The New Tsar (88 page)

37 
. Medvedev offers a biographical portrait on pp. 323–35.

38 
. Andrew and Mitrokhin,
The Sword and the Shield
, p. 13.

39 
. Gevorkyan et al., p. 133.

40 
. Colton, p. 419.

41 
.
Kommersant
, Nov. 13, 1998.

42 
. Soldatov and Borogan, p. 17.

43 
. Transcript of the press conference by the Official Kremlin International News Broadcast, Nov. 17, 1998.

44 
.
Kommersant
, Nov. 17, 1998.

45 
. Litvinenko writing in
Mail on Sunday
, Nov. 25, 2006.

46 
. Goldfarb and Litvinenko, p. 136.

47 
. Official Kremlin International News Broadcast, Nov. 19, 1998.

48 
.
Argumenty I Fakty
, Dec. 9, 1998, as transcribed and translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring.

49 
. Starovoitova interviewed on TV6 in Moscow, Sept. 19, 1998, as transcribed and translated by BBC.

50 
. Author interview with Ruslan Linkov,
New York Times
, Nov. 22, 2002.

51 
.
New York Times
, Nov. 23, 1998.

52 
.
New York Times
, Nov. 24, 1998.

53 
.
Washington Post
, Dec. 6, 1998.

54 
. Yeltsin, pp. 210–11.

55 
. Interfax, Dec. 18, 1998.

CHAPTER 9:
KOMPROMAT

1 
. Irena Lesnevskaya, the president of REN TV, quoted in
Kommersant
, March 19, 1999.

2 
.
Kommersant
, March 19, 1999.

3 
. Yeltsin,
Midnight Diaries
, p. 223.

4 
. Ibid., pp. 222, 236.

5 
.
Washington Post
, March 8, 1999.

6 
. David Hoffman,
The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2002), p. 459.

7 
. Yeltsin, p. 227.

8 
. Associated Press, March 17, 1999.

9 
. Yuri Skuratov,
Variant Drakona
[The Dragon Variation] (Moscow: Detectiv Press, 2000), p. 235.

10 
. Ibid., p. 147.

11 
. Ibid., p. 236.

12 
.
New York Times
, Dec. 20, 1998.

13 
. Skuratov, pp. 7–8.

14 
. Yeltsin, p. 225. For all the naked bitterness and controversy over the affair, the accounts of that meeting by Skuratov and Yeltsin do not differ substantively—only in tone and, of course, the meaning of what was said. Putin’s version, though truncated, appears in Gevorkyan et al.,
First Person
, pp. 198–99, and also broadly comports with theirs.

15 
. The popularity of chess in Russia makes it an easy metaphor for politics. The title of Skuratov’s memoir,
Variant Drakona
[The Dragon Variation], is one of the main openings in the Sicilian Defense. Yeltsin referred to his frequent government shake-ups as akin to “castling,” the move in which the king and rook exchange places; the term in Russian,
rokirovka
, would later be used in Putin’s most significant gambit.

16 
.
New York Times
, March 24, 1999.

17 
. Yeltsin, p. 236.

18 
.
New York Times
, March 22, 1999.

19 
.
Strobe Talbott’s
The Russia Hand
offers an excellent firsthand account of the diplomacy between the United States and Russia during the Kosovo war. See chapters 12 and 13.

20 
. Ibid., p. 336.

21 
. Ibid., p. 335.

22 
. Years later, Strobe Talbott came to the conclusion that Putin had in fact lied. “What really struck my colleagues and me was the aplomb, smugness and brazenness with which Putin lied.” See Strobe Talbott, “The Making of Vladimir Putin,”
Politico
, Aug. 19, 2014.

23 
. The author witnessed this comical scene, having flown into Pristina’s airport aboard NATO helicopters from Macedonia.

24 
. Wesley K. Clark,
Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), p. 394.

25 
. Talbott,
Russia Hand
, p. 344.

26 
. Yeltsin, pp. 273–74.

27 
. Ibid., p. 276.

28 
. Ibid., p. 275.

29 
. Interfax, May 19, 1999.

30 
.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
, July 8, 1999.

31 
. Medvedev, p. 314.

32 
. Yeltsin, p. 329.

33 
. Colton, pp. 430, 586f. Colton says that Yeltsin’s daughter and adviser, Tatyana, with whom he discussed all matters of political importance, had not discussed it with him in advance. Talbott writes that Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Barak, visited Moscow—on August 2—and later telephoned President Bill Clinton to compare notes on this visit, which focused on the threat from Iran. Barak had been impressed with Stepashin but learned that he would be replaced imminently by “some guy whose name is Putin.”

34 
. Associated Press, July 18, 1999.

35 
. Gevorkyan et al., p. 138.

36 
. Yeltsin, p. 331.

37 
.
New York Times
, Aug. 10, 1999.

38 
. Zenkovich, p. 364.

39 
. Gevorkyan et al., pp. 139–41.

CHAPTER 10: IN THE OUTHOUSE

1 
.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
, Jan. 14, 2000.

2 
. Colton, p. 433.

3 
. Ibid., p. 432.

4 
. Matthew Evangelista,
The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union?
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), pp. 90–96. Basayev’s main force evidently managed to withdraw from Dagestan without
overwhelming casualties, which added fodder to conspiracy theories that his fighters had been allowed safe passage as part of a vast plot to launch the second Chechen war. These theories ignore the intensity of the fighting in Dagestan, as evidenced by the destruction of the villages. They also presume that the Russian counteroffensive was more effective than it probably was.

5 
. NTV report, Aug. 27, 1999, as transcribed and translated by the BBC.

6 
.
New York Times
, Sept. 8, 1999.

7 
.
Moscow Times
, Sept. 11, 1999.

8 
. Talbott, p. 359.

9 
. Ibid., pp. 359–60.

10 
. Itar-Tass, Sept. 13, 1999.

11 
.
New York Times
, Sept. 20, 1999.

12 
. Itar-Tass, Sept. 10, 1999;
Moscow Times
, Sept. 11, 1999.

13 
. Quotation cited in
New York Review of Books
, Nov. 22, 2012.

14 
.
Moscow Times
, Sept. 17, 1999.

15 
. Interfax, Sept. 23, 1999. This is one of the most famous utterances of Putin’s political life, the subject of endless quotation and even academic study. It is difficult to translate literally, and so many variations exist. Putin used the verb
zamochit
, which literally means “to (make) wet.” In criminal slang, it evokes the spilling of blood.
Mocha
is also the word for “urine”; so “waste” seems the most appropriate. He went on to use Russian words with French roots,
pardon
and
v sortire
, the latter from the verb “to leave” or “go out,” which in Russian slang has come to mean “the outhouse.” It was widely understood in its most vulgar connotation. See
Kultura
, published by the University of Bremen in Germany, October 2006, p. 3.
http://www.kultura-rus.uni-bremen.de/kultura_dokumente/ausgaben/englisch/kultura_10_2006_EN.pdf
.

16 
. Many accounts have been written about the events in Ryazan, differing in the final analysis but not in the details. David Satter’s
Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003) includes a meticulous reconstruction of the case. John B. Dunlop also believes that the bombings were a government conspiracy to justify a second war in Chechnya. See
The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Outset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule
(Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2012).

17 
. Soldatov and Borogan, p. 111.

18 
.
Moscow Times
, Sept. 25, 1999.

19 
. Evangelista, p. 68. Evangelista argues that Putin missed an opportunity to exploit the divisions between Maskhadov and Basayev before the second war began.

20 
.
New York Times
, Sept. 30, 1999.

21 
. Charles King,
The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 238.

22 
.
Vremya
, Sept. 27, 1999.

23 
. Rossiya TV, Oct. 20, 1999, as transcribed by the BBC.

24 
. Primakov on TV6, transcript by the Official Kremlin International News Broadcast, Oct. 1, 1999.

25 
. Yeltsin, pp. 338, 344.

26 
. Goldfarb and Litvinenko, p. 191.

27 
. Hoffman, pp. 461–70.

28 
.
New York Times
, Oct. 14, 1999.

29 
.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
, Nov. 19, 1999.

30 
. Colton and McFaul, p. 56.

31 
.
Sevodnya
, Nov. 25, 1999.

32 
. Yeltsin, p. 361.

33 
.
Vremya
, Sept. 27, 1999.

34 
. Colton, p. 434.

35 
. Yeltsin, p. 6. Putin, in Gevorkyan et al., p. 204, recounts a similar reaction: “I’m not ready for this.”

36 
. Yeltsin, pp. 355–56.

37 
. Talbott, p. 7.

38 
. Yeltsin, pp. 7–8.

39 
. Ibid.

40 
. Interfax, Dec. 30, 1999.

41 
. Human Rights Watch’s extensive reportage on Chechnya is available at the organization’s website,
www.hrw.org
.

42 
. Interfax, Dec. 30, 1999.

43 
. Yeltsin’s address and subsequent ones by Putin are translated and archived on the Kremlin’s official website:
http://archive.kremlin.ru
.

44 
. Blotsky,
Vladimir Putin: Doroga k Vlast
, p. 417.

45 
. Gevorkyan et al., p. 138.

46 
. NTV report, Dec. 25, 2001.