How Putin Took Power. Might Be Worth Your Time

PBS Frontline doc on the first world leader our New President will be meeting with.

It’s about how an unpopular politician became a popular leader. Might have some relation to our current situation. Just sayin’.

We’re all busy, so start at 14:40. Stay till at least 22:00.

New York Review of Books:

In 2000 Sergei Kovalev, then the widely respected head of the Russian organization Memorial, observed in these pages that the apartment bombings in Russia in September 1999, which killed three hundred people and wounded hundreds of others, “were a crucial moment in the unfolding of our current history. After the first shock passed, it turned out that we were living in an entirely different country….”1

The bombings, it will be recalled, were blamed on Chechen rebels and used as a pretext for Boris Yeltsin’s Kremlin to launch a bloody second war against Chechnya, a republic in the Russian Federation. They also were crucial events in promoting Vladimir Putin’s takeover of the Russian presidency as Yeltsin’s anointed successor in 2000 and in ensuring his dominance over the Russian political scene ever since.

As John Dunlop points out in The Moscow Bombings of September 1999, the attacks were the equivalent for Russians of September 11, 2001, for Americans. They aroused a fear of terrorism—along with a desire for revenge against the Chechens—that Russians had not known since Stalin used the supposed terrorist threat as a pretext to launch his bloody purges of the 1930s. Yet unlike in the American case, Russian authorities have stonewalled all efforts to investigate who was behind these acts of terror and why they happened. In the words of Russian journalist Yuliya Kalinina: “The Americans several months after 11 September 2001 already knew everything—who the terrorists were and where they come from…. We in general know nothing.”

Dunlop, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, seeks in his book to provide the “spade work” for an official Russian inquiry, if it ever were to be initiated (a highly doubtful proposition as long as Putin remains in power). He draws on investigative reporting by Russian journalists, accounts of Russian officials in law enforcement agencies, eyewitness testimony, and the analyses of Western journalists and academics. The evidence he provides makes an overwhelming case that Russian authorities were complicit in these horrific attacks.2

Dunlop explains why the political situation in which the terrorist attacks took place is crucial for understanding them. Yeltsin and his “Family” (an entourage that included his daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, Yeltsin adviser Valentin Yumashev, who later married Tatyana, the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and Aleksandr Voloshin, head of the presidential administration) were facing a huge crisis by the spring of 1999. Yeltsin was in ailing health and suffering from alcoholism. His popularity had fallen steeply and there was a strong possibility that his political base—a loose movement called “Unity”—would lose the parliamentary and presidential elections (respectively scheduled for December 1999 and March 2000). Yeltsin and his two daughters were facing reports charging that they had large amounts of money in secret bank accounts abroad through illegal transactions with a Swiss construction firm called Mabetex. And Berezovsky was under investigation for embezzlement when he had been running Aeroflot.

The Family’s solution to its dilemma, according to Dunlop, was a plan to destabilize Russia and possibly cancel or postpone the elections after declaring a state of emergency. In June 1999, two Western journalists, Jan Blomgren of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and Giulietto Chiesa, the respected, longtime Moscow correspondent for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, reported that there was going to be an act of “state terrorism” in Russia. The goal would be to instill fear and panic in the population. Chiesa wrote:

With a high degree of certitude, one can say that the explosions of bombs killing innocent people are always planned by people with political minds who are interested in destabilizing the situation in a country…. It could be foreigners… but it could also be “our own people” trying to frighten the country.

These reports were followed in July by an article by the Russian journalist Aleksandr Zhilin in the national paper Moskovskaya pravda warning that there would be terrorist attacks in Moscow. Citing a leaked Kremlin document, Zhilin wrote that the purpose would be to derail Yeltsin’s political opponents, in particular Yury Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, and the former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov. Zhilin’s information (appearing in an article entitled “Storm in Moscow”) was ignored. What he claimed appeared to be unthinkable.

Berezovsky, who fled to London in 2000 after a falling-out with Putin, was at the time, according to Dunlop, the mastermind of a plan to destabilize Russia (although not necessarily by using bombs to kill innocent people). He paid huge ransoms to extremist Chechen separatists to gain the release of Russian hostages, thereby undermining the more moderate political forces in Chechnya and encouraging an invasion of the neighboring republic of Dagestan, in August 1999, by Chechen rebel forces. According to Dunlop’s evidence, the Kremlin sponsored the incursion into Dagestan in order to provoke a conflict with Chechnya. This would provide an excuse to declare a state of emergency and postpone the elections. As numerous firsthand reports attested, the rebels were allowed into and out of Dagestan without hindrance.

The Moscow Bombings makes it clear, first of all, that the FSB had advanced knowledge that the bombings would take place. As we have seen, rumors of impending terrorist attacks had surfaced as early as June 1999. Even more significant is the fact that a respected and influential Duma deputy, Konstantin Borovoy, was told on September 9, the day of the first Moscow apartment bombing, that there was to be a terrorist attack in the city. His source was an officer of the Russian military intelligence (GRU). Borovoy transmitted this information to FSB officials serving on Yeltsin’s Security Council, but he was ignored. At least one other credible warning of an impending attack was reported to law enforcement agencies in Moscow that same day and not acted upon.

Immediately after the September 13 explosion in Moscow, Putin claimed that the people responsible for the bombings in the Dagestan town of Buinaksk and Moscow were most likely terrorists who were connected with Osama bin Laden and had been trained in Chechnya. Some days later, on September 25, FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev echoed this theme in the pages of the newspaper Moskovskii komsomolets. Responding to suggestions in the Russian press that his agency was behind the bombings, he wrote: “The organizers are not some mythical conspirators in the Kremlin, but completely concrete international terrorists dug into Chechnya.” The FSB and the Russian Procuracy later identified the masterminds of all the attacks as two Arab mercenaries, Al-Khattab and Abu Umar, who were subsequently killed in Chechnya.

But the official explanations did not quell suspicions about FSB complicity among liberal, anti-Yeltsin journalists who were already making their own investigations. Their suspicions were intensified by a strange incident that occurred on September 22 in the city of Ryazan, about a hundred miles southeast of Moscow.3 Residents of an apartment complex had reported unusual activity in the basement and observed that three people in a car with partially papered-over license plates had unloaded sacks whose contents they couldn’t make out. A professional bomb squad arrived and discovered that the sacks contained not only sugar but also explosives, including hexogen, and that a detonator was attached. After the sacks were examined and removed, they were sent by the local FSB to Moscow.

The entire apartment building was evacuated. Local authorities found the car used by the three who had planted the explosives, a white Zhiguli, in a nearby parking lot. To their astonishment the license plates were traced to the FSB. And when they apprehended two of the suspects, it turned out that they were FSB employees, who were soon released on orders from Moscow.

After a day and a half of silence, Patrushev announced on television that the apparent bomb had been part of a “training exercise” and that the sacks contained only sugar. The local Ryazan FSB and regular police, who had been combing the city for more explosives, expressed outrage. In the words of one police official: “Our preliminary tests showed the presence of explosives…. As far as we were concerned, the danger was real.”

If this incident was in fact just an exercise, it is difficult to understand why Vladimir Rushailo, the Russian minister of interior, who headed an antiterrorism commission, knew nothing about it beforehand. Shortly before Patrushev’s announcement, Rushailo spoke publicly about the terrorist act that had been planned in Ryazan and praised the people of that city for thwarting it. As Dunlop and many others have concluded, the materials discovered in Ryazan were the makings of a real bomb, and the FSB was caught in the act. In the light of this evidence, Dunlop writes, it has become all the more likely that the September terrorist attacks were also the FSB’s work.
–

As it turned out, there was no need to cancel the elections, because the Russian people rallied around Putin and his vows to seek revenge against ethnic Chechens. Russian troops began invading Chechnya on October 1. His approval ratings soared: from 31 percent in mid-August to 78 percent in November. As Dunlop notes: “The continuing upward movement in Putin’s rating was accompanied by an increase in the hatred, which soon became incandescent, on the part of ethnic Russians for Chechens.”

73 thoughts on “How Putin Took Power. Might Be Worth Your Time”


    1. I had the same thought, but you beat me to it. Where is she anyway? Sleeping it off after too much Vodka last night? Madly looking thorough her propaganda files for another transparently stupid and inappropriate response? Like:

      “This is all lies”
      “Putin is the savior of Russia”
      “The U.S. is more corrupt than Russia”
      (or a clip of Meryl Streep laughing)
      (or a picture of V and her family wearing tinfoil hats)

      PS The PBS documentary is terrific and quite damning. It contains many photos and clips of Putin at various ages, and I was struck by what a creepy, sneaky, and generally weasel-like appearance he presents, especially when he was younger. Back in my day as a high school administrator, I would have immediately spotted him in any crowd I was watching at an athletic event, in the cafeteria during lunch, at a dance, or in the hallways, and paid him close attention. School administrators, cops, and judges have highly developed “crap detectors”, and he sets mine to buzzing loudly. (So do President-elect Pussy Grabber and nearly all of his nominees).

      Reply

          1. Uh, V darling? We were talking about Putin’s appearance, not yours. Are you still addled from last night’s vodka?


    1. Here she is! And her “contribution” is as stupid as expected. It would be great if we could hack Vierotchka and find out the truth of who “she” really is.

      Her comments and replies are SO stupid and mindless that I’m beginning to think that she is not a real person, but rather some robot troll program being run by the FSB out of one of those smoke-filled basements in Russia.

      How about it, V? Can you PROVE you really exist?

      Reply

  4. Some news from last year:

    “Besides the fraud accusations, a separate lawsuit claimed that Trump SoHo was developed with the undisclosed involvement of convicted felons and financing from questionable sources in Russia and Kazakhstan.” 5/4/2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html

    “Trump has sought and received funding from Russian investors for his business ventures, especially after most American banks stopped lending to him.” 25/7/2016 http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-boot-trump-russian-connection-20160725-snap-story.html

    “There’s big money to be made pitching pro-Putin clients, and that’s why the focus should be on what happened last week at the platform committee meeting at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Trump and his campaign have shown no interest in policy throughout the duration of this election. When a campaign is so flagrantly unconcerned with substance, it’s telling when they suddenly care, especially when his campaign is run by Paul Manafort, a lobbyist for numerous pro-Putin clients, …” 27/7/2016 http://time.com/4426818/donald-trump-julian-assange-vladimir-putin/

    “Over the years the US presidential candidate has assembled an eclectic collection of backers and collaborators. Some had chequered pasts, with links to organised crime or fraud schemes. But perhaps the biggest risk for Mr Trump’s complex, often opaque, business empire was that it might be used for a purpose US officials fear is rife in the country’s real estate sector: laundering dirty money.” 19/10/2016 https://www.ft.com/content/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923 (with paywalled link “Read our guide to the Republican candidate’s links to Russia over the past 30 years”)

    —————
    No wonder HRC lost. This stuff should have dominated the campaign messaging. Vierotschka posted the apt comment: Hahahaha, stupids…

    Reply

      1. That’s your artwork? I say bullshit—-it’s just something you found and loaded into your library at imageshack—–perhaps stolen from someone at deviant art (?).

        I’ve looked at a lot of your art, and a very small part of your more recent stuff approaches this in quality but none of it quite makes it. And memes.com is easily used by any 10-year-old (note the little “meme.com” logo in the lower right of so many of V’s “contributions”)

        Anyone who wants to explore V’s “art” need only google “Vierotchka artwork”. This is the first hit you’ll get—–I call it “Endless variations on three piles of manure”

        https://youtu.be/xIuUGyvHhJ8

        Reply

        1. I am not responsible for your complete lack of taste and ignorance with regard to art work. The day you can create anything vaguely approaching these, you might have half a toenail to stand on (click on the imate to see them in a larger size):

          http://imageshack.com/a/img921/1452/AAXGOE.jpg

          http://imageshack.com/a/img921/951/EyCh3w.jpg

          http://imageshack.com/a/img924/8581/tgY1Vu.jpg

          http://imageshack.com/a/img924/1950/zYsBkn.jpg

          http://imageshack.com/a/img923/2161/mWAmWh.jpg

          http://imageshack.com/a/img922/4600/jdCYSd.jpg

          http://imageshack.com/a/img924/8493/1iALnR.jpg

          http://imageshack.com/a/img921/8982/4lJBkq.jpg

          Until then, you really ought to eschew making a total fool of yourself online.

          Reply

          1. I had many kids who sat in the back of my classes 50 years ago and did doodles that were prettier, and all they had was a few colored pencils. Don’t hurt your arm patting yourself on the back over your imagined “talent”..


        1. ah, yes. you are The Master, Vierotchka.

          Of obvious trollery, and ludicrous assertions.

          https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/06/troll-armies-social-media-trump-russian
          https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/world/europe/russias-rt-the-network-implicated-in-us-election-meddling.html
          http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-internet-trolls-and-donald-trump-2016-7
          https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160726/10104635073/putins-internet-trolls-are-stoking-vitriolic-fire-posing-as-trump-supporters.shtml

          Reply

  6. Limerick from HuffPost Hill:

    “There once was a Trump who was yuge / he denied he was Putin’s stooge / he had no real plans / but very small hands / and won with Vlad’s subterfuge.”

    Reply

  7. I watched it a couple weeks ago when the whole Russia meddling was blowing up. Should be required viewing…

    vierotchka you’re very strange. And why did you glom onto THIS blogger? It doesn’t make much sense to me.

    Reply

    1. ‘team vierotchka’ knows that climate denial is the SINGLE issue of most importance to the Kremlin. Hence, their presence here on ClimateCrocks.

      Reply

    2. I’ve been commenting on Peter’s blog here for a very long time. Up until recently, he has not posted any political stuff but only climate stuff with which I have always agreed and even posted to. I dislike Trump just as much as all of you (and also dislike Clinton just as much). On the other hand, what Peter has recently posted about Putin is totally wrong, it is merely repeating the mainstream media’s lies, and has gotten caught in its mendacious Russophobic and Putinophobic web just like you all. Bringing in facts on those subjects neither makes me a “bot” nor a “Kremlin troll” or any of the insults that have been leveled against me here. Those who have done so are not only ignorant, they are shameful and unworthy of the decent people they seem to claim they are.

      Reply

      1. Considering our entire intelligence community says Putin has interfered in our elections, I’m sorry but I completely disagree with you. Perhaps you like Putin, I don’t know, and honestly it doesn’t matter to me. Because I don’t care WHO it is, no foreign leader has any right to meddle in another’s elections (yes, that goes for the US as well). So why would it surprise you to learn that Americans have decided Putin is a threat to us, based on what we know now about him? I will be trusting the intelligence community on this matter over whatever Putin has said, since they are Americans and have far more interest in the US’s success than any foreign leader would.

        Reply

        1. Your entire intelligence community also asserted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, so quite frankly, it is the least credible collection of people in your country. You Americans don’t know anything about Putin, judging by so many posts here and elsewhere, and so many of the MSM’s (largely owned by Neocons) articles.

          Reply

          1. The thing is, it’s pointless to argue with you about this because you’ll just go on forever arguing. So cut and paste to your heart’s content, you’re not going to change my view at all. The people who can do that would be the US intelligence community.


          1. Who says “Your entire intelligence community also asserted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction” hasn’t seriously followed this stuff, e.g. here:
            http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-man-who-knew-14-10-2003/
            – or is peddling or parroting stupid propaganda.

            Blame GWB, not the CIA. The spies were not so sure about the WMD, but succumbed to and served the wishful thinking of Bush and Powell. Maybe you recall Germany’s Joschka Fischer doubting the “evidence” presented by Powell at the UN, struggling hard to not burst out in laughter. What he knew and saw was certainly also known to US intel.


          2. Florifulgurator gets it right. It is laughable that Vierotchka is still bringing up the same tired old bullshit about the failures of our intelligence agencies w/regard to WMD in Iraq. That’s a very tired and worn page in the troll’s handbook, just as ALL of V’s arguments are. It’s tough being a parrot!


      2. The real question is why a little old lady who is interested in art living in Switzerland with minimal connection to Russia is such a vehement, PERSISTENT, vicious, ignorant, and virulent defender of that thug Vladimir Putin and the mess he has made out of Russia. How can you be anything BUT a troll and a Russian propaganda whore?

        Reply

        1. Actually she could well be American. Some love spreading stupid fake news. Did you know Hillary went to a cannibalism dinner? … The BS of “the CIA also got Iraq WMD wrong” is something I encounter almost daily from Trumpists and Hillary haters.

          Reply

          1. Could be, but I doubt it. Google her and you’ll find that she has quite an internet presence, and has made comments on a number of sites over the years. Unless the Russians are providing her with a really DEEP cover story, she seems to be what she says she is on the web—-a little old lady with arthritis, a hobby of doing inane computer art, and two grandchildren she loves (and they are as smart, beautiful, and generally wonderful as she is—-ask her).

            I can’t believe the Russians feel they are getting a good return on investment from her—-her trolling is so crude and transparent—-but Russia under Putin is a rather crude country, and maybe a stupid old woman clogging up a climate change blog with stupid posts IS seen as useful. She certainly gets in our way when we try to have intelligent discussions about things that matter.


          2. PS Forgot to ask about the menu for the cannibalism dinner that Hillary attended. Did the event turn out well? Can we expect something similar to appear on the Apprentice President Show that begins tomorrow?


    1. LMAO! Will V never stop? A clip from South Front, a supposedly “independent analysis” site that is in reality just more pro-Russian propaganda. Great video clips, but unbelievable audio BS—my favorite is that Germanay now has a “Neo Lebensraum” policy. LOL

      Reply

  10. Putin will continue to hack everything in America like he did the inauguration fireworks (video below). Come 4th of July, all the fireworks will display the Russian flag. Putin is still working on how to introduce the Russian Imperial two-headed eagle flag in fireworks too!

    Reply

    1. Not very funny to us here in the USA, but that’s true of 99% of what V posts.

      And she demonstrates her cluelessness yet again with this “contribution”. Of course, her hero and employer—President Pussy-Grabber’s Puppetmaster Putin—-is gloating in Moscow, so it’s to be expected that the stupid old woman in Switzerland would follow his lead.

      Reply

        1. Another meaningless “contribution” gleaned from the bottomless tool kit of BS that the Russian propaganda services provide to their minions like V. If President Pussy Grabber dosn”t do a Putin and suppress all efforts to get to the bottom of the hacks-leaks, we may one day know the truth.

          In the meantime, we are all still waiting to hear from V why a little old arthritic lady in Switzerland who is into art should be SO interested in Putin-Trump-USA-Russia, SO well stocked with Russain propaganda BS. so VERY reluctant to explain herself to us. (????????????????????????????????????)

          Reply

          2. Classy, Vierotchka, real classy!

            Not to repeat myself, but “we are all still waiting to hear from V why a little old arthritic lady in Switzerland who is into art should be SO interested in Putin-Trump-USA-Russia, SO well stocked with Russian propaganda BS. and so VERY reluctant to explain herself to us. (????????????????????????????????????)

            Now back to watching the Inauguration—-thought I spotted Putin way in the back row—-the leash must be very long, and I hope none of the other attendees trips on it.


          4. Yet another NON classy reply from the stupid old lady who has NOTHING of substance to contribute here.

            I wonder if V’s family is aware of how badly she embarrasses herself on Crock. Does she have no adult supervision at all? Most children with dotty old moms DO keep an eye on them. (Or are they glad to have her spend her time on the computer harassing us instead of making them crazy. Thanks a bunch, family of Vierotchka!)


          6. PS Just watched the inauguration. Trump made an unbelievable and borderline jingoistic speech that Hitler would have enjoyed, insulted every living American president, and just spouted the same old divisive bullshit that he did on the campaign trail. Hard times ahead for the country.

            Since Darling V has given me the opening with her reply, I will repeat myself, and AGAIN say “we are all still waiting to hear from V why a little old arthritic lady in Switzerland who is into art should be SO interested in Putin-Trump-USA-Russia, SO well stocked with Russian propaganda BS. and so VERY reluctant to explain herself to us”.

            (????????????????????????????????????)
            (????????????????????????????????????)(????????????????????????????????????)

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