, because they are not used to it any more. All of a sudden, they get this uncompeting agenda again being imposed on them.

Also, it has been mentioned here, Russia is now being used for influencing other situations, like in Yugoslavia, or now in Iraq ­ by the West, that is. Media in Russia in the past 10 years has been used by competing interests to pursue their own ends as well. Hence the problem with the media. On the question of the need for a national broadcaster, obviously, at least Russian journalists themselves believe that they do need a national broadcaster that would answer a lot of their worries. They are, as I have said, already pushing for that. There is actually a commission ­ a commission has been set up within the government-owned RTR to look at ways of reforming RTR, which is now an absolutely government-run operation into something resembling public broadcasting. They are looking at the BBC, the public broadcasting system in America, Australia, Canada, the countries where there are public broadcasters and trying to work out a formula how to do that. As I say, it is up to the journalists themselves, actually, to stand up for their rights.

Edward Lucas

Thank you very much, Nikolai, and indeed thanks to all the panel. We have only scratched the surface of the vast complexity of Russia and its media. I think perhaps we can all agree that the main thing is to stay vigilant and stay interested, and I hope we can come back to this subject here at the splendid surroundings of the Frontline Club at some point in the future. But for now, I’d just like to ask you to thank our panellists, and we look forward to seeing you in the bar downstairs.