Political order in Russia depends on methods of control. Though parliamentary manipulation is crucial, the shaping of public opinion is equally important. It is sometimes said that Russia has again become a totalitarian state and society, but authoritarianism is a better word, as there remains much free air to breathe in Russia. Although Putin has nullified many of the liberties enjoyed under Gorbachëv and Yeltsin, he has stopped a long way short of re-enslavement. The press can still publish damaging revelations about the Kremlin. The new ‘social media’ can offer critical commentary and organize public protest. Russians have access to the world’s websites. Russia is not in informational quarantine.
Putin and his comrades make no pretence to be liberals: it is for practical reasons that they permit the freedoms they do. They understand that if Russia is to grow as an international power, it requires a dynamic society. Soviet-style economic and cultural restrictions have been demonstrated as having had a petrifying effect. The Russian leaders accept, at least for the time being, that the people need to speak and communicate unhampered by the old excesses of state interference. Russia’s ability to compete with the rest of the world depends on it. The leadership is also aware that it must have a reliable gauge of the popular mood. The FSB, though its stock has risen since the millennium, cannot be relied upon as the exclusive provider of data and analysis: indeed, Putin actually broadcasts his scepticism about its reports on the public mood.1 An animated environment for the media is a way of admitting alternative points of view that could be vital for the Kremlin to anticipate trouble, and help to release the pressure of discontent where excessive policing would be counterproductive.
That doesn’t mean Russian leaders have passively licensed the press and broadcast media to act simply at the behest of their owners and editors. It was Mikhail Lesin, Minister for Affairs of the Press, Broadcasting and the Means of Mass Communication, who oversaw Vladimir Gusinski being stripped of his ownership of the NTV television channel after it showed disrespect towards Putin, and upgraded the Kremlin’s media facilities the better to disseminate its own version of the news. At a press conference in 2001 he boasted, ‘I long ago stopped being ashamed of the word “propaganda”.’2
Putin understands his ambitions are best attained if he can win over the media. As a way of generating sympathetic treatment of the administration by television, radio and newspapers, it has therefore been his habit to invite the Kremlin reporters’ pool to sample canapés and drinks at his official residence at Novo-Ogarëvo outside Moscow, where he offers to answer any question they might have before presenting a diploma to each of his guests. At one of these get-togethers a reporter showed a reluctance to accept the award for fear of being criticized for collusion with the authorities. Putin assured him he was not trying to undermine his professional integrity: the diploma, he explained, was strictly for reporters contributing to the furthering of a civil society. Nobody was fooled: Putin was transparently pursuing his own agenda, and individuals who voice objection to his policies don’t usually receive a second invitation.3
Putin’s charm offensive has never worked with Alexei Venediktov, Ekho Moskvy radio’s editor, who often meets him for chats about Russian history.4 Venediktov has run the station since the last years of the Soviet perestroika, and opponents of the Putin administration admire his independent spirit and ability to survive in post. In 2009 an axe and a chopping block were deposited outside his apartment. Unsurprisingly, he now employs a bodyguard. Though Putin has stopped short of issuing threats, he does not like what he hears on Ekho Moskvy:
Listen, I’ve never known such raving madness . . . Listen, I was lying there in bed before going to sleep or after waking up – I don’t remember which – and was thinking: this just isn’t information, what they’re putting out isn’t information but a service for the foreign policy interests of one state with regard to another, specifically with regard to Russia.5
Truly Putin and Venediktov are Russia’s political odd couple, but there was menace in Putin’s tone even when he was in jocular mood:
Putin: And by the way, who are you going to vote for in the elections?
Venediktov: Vladimir Vladimirovich, I haven’t voted since 1996.
Putin: Why not?
Venediktov: Well, I’ll explain why.
Putin: And you have taken offence at what I said. I can feel it, I can see it on your face. There’s no point.
Venediktov: Yes, I took offence, I took offence. I will tell you [about it] later.
Putin: And here am I not taking offence at you when you pour excrement on me morning, noon and night, whereas you have taken offence. I only have to say a couple of words and you are already offended.
Venediktov: I was joking, I’m not offended . . .
Putin: Well, I’m not joking.6
Ekho Moskvy’s survival has come to depend on official indulgence. Two-thirds of its shares belong to Gazprom Media, which is firmly under state control, which means the Kremlin can pull the financial plug on it at any time. Venediktov protects himself by recruiting a number of anti-liberal nationalist commentators such as Alexander Prokhanov to counterbalance the criticisms of government that are the station’s staple fare. Prokhanov, criticizing Putin for insufficient patriotic zeal, enables Ekho to present itself as a sounding board for the entire nation rather than an exclusively opposition organ. According to Venediktov, moreover, Putin knows that by allowing Ekho to continue in existence, he can give the impression that Russia is freer than it really is. Venediktov is a man without illusions, dolefully describing Ekho as a mausoleum like the one on Red Square housing the physical remains of Lenin – but in this case radio as a battered last bastion of pluralism.7
Whereas Putin enjoys his joshing encounters with ‘Alexei’ from Ekho Moskvy, he gives no leeway to the campaigning newspaper Novaya gazeta. Novaya gazeta challenged Putin’s account of the apartment-block bomb plots that were used as the pretext for war in Chechnya. It accused him of financial corruption in connection with the ‘palace’ being constructed by the Black Sea. It published the charges levelled by ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko that there was an FSB plan to liquidate Boris Berezovski, and the editors continued to publish pieces by Litvinenko after he fled abroad in 2000. One of Litvinenko’s last sallies before his murder in 2006 attacked Putin as a paedophile, though no evidence was produced, and although this particular allegation made no appearance in Novaya gazeta, Putin was unlikely to overlook the part the newspaper had played in accrediting Litvinenko as a crusader for truth.
Novaya gazeta’s financial backers include Mikhail Gorbachëv, who has called consistently for a government based on principles of democracy, justice and open discussion. Gorbachëv’s stake was originally managed by the businessman – and former KGB officer – Alexander Lebedev, who fell out with the Putin team and moved several of his operations and bank accounts from Moscow to London. Between them Gorbachëv and Lebedev own 49 per cent of the shares, the rest belonging to the staff, and nearly all the shareholders are committed to a campaigning brief for the paper that sees Novaya gazeta regularly challenge the Kremlin. Whereas in Russia its journalists are the object of official distrust, abroad it is a different matter, with awards cascading upon editor-in-chief Dmitri Muratov, including the Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech in the Netherlands and the Légion d’Honneur in France. This can hardly endear the newspaper to Putin with his paranoia about foreign interests impinging on the scene, and the international acclaim for Muratov saw him categorized as suspect. In 2017 he resigned.
Novaya gazeta encourages robust investigations from its reporters, and several have paid the ultimate price. In July 2003 Yuri Shchekochikhin, Muratov’s deputy, perished in mysterious circumstances, probably poisoning, after denouncing a group of FSB officers for money laundering. In October 2006 Anna Politkovskaya was killed outside the entrance of her apartment in Moscow. Politkovskaya had achieved several scoops, including her shocking revelations about the torture conducted by Russian armed forces in Chechnya, and she had a growing following abroad. Her death was followed by the shooting of Anastasia Baburova, who had taken over the cause of exposing wrongdoing in Chechnya. There has never been a satisfactory police inquiry into any of these cases, and it is highly probable the assassins were not acting alone, but on behalf of persons linked to the highest authorities. Suspicion has been directed at current Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, whom Politkovskaya roasted in several newspaper dispatches when he was the republic’s prime minister. Putin has sometimes been accused of having given the ultimate approval for the killings himself, but conclusive evidence has not come to light. What is certain is that courageous investigative journalism carries a mortal risk when it exposes the wrongdoings of the Kremlin elite and its supporters.
Though most other media outlets have been handled less brutally, Putin is single minded in limiting adverse public criticism. Top of his agenda come the national TV channels, where he has elbowed aside owners who fail to rein in their editors. Vladimir Gusinski and Boris Berezovski were early victims, and it did not pass unnoticed that both of them had to sell up their assets for a lot less than they were worth. Putin concentrated his fire upon the television sector rather than the press because newspaper readership was already in steep decline, but the authorities remained on the alert for any trouble and discreetly compelled newspaper proprietors to sack obstreperous editorial teams. If this didn’t work, the authorities forced the owners to sell up. As Venediktov noted, the policy was extended to the online media.8 The most striking example of the Kremlin’s imperiousness was the way Alexander Mamut, owner of the lenta.ru news website, fired its chief editor in 2014. Observers drew the reasonable conclusion that Mamut was fretting that the authorities were displeased by the line it was taking on the Crimean crisis.9
Cautious editors recruited obedient reporters, commentators and presenters, and as the political wind changed direction, most in the media learned to keep their heads down. Many supporters of Gorbachëv or Yeltsin have even switched their allegiance to Putin. This was how Dmitri Kiselëv came to obtain appointment at the Russia Today international TV channel. He had come to fame as a TV reporter in 1991 when he pluckily refused to broadcast a news item containing lies about the violent closure of the Vilnius TV station. After the fall of the USSR, he continued to speak out in favour of high professional standards.10 But when Putin became president, Kiselëv changed his approach and began advocating a nationalism and traditionalism that went even further than the official line. In August 2013 on the Vesti nedeli (News Weekly) programme for the Rossiya-1 television channel, he ranted:
I think that fining gays for conducting propaganda among minors is not enough. It is necessary to ban them from becoming donors of blood and sperm and, in the case of a car accident, to bury their hearts in the ground or burn them as being unsuitable for the continuation of any kind of life.11
Kiselëv was not alone. Tatyana Mitkova, his collaborator in standing up against the misrepresentations in the Vilnius story, returned the medal she had received from Lithuania.12 She too adapted to changing times. Or perhaps she and Kiselëv were just swept up in the general climate of opinion.
Russian rulers latch on to any ideas that serve their purpose. Mindful of the boredom felt in the Soviet era about Marxism-Leninism, they ration the use of political bromides, and have increasingly fastened on religion to enhance national stability. Putin and his old friend Yakunin join the congregations at Orthodox Church festivals. In 2005 Yakunin went to Jerusalem and brought back a bowl of consecrated fire for Putin to carry into an Easter service in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer.13 At Lake Seliger, 250 miles north of Moscow, in 2018, Putin climbed shirtless into an ice hole as part of the Epiphany celebrations.14
Together with most Kremlin leaders Putin has favoured the Russian Orthodox Church, which has abided rigidly by its centuries-old liturgy and doctrines. The old Church Slavonic language is still used in its services despite being barely comprehensible to most Russians. To a greater degree than even the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox leaders see no point in ‘modernizing’. As a result its patriarch and hierarchy strongly support the Kremlin’s conservative social policies and, to regain the importance the Orthodox Church enjoyed under the tsars, have called for official designation as ‘the church of the majority’. Like Yeltsin before him, however, Putin is reluctant to formalize its status in this way, and has also withheld the automatic right for Orthodox Christianity to be taught in all state schools. But the Church’s high standing in Russia nowadays was demonstrated in May 2018 at the inauguration ceremony for Putin’s fourth presidential term. As he stepped down from the platform, Patriarch Kirill was the first dignitary he greeted. Only then did he turn to the ex-German chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his own prime minister Dmitri Medvedev.
Putin generally stretches out a respectful hand to faith communities. Belief in God is officially endorsed for its help in cementing Russian statehood, and offending religious feelings can be punished by a 1,000-ruble fine. The exception to the policy of toleration of religious denominations and faiths are the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were banned in 2017, their Western origins and door-to-door evangelism deemed inimical to Russia’s interests.
On Unity Day, 4 November 2016, he laid flowers at the monument on Red Square to Kuzma Minin and Dmitri Pozharski, the patriots who raised a volunteer army to expel an invasion by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1612. His speech was followed by others by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church and by Natalya Solzhenitsyna, widow of the great Russian writer. Also prominent at the ceremony were the heads of approved religious bodies: the Chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, Ravil Gainutdin; the Chief Mufti and Head of the Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia, Talgat Tadzhuddin; the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar; Metropolitan Kornili of the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church; Archbishop Paolo Pezzi of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow; and the leader of Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia, Damba Ayusheev. Youth organizations were also in attendance.15 Always the official emphasis is on persuading Russians to be faithful to their God, on the assumption that the faithful are likely to remain loyal patriots and obedient citizens.
Direct state censorship no longer exists – the notorious Glavlit institution that used to supervise public access to novels, poems, operas, paintings and even ballets was closed down in autumn 1991. But there are many other methods of restricting freedom of expression. Rather than having to submit a piece of prose to Glavlit, nowadays people have to judge for themselves what the Kremlin might make of their opinions. The result can be a greater degree of self-censorship.16 The authorities have left little to chance: a January 2016 law limited foreign ownership in Russian media enterprises to 20 per cent.17 Russian public life was to be a matter for Russia alone.
This had been the hallmark of Putin’s time in high political office. As early as September 2000 the authorities had announced an Information Security Doctrine, drafted by Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov and endorsed by Putin.18 Russia, it was suggested, would remain insecure until it strengthened its cyber defences and, it was forcefully implied, those Russians who obstructed the path of political, economic and spiritual development approved by the Kremlin should be pushed aside: the classic mindset of Fortress Russia, whose walls would give the Russian people their sole hope of safety – under the leadership already in power.
On 5 December 2016 Putin signed off an updated version of the doctrine, emphasizing the importance of protecting and expanding Russian’s ‘information infrastructure’. The main threats were said to come from terrorist groups based abroad and, less obviously, from prejudices underpinning the foreign online media. Russian agencies, the doctrine noted, had to take on the challenge of foreign ‘technological superiority’ and secure Russia’s genuine independence in ‘the informational space’. Annoyance was expressed at the absence of adequate global legal standards in IT. The immediate solution was for Russian companies to become truly competitive in the development of advanced technology. Characteristic of an official doctrine was the stress given to strengthening the ‘vertical’ system of control, indicating that the authorities would maintain surveillance over online communications.19
In 2013, as concern grew about the discrediting of the Kremlin on the internet, Andrei Lugovoi drafted a blacklist to ban the websites that were promoting street demonstrations. Lugovoi, notorious in the West for his alleged part in the London murder of Alexander Litvinenko, was now safely ensconced in Moscow, elected to the State Duma for the Liberal-Democratic Party and assigned to its Security and Anti-Corruption Committee. His proposal secured Putin’s approval and came into effect in the following year.20 In April 2014 Putin castigated the internet as having originated as merely a ‘CIA special project’, with the implication that Russians should beware its influence.21 Google and YouTube were prevailed upon to pull down a BuzzFeed piece on violence in Chechnya that was alleged to have ‘extremist’ content.22 Facebook similarly yielded to official demands.23 Twitter agreed to block access for Russian users to Ukrainian political far-right websites. In all this the Kremlin was seeking to ensure that the Russian people was guarded from influence by unapproved foreign political groups.24
That America’s intelligence services and IT companies penetrated foreign walls of secrecy only invigorated Russia’s campaign to enable governments to exercise ‘digital sovereignty’. In December 2012, at an International Telecommunications Union conference, Russian delegates had called for a change in the existing rules of the internet to permit governments to censor the websites available in their territories, as was already the case in China, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. But Russia’s initiative was voted down, and indeed the Russian authorities themselves refrained from overtly reintroducing censorship.25
In the Duma, even so, calls were made for Russia to prevent information technology infringing its sovereignty.26 As things stood, it was suggested, the American secret services could hack into the data of Russian citizens through internet servers based in the United States. Russian politicians were howling about American hackers long before America’s political establishment became alarmed about the FSB’s hacking activities. Russian companies were given incentives to lessen the country’s reliance on international corporations. The campaign culminated in a regulation introduced in October 2013 for all IT firms operating in Russia to store their telephone and search-engine data for twelve hours and make them readily available to the authorities.27 From May 2014 bloggers with more than 3,000 followers had to apply for official registration.28
The freedom to criticize, expose and ridicule the ruling group is shrinking but there remains particular concern in the Kremlin about the capacity of the ‘social media’ to circumvent conventional means of communication. The content of foreign websites also bothers Russian rulers, and in February 2019 the Duma passed the first reading of a bill to allow ministers to suspend internet access to Russia if they felt the need for emergency controls.29 The government and FSB employed trolls to challenge and disrupt the output of critical websites,30 and even considered blocking websites that inflamed public opinion altogether.31 The Kremlin does not intend to let people think for themselves if their thoughts are likely to harm the administration’s interests. The leaders talk a lot about the nation’s needs, but have ceased to distinguish between the national need and their own requirements for power, privilege and comfort. For a country that aspires to become a dynamic world power many Russians see this as an unhealthy development.