The New Tsar (92 page)

25 
. Marshall I. Goldman,
Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 124.

26 
. Boris Nemstov and Vladimir Milov, both former government officials and opposition leaders, sharply questioned the sale in a series of white papers that began appearing in 2008. See “Putin and Gazprom,” originally published in
Novaya Gazeta
, Aug. 28 and Sept. 4, 2008. Also Anders Aslund, in
Russia’s Capitalist Revolution: Why Market Reform Succeeded and Democracy Failed
(Washington, DC: Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2007), p. 253, and in other writings and interviews, argues that many of Gazprom’s deals were corrupt.

27 
. The diplomatic cable, dated April 2, 2007, released by WikiLeaks.

28 
. Quoted in Edward Lucas,
The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 168. In the chapter “Pipeline Politics,” he describes, ominously, the geopolitical consequences of Gazprom’s rise.

29 
.
Wall Street Journal
, Dec. 16, 2005.

30 
. Tom Bower,
Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century
(New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009), p. 375.

31 
.
New York Times
, Oct. 6, 2006.

32 
.
Bower, p. 387.

33 
.
New York Times
, Dec. 22 and Dec. 29, 2006. The author attended the ceremony returning the Sakhalin project to the Kremlin’s control.

34 
. A diplomatic cable, Dec. 8, 2008, “Ukraine: Firtash Makes His Case to the USG,” released by WikiLeaks.

35 
. Koshiw, p. 65. Also the Jamestown Foundation,
Eurasian Daily Monitor
, March 25, 2009, “The Strange Ties Between Semion Mogilevich and Vladimir Putin.”

36 
. Margarita M. Balmaceda,
Energy Dependency, Politics and Corruption in the Former Soviet Union: Russia’s Power, Oligarchs’ Profits and Ukraine’s Missing Energy Policy, 1995–2006
(London: Routledge, 2008), p. 137.

37 
. Treisman, p. 116.

38 
. The disclosures about the palace and the allegations of the furtive financing of it and other investments did not become public until December 2010, when one of those involved, Sergei Kolsenikov, wrote an open letter to Dmitri Medvedev, disclosed in a column by David Ignatius in
The Washington Post
. Subsequent articles in
Novaya Gazeta
in February 2011 (
http://en.novayagazeta.ru/politics/8779.html
) and
The Financial Times
on Nov. 30, 2011, confirmed aspects of the deals, despite the Kremlin’s consistent denials.

39 
.
Wall Street Journal
, Sept. 25, 2007.

40 
. Author interview with Mikhail Kasyanov, June 2014.

41 
.
Lenta.ru’s
biography of Kovalchuk, at
http://lenta.ru/lib/14149560
.

42 
. Quoted in
Forbes Russia
, Aug. 3, 2008.

43 
. Mark Galeotti coined the phrase at
http://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/the-rise-of-the-russian-judocracy/
.

44 
. Mark Lawrence Schrad,
Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy and the Secret History of the Russian State
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), chapter 22.

45 
. Author interviews with Andrei Illarionov, October 2012 and August 2014.

46 
. Illarionov, quoted in
The New Times
,
newtimes.ru
, Nov. 4, 2011.

47 
. Republished in
New York Times
, Feb. 4, 2006.

48 
. Gustafson, p. 354.

49 
. The prospectus is available on the company’s website,
http://www.rosneft.com/attach/0/58/84/rosneft_prospectus.pdf
.

50 
. Rosneft’s annual report in 2006:
http://www.rosneft.com/attach/0/58/80/a_report_2006_eng.pdf
.

CHAPTER 17: POISON

1 
.
New York Times
, Nov. 25, 2006. The story here of Litvinenko’s poisoning, one of the most intensely covered murders in history, is based on reporting at the time by the author and his colleagues in Moscow and London, especially
Alan Cowell, who subsequently wrote
The Terminal Spy: The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko, a True Story of Espionage, Betrayal and Murder
(London: Doubleday, 2008). Other accounts that were useful include
The Death of a Dissident
by Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko, based on their personal relationships with him;
The Litvinenko File: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy
by Martin Sixsmith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007); and
Putin’s Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia
by Steve LeVine (New York: Random House, 2008).

2 
. Goldfarb and Litvinenko, p. 330.

3 
. The book was published in English after Litvinenko’s murder as
Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror
(New York: Encounter Books, 2007). The quote is on p. 3.

4 
. Skuratov, p. 147. This rumor was repeated to the author by a former KGB and FSB officer who was among those purged during Putin’s time as director of the security service.

5 
. Author interview with Oleg Kalugin, October 2012.

6 
. Interviewed in Cowell, p. 209.

7 
. Cowell, p. 239.

8 
. Litvinenko’s meetings and Grinda’s views appeared in cables first disclosed by WikiLeaks, dated Aug. 31, 2009, and Feb. 8, 2010. Luke Harding details them in
Expelled: A Journalist’s Descent into the Russian Mafia State
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 235–39.

9 
. Politkovskaya,
Is Journalism Worth Dying For?
p. 5.

10 
. Diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks, dated Oct. 9, 2006.

11 
. LeVine, p. 125.

12 
. The details of the first attempt to poison Litvinenko at the office of Erinys were disclosed at the public inquiry held in Britain in 2015. Transcripts of the inquiry are available at
www.litvinenkoinquiry.org
.

13 
. The author interviewed Lugovoi and Kovtun in Moscow in March 2007 with Alan Cowell.
New York Times
, March 18, 2007.

14 
. Roxburgh, p. 177.

15 
.
Financial Times
, Nov. 25, 2006.

16 
. Sakwa,
Crisis of Russian Democracy
, p. 186; also
St. Petersburg Times
, Sept. 28, 2004.

17 
. Author interview with a British diplomatic official, April 2013.

18 
. Author interview with Lugovoi and Kovtun, March 18, 2007.

19 
. One of the first times he addressed the question of a third term—and dismissed it—was in December 2003.
New York Times
, Dec. 19, 2003.

20 
. This and other sources on Putin’s succession struggle come from the author’s reporting at the time for the article “Post-Putin,” in
The New York Times Magazine
, Feb. 27, 2007.

21 
. The American ambassador, William J. Burns, expounded on the theory of
using the redistribution of assets to aid the candidates in the April 2, 2007, cable to Washington that was disclosed by WikiLeaks and already cited.

22 
.
Novaya Gazeta
, Oct. 11, 2007.

23 
. Sakwa,
Crisis of Russian Democracy
, pp. 188–89.

24 
. Roxburgh, p. 196. Roxburgh, a former journalist, worked for the public relations firm Ketchum, which the Kremlin had hired to burnish Russia’s image, a frustrating experience he recounts in the book.

25 
. Available from the Kremlin’s online archive, Feb. 10, 2007. This speech, one of Putin’s most famous, also appears in numerous videos online.

26 
.
New York Times
, Feb. 11, 2007.

27 
. Cited and translated by
Der Speigel
, Feb. 12, 2007:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-world-from-berlin-a-calculating-simulation-of-the-cold-war-a-465811.html
.

28 
.
New York Times
, May 29, 2007.

29 
.
The Guardian
, April 12, 2007.

30 
.
New York Times
, June 1, 2007.

31 
.
New York Times
, July 19, 2007.

CHAPTER 18: THE 2008 PROBLEM

1 
. Boris Nemtsov recalled this anecdote in an interview with the author in December 2013.

2 
. Author interview with Anatoly Pakhomov, Sochi’s mayor, December 2013.

3 
. Aleksandr Zhukov, interviewed by the author in January 2014, recounted the Politburo’s deliberations over future Olympic sites, which were only revealed years later in a declassified report.

4 
. Associated Press, July 1, 2007.

5 
. Associated Press, July 4, 2007.

6 
. Sakwa,
Crisis of Russian Democracy
, p. 163.

7 
. Roxburgh, p. 208.

8 
. Ibid., p. 211.

9 
. Hill and Gaddy, pp. 181–82.

10 
. Ibid., p. 182. Richard Sakwa also attended; see
Crisis of Russian Democracy
, p. 178.

11 
. Sakwa,
Crisis of Russian Democracy
, p. 178.

12 
.
Kommersant
, Oct. 9, 2007.

13 
. As transcribed by Ekho Moskvy, Oct. 30, 2007.

14 
. One version of this analysis was revealed by WikiLeaks in a cable from the American ambassador, William Burns, dated Oct. 18, 2007. “In the absence of political institutions,” he wrote, “the glue of the system created by Putin is his personalized power and the loyalty of those he appointed to key positions. Putin has attempted to preserve that power by keeping those jockeying for continued influence off balance.”

15 
.
Sakwa,
Crisis of Russian Democracy
, p. 197.

16 
.
Time
, Dec. 19, 2007. The full transcript of the interview is available at
http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/printout/0,29239,1690753_1690757_1695787,00.html
.

17 
. Transcript of the staged meeting can be found on the Kremlin online archive, Dec. 10, 2007.

18 
. Richard Sakwa argues that Sechin, to the end, favored a third term for Putin, though the famously reclusive Sechin never made his views public.
Crisis of Russian Democracy
, p. 272.

19 
. Author interview with Sergei Roldugin, St. Petersburg, September 2014.

20 
. Michael S. Gorham,
After Newspeak: Language, Culture, and Politics in Russia from Gorbachev to Putin
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), p. 157.

21 
. Julie A. Cassiday and Emily D. Johnson, “A Personality Cult for the PostModern Age,” in Helena Goscilo, ed.,
Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon
(London: Routledge, 2013), p. 43. The film
Potselui ne dlya Pressi
[A Kiss Off the Record] appeared for sale as a DVD on Valentine’s Day 2008, though it had been filmed several years before. The fact that it did not appear in movie theaters suggested it was either too risky politically or, as some critics noted, pretty awful.