The New Tsar (94 page)

25 
. Sakwa, in
Putin and the Oligarch
, details the second Khodorkovsky trial, pp. 136–45.

26 
.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
, Dec. 24, 2010.

CHAPTER 21: THE RETURN

1 
. On November 30, 2014,
The Times
of London published a dossier written by former intelligence officers on the bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup championships. England’s bid committee had hired the investigators after it applied for and lost out on the 2018 tournament. The accusations of corruption in the bids were investigated and rejected by FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, amid much controversy. In May 2015, however, American and Swiss officials announced that the bids were the focus of a sprawling investigation that could yet force a reconsideration of the winning bids for Russia and Qatar.

2 
. In a radio interview on Finam FM, Feb. 2, 2011, available at
www.stolica.fm/archive-view/3626
.

3 
.
The New Yorker
, April 4, 2011.

4 
. At
www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/10/vice-president-bidens-remarks-moscow-state-university
, March 10, 2011.

5 
. The security official spoke with the author in an interview in Moscow in December 2013 on condition of anonymity.

6 
.
Vedomosti
, July 13, 2011.

7 
.
The Financial Times
published a full transcript of the interview on June 19, 2011.

8 
. The final decision on Putin’s return to the presidency was described by three people who were familiar with some of the details, though ultimately the full details of their final meeting the night before Medvedev’s nomination are known only to the two men in the room.

9 
. He described and defended Medvedev’s modernization program in a lengthy and largely favorable interview with
The Wall Street Journal
, July 10, 2011.

10 
.
Novaya Gazeta
, Sept. 26, 2011.

11 
.
New York Times
, Sept. 30, 2011.

12 
. Arutunyan, p. 207.

13 
. Prokhorov described Medvedev’s recruitment of him in an interview in
New York Times
, Sept. 17, 2011.

14 
.
New York Times
, Dec. 13, 2011.

15 
. According to Serge Schmemman, who was among those attending.
New York Times
, Nov. 23, 2011.

16 
. See globalvoicesonline/2011/12/05/russia-election-day-ddos-alypse for a thorough account of the cyberattacks before and during the election.

17 
. The video of the old man filling in ballots was widely reported in the Russian media and cited in
New York Times
, Dec. 6, 2011. The OSCE’s observer mission’s final report on the elections is at
www.osce.org/odihr/86959
.

18 
. Quoted at
www.opendemocracy.net
, by Olga Breininger, March 28, 2013.

19 
.
New York Times
, Dec. 22, 2011.

20 
.
Kommersant
, Dec. 10, 2011.

21 
. Quotes from Litvinenko’s interview were published in
The New York Times
on March 1, 2012; my colleague, Andrew Kramer, shared the full transcript.

CHAPTER 22: THE RESTORATION

1 
. Dmitry Uzlaner, “The Pussy Riot Case and the Peculiarities of Russian Post-Secularism,”
State, Religion and Church
1 (2014): 24. Uzlaner’s study of the case and the role of the church and state in Russia provides useful background and translations by April French. See also Pussy Riot,
Pussy Riot! A Punk Prayer for Freedom
(New York: Feminist Press, 2013), which compiles the group’s statements and testimony in court; Marc Bennetts,
Kicking the Kremlin: Russia’s New Dissidents and the Battle to Topple Putin
(London: Oneworld, 2014); and Miriam Elder, “What Does Pussy Riot Mean Now,”
Buzzfeed
, Feb. 7, 2014. There are many translations of the group’s lyrics; the author chose those that seemed closest to their intended meaning.

2 
. Interviewed by the author in Washington, DC, in February 2012.

3 
. Kissinger in his interview with
Time
for the issue declaring him Man of the Year in 2007, available on his website,
henrykissinger.com
.

4 
.
New York Times
, Jan. 8, 2012.

5 
. Reuters, Feb. 8, 2013.

6 
.
Moscow News
, March 1, 2012.

7 
.
New York Times
, Dec. 8, 2011.

8 
. Author interview with Yekaterina Samustevich, March 2013.

9 
. Navalny’s initial post on Pussy Riot, dated March 7, 2012, is at
navalny.livejournal.com/690551.html
.

10 
. Andrei Zolotov Jr. provided a detailed account of the special service for RIA Novosti, April 23, 2012. It is no longer available on the website of the agency, which was rebranded as Sputnik. It was reprinted, though, at
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/ImperialRussian/news/481news.html
.

11 
. Bennetts, p. 164.

12 
.
New York Times
, March 7, 2012.

13 
. Ibid.

14 
.
New York Times
, Dec. 6, 2012.

15 
. Human Rights Watch report, “Laws of Attrition,” published in April 2013.

16 
.
New York Times
, June 12, 2012.

17 
. Pussy Riot, p. 55.

18 
. Interview with Yekaterina Samustevich, March 2013.

CHAPTER 23: ALONE ON OLYMPUS

1 
. A seven-minute trailer of the film is still available at
http://rutube.ru/video/eddef3b31e4bdff29de4db46ebdd4e44/
. Forbes reported on the film and its mysterious production at http://www.forbes.ru/sobytiya/vlast/85216-kto-zdes-glavnokomanduyushchii.

2 
. See
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/president-obama-asks-medvedev-for-space-on-missile-defense-after-my-election-i-have-more-flexibility/
.

3 
.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/September13/PrevezonHoldingsForfeiturePR.php
.

4 
.
Novaya Gazeta
, Nov. 11, 2012; translated into English at
http://en.novayagazeta.ru/politics/55288.html
.

5 
. BBC Worldwide Monitoring, Oct. 9, 2012.

6 
. “Visiting Putin,” NTV, Oct. 7, 2012,
www.ntv.ru.novosti/348821
.

7 
.
Bloomberg Business Week
, Aug. 27, 2013.

8 
. Interview with the author, April 2013.

9 
. Lyudmila Narusova’s interview appeared in
Novaya Gazeta
, Nov. 11, 2012.

10 
.
Sergei Roldugin, Maria’s godfather, disclosed the marriage and birth of Putin’s grandson in an interview in September 2013. Radio Netherlands Worldwide reported on the accident involving Jorrit Faassen on Jan. 12, 2011,
http://www.rnw.org/archive/russias-mysterious-dutch-businessman
. For details of Matvei Urin’s legal troubles, see
http://sobesednik.ru/kriminal/matvei-urin-sgorel-na-erunde
and
http://rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20140528/271420339.html
.

11 
. The details of Yekaterina Putina’s affiliation with Moscow State University emerged in a report by the Russian newspaper RBK in January 2015,
http://top.rbc.ru/business/28/01/2015/54c8b4659a794730dbef8851
. The journalist Oleg Kashin first identified her as Putin’s daughter on his website in exile,
http://kashin.guru/2015/01/29/ona/
, and her identity was confirmed in the days that followed by Reuters on Jan. 29, 2015, and Bloomberg, Jan. 30, 2015.

12 
.
The Guardian
on May 9, 2012, posted a video of the match’s highlights on its website,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2012/may/09/vladimir-putin-ice-hockey-russia-video
.

13 
.
New York Times
, May 6, 2012.

14 
.
Daily Beast
, Jan. 13, 2013.

15 
.
Der Spiegel
reviewed the book, called
Putin
, on Dec. 2, 2013,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/new-book-on-vladimir-putin-claims-russian-president-flees-from-people-a-936801.html
. Belkovsky distanced himself from some of his own conclusions in an interview in Moscow in September 2014.

16 
.
Novaya Gazeta
, Nov. 11, 2012.

CHAPTER 24: PUTINGRAD

1 
. Author interview with Vladimir Yakunin, January 2013. Details of the Sochi construction, including interviews with him and Anatoly Pakhomov, were also included in
The New York Times Magazine
, Jan. 22, 2014.

2 
. In an interview on Ekho Moskvy, Nov. 11, 2013.

3 
. See “Race to the Bottom,” a report by Human Rights Watch, published Feb. 6, 2013, and available at its website.

4 
.
Esquire
, July 7, 2010, available at
esquire.ru/sochi-road
.

5 
. Boris Nemtsov and Leonid Martynuk detailed many cost overruns in a pamphlet, “Winter Olympics in the Sub-Tropics: Corruption and Abuse in Sochi,” released May 20, 2013, and updated on Dec. 6, 2013. A translation by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick is available at
www.interpretermag.com/winter-olympics-in-the-sub-tropics-corruption-and-abuse-in-sochi/
. Nemtsov called it a “festival of corruption” in an interview with the author in Dec. 2013.

6 
. The Levada Center, one of the most trusted polling agencies, tracked Putin’s
rating throughout his rule. After his approval rating peaked in 2008 at 88 percent, it bottomed out at 61 in November 2013,
www.levada.ru/indeksy
.

7 
. Interfax, April 29, 2013.

8 
. Tatiana Stanovaya, “Beware Medvedev,” Institute of Modern Russia, March 6, 2013,
http://imrussia.org/en/analysis/politics/405-beware-of-medvedev
.

9 
. The Associated Press reported on Feb. 4, 2015, that Sberbank turned over the ski jump to the government, writing off a $1.7 billion loan.

10 
. Snowden’s statement was released by WikiLeaks on its website, July 12, 2013.

11 
. Quoted in
The New York Times
, Nov. 1, 2013.

12 
.
World Policy Journal
, Fall 2013.

13 
. Interviewed by the author, cited in
The New York Times
, Aug. 2, 2013.

14 
. Available at the Vatican’s website:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130904_putin-g20.html
.

15 
.
New York Times
, Sept. 12, 2013.

16 
. At
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2013/10/30/the-worlds-most-powerful-people-2013/
.

17 
. Interviews with the author, January and March 2014.

18 
.
Moscow Times
, Oct. 8, 2013.

19 
. See Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Dec. 7, 2012.
www.rferl.org/content/clinton-calls-eurasian-integration-effort-to-resovietize/24791921.html
.