Angus Roxburgh is a respected British foreign correspondent and Russia specialist. He was the Sunday Times Moscow correspondent in the mid- 1980s and the BBC’s Moscow correspondent during the Yeltsin years. He is the author of The Second Russian Revolution and Pravda: Inside the Soviet Press Machine. ‘A sober assessment of the Putin years, illuminated by Angus Roxburgh’s first-hand experience and long acquaintance with Russia.’ Bridget Kendall, BBC diplomatic correspondent ‘Using his personal experiences and material from new interviews with key figures, Angus Roxburgh lifts the lid on a decade of murky Kremlin politics and points the way towards the new Putin era that is about to dawn.’ Martin Sixsmith, author of Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East Published in 2012 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Copyright © 2012 Angus Roxburgh The right of Angus Roxburgh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 78076 016 2 eISBN: 978 0 85773 036 7 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Goudy Old Style by A. & D. Worthington, Newmarket CONTENTS Introduction 1. The Secret Policeman’s Ball 2. Courting the West 3. The Battle for Economic Reform 4. The Darker Side 5. New Europe, Old Europe 6. Putin Mark II 7. Enemies Everywhere 8. A New Cold War 9. Media, Missiles, Medvedev 10. The Descent into War 11. Resetting Relations with the West 12. The Strongman and His Friends 13. Tandemology Conclusion Notes Endnotes List Of Illustrations INTRODUCTION When you shake hands with Vladimir Putin you scarcely notice whether it is a firm or a weak handshake. It is his eyes that consume you. He lowers his head, tilting his eyes upwards towards you, and fixes you for several seconds, as though memorising every detail, or maybe matching your face to a picture he had memorised earlier ... It is a glowering, piercing, highly unsettling look. Russia’s ‘national leader’ is like no other country’s president or prime minister. The former KGB spy was rather reserved and gauche at first, when he was unexpectedly propelled into high office in 1999. But he has grown into a man with no inhibitions – a strongman and a narcissist, who flaunts his physical strength in ever more frequent photo-shoots. In the beginning we saw only a few selected images – Putin the judo champion, Putin at the controls of a fighter jet. Later – particularly after he moved from the president’s office to that of the prime minister in 2008 – he began to invite camera crews on expeditions designed solely to project a film-star image. They showed him putting satellite tracking devices on polar bears, tigers, white whales and snow leopards. He took the cameras along to see him swimming the butterfly stroke in an icy Siberian river, and riding a horse through mountains, with bare chest and dark shades. He personally put out wildfires, drove snowmobiles, motorbikes and Formula One cars, went skiing and scuba-diving, played ice hockey, and even crooned ‘Blueberry Hill’ in English and played the piano in public – unembarrassed by his inability to do either. In August 2011 he had a cameraman on hand when he stripped to the waist for a doctor’s examination. What other world leader acts like this? Having muscular policies is one thing; but no one matches Putin for sheer vanity.