MICHAEL KIRK - First time you met Mr. Putin,
can you describe the circumstances? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - … I met Mr. Putin in summer
of 1998, shortly before he became head of FSB [Federal Security Service] and shortly
before we had a default in the country. [Then-Prime Minister Sergey] Kiriyenko’s
government set up a meeting, and they talked about ways of strengthening the economy. I was holding extreme views back then, and
I suggested that we use one universal cure. I suggested that we should introduce a state
of emergency in the country. I was developing this, my favorite topic,
and suddenly, Putin said—before that, I never paid attention to this man. He was new, and he did not seem to be interesting. Putin said he objected, and he said: “A
state of emergency can be implemented only in two cases: if the authorities are scary
or if the citizens have a huge level of confidence in the authorities. If we don’t have either of those situations,
we cannot introduce a state of emergency” This was an interesting observation. I noticed Putin for the first time, and I
guess he noticed me, too. MICHAEL KIRK - What was he like? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - He was not very impressive
or expressive, if I could put it this way. I really lost him among other government officers
in the administration. He was not a bright figure. He always tried to stay in the shade, and
he was silent most of the time. MICHAEL KIRK - So when he becomes the head
of the FSB, or even prime minister, are you surprised? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - In 1998 the FSB was not so
significant. When Putin became head of FSB, I knew that
he had a career in KGB, and this did not catch my attention. In 1999 we all were quite interested waiting
for Yeltsin to announce the name of his successor. We were all ready, from that time on, we had
to start an attack. We had to launch a big election campaign,
a political campaign. We spent three years getting ready for that
moment. And Yeltsin was taking his time. This was a long pause that he took. It took a long time. I knew already that he chose Putin, but he
never said anything. And finally, when I already had purchased
tickets to go on vacation, I was woken up, and they told me that everything was ready:
We are making a movie. Putin was appointed to the position of the
prime minister, which meant that he was going to become the president. But he had to be elected to be as president,
and this was our job. MICHAEL KIRK - You must have been completely
shocked. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - I wasn’t shocked. The opposite. I was quite excited. I was looking forward to the moment when I
would have a name. I knew the plot. I needed an actor. The plot was ready six months before that. MICHAEL KIRK - So you need an actor. You need somebody who can play the role. Is there anything about Putin at the time
that indicated he could play the role? What did you like that you saw in him? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - In spring of that year, we
did a sociological survey on the subject of people’s fears. Also, we wanted to know how people picture
their heroes. We asked respondents about movie stars, their
favorite actors. This was a rating of different roles. We asked about actors who played Lenin, Stalin,
Peter the Great. Ahead of everyone else, quite unexpectedly,
we had an actor who acted as Stirlitz, who was a Soviet intelligence officer, who worked
in high-level organizations in Germany. He played a perfect German officer, excellently
dressed, very well-mannered. He was a Soviet intelligence officer, and
it turned out that people preferred him. We even did an experiment in one magazine. They did a cover, “President Year 2000.” This magazine was extremely popular. It pictured this Stirlitz character wearing
[the] SS uniform. We realized that we need a young, strong,
powerful intelligence officer. There were two options, so one of those options
won. MICHAEL KIRK - Did you talk to Yeltsin about
this? Did the people who were deciding about Putin
know what you had done, and were they in agreement? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Yes. Every week we had several meetings in Kremlin. They were all prepared by one team. That team included head of presidential administration,
heads and directors of TV channels, several top-ranking officials. The team was small but highly consolidated. We had a lot of trust and confidence in each
other. We knew that we only had one attempt. We wouldn’t have a second chance. If we lose, then we we're done. So we had to win. I did not speak about it to President Yeltsin
myself. The head of presidential administration had
that conversation with President Yeltsin. I didn’t care. I needed someone that Yeltsin would point
his finger at. It could be a better or worse candidate, but
he had to be Yeltsin’s candidate. Otherwise, the president would not agree to
play according to the plan, which ended with the president’s resigning. MICHAEL KIRK - So there was agreement that
Putin is the man. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Yes. There was a preliminary agreement. Yeltsin was hesitating for a long time before
he made a decision and before he chose Putin. MICHAEL KIRK - So Putin’s qualities that
made him right, in a nutshell, are what? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Now I'm thinking that what
matters most of all was the possibility to trust this man, even in the most extreme situations. It was possible to trust this man with his
life. For Yeltsin, it was the situation when, if
his candidate lost, then he [Yeltsin] would most probably end up in jail, or his whole
family could be eliminated. So Yeltsin had to trust Putin. And I think Putin proved his ability to take
extreme measures when he took the prior mayor of St. Petersburg, Mr. [Anatoly] Sobchak,
on his friend’s aircraft. Illegally, he took him from Russia to a different
country. It was a risk. From Yeltsin’s standpoint, it was a risk
for Putin. He could at least get fired for that, or he
could have gotten arrested. He never asked for preliminary permission. Mr. Sobchak was his boss, and he was his friend,
and he did everything in his power for him. For Yeltsin, this meant that Putin could be
trusted. MICHAEL KIRK - How much do you think Putin’s
role after the apartment bombings, the second war in Chechnya, helped him with an image,
helped him appear to be a strong and decisive leader? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - It’s hard to compare to
anyone else. There is no possibility to run an experiment
and do it again. Certainly, Putin did not know immediately,
but he learned to be a leader. He was not a leader in the beginning. He did not look like a leader. His rating was 3 or 4 percent in the early
days immediately after the appointment by Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a toxic figure. Yeltsin’s kiss was a deadly one. Everyone knew that Yeltsin was about to leave. How could he help? Putin, though, started playing the role of
a young strongman who was close to Yeltsin. And he was violating Yeltsin's regular Kremlin
rules. Nobody was allowed to act quickly, strongly
or make decisions individually without paying attention to the president. But Yeltsin gave him a way, and Putin moved
down that way. For electors, this looked as if Putin was
in charge of a crowd that stormed the Kremlin and [made it look] as if he took the president’s
seat. This was the kind of revolution that electors
wanted. It was a safe revolution, a revolution inside
the government. In the beginning, Putin was
asked to act more roughly. He was a more polite man. They say it was a Leningrad-type politeness. Residents of Leningrad, which today is known
as St. Petersburg, always considered themselves to be more eloquent, more polite, than residents
of other cities. He was one of those polite Leningrad residents. He could not make himself speak rudely, so
he had to be asked to act more rudely, and he seemed to be enjoying learning various
techniques and various technologies. He enjoyed riding in tanks, aircraft, submarines. He showed that he was young and strong. We shouldn't forget, it was all happening
against the backdrop of old, weak Yeltsin. That backdrop is very important. Without it, Putin would not be making the
same impression. MICHAEL KIRK - Image or reality? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - In the beginning, it was
image. In the beginning, it was an image. Later, he learned, in a political sense. Putin was a good student. He learned to run affairs very well at the
beginning. And then it was image again. Image ended up winning. Even today, Putin is a person who is "playing
by memory" his own image of 17 years ago. MICHAEL KIRK - The former self that was quiet
and respectful, or the former self that flew those airplanes and rode those horses? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - This was a campaign. This was an election campaign, and one has
to do a lot of things that candidates may not even like. But the decision to start a war in Chechnya
was his decision. It was his decision to go to the end. At some point in time, he told us, to the
people in the headquarters—we had doubts. Chechnya was a very dangerous thing. Chechnya was a place where reputations could
evaporate, where people could lose their image. Everyone who dealt with Chechnya, they all
lost. They did not acquire anything. Chechnya was not believed to be a good place
for a politician. But Putin said: “Whether you want it or
not, this is my game. I am going to the end. I'm going to war.” This was not image; this was his decision. He was angry. He wanted to punish the separatists. And he did go to the end. And it turned out, then, that electors liked
that, too. We didn’t know that they would, though. MICHAEL KIRK - When he says the line, “We’re
going to rub them out to the outhouse,” or whatever it was he said, was that a scripted
line, or did he just say it? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - It wasn’t either of those. This was not written for him. The text that was written for him; he was
supposed to say something rough. Every now and then he had to use strong words
so that it was clear that he was not like Yeltsin. Yeltsin would never use expletives. Yeltsin could not cuss out. Against Yeltsin’s backdrop, his rudeness
was a benefit. But those specific words, they came from him. He made it up. MICHAEL KIRK - So in the early part of his
presidency, let’s take an example. He is made fun of on Kukly [a Russian political
satire program], and by all of our accounts, he gets angry about it. Can you tell me about that? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Putin was outraged after
the bombings in Moscow. Those bombings in Moscow caused a lot of different
reactions among politicians. Then, in September 1999, the main competitors
for Putin, who were stronger than he was, were [Yury] Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow,
and Mr. [Yevgeny] Primakov, a former prime minister. If they were the first to respond to those
bombings, if they became strong leaders, if they raised the flag, if they gathered others
around them, then Putin would lose. It was those several days that played a critical
role. Putin did not step up immediately, but Luzhkov
was lost; he started talking nonsense. He rode around Moscow, checked out basements
to see whether they were properly locked and sealed. This was not the action of a leader. And these main competitors for Putin, including
Mr. [Gennady] Zyuganov, who was also a candidate, they did not find the right language. Putin raised the flag, and people gathered
around him. He certainly took notice of that, and he liked
that. This was the first time in his life when he
became a leader. He was not appointed. This did not come from Yeltsin. This was his initiative. He was very mad then, and he wanted to punish
the Chechens for what they did in Moscow. MICHAEL KIRK - But to go to how he feels about
his, once he’s president, how does he feel about his image then? What is he trying to cultivate? When the television makes fun of him, what
is his response? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - The presidential campaign
of 1999 and the year 2000 was happening at a time when we had a war in the mass media. There was a war between TV channels. That was not directly related to the presidential
race. This was a war between owners. Some supported Yeltsin, which means they supported
Putin. Others supported Luzhkov and Primakov. … Putin accepted that game easily. He did not have any strong reasons to love
TV. The most important problem for that situation
was that Putin saw how we played mass media. He saw what was happening in the newspapers,
TV channels, radio stations, even Internet. It was one big keyboard, and I had a feeling
that I was playing. This was a natural thing for me. I was coming to that for a number of years. I was putting that machine together, and Putin
witnessed that. I think that he began to think that everything
can be manipulated. Any kind of press, any TV program is all about
manipulation. It’s all paid for by someone. This is bad heritage that he received. And when following that TV channels—liberal
TV channels started criticizing him, he decided that this was also somebody’s order that
this was a war against him, and he was going to take the challenge. Back then, we did not understand that heritage
that we got from the previous period—we corrupted ourselves essentially. MICHAEL KIRK - It’s very interesting that
he understands it … as a war going on. That’s very interesting, because, of course
he even, when it comes time for the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, he thinks it’s America. He believes that it’s the Americans who
get it started. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Certainly. Absolutely. Some American Pavlovsky guy is sitting there,
and he’s playing his keyboards, like we played our keyboards in Kremlin. We had meetings every week, and during the
election campaign, we had meetings every day, and it was decided what TV channels would
show what news, what kind of articles would be published in different newspapers, what
would be posted at different websites. This was a strict plan that was executed precisely. Putin decided that this was the case everywhere. MICHAEL KIRK - An information war. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Yes, yes. Information is an instrument in information
war. And he keeps saying that, even today. In the West, he said this more than once:
"We understand that these publications in your press are not incidental," and he is
talking about his own experience. He is talking about the way he acts, about
his own technique. MICHAEL KIRK - When you talk to him in a meeting,
or especially in those days, what is he like? Is he a talker or a listener? Does he receive or lead in that sense through
the information war? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - He is a lecturer. He was a good listener, and he understood
what people told him, because later, I saw that he understood what I was saying, because
he showed high level of understanding, which is, by the way, quite unusual for a person
with a KGB background. In the 1970s I met with a lot of KGB investigators
that persecuted me. I spent time in jail. But I have not seen one investigator that
was anything like Putin. He is very flexible inside. He can change. If he has a feeling that you are irritated,
he will change immediately. He will start looking for the right way to
approach you, and he does it very easily. Most importantly, I was extremely impressed
with him. I did not have any high expectations. To me, he was like a mannequin, like a character
from Agatha Christie. When a director says, “If I don’t have
an actor, then I will put up a corpse, supporting it by a log, and begin to shoot,” so I was
prepared for any outcome. But he was not a corpse at all. Very quickly, we saw him grow and develop. And I like that. We found a common language in our understanding. That was my impression. I thought that this was a case. We had a feeling that we needed to put an
end to the period of conflicts, revolutions and counterrevolutions. I wrote that phrase for him, for his first
speech, and he read this phrase: “We won't have any more revolutions or counterrevolutions.” This was the Russian version of [Francis]
Fukuyama, The End of History. But this was an illusion. Certainly this was. I was hugely impressed. I can tell you frankly, I was more than just
Putin’s fan. MICHAEL KIRK - When he meets George W. Bush
the first time, Bush says he looks in his eyes and sees Putin’s soul. We think maybe there was great hope in Putin,
that he would have a relationship and America would show respect to Putin and Russia. Is that right? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - I wasn’t there when they
looked each other in the eye. I don’t know what happened between them. I don’t know. But then Putin was most likely sincere in
his desire for new relations with America, for friendship with America after 9/11. Putin sincerely admired Bush. I can tell you that quite definitely. He looked up to Bush Jr. as I was looking
up to Putin, in admiration. This was a role model for him, the model of
a president who took the challenge and was starting a big war in the world arena. Putin liked that, and he was prepared to be
an ally. Bush did not really need allies very much,
especially allies of Russia. And Putin wanted to be an ally. So that caused trouble. Putin was hurt that he was not understood
by Bush, and that became worse after Ukraine. "Ukraine is more precious to you than Russia?! I was prepared to do anything. I was prepared to join NATO, and you are intriguing
with Ukraine?!" That’s, I think, how Putin looked at it. And after that, he lost interest in Bush. There were some other real problems there. Bush did not fully control his secret services,
or he did not think he needed to fully control that, so in the Caucasus, American intelligence
services had been sometimes helping Chechens. Putin certainly thought that this came as
Bush’s order, and that Bush was a hypocrite. Those kinds of things happened. But in the beginning, Putin wanted to have
an alliance with the West. He wanted an alliance. MICHAEL KIRK - The story I love about that
meeting, of course, is the story of Putin’s cross, left over from the fire in the dacha,
the family fire. Had you heard that story before? Did you know that he planned that story and
to tell Bush about it, because he knew Bush was an evangelical Christian? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - I knew that story, and I
think this was not the first time that he told that story. I know at least two more people that he told
it to before Bush. This was always told out of a desire to make
an impression. I think that story was true. He did not make it up. But as any good popular actor, Putin quickly
realized that it impresses people, and he used it. He had another trick, when he would take a
person to his room in a "chapel," where he had icons. This seemed like an act of trust and confidence. One politician asked me why he did it, why
he did it at all. He was not a religious person, and he was
not so impressed. He said: “Why did Putin take me to his private
room? Why did he show me that icon and that cross?” This must have been a way to establish emotional
links and emotional relations. MICHAEL KIRK - And it did. It worked. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - It did work. It did work. In most situations, it does. He doesn’t do it very frequently. If he told everyone about the cross, then
people would make fun of him. MICHAEL KIRK - He sounds very good at this. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - In what? Very good at what? Excuse me. I didn’t get it. MICHAEL KIRK - Very good at being the president,
at being an actor, at playing the role, at performing what he needed to perform in order
to do his duties. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - I think that was true in
the first two or three years. They were very bright years. Putin was working very hard, and he did a
lot. He achieved a lot through his leadership. He did not have full control of the country. He did not have full control of the parliament. He did not have full control of the mass media. He acted as a leader. He convinced. He passed laws on the property that Yeltsin
could not pass for 10 years, because the parliament was against it. With Putin, even the communists voted for
him. This was a period of several good years, and
he enjoyed it immensely. He began to like himself. He liked himself being a president. He believed that he could be a great president,
and I think he could have been a great president. But then
his older friends started again, people who formerly worked for KGB intelligence services,
people that he did business with in St. Petersburg, they did not need a leader, they needed a
symbol. They needed a wide back to hide behind, where
they could do anything they pleased. That started taking effect by the end of the
first term. This became noticeable. He is a very interesting figure indeed, Vladimir
Vladimirovich Putin. He does not enjoy working very much. He is a lazy man by nature. He likes to have a good time, but he does
not love to work very much, but he had to work hard. One has to work hard in Kremlin. And it created a situation of a mismatch. As some people told him: “Vladimir Vladimirovich,
we will do it for you. Disregard that. We know this stuff, and we will do the work
for you.” This was bureaucracy, partially. Most of those men were from KGB, and people
like his old assistant, Igor Sechin, that Putin used to talk about, saying that, “He
is as convenient as my old slippers.” Sechin was always there. He was always around. He was always ready with answers to any questions. Gradually that turned into a point of influence. MICHAEL KIRK - Can I ask you what Putin was
trying to do? Who was he trying to satisfy? Was it an image or reality, again, in what
happened at Beslan [school siege]? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - That’s a good question. All the years that I worked with Putin, both
president terms, especially during the first term, I have always been tense. There's been this tension because we tried
to do away with any incidents, anything unplanned, any situation where Putin could not cope with
it. This was a threat. We took care of his rating. His rating wasn’t extremely high from the
early days, but it got high, and it stayed at a level of about 40 percent at the beginning. Every day, and not just me, I would go to
bed, and I would wake up thinking, what should I do today to keep the rating up? The main enemy was Shamil Basayev, a Chechen
man who was a nominal separatist. But like [Osama] bin Laden, he had higher-level
goals that went beyond Chechnya. Chechnya was a tool for him. He wanted to turn the Moscow upside down like
bin Laden did not care about Afghanistan. He [bin Laden] used Afghanistan as an instrument. Basayev saw the end of the Soviet Union. Why wouldn’t the Russian Federation end
the same? Basayev played a game at the top level, and
when it became clear that Putin was the key symbol for the society, that he was in the
focal point for the society that didn’t want any politics, the society wanted Putin
to make all decisions, Basayev adopted the focal point of Putin, and Basayev started
fighting against Putin’s image, showing that Putin can't resolve problems. First it happened in Nord-Ost, when terrorists
attacked a theater in Moscow and a lot of people lost their lives. Then came Beslan. Basayev set up a performance there. Every day, children died. They did not feed them. They did not give them any water. And the plan was that Putin would either capitulate
or he would lose his image, his reputation. This was a serious crisis. This was a really serious crisis. It was solved in a very bad way. At that time, I didn’t think so, but now
I believe that this was a storm. They stormed the school using Russian forces. Russian forces shot the first round. This was a blow against Putin, after which
he became significantly more authoritarian. He became more focused on his personality. He canceled out governors’ elections after
Beslan and did other similar things. The year 2004 was a year of transition. Ukraine and Beslan, there was a connection. In Ukraine, Putin was extremely popular. He was more popular in the Ukraine than in
Russia. If he ran for presidency in Ukraine, he would
be elected immediately by huge majority. The Ukrainians did not want to go to war. Chechnya was a trauma for them. When they saw Beslan, they stopped thinking
so highly of Putin. So there's a connection. Following that, Putin started looking for
a different attitude and position toward the West, although the last warning that he gave
to the West was [Dmitry] Medvedev. When he left after the second term, he proposed
a liberal president. But this is a different story. MICHAEL KIRK - So after Beslan, do his numbers
go up among Russians? Do they support him more because they feel
the need for safety, part one? And part two, when he does away with the governors,
what is that a sign of? What is he saying about the way he is going
to run the country? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - In the days of Beslan, Putin’s
rating became unstable. We saw some fluctuations after Putin's strong
actions. It went up again. We saw that people became addicted. They were pathologically addicted to Putin. In case of any crisis, people would look up
to him. He had to help [them] get out of the bad situation. Basayev was wrong. His blows against Putin increased support
for the president. As to the system of power, after Beslan, the
Kremlin had full power. The government did not matter much any longer. This Kremlin, the power these days is always
in singular. It is not authorities; it’s the authority. There's one. There's only one. It doesn’t matter where it is. It belongs to the president. It comes from the president, flows out of
the president. So doing away with the election of governors
did not cause any shocks. It was not even irritating. Putin started appointing them. That idea that Putin could solve any problem
is the main myth that we have in our system today. When Putin is not coming up with any solutions,
it’s always other people, the myth is still the same. It’s Putin’s myth, and it’s popular
not only in Russia. There is a secret plan. Putin’s secret plan, secret desires, is
completely nonsense. But it does work. This myth works. Otherwise, people wouldn’t believe in this. MICHAEL KIRK - So when I look at the Munich
speech, knowing what you’ve just said to me, who is that Putin speaking like that,
and what is he saying to the world? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - The audience in Munich was
actually twofold. There were two parties, although it was not
announced. One Western European poll was surprised: How
dare he talk like that about America? In reality, the majority of the people there,
those who were silent, were pleased. They liked the fact that he gave this blow
on America's nose. They came to Putin, and they said: “Good
job. We’ve been waiting for somebody to say this.” So there was no single position, no single
attitude. This was strange that Russia, with its weak
economy, and at that time, it was quite pro-American, pro-American Russian spoke to America like
that. But this was a way to win leadership. One has to do one thing. In politics, either one shows his strength,
but then one has to have strength, or one has to break another man’s strength, which
is easier. It does not require this much strength. It has to be a demonstration. It has to be a demonstration, an insult of
something that nobody dared to touch. And Putin did it, and it worked. MICHAEL KIRK - Were you involved before he
went? Were there conversations about how he should
be and whether he should do it? Was he leading the idea of doing it, or were
people around him telling him to do it? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - At that time, I was a leader
in holding back the United States. I thought that the United States needed to
be constrained. And [Bush’s] willingness to go to war anywhere
was dangerous. We needed to do something to keep them at
a distance. We needed a deterrent I did not have anything
to do with that speech personally. But I was telling Putin, all the time, that
we are deterring the United States. Are we deterring them or not? Is this containment or not? And he was not willing to support that. He said that there is a certain element of
deterrence in that. He did not want to go very far. But when he came back from the last meeting
with President Bush—this may not have been the last meeting. This was the meeting when Bush had to go to
a NATO session, and in Moscow, they expected that NATO could accept Georgia and Ukraine. Then Putin said, if Ukraine is to join NATO,
it will join NATO without the Crimea. And when he came back from a meeting with
Bush, Putin started developing a plan for taking Crimea. It’s not that he did it personally, but
the chief of staff was given this task, and they developed a plan, and that plan stayed
in the safe box for seven years. MICHAEL KIRK - Is he feeling strong and in
charge after Munich? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - He was hesitating. Year 2007 was a difficult year for him. He had to make a decision. His presidency was coming to an end. He had to decide whether he would leave or
not. I was against that. At that time, I was thinking that it would
be better to go against the constitution, find some legal excuse, and have him stay. I thought that it was unthinkable to keep
going without him. He had been hesitating for a long time. He’d been hesitant for almost a full year,
until the end of the year. At first he thought that he would appoint
Sergey Ivanov to the president’s position. Then he came back to the idea of appointing
Mr. Medvedev. He was not very confident with regard to America. We have not faced financial crisis yet. America was very strong. For an American, this may sound funny, but
in Kremlin one could hear people say: “He is not going to go anywhere. Do you think Bush is going to leave after
the second term? No, he is not. He will never leave.” This was especially so between 2004, 2005. Then [came] a New Orleans story [Hurricane
Katrina] that was bad for Bush. But it was before the financial crisis still,
and America seemed to be extremely powerful. So Putin was waiting to see whether he would
be punished for this or not. MICHAEL KIRK - What did he think? Did you ever hear him talk about, or did you
know what others said about, what he thought of Obama and Hillary Clinton coming in? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - At that time, people in Kremlin
were sure that Obama would lose. A Negro could not become an American president. A black American president, this was impossible. Voters could applaud him, but when voters
would go to the polls, they would vote against. This was the main idea in the Kremlin. I wasn’t following American elections, but
we have been waiting for [Sen. John] McCain’s—I think it was McCain that ran against Obama. And this was already dangerous period. This was a period after the Georgian war. We were saved by the financial crisis. Lehman Brothers collapsed right on time for
Moscow. But Kremlin hackers did not have to deal with
that. MICHAEL KIRK - Not yet. GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Not yet. MICHAEL KIRK - So Bush or Obama and Clinton,
Hillary Clinton, they love the idea of Medvedev. They talk about the reset, what they called
the “reset.” How did Putin feel about that? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Putin made the first move. He proposed Medvedev as a candidate. This proposition was a proposition made to
the West. This was a proposition of detente. “Reset” was not a good word. Putin was proposing detente, and he proposed
to make agreements. It was a difficult choice for him to leave
president’s office. I didn’t want it, and I admired him doing
that. He deceived me completely at that exact moment,
because at that specific moment, I completely believed that he was a republican man, a man
of constitution. Reset, from our standpoint, was a response
to election of President Medvedev, but it was quite empty. There were no serious proposals after that. Obama was not very keen on doing something
with Russia. He was not very interested in Russia. This was just some symbolic activity, which
was understood immediately. Medvedev spoke, which was a coordinated decision,
coordinated with Putin. He spoke about building a Eurasian space,
a single space, which essentially meant that Russia could join NATO, which also was an
idea launched by Putin. But he didn’t even get a response to that. After that, Putin no longer paid attention
to Western proposals. He wasn’t interested. Obama, the first term of President Medvedev
and first presidential term of President Obama, were lost years for Russian-American relations. MICHAEL KIRK - When the switch happens back,
it’s right as the Arab Spring has been happening. There had been uprisings, as we know, in Egypt
and Tunisia, Syria, Libya. President Putin takes over, and there are
crowds, protests beginning, first I guess about the election, the Duma election, and
second about whatever they're about, about the switch with Medvedev. What did Putin expect, and how surprised was
he by the demonstrations? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - 2011 was an important year. I only saw the beginning of this year from
Kremlin. I left in April. I stopped working for the presidential administration
because of my attitude. I thought that it was quite impossible for
Putin to return to the office again. If he made a move, he cannot take it back. I didn't want his presidency to become a caricature
of itself. I had to leave. And I was watching the rest of it from the
outside. I think Putin broke Medvedev when he made
him do the switch. I'm sure that this was a psychological act
of violence. It’s even known when it happened. End of summer, they went to a fishing trip,
and Medvedev came back from that trip depressed, reserved, and he
started showing his weakness. He would fall asleep. He would fall asleep sitting in the front
row. This was a neurotic condition. He shouldn’t have done this deal. I think it was not only Putin; it was the
whole team around Putin that applied this pressure. They were playing the same game, and this
was the same team that they shared with Medvedev. Medvedev did not have his own team. That was his biggest problem: He was a man
without a team. This switch, when Medvedev said that the next
president would be Mr. Putin again, it created quite an outrage in the country. His ratings collapsed. The authorities’ ratings collapsed. Medvedev thought, for some reason, that people
would be happy if he stayed as a prime minister. After what he did, though, nobody wanted to
look in his direction. And in the parliamentary elections, people
started to protest. It happened mostly in capital cities, in Moscow
and in St. Petersburg. Russia stayed still back then. MICHAEL KIRK - So who is, in 2012, the new
president of Russia, Mr. Putin? How is he different than he was when he first
started back in 1999? In what way is that man different than the
first man? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Putin of 2012 was a collective
figure. This was not only one Putin. His return
was like a collective investment made by the people who surrounded him. For different reasons, they needed him in
the president’s seat. Putin, after he returned, was no longer just
an individual. He was the name of a team, of a group of people. And one has to understand this. He even started acting differently. What shocked all of us was that when he returned,
he started looking for enemies in the country. He was looking for a split among different
groups. This was strange. When Putin ran in the elections, the problem
was over. Nobody wanted Medvedev anymore, and certainly
no other candidates that also ran. People who wanted to point a finger at Putin
voted for Prokhorov. He [Putin] had no enemies. There was no one who could act in a consolidated
way after the elections he could bring everyone together. He didn’t do that. He did exactly the opposite. He started creating conflicts—this case
of Pussy Riot; a conflict that had to do with the prohibition to adopt Russian children
by American citizens after Magnitsky Act. Every time he demanded that the parliament
takes decisions by a unanimous vote, this was a different Putin then. This was a Putin without a self-confidence,
a Putin who suffered from trauma. For a long time, he thought that there was
a conspiracy by Medvedev, and he was looking for proof of that conspiracy. Medvedev within that deal, he had appointed
him to the position of a prime minister. But Putin kept looking for a conspiracy. And he thought that those demonstrations were
organized by Medvedev. He truly believed that. This went on for three years. At that time, Putin ignored Medvedev, and
he hurt him. He insulted him in a number of ways. But then he didn’t find anything, and he
realized that there was no conspiracy, and he gave his forgiveness. Now he feels good about him again. This behavior is not what is typical of the
earlier Putin. I think he is having problems with the power. He feels that he
is between the mere circle of his supporters and the population of the country. The economy was suffering. It was declining. We have had a recession after 2013. People’s incomes were no longer growing. Medvedev was the prime minister, but politically,
he is no one. Putin started looking for his new place, and
it turns out that he has to be a czar. But he doesn’t want to be a czar. And he starts teaching the country. He acts as a professor, as a lecturer. He keeps explaining to us what Russian history
was like, what values we have, what we should believe in. This is so much unlike Putin of 17 years ago
that sometimes I get the impression that it’s a different man. But it’s the same man. Today he feels that, at the same time he is
a loner, he stands above everyone else in the country. He is a single man who knows what the country
needs. And at the same time, he is not capable of
getting there. He feels powerless. He cannot make this machinery work, because
he did not build a good system of management and a good system of control. And the friends around him are not managers. This is a joint stock company that uses the
Russian budget. MICHAEL KIRK - You talked about how he believed
Medvedev was responsible for the protests. He also, I think, blamed Hillary Clinton and
America for agitating, yes? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - Putin thought that there
was an international conspiracy, not just inside Russia. He thought that Medvedev was somehow connected
to Americans. I don’t know how he pictured that, but they
give him various files from FSB, from the intelligence service, with all kinds of fiction
stuff. How can he verify those pieces of information? I think it’s very difficult to cast those
things. The press is excluded from the political process. Nothing becomes public. Most importantly, Putin does not believe anything
that they write in the press, so he has to believe in what they put on the table in front
of him. So there's maximum level of censorship that
we see. It takes place in Kremlin. It hits Kremlin. They have an amazing idea of Europe and then
about many things happening in the country as well. But there's a thing known as luck. Putin is a lucky man. He feels that he is a player, and he is lucky. He just doesn’t know how to stand up from
a table. He would delay this moment. You see, this is very typical of Putin, and
this is also very typical of the system that has taken shape at Yeltsin’s time. We don’t have institutions that would act
in a regular way. We don’t have bureaucracy that would perform
its role. Our system keeps jumping. If it cannot address a challenge, it walks
away from it. And it walks away to a place where it can
simulate force. If it cannot address a problem in the Ukraine,
it goes to Syria. If it cannot solve a problem in Syria, it
starts making an impression that it is affecting elections in the United States and France
and Germany. This is similar to the old technique of Potemkin
villages. However, this is the kind of 3-D Potemkin
village. It’s a flexible, agile Potemkin village,
which mobilizes resources to throw them at the right moment, to present a bright picture,
a global picture if possible. Putin feels that he is a global figure, not
just a Russian figure. He feels that he is one of the world leaders. This is important for him. So today he deals more with Syria and the
United States and Germany than he deals with Russia. Our TV does not give you much understanding
of what's happening in Russia. You keep watching all kinds of documentaries
and series on the Ukraine, on the Middle East, on America, on Trump, and this thing or that. MICHAEL KIRK - So you once said you could
play the media; you could play whatever for him. Who is playing it now for him? Is he playing it himself? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - When we were building this
system of mass media management for the Kremlin, when we were setting up this system of information
policy, the Kremlin was weak. We were building a stick that they could rest
upon or a wheelchair that they could ride in. Yeltsin’s Kremlin was weak. There was always a threat, and they had to
maneuver. The mass media was a way to make up for this
weakness. That’s why I'm talking about a stick or
a wheelchair. Then, when we won the elections, we thought
that we could make this a permanent system. I participated in that for a long time. Putin, by the way, promised that he would
not touch the Internet. And indeed, for 10 years, he has not touched
the Internet. We had the most liberal Internet regime, more
liberal than in the United States, because there were no lawsuits at all with regard
to what was happening on the Web. Now it’s no longer the case. Today, today the mass media is—the central
power as FSB or investigation committee, they are not getting directives from Putin. They are not told what to say. They make up their plans, but they know in
which direction to move. They know they have multiple meetings with
members of presidential administration. They have weekly meetings, and oftentimes,
they meet more often than that. Hence, all TV channels get general political
instructions for the coming week. But then they make up their plots. They cannot say that it’s not our fault. We have been given an instruction. They make fake videos. They make fake news, talk about things that
do not exist. And they do it like they did in the naive
1990s, when oligarchs owned TV stations, and in the evening news, everything was endorsed
and approved over a bottle of whiskey. They would pull up a bottle of whiskey, two
or three glasses. They drank that bottle as they discussed the
main news for the night. At that time it was not so dangerous, because
this was not done by the highest level in the government. It was not consumed by the government. Today TV stations know who they should not
talk about. They know what to say about various people. If you look at it prior to all elections in
the West, if you look at our TV programs, you will see who Putin wants to back. This is a flexible system. … MICHAEL KIRK - So information war, lots of
control of media, the Internet happening, motivation by President Putin, doesn’t like
Hillary Clinton, doesn’t like the United States of America, doesn’t like Europe. Feels that they're all kind of after him. Turns also the troll factories, the cyberwar
elements of the military and others, to what some people call the Gerasimov Strategy of
hybrid war, all of it available to the president. Does he use it on the United States in the
2016 election campaign? GLEB PAVLOVSKY - I think the latter is quite
unprobable. Putin would not throw too many resources,
throw too much strength at this questionable game where he does not see an opportunity
of winning. He has not thought that American system was
especially vulnerable. I think it’s more likely that hackers kept
talking and showing that this was not a wall, that there are no more walls in the world;
there are no more borders in the world. Putin did not believe in that for a long time. For sure he has allowed something to be done. He most probably thought that Clinton would
be the winning candidate, and he tried to build his propaganda accordingly. Why not help her adversaries? They will be helpful most probably if he gives
them a helping hand. … It’s really difficult to understand
what was the level of Putin’s involvement or blessing in that. After November, after Trump was elected, the
situation changed. Now Putin understands, or he believed at least,
that he was strong. I don’t know who believed in America that
Putin elected Trump, but Putin believed that. Putin believed that, and that has become a
political factor. So now I think there would be some work done,
and there would be some money spent. What happened in France is not very impressive. It tells us that Moscow doesn’t really understand
how Europe is built. I think we will have another revelation of
lack of understanding of the way Germany works. But we’ll make efforts, always. Even in Montenegro, they had this comic attempt
at a coup, O. Henry-style. Putin is going to move in that direction,
I'm sure, because he trusts the tips from his fate. Trump got elected. There we go. Everybody was saying that he wouldn’t be
elected, but he was. Everybody was saying that there would be no
Brexit, and it happened. So now, from his standpoint, his mindset is
super-competent. He feels that he is super-knowledgeable. He has insight. He always guessed that all this glamorous
picture of powerful West was a Potemkin’s village, that this was another conspiracy
against himself, that this was just a play. And now it turns out to be true. It’s a play. Now, if that’s a play, we are going to put
up another play. That’s how he thinks.
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