The Lunch With the FT series is excellent. Indeed, the Financial Times is an excellent newspaper, in an earlier career it was required reading for me on a daily basis. And also, Henry Foy, the Moscow bureau chief for the FT, is an excellent journalist. I write this at the outset because I do not want what follows to be perceived as an attack on any of them.
The most recent FT lunch was a sit down at a well-heeled Moscow restaurant with Vladislav Surkov, known as the “Grey Cardinal” of the Kremlin, Surkov has also been called (by Peter Pomerantsev) the “author of Putinism” in The Atlantic. He is, as the lunch sit-down with him amply shows, an odious character. But who close to Putin is not?
There are many highlights from the FT interview that need deeper examination, both about Surkov’s comments, and (sadly, noting my aforementioned respect) a few things about Mr. Foy’s editorial narrative that needs to be addressed as well.
Surkov first
In one of the first direct quotes, Surkov muses that “an overdose of freedom is lethal to a state.” We can see the kind of freedoms that are lethal to Putinism, things like freedom of speech, something personified by a free press. The lethality of this, and who this is lethal for, is best represented by looking at the architecture of the media environment in Russia. A free press is essentially non-existent there. When TV Rain began to build a sizeable audience, they were threatened, harassed, kicked out of their office premises by landlords, cable carriers dropped their channel, thus wiping out their audience, and that in turn starved them of revenue.
Russia ranks 150 out of 180 countries monitored by Reporters Without Borders.
Go back to the 2006 murder of Anna Politkovskaya, on Putin’s birthday, for her clear-eyed reporting on the atrocities of the Chechen war. Journalism continues to be one of Russia’s most dangerous professions.
Surkov goes on to state about Putin and democracy, “he did not abolish it.” Tell that to the family of murdered opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, or to Alexey Navalny as he languishes in prison after being sentenced to a term of gulag time because of a parole violation (leaving the country in a coma for emergency medical treatment) caused by the Kremlin’s failed attempt to assassinate him, too. No democracy exists in Russia, as evidenced by years and years of managed elections and stuffed ballot boxes.
On the violence dished out by riot police at ordinary citizens who protest the direction that Putin and his corrupt enablers have taken the country in, Surkov simply says, “in all countries, illegal rallies are crushed by force. Why should we be different?” So there’s another freedom, freedom of assembly, that can be added to the “lethal” list.
Some troublesome paragraphs from Mr. Foy
A series of three paragraphs discussing the situation in Crimea, not where Surkov is being directly quoted. so in other words. the editorial content of the FT, raises very significant issues.
Back in the 1990s, Surkov “wrote a memo to a senior politician arguing for the need to Russia to retake Crimea.” (emphasis added.) The notion of Russia “retaking” or returning Crimea is a central theme of Russia’s version of the events of February and March of 2014. As such, that language has no place in the venerable FT.
The paragraph continues, “the Black Sea peninsula that became part of independent Ukraine when the USSR dissolved.” That’s technically correct, but misses a large part of the story and suggests that any dispute over the sovereignty of Crimea (not something that had been disputed prior, and Crimea’s correct place as a part of Ukraine has been confirmed several times by documents and agreements signed with Russia many times since Dec. 25, 1999, the last day that the Hammer & Sickle was lowered at the Kremlin) is somehow related to how lands were allocated as the USSR dissolved. In fact, Crimea had been formally a part of Ukraine since decades before the demise of the Soviet Union and has been (and is) physically attached to mainland Ukraine forever.
The writer continues that “Russian troops entered Crimea to capture strategic sites, and to lend muscle to pro-Russian separatists that demanded independence from Ukraine.” What those troops actually did (5 days after Kremlin-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had fled after 93 days of revolution) was to capture the parliament of the autonomous republic of Crimea and force local MPs to pass a resolution on a referendum. At gunpoint. That a number of “pro-Russian separatists” were at that time demanding independence from Ukraine is not in dispute, we saw reports showing that unfolding, what that number was, proportionate to the 2 million population, is not and never has been known. What is clear is that “lending muscle” to such people and hijacking the parliament at gunpoint are events of significantly different significance.
The most disturbing line follows. “A month later, [disclaimer on the United Nations declaring the event to be illegal removed from this quote for a reason,] the territory voted to become a part of Russia.” This is categorically wrong. The caveat of the UN General Assembly’s rejection of Russia’s actions doesn’t counterbalance just how wrong this sentence is. “The territory voted to become a part of Russia” is absolutely false, not just because of the illegality of the Russian-conducted poll, but because there’s no way this is true.
I have previously written an analysis of the demographics, ethnic identities, age groups, and nostalgia for Soviet times. The breakdown of the numbers of what was possible (albeit, fueled by propaganda and under military occupation) and what Russia declared had happened is so vast that there’s no space for anyone to say, in a newspaper of significant repute, that a vote to become a part of Russia happened. Then add on top of that the traditional apathy of voters in Crimea to go to the polls for anything at all, for many years.
Back to Surkov
Where Surkov gets even more gravely chilling is when he gets going with his narrative about what’s happening in Ukraine, or what should happen here.
“Ukrainians are very well aware that for the time being, their country does not really exist.” Put simply, that does not remotely represent the attitudes in the country I call home. In fact, nothing has done more to unite this country with a sense of unity and enhance the sense of pride of this nation as the war Putin and Surkov unleashed in the Donbas or the theft of Crimea.
I am just asking the question as to what the borders should be. And that should be a subject for international discussion.” No, and no again. The borders are internationally recognized. They’re not up for any kind of renegotiation, international or otherwise, and Russia should live up to their Minsk obligations by withdrawing to their side of those borders.
“The country can be reformed as a confederation,” Surkov goes on to say. No. That is not going to happen. The Russian goal of a federalized Ukraine has one goal, and that is to exercise veto control over Ukraine’s foreign and domestic policies through their proxies, be they from the Donbas or in the form of Victor Medvedchuk, recently charged with treason. I covered this question in detail for the Atlantic Council back in January of 2016.
“Until we reach that outcome the fight for Ukraine will never cease” is another clear demonstration of Russia’s intentions to never allow a return to peace for the Donbas. If Russia continues to press this war, then Russian sons and fathers will continue to be sent back home in trucks marked “Gruz 200.” Not one inch of Ukrainian land will be sacrificed and not one once of Ukrainian sovereignty will be traded.
A significant editorial error then follows, this, “including 298 citizens [killed] on board MH17 that was shot down by pro-Russian rebels.” MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, by the Russian military, specifically the BUK missile launcher, and the crew that operated it were from the 53rd Air Defence Brigade from Kursk, Russia. Not “rebels” of any kind. A BUK missile launcher of a highly complicated machine. It required specialist operators.
Finally, this discussion was important for the reason of getting Surkov on the record, but at the same time the resulting article was a missed opportunity to present something of great importance in understanding the existence of the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” and that it that the day to day operations of these cut-out entities is not only run, but micromanaged, directly by the Kremlin office of one Vladislav Yuryvech Surkov, as you can read in this analysis of his hacked communication.
