Putin, Russia and the West (2011): Season 1, Episode 1 - Taking Control - full transcript

SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN

CHANTING

For over a decade,

Vladimir Putin has been
the undisputed master of Russia.

But after claims he fixed
parliamentary elections,

tens of thousands of middle class
Russians took to the streets,

demanding his resignation.

They put on a symbol of protest -

white ribbons.

Putin has announced his intention

to remain in charge
for at least six more years.



This is the story of how
he dominated Russia,

tried to dominate its neighbours,
and how the West dealt with him.

It began in 1999.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin
was desperate to fill a key post.

His eyes fell
on his intelligence chief.

Four months after he was
appointed Prime Minister,

Vladimir Putin was summoned
by President Yeltsin.

It was a few days
before the millennium new year.

As soon as Yeltsin resigned,
Putin became President.

He set out to restore
Russia as a great power.

It made the world uneasy about him
and his country.

He spent his first night as
President with the front-line troops

fighting to reverse Russia's
humiliation in Chechnya.

EXPLOSIONS AND GUNFIRE



By the time Putin
was elected President,

Russia's forces in Chechnya
had pushed the rebel fighters
into the mountains.

The mountain village of Shatoy was
one of the last rebel strongholds.

Putin's triumph
boosted his popularity.

But in Moscow, he could not be
an effective President

while the government
remained a mess.

It regularly went broke,
failed to provide basic services,

and had to be bailed out
by billionaire oligarchs.

Putin appointed a new prime minister

and told him they must finally
tackle Russia's biggest problem.

The first step was to get Russians
to pay their income tax.

So Putin's ministers proposed
a massive cut,

to just 13% for all, even the rich.

The Prime Minister himself
was worried.

Putin knew that his reforms
could not work

unless he faced down Russia's
business elite, the oligarchs.

The oligarchs were used to
popping into the Kremlin

to twist government policies.

The oligarchs who wielded most
political power were media barons.

In Putin's first month, one,
Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested.

Gusinsky was released

only after he agreed
to sell his television network

to a state-owned company
and leave Russia.

It was the first step to Putin's
taking control of Russian TV.

Then Putin called the other leading
oligarchs to the Kremlin.

This meeting would radically change
the rules of the game

for the oligarchs.

These men had won
the decade-long struggle
for Russia's natural resources.

On the left, the CEO of Gazprom,
the world's largest gas company.

The boss of Russia's biggest
oil company is next to him.

These three made their fortunes
in advertising, aluminium and oil.

This man controlled the largest
nickel company in the world.

The leading bankers were there.

So too was the owner of Russia's
fastest growing oil company,

Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

He told what happened
right afterwards.

But everybody there knew
Putin had just stripped
one oligarch of his business

and forced him into exile.

The oligarchs had, Putin thought,
been cut out of politics.

Now he faced an even more
powerful opponent -

America's new president.

The challenge came soon after
George W Bush was inaugurated.

The Cold War was over
but distrust still lingered.

Both sides maintained
huge nuclear arsenals.

Agents lurked
in both countries' embassies.

There was an agreement
between the sides over the years

that you could have so many people
within each other's country

who were essentially spies,
they were intelligence people.

But gentlemen
understand these things

and as long as it was within limits
then it was accepted.

But the Russians had been,
shall we say, ignoring the rules

and they'd been adding
more and more people.

The FBI asked the new Secretary Of
State to expel 50 Russian diplomats.

He made an appointment
with the Russian Ambassador.

He came in just for a courtesy call.

We drink a little tea,
we shake hands, we, you know,

we have a nice conversation.
"Dobre", "How are you?", "Spasibo" -

all the nice courtesy words
that are used between Russian

and Americans, and instead
he walked out with a problem.

A major problem.

The Ambassador took away
a list of Russians to be expelled.

Then the Secretary Of State
tried to limit the damage.

He said, "Are you
really going to do this?

"Is this how you want to
start out a relationship?"

I said, "Yes, we're going to do
this,

"and we have to have a relationship
that's based on trust."

Powell expected the Russians to
expel an equal number of American
spies - and that would be that.

But he hadn't reckoned
with the secretary of
Russia's National Security Council,

like Putin, ex-KGB.

The Russians
carried out their threat.

The Americans feared it would
derail the President's big idea.

They wanted a missile defence shield

to protect America from
nuclear attack by rogue states -

like North Korea or Iran.

But this was banned by
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,

signed when Russia
and America faced each other

as enemies in the Cold War.

Russia and the United States

should work together to develop
a new foundation for world peace

and security in the 21st century.

We should leave behind
the constraints of an ABM Treaty

that perpetuates a relationship
based on distrust

and mutual vulnerability.

President Bush sent me to Russia.

The conventional
wisdom of the nuclear priesthood

was that Russians would never
go along with this issue.

We made the case to the Russians
that missile defences

were not about defending Russia
against the United States

or the United States against Russia

but defending both of our
populations against third countries.

We got a fairly chilly reception.

The Russian side have raised some
serious and important questions.

We began to give them some answers
to those questions. We've done a lot
of thinking about this subject.

We'll obviously have some more
thinking to do.

'The message we brought back
to President Bush'

was that if this was going to
be done,

it was going to have to be done
top-down.

He was going to have to do it
with President Putin.

The highlight of George Bush's first
presidential trip to Europe

was another first - a summit meeting
with Putin, at a castle in Slovenia.

Then they go off to be by themselves

while the rest of our delegations
are busy sitting around

pretending to have a conference
and discussing vital issues,

but we're all just sitting there
tapping our thumbs

and our fingers on the table,
wondering what these fellows
are doing.

Only the translators and the two
national security advisors
stayed with the presidents.

After the initial pleasantries,
Putin delivered a prophetic warning.

Putin turned quite, er,
dramatically to Pakistan,

accusing the Pakistanis, saying it
wasn't just that they supported
the Taliban, but in fact they were

feeding extremists into Afghanistan

and they were a lot of the problem.

And basically saying this is going
to explode, on your watch.

The warning fell on deaf ears.

Instead, President Bush pitched
his idea to Putin

that the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty had outlived its usefulness.

Despite being rebuffed,
President Bush was keen to show
the meeting had been a success.

Question to President Bush, is this
a man that Americans can trust?

That's one of those trap questions

that when you're the Staff person,
you think, "Oh my goodness,
I wish we'd gone over that".

If the President says, "No, I don't
trust him", then the relationship's
off to a very bad start

and if he says, "Yes, I do
trust him", then people think,
"Oh, well, that's naive".

I'll answer the question.

I looked the man in the eye -
I found him to be very
straightforward and trustworthy.

We had a very good dialogue.

I was able to, um...

..get a sense of his soul.

(Good job.) Thank you. Good job.

For me, as a rather practical guy
and a soldier,

I was taken aback
a little bit by it.

And thought perhaps he shouldn't
have gone that far.

And in fact, I said to him later,

"Well, you know, you may have
seen all that, but I still look
in his eyes and I see KGB."

Remember, there's a reason he's
fluent in German!

He used to be the resident in
Germany and he is a chief KGB guy.

Putin had BEEN KGB, but by now he
had turned his back on communism.

In Moscow, he took on
the Communists.

He proposed a law to legalise
the right to buy and sell land,

something the Communists
had been fighting for years.

THEY CHANT

Russian parliamentary rules
require the minister responsible

to read out a bill
before it is voted on.

This gave the Communist members of
parliament their moment.

Putin's reforms began to work.

For the first time since
the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Russia had a budget surplus.

Wages and pensions began to be paid
regularly.

But Russia was still far from
its former superpower status.

Then came 9/11.

In the White House bunker,
Bush's national security team

put America's military
on a high state of alert.

We're going to go to DEFCON 3.

Everyone had always feared
the so-called spiral of alerts.

We go to an alert level,
the Russians follow

and pretty soon everybody's
at a very high level of alert

and that can be very dangerous.

And so, erm, I thought to myself
I'd better get a hold of
the Russians and let them know.

I remember President Putin saying,
"We know that your forces
are going up on alert,"

and it occurred to me
of COURSE they know, they're
watching our forces go on alert.

He said, "We are bringing ours down,
we're cancelling all exercises."

And at that moment I thought to
myself, "You know, the Cold War
is really over."

Russia now faced
a difficult decision.

NATO was going to attack
Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

But NATO had no military bases
close enough.

The former Soviet republics
in Central Asia did.

We were going to need Russian help.

It was good for Russia to give
a signal to the Central Asians that

American basing out of, say,
Uzbekistan or, Kyrgyzstan
would not be a problem.

But it was a problem
for Sergei Ivanov,

recently promoted
to Minister of Defence.

For half a century,
Russia had kept America out.

Now the Americans were asking
to be invited in.

Putin gathered his
national security team.

Putin then offered them
the clinching argument.

Thus, Putin opened the door
to a remarkable period of
cooperation with the West.

Putin had helped the West -

now he wanted to know
what he could get in return.

He travelled to the headquarters
of NATO,

the alliance that for 40 years had
kept Russia out of Western Europe.

In the grandeur of the
Palais d'Egmont,

Putin opened the meeting by saying,
"Well, when are you going to invite

"Russia to join NATO?" And I said,

"Well, you know - that's a fairly
blunt start to the meeting."

Putin knew that the idea of
Russia in NATO

would outrage hardliners
in Washington...and Moscow.

And I said, "Well, Mr President..."

I said, "We don't invite people to
join NATO. You apply for
membership."

So he sort of shrugged and said,
"Well, Russia is not going to

"stand in a queue with a lot of
countries that don't matter."

The limits of the relationship
were now clear.

Russia and the West were allies
only when it suited them.

So despite Russia's help in the war
on terror, the US went ahead
with its missile defence plans.

Colin Powell flew to Moscow to
announce that America was tearing up
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Putin looked at me
with those steely eyes

of his and he started to complain...

"This is terrible - you are kicking
out the legs from under
the strategic stability

"and we will criticise you."

And I said, "I fully understand
that, Mr President."

And then he, he broke into a smile

and I'll never forget it,
he leaned forward to me and he said,

'Ah, good - now we won't have to
talk about THIS any more.

"Now, you and Igor get busy
on a new strategic framework."

And I said, "Yes, Sir."

MUSIC: "Dance Of The Sugar Plum
Fairy" from The Nutcracker

In less than six months,
President Bush was in the Kremlin.

He had come to sign a treaty
that cut US and Russian offensive
nuclear weapons by about a third.

Then, Putin took his American guests

to a command ballet performance -
The Nutcracker.

I thought, "It's summertime -
why are we seeing The Nutcracker?"

It turns out we share
a love of ballet,

but a dislike of classical ballet.

And so he said, "Wouldn't you rather
go to see Eifman instead?"

We snuck out and went to
the Eifman studios.

We did take Rushailo, the National
Security Adviser with us,

however I don't think
he likes ballet of any kind.

And then before the lights came up,
we snuck back in.

I came to...trust that
Sergei Ivanov was someone

who was going to deliver
on what he set to do

and I think he believed
the same about me.

Personal relationships do matter.

You speak very good English!

Hey, there. Nice to meet you.

A few days after the Bushes
and the Putins wandered through
the Kremlin,

Russian soldiers in Chechnya carried
out a routine raid on a village.

Eight years later,
this young man's remains
were dug up at a Russian base.

He'd been shot twice in the head.

Russia's overwhelming force drove
the Chechens to suicide bombings
and terror attacks.

In Moscow that autumn,
a musical called Nord Ost was one
of the hottest tickets in town.

Then the war in Chechnya
came to the theatre.

GUNSHOTS

Some 40 Chechens, men and women,

armed with bombs and suicide belts,
took over 800 theatre-goers hostage.

They said they would kill them

if Putin did not withdraw
Russian troops from Chechnya.

Chechens had carried out
mass hostage-takings before -

and the Kremlin had tried
to negotiate.

Putin gathered his closest
advisors.

Putin had been scheduled to leave
for a summit in Mexico. Instead,

he sent his cautious Prime Minister.

The stand-off in the theatre
lasted two days.

Putin then let loose
the special forces.

They pumped a narcotic gas
into the theatre
that knocked everybody out.

EXPLOSIONS AND GUNFIRE

The doctors on the scene
couldn't revive the hostages

because the secret services
wouldn't tell them

what gas they had used...

so 129 theatre-goers died.

All the Chechens were shot.

The United States, since 9/11,
backed Putin over Chechnya.

President Bush spoke out
very clearly that this had
been a terrorist incident.

And President Putin really did
appreciate, from 2001 on,

that the United States
saw the terrorism that they
were experiencing

and the terrorism that
we were experiencing as linked.

This alliance was soon
put to the test over Iraq.

The US sought support to take the
war on terror to a new battleground.

I thought that in making that case
to the Russians,

they might not in fact join in
any kind of military effort,

I thought that was well beyond
the pale, er,

but that they wouldn't really oppose
a military effort either.

A new UN resolution justifying
an attack on Iraq was coming up.

Germany and France, firm opponents
of the war on the Security Council,

also decided to seek
Russian support.

Putin visited both countries.

Putin said he was happy to make
common cause with the Chancellor,

but he worried that France's
President Chirac
would not stand firm.

Schroeder phoned Paris.

When Putin had visited Paris before,

Chirac had sent an official
to meet him at the airport.

But now the French President
turned on all his charm.

BRASS BAND PLAYS

Putin wanted Chirac's word that
he would vote against the war

unless there was hard evidence
that Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction.

The two presidents walked out
and buried America's chances
of getting UN approval.

And at that point, we knew
our efforts were...had failed.

We didn't much like the spectacle
of America's closest allies, er,

standing with the Russians
on a security interest
of interest to the United States.

The war Putin opposed was soon
helping to make Russia rich.

The price of oil steadily increased.

Russians who'd grown up in Soviet
poverty learned to love their bling.

Putin decided to seize a share
for the state - via a huge tax
on oil exports.

This started a battle between Putin
and Russia's richest man,
oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

It became a war over democracy.

The night before the vote
on the bill to raise oil tax,

an executive from Yukos Oil
called on the Minister in charge.

The next morning in parliament, the
government withdrew its tax bill.

But tax wasn't the only way for
Putin to get at the oil wealth.

A small oil company owned
by the state, Rosneft,

began to buy up oil fields.

It outbid the private companies
so massively that it led to

the allegation that its officials
were stealing money from the state.

Khodorkovsky complained to Putin

about what he thought
Rosneft was up to.

Khodorkovsky prepared a presentation
on how corruption was spreading -

even into the Kremlin.

What followed started
a political conflict

that divides Russia to this day.

Khodorkovsky's presentation
was to be televised.

He cleared what he would say

with both the Kremlin chief of staff
and the Prime Minister.

It was a tough presentation,

but nothing that Putin
himself hadn't said.

Then Khodorkovsky went after one
of Putin's closest Kremlin aides.

Rosneft had done this deal with the
blessing of an old friend of Putin's

at the KGB, now his
deputy chief of staff.

A few weeks later,
Khodorkovsky's oldest friend

got some disturbing
news from a contact

in Russia's intelligence service.

Putin issued a thinly-veiled
threat to Khodorkovsky

not to challenge him politically.

Khodorkovsky knew he was vulnerable.

He had built his company in the
1990s, when Russian business law

was in its infancy.

Five months after the public
confrontation with Putin,

one of Khodorkovsky's
inner-circle was arrested

for a deal they did
back in the 1990s.

Nevzlin left Russia.
Khodorkovsky stayed and fought.

With parliamentary
elections approaching,

he bought a publishing house, poured
money into the opposition parties,

and spent most of his time promoting
democracy through his foundation,
Open Russia.

But within a month, eight more of
Khodorkovsky's people were arrested.

To protect the company,
he decided to merge it

with the American
oil giant Exxon Mobil.

The head of Exxon Mobil
came to Moscow.

He told Putin about his plans.

Within hours,
the police raided Yukos,

seizing tax records
going back a decade.

Khodorkovsky's friends
advised him to flee.

Instead, he set off on a trip around
Russia, campaigning for democracy.

While Khodorkovsky was on the road,

his deputy was called by a contact
in the prosecutor's office.

A few hours later,
Khodorkovsky was arrested.

Yukos was broken up.
Its assets were seized

and transferred to
the state oil company.

Khodorkovsky remains in prison,
a symbol, to many Russians

and to the West, of Putin's
indifference to the rule of law.

Now Putin was the
unchallenged master of a stronger

and less democratic Russia.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd