PUTINCON: POST-WESTERN WORLD ORDER, PART TWO
THE CORONATION IS TODAY
This is Part 2 of the report. For Part 1, click here.
JAMES KIRCHICK
James Kirchick, the author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, The Daily Beast correspondent and Tablet Magazine columnist, followed up with the same dark message:
“Putin is waging a war on the Western democracies.”
and took it a step further:
“The Russians want to install post-Western world order, in the words of Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister.”
For this world order, the Kremlin needs a weakened, divided West.
In order to reach such division, the Kremlin uses covert means like troll factories, election fraud, and overt means like funding separatists and oppositional groups, covering the whole specter from radical left to ultra-right, to corrode liberal democracies. It meddles in elections and installs puppet governments. It uses violence in Eastern Europe. It cheats and sows confusion in the West.
The Kremlin uses propaganda networks like RT (formerly Russia Today,) Sputnik, etc, to disseminate disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Kirchick has a first-hand RT experience: a leading voice on American gay politics and international gay rights, he was kicked off RT after protesting the Putin regime’s anti-gay policies in a live broadcast. The anchor grimaced in vain; the video became an internet hit.
Traditional warfare means are also used: defense expenditures have increased twenty times during Putin’s reign and military training end up with simulated nuclear tests.
MOLLY MCKEW
The following presentation proceeded to depict this “brave new world” and it blew my mind. The subject was only way too familiar to me. I teach seminars on the Russian cyberwar and propaganda and write articles on the subject as I had to study combat propaganda at the same school as Putin, Sechin, Dmitry Kiselev and Olgino trolls. But Molly McKew, a writer and an expert on information warfare, currently serving as the narrative architect at New Media Frontier, a social media intelligence company, took it to the whole new level and gave it multiple dimensions with the vocabulary that brings to mind sci-fi like Inception and Blade Runner, and, yes, Huxley and Orwell.
I will have to watch her presentation again.
“It is the age of cynicism and the Russians are leading,” said McKew.
She spoke of the hybrid war vs actual war; of the pollution of information; decision-making process of humans and machines; digital illegals and dual identity of villain and hero mentality. Philosophy, ethics and cybersecurity mixed in the way almost surreal and I was not surprised to see Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s ideologist, being mentioned. I was relieved: McKew has the expertise and the breakthrough mentality we need to confront this attack.
The main message, the way I take it, is that we must start thinking outside the box and study the methods used against us, no matter how morally and ethically wrong they are.
I am quoting some of her tweets below:
- Russia uses hybrid means to achieve political, economic, and military goals.
- Hybrid warfare is aiming at… eroding our will to fight, our psychological defenses, to the alter perception of ourselves.
- “The Kremlin wants to show that democracy is just as corrupt as Putinism.”
- The Kremlin’s hybrid warfare… is advancing a worldview that is cynical and atomized–and surprisingly effective–in an environment of eroding belief in the ability of democracies to deliver to their own people.
- Neither Russia nor the West has confronted Russia’s history.
- Russians have no idea of the truth of their last century: Who they are, who their families were; whether they were victims or villains and how that separates or connects them to rest of the world.
- We have not confronted Russia’s history either. We’re not good at admitting everything we’ve done since USSR collapse as penance for leaving millions of people enslaved as Soviets for 50 years. We never apologized for pretending we knew nothing of GULAG and famines.
- In USSR, prisoners were never liberated. Prisoners were let out, made their way home, told not to bring it up again. Then it all collapsed and everyone moved on. There was never the moral clarity of victor over the oppressor. It has allowed Putin to rewrite history.
- The Kremlin uses on its external opponents what it uses on its own people first. Maybe the worst part of the future of hybrid warfare will be looking inward, as Putin engineers whatever comes next in Russia.
LUKE HARDING
Luke Harding is a senior international correspondent for The Guardian, and the Collusion, a former Moscow bureau chief, who was denied re-entry into Russia after he wrote a piece about Putin’s wealth and his connection to the assassination of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko.
Collusion is my favorite book on what happened in the US recently. I have done a lot of investigative journalism so I recognized many details of the clandestine deals described by Harding and admired his talent to tie it up in the concise and clear form and language.
Harding chose to speak about the chemical attack in Salisbury and showed that the poisoning of the ex-spy Sergey Skripal was a non-verbal message to the UK and Russia. It showed that Russia is under siege by the West which helps Putin’s position right before the election and warns any Russians who are considering cooperation with the collusion investigation. It also shows that they can reach you and your family anywhere. I have recorded his presentations so you can hear it right here.
*I spent the next session interviewing Evgeni Kiselev (the interview is forthcoming) so, sadly, I missed several great presentations on Putin’s wars.
PUTIN’S ACCOMPLICES
The following part of the conference focused on Putin’s accomplices in Russia, Eastern and Western Europe and, mentioned way to briefly, the US. It was a powerful succession of the evidence-packed and passionate statements.
Bribes, personal favors, blackmail, threats and murder are all signature tactics of the KGB/FSB. Putin recruited his allies the way he recruited foreign persons of influence while working for the KGB in Germany in 1980s’.
Thus, corruption becomes yet another weapon in a hybrid war. Consequently, addressing corruption is one of the most critical tasks for liberal democracies. Enter Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, known as a “crusader” prosecutor and, according to the NYT, one of “the nation’s most aggressive and outspoken prosecutors of public corruption and Wall Street crime.”
PREET BHARARA
During his time as U.S. attorney, Bharara investigated money laundering schemes carried out in New York City by Russian criminal organizations linked to the Kremlin, and prosecuted spies with ties to Russia’s foreign intelligence service, SVR, as well as bringing criminal cases against the bosses of the Gambino crime family, Colombo crime family and Asian gangs in NYC.
“You can judge people by their enemies. I was banned by the Turkish president Erdogan, banned from entering Russia by Putin and by fired by Trump,” said Bharara. He proceeded to describe his lifetime career of fighting corruption domestically and internationally. His message came across is straight-forward and forceful in its simplicity.
No one is above the law. Money laundering is a serious crime. When a head of state is a money launderer, America must take it seriously.
And, “What will it take for President Trump to care about our democracy as much as the average American?” asked Bharara.
BORIS REISCHUSTER
Boris Reischuster, a German journalist and author of Putin’s Hidden War, a frequent commentator on Russian-German affairs and yet another journalist who had to leave his Moscow post after death threats and provocations, made a hilarious presentation of Putin’s corruption techniques as applied to the leading Western politicians.
He started with the concept of “schroderization” — actually, a word in the Russian dictionary — derived from the name of Germany ex-counselor Gerhard Schroder, Putin’s best pal and presently an executive of the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft.
“America, you have your own Schroeder,” added Reischuster who had the charisma of a standup comedian and killer visuals, “but we are not going to deal with it here and now; I will let you deal with it.”
Indeed, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is known as Putin’s favorite Congressman, but I will go further and say that our “schroderization” goes much deeper than this. We have Donald Trump in the White House. In the words of Reischuster, “America, I will let you deal with it.”
To quote one of the PutinCon attendees, Alexandra Chalupa, an American political strategist and human rights advocate: “ While there was little mention of Donald Trump, his presence was felt throughout the event. When Putin’s censorship, intimidation, murder, and silencing of journalists and opposition leaders was discussed, it was hard not to think of Trump’s praise of Putin as a “strong leader” and how he too has tried to censor and silence the media and opponents in his own ways, as we’ve seen with his “fake news” branding of press, and most recently with the firing of 21-year FBI veteran Andrew McCabe 48 hours before his retirement.”
Reischuster then brought up other Western leaders in Putin’s pocket.
“If I were to mention all Putin’s accomplices in Europe, we would sit here all day…”
“As for Germany, Putin already won Germany. He has five or six parties supporting him already. He didn’t need to meddle in the election. In Dugin’s terms, it is called “Finlandization.”
Indeed, “finlandization” is yet another new word in a Russian dictionary and a term often used by Alexander Dugin, the Kremlin chief ideologist aka “Putin’s brain.” Finland, like Estonia, is a country that happens to be located right next to Russia and be much smaller in size. “Finladization” is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country abide by the former’s foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system. In other words, smaller European countries become parts of the Great Russian Empire — pretty much the essence of the “post-Western world order,” previously mentioned by James Kirchick and Molly McKew.
Reischuster then brought up Dugin’s sponsor, Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin. I loved his presentation because it connected the ideology (or, rather, a weak attempt to pretend that there is an ideology behind the greed of the aggressor, simulacrum of ideology), political machinations and money. I have been writing and teaching about Dugin-Malofeev tandem for a while. Interestingly, Malofeev’s TV channel and Dugin’s website both covered infamous Carter Page’s visit to Moscow in December 2016. Finlandization, anyone?
After a break, there were three attempts to play a video-recorded message by Alexei Navalny, a courageous Russian opposition leader and an anti-corruption campaigner who was not allowed to run in the presidential election of 2018. There were glitches and echoes, and people in the audience joked, “Russian hackers!” The joke came across as bittersweet — not that speaking of tasting substances sounded tempting under the circumstances.
ALEXEI NAVALNY
Navalny’s message was simple:
- You can lie to people for a long time but not forever. History is on our side.
- The corruption in Russia propels the Russian external aggression.
- A practical advice for the West: to stop Putin, go after Putin’s kleptocratic allies.
NIKITA KULACHENKOV
Nikita Kulachenkov, a forensic accountant and political activist fighting against corruption in the Russian government, has also served as a principal investigator at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Moscow and founded by Alexei Navalny. His presentation, called Vladimir Putin’s Business Accomplices, felt like a logical progression to Bharara, Reischuster and Navalny’s messages, and started provocatively:
“Putin has never been in business.”
He then ventured on a head-spinning career tours of a few prominent Russian oligarchs: Oleg Deripaska, Igor Sechin, and Alisher Usmanov. As I did a year of an open-source research on the Russian oligarchs, I couldn’t approve of this selection more. All three have influenced the current political situation in the US. As Kulachenkov showed, all three serve the Kremlin and Putin.
Let me explain here what he means: In the mafia state all businesses and corporations are managed by krysha (a criminal slang term, once explained by Russian multi-billionaire Roman Abramovich in London’s High Court as follows: physical protection necessary as anyone with a business capable of generating strong cash flow is vulnerable to criminal interference, including potential violence or, in other words, a relationship with someone who could use his political connections to solve certain problems and get compensated for his efforts.) Read this again if needed because this concept is critical for understanding the main idea of Kulachenkov’s presentation — and of PutinCon.
Putin and the FSB provide krysha for all Russian oligarchs.
“Deripaska is clearly serving political and personal needs of Putin because when he was in trouble the regime helped him out… Who is the boss of Mr. Deripaska? The escort ladies on the yacht noticed that Mr. Deripaska is treating the Deputy Prime Minister as his boss… this is because Deripaska doesn’t own his business,” said Kulachenkov.
Igor Sechin is considered almost as powerful as Putin himself. As the most of Putin’s closest environment, Sechin is from St.Petersburg. (I shudder as this is my hometown; furthermore, both studied at my alma mater and Sechin attended the same faculty. Not proud.) “There is a famous early picture: Sechin is carrying Putin’s suitcase, as both are moving to Moscow. Later, Sechin made a really successful career becoming the CEO of Rosneft. He is one of the highly compensated executives in the world even though Rosneft is not doing well; it is in debt.”
Alisher Usmanov’s wife was a gymnastics trainer of Putin’s mistress (a gymnast.) Coincidentally, Usmanov used Gazprom money to grow his empire; part of if was invested in Facebook and Twitter.
These personal ties and soap opera worthy details are not meant to provide a cheap thrill. It is critical to understand the family-like connections between Putin and his “business” accomplices.
Most importantly: Russian oligarchs do not own their fortunes. They can’t hide their money. They need status quo and will fight for it, using the mafia methods.
The good news, as Navalny said, the West can “go after”these individuals to get to Putin. As several speakers have suggested, the effective measures could include:
- freezing their assets and bank accounts
- banning entry visas
- vetoing their families to attend educational institutions
- banning them to own property in the West.
OLGA LITVINENKO
Olga Litvinenko, a politician who served in the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg from 2007 to 2011 and an estranged daughter of Putin’s ally and long-time friend, delivered, perhaps, the most emotionally charged presentation. She confronted the generation of her father with a long list of crimes. As someone who started a career in Leningrad in 90s, I could not only say that all she said was true. Making this report takes an enormous amount of courage as many people with access to similar facts were killed and their murderers were never found.
One of them was Marina Salie, a People Deputy, who started a committee, akin to a special counsel, to investigate Putin’s thefts of raw materials intended for food barter in St. Petersburg in 1991. I can attest to Litvinenko’s words with personal stories: In 1995, I briefly worked for a known Leningrad oligarch Ilya Baskin, an accomplice in this theft, and my neighbor and a family friend was on Salie’s committee. This investigation was buried. Putin moved to Moscow. In 2012, after leading a low profile life in the country, Salie came back to public attention with the documents exposing Putin’s crimes. In two days, Salie died from unknown causes.
Litvinenko, despite the risk, has been an outspoken critic of the Putin administration. Her criticism of the regime was sparked by a legal conflict with her father Vladimir Litvinenko, a Russian businessman, university rector, and close associate of Vladimir Putin. The fortune he acquired during Putin’s presidency prompted an investigation of his wealth and assets in 2017. Despite their personal relationship and his status within the regime, Litvinenko publicly denounced her father for his actions as well as other family conflicts.
“In St.Petersburg, Putin was disliked,” said Litvinenko. “Everyone remembered how he took bribes. So it was important for him to get really high numbers at elections in St. Petersburg. The results were falsified. All kind of machinations were used.”
In St. Petersburg, people did not forget how Putin stole food supplies — including baby food.
I remember staying in hour-long lines for bread in the midst of winter, with my baby in a stroller. This theft was even more heinous in the city that lost approximately one million lives due to starvation during the Nazi Siege and many people still lived with the memories of hunger — including Putin’s own parents.
Litvinenko told a detailed story of crimes committed by Putin, her father and their circle: thefts, payoffs, fraud, money laundering, murder, blackmail.
The documents revealed that Putin didn’t shy away from getting kickbacks from funeral bureaus.
Litvienko, who had more knowledge of the crimes than most people in St. Petersburg, said, “In 90s, gangsters and KGB fused into one structure. Putin and Sechin then took the system of bribe receiving to the Kremlin.”
I really wish I recorded her report and I hope that one day, instead of PutinCon at an off-Broadway theater, Litvienko will testify in Hague and Putin and his gang will pay for their crimes against our former city, country and the world.
BILL BROWDER
Bill Browder, the co-founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, blacklisted by the Russian authorities as a “threat to national security” and “Putin’s enemy number one,” was interviewed by Preet Bharara.
Little history:
In 2006, Browder began an investigation into high-level corruption.
In November 2008, one of Browder’s lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested on charges of tax evasion after he accused Russian tax officials of systematic theft and fraud.
In 2009, Magnitsky died in custody after 11 months of imprisonment and torture while awaiting trial.
Browder began a global campaign to bring Magnitsky’s killers to justice, a campaign that resulted in the passage of the Magnitsky Act by the U.S. Congress.
In 2013, Russian authorities declared that they would press charges of tax evasion against Browder and Magnitsky, both tried in absentia.
This trial was the first in Russian history to charge a deceased individual.
Both Browder and Magnitsky were convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison.
Interpol rejected requests by Russia’s interior ministry to place Browder on its search and arrest list, denouncing the case as “predominantly political.”
As of 2018, Browder has pushed five countries to pass Magntisky Act-style legislation.
I have recorded their conversation:
I really liked what Bharara said about Browder being an example of how much can be achieved by a private citizen in fighting autocratic regimes like Putin’s. I agree.
Not everyone has the resources or background, but we all can do something that is available to us. Focus on what you can, not what you can’t. You can share this video or this article, or some of the information you have received here. Together, we can break the silence.
FINAL PANEL: GARRY KASPAROV, DAVID KRAMER, MIRIAM LANSKOY, VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA
“Let’s be positive,” said Garry Kasparov, opening the final discussion of the day.
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA
Next speaker projected calm and dignified optimism, despite his recent experiences. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian democracy activist and vice chairman of Open Russia, a pro-democracy movement, survived two assassination attempts by poison (in 2015 and 2017) and worked for many years with assassinated Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.
“Why would such a powerful government and such a powerful man be afraid of a free election?
Putin is credited with having a great approval rating. So did Romania’s Nicolae Ceaușescu three days before he was killed, Kara-Murza added. Nothing lasts forever.
We don’t know when Putin’s regime will end but we know it will end one day.
And we need to be prepared. This is a focus of our work: by preparing legislature and by educating and training the young generation. Even if there is no way to win there is a way to train.”
Kara-Murza told a story of a Gulag story about a Russian pianist who carved a mock keyboard on a piece of wood to practice — which he did, for 13 years — to return back and be an accomplished and famous musician. This is what we should do now.
“The key word is dignity. Putin fears the revolution of dignity. But if you are eliminating the natural ways of the government development there will be a street scenario.”
Young people born in 90s have not seen any other order or a ruler but they are the ones who are saying “enough.” This is an important moment in history.
MIRIAM LANSKOY
Miriam Lanskoy, a senior director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy with an extensive background in policy analysis related to post-Soviet Eurasia, as well as democracy promotion in the region, came up with three questions: “Will Putin be restrained? Is democracy possible in Russia? What are the ways to develop civil rights movements in Russia?” Following Kasparov’s request to stay positive, Lanskoy presented an overall optimistic forecast.
There is a new way of thinking in Congress. In particular, there is a concern about the danger of the Russian kleptocracy for the US? With time, said Lanskoy, we should see more of the sanctions and more Putin cronies should be identified. Democracy can happen in Russia. Education and conceptual foundation for democratic Russia need to be developed now. A new type of leaders is emerging: we have seen some of these politicians at PutinCon. Leaders like Navalny reach millions via the social media and this is a hope for democracy.
DAVID KRAMER
David Kramer, a senior fellow at the McCain Institute and senior fellow in the Václav Havel Program on Human Rights and Diplomacy at Florida International University’s Green School of International and Public Affairs, served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor.
“We never quite know what would be a tipping point. As long as the dictator is in place, there is no hope for a country to become a democracy. Once he is out, there is a possibility.”
“It is grossly unfair to say that Putin and Russia are the same. We also should not ride on the fear of the unknown. It would be an enormous mistake to cut off the assistance to those in Russia who want democracy. We should show solidarity. We can never take democracy and civil rights for granted. Yes, we have our own house to clean in order but there is no pause button to hit. We should stick up with our principle. Putin might be here for 6 years or he might be gone tomorrow.
WHAT TO DO?
Lanksoy’s questions reminded me of a Russian literary joke based on three seminal works by Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov: Who’s living Well in Russia? — Who is To Blame?— What to Do? Over hundred years later, we still don’t have the answers. Following the great tradition of the Russian classical literature, Kasparov asked the speakers: “What needs to be done? What does Russia need?”
- “Lustration, openness, accountability. We can not turn a page without looking into the past and hold the criminals accountable. We also want to change the system instead of just replacing Putin with another person,” said Kara-Murza.
- “Lustration. Looking into the past. Drafting constitution — but it is even more important for it to be fulfilled and for the government to be accountable to its own people for following the law. There needs to be citizenry to follow up on the promises. The civic movement should be policy driven, not personality-driven,” said Lanskoy.
- “Russians should demand transparency so they know where the money is going. Checks and balances. Free press,” added Kramer.
CONCULSION
The next day, there was no coverage in the press. The YouTube channel was down. Social media paid little attention, although some responses stood out as remarkable, and not necessarily in a positive way.
Today, Putin will be elected again.
“This is not an election: it is a coronation,” said David Kramer. He is right.
UPDATE AND GOOD NEWS
After being suspended, the video from PutinCon is on Youtube. You can watch it here:
EPILOGUE: PERSONAL THOUGHTS
As the theater exploded in applause and a friend watching the live stream texted me, “That was a great panel!” I had a lingering feeling of sadness. It was a great panel and it was a great conference. Yet, there I was — with the world’s brightest experts who dedicate their precious time to an effort of confronting the petty scheming of a mediocre man suffering from childhood and cultural traumas and the fear of the imminent end of his life and power.
Whatever Putin’s diagnosis is, a random chance put him in charge of an enormous country impoverished by the years of abuse, impoverished economically and morally, with ethics thinned out, and little dignity left. How eagerly this country embraced his weakness and turned it into madness that is presented as power. Why? Is it really genetic predisposition? Mass PTSD? Mass corruption? Mass psychosis? What is it?
Those thoughts are nothing new; Tolstoy contemplates the rise of Napoleon and the role of a person in history in his epilogue to War and Peace and does not come up with answers. The answer — like many speakers said — we just don’t know.
All we can do is believe in our own integrity and hold on to our own notions of good and evil. Instead of building our identity based on opposition and negation of our adversary’s maniacal “new world order,” we can revisit our own values — liberal democracy, human rights, freedom of expression — as a foundation of a free society. Writing laws, educating, teaching literature and art. And as I thought this, I felt much better.
I took off the badge with Putin’s face and my name off my lapel with relief. One day it will be just a funny souvenir, I know that. For now, I will do as I can.
- For more details on #PutinCon read excellent coverage by Paula Chertok, Alice Stollmeyer, Polygraph, Virginia Heffernan.
- For more articles on the Russian cyberwar, oligarchs and art click here.
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