Ben Judah - Fragile Empire - How Russia Fell in and Out of Love With Vladimir Putin

34. ‘Interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn’, Der Spiegel , 30 August 2007.

35. ‘Viktor Chernomyrdin’, Literaturnaya Gazeta , no. 37 (1998).

36. Daniel Treisman, The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev (New York, 2011), p. 68.

37. Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society , 4th edn (London, 2008), p. 271.

38. Ibid., p. 266.

39. Polling by the Levada Center, available at http://www.levada.ru/press/2011011802.html.

40. Official crime statistics should be taken with extreme caution. They may be an underestimate. Glenn E. Curtis (ed.), A Country Study: Russia , Federal Research Division Library of Congress (Washington DC, 1998), available at http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/rutoc.html.

41. Ibid., p. 42.

42. Thane Gustafson, The Wheel of Fortune: The Battle For Oil And Power in Russia (London, 2012), pp. 186–9.

43. Tony Wood, ‘Collapse as Crucible’, New Left Review , March-April 2012, available at http://newleftreview.org/II/74/tony-wood-collapse-as-crucible#_edn35.

44. Tina Burrett, Television and Presidential Power in Putin’s Russia (London, 2011), p. 11; Perry Anderson, ‘Russia’s Managed Democracy’, London Review of Books , 25 January 2007, available at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n02/perry-anderson/russias-managed-democracy.

45. Lynch, Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft , p. 56.

46. Ibid., p. 13.

47. Putin, First Person , p. 141.

48. John B. Dunlop, The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examination of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Putin’s Rule (Stuttgart, 2012), p. 66.

49. Ibid.; However Dunlop’s view is fiercely challenged by Andrei Soldatov, Russia’s leading expert on the FSB. He believes these allegations of confirmation by French intelligence to be fictitious. Soldatov argues that Western scholars and journalists have repeatedly reported tabloid Russian reporting on the apartment bombings without checking sources.

50. Treisman, The Return , p. 91.

51. Dunlop, The Moscow Bombings , p. 27.

52. Ibid., p. 85.

53. Ibid., p. 82.

54. ‘Over Forty Percent Russians Link Secret Service, Bombings: Poll’, Agence France Presse , 17 April 2002.

55. For further discussion of the apartment bombings I suggest the reader consults Dunlop’s The Moscow Bombings . Whilst Dunlop provides many accounts detailing complicity on behalf of the authorities I do not feel he has firmly proved regime culpability in a full ‘false flag attack’ – but strongly enhanced the case for some degree of involvement. The jury is still out and possible alternatives and mixed scenarios to either outright innocence or regime terror attacks have not been fully explored. In Russia events are either interpreted as either ‘conspiracy’ or ‘incompetence’, when most often they are a mix of both.

56. Treisman, The Return , p. 92.

57. Boris Kargalitsky, Russia under Yeltsin And Putin: Neo-liberal Autocracy (London, 2002), p. 230.

1. Vladimir Putin, ‘Rossia Na Rubezhe Tishyacheletnie’, 29 December 1999, available at http://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.html.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Mikhail Kasyanov, Bezputina: Politichiskie Dialog S Evgeny Kiselyevim (Moscow, 2009), p. 53.

5. Yulia Latynina, ‘Macroeconomic Pilfering Won’t Work,’ The Moscow Times , 9 August 2000.

6. John Pearce Hardt (ed.), Russia’s Uncertain Economic Future , Joint Economic Committee Congress of the United States (Washington DC, 2003), p. 252.

7. Steven Eke, ‘Profile: Mikhail Kasyanov’, BBC News , 22 January 2008, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7202708.stm.

8. Vladimir Putin, First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President (London, 2000), p. 139.

9. Rupert Wingfield Hayes, ‘Scars Remain Amid Chechen Revival’, BBC News , 3 March 2007.

10. Andrei Illiaronov interviewed in Putin, Russia and the West , Episode 1, ‘Taking Control’, 2012.

11. Robert Coalson, ‘Babitsky’s Crime and Punishment’, Committee to Protect Journalists , 28 February 2000, available at https://cpj.org/reports/2000/02/main.php.

12. Masha Gessen, The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (London, 2012), p. 33.

13. Putin, First Person , p. 139.

14. Angus Roxburgh, The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia (London, 2012), p. 25.

15. Mikhail Kasyanov, Bezputina: Politichiskie Dialog S Evgeny Kiselyevim (Moscow, 2009), p. 165.

16. Ibid., p. 126.

17. Andrew Jack, Inside Putin’s Russia (London, 2004), p. 136.

18. Ibid., p. 135.

19. Ibid., p. 136.

20. Ibid., p. 152.

21. Boris Berezovsky, ‘Oligarchs as Nation’s Saviors? Berezovsky Justifies Himself’, The St Petersburg Times , 20 October 2000.

22. David Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Money And Power in the New Russia (New York, 2004), p. 475.

23. Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s Choice (Oxford, 2004) p. 143.

24. Jack, Inside Putin’s Russia , p. 148.

25. Andrei Soldatov argues that in an investigation he conducted into the NTV documentary he found ‘witnesses’ had been paid to say the FSB was behind the bombings. He argues that the documentary provides no concrete evidence of FSB involvement.

26. Hoffman, The Oligarchs , p. 485.

27. Ibid., p. 409.

28. Gessen, The Man without a Face , p. 170.

29. Allen Lynch, Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft (New York, 2011), p. 78.

30. Tina Burrett, Television and Presidential Power in Russia (London, 2011), p. 57.

31. Ibid., p. 12.

32. Ibid., p. 14.

33. Gleb Pavlovsky, Genialnaya Vlast (Moscow, 2012), p. 84.

34. Ben Judah, ‘Letter From Moscow’, Prospect , 25 May 2010.

35. This observation is frequently cited in Russia. The importance of it was first brought to my attention in the following exceptional essay. Perry Anderson, ‘Russia’s Managed Democracy’, London Review of Books , vol. 29, no. 2, 25 January 2005.

36. Gleb Pavlovsky, Genialnaya Vlast (Moscow, 2012), p. 84.

37. Lyudmila Romanova and Ilya Zhegulev, Operatsiya Edinaya Rossiya: Neizvestnaya Istoriya Partiya Vlasti (Moscow, 2011), p. 267.

38. Gleb Pavlovsky, ‘Privichka K Obazhaniu U Putina Voznikla Ranshe’, New Times , 26 March 2012, available at http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/51401/

39. Gleb Pavlovsky, Genialnaya Vlast (Moscow, 2012), p. 73.

40. ‘Zachem Putiniu Upravlaemyaya Demokratiku’, Sova Centre , 1 April 2005, available at http://www.sova-center.ru/democracy/publications/2005/04/d4152/.

41. Vladimir Radchenko, ‘Samii Negumanii Sud – Dlya Predprinimateli’, Forbes , 11 April 2012, available at http://www.forbes.ru/sobytiya-column/vlast/80917-samyi-negumannyi-sud

42. ‘Putin’s “Rape Joke” Played Down’, BBC News , 20 October 2006.

43. This point is often discussed in Russia. The full importance of it was only rammed home to me though by the following deeply insightful book. Emanuel Carrère, Limonov , (Paris, 2011).

44. ‘The Long Life Of Homo Soveiticus,’ The Economist , 10 December 2010.

45. ‘Russian Macro View: Consumption to Remain Strong for Now’, Citi Economics , 21 October 2011.

46. Jonathan Brent, Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia (New York, 2008), p. 267.