WEBVTT - Steven Lee Myers' Putin Primer 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:05.400 This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:10.639 the thing. Russia has glittering towers and a jet set elite, 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.360 but grinding rural poverty too. It has one of the 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:18.840 world's great literary traditions, but throws dissenters in jail for 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:23.560 a blog post. Russia's the size of Spain economically speaking, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.000 but is an aggressive research and actor on the world 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.320 stage now in defense not of communism but of tyrants 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:37.720 and theocrats. Who is Vladimir Putin the man who created 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.920 this new world power through force of will? My guest today, 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:47.159 Putin's foremost biographer, Stephen Lee Myers, begins to unravel that 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.920 question in his book The news Are. Myers is a 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.800 longtime correspondent for The New York Times, first at Moscow, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.400 now in Beijing, and he's met Putin more than once. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.680 When I shook his hand, I felt this immense coldness 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.800 and determination. It wasn't scary, he wasn't mean or anything, 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.000 but it was just we were there to do business. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.120 The news Are tells the complicated history of a man 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.800 who values stability above all else, who truly believes, along 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.280 with his constituents, that he quote got Russia up off 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:26.600 her knees. He's created that impression in part by dedicating 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.480 a higher and higher percent of g d P to 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.319 military It was that money that allowed Putin in two 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.319 thousand fourteen to invade Crimea, re drawing the borders of 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.040 Europe by violence for the first time since World War Two. 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.600 In his Wall Street Journal review of the book, Stephen 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.680 Cotkin describes the man who emerges from Myers pages as 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:54.880 a quote snarling stuntman, playing global poker with a wretched hand, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.880 and presiding over a country in decline. I put those 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.800 words to Myers because that's not a full picture of 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.840 the Putin you read about in the news are. I 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.680 think you can come away from what I wrote and 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.080 come to the conclusion that Kotkin did. I think you 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.880 can read it, uh and see Putin as a sympathetic figure. 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.320 I wouldn't disagree with some of what he said, but 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.480 I wouldn't agree with all of it either, because it's 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.080 it always seems like it's about to teeter and fall apart, 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.280 like Putin can't just keep this going, you know, And 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:28.600 after the events with Ukraine, when we put on all 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.920 these sanctions, and sanctions really hurt and people are like, 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.480 he won't survive. One of the wheels are going to fall, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.920 and yeah, and and yet there's a certain resilience. UM. 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.640 And Stephen Cottin I respect him mentally, UM, but you know, 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.080 people see Putin in different ways. He's almost like a 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.080 or shark test of of your views of the world 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.400 of Russia itself, US Russian relations and so forth. When 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.240 you went to the Moscow to start the job there 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.720 without a job you wanted, it is and but it's 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.720 not something that I expected or I worked for. I 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.520 didn't study Russian history or language happen. You know. I 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.560 covered the Pentagon for a number of years in Washington, 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:10.679 and this was in the nineties, and you know, the 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.800 Pentagon was busy though it was before the um the 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.560 War on Terror era, and the Pentagon correspondent did a 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.800 lot of the reporting on arms control, which for the 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.919 Soviet period was the big story really and so I 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:25.880 think there was a bit of a Cold War hangover 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.960 that people who covered the Pentagon understood arms control, so 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.640 they went to Moscow as their next posting or their 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.720 first posting. You know. Bill Keller was executive editor of 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.560 The Times. He followed that path. Michael Gordon h great 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.960 correspondent now with the Wall Street Journal. He did that, 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.440 So it was it was something. It was a kind 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:49.360 of beaten well, well beaten path. So I followed along 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.920 with it though at that time, UM I went and 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.960 it was the beginning of the Bush administration. UM. This 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.200 was a new era, and Bush talked about trying to 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.120 establish a new relationship with Russia that would get beyond 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.160 the Cold War. UM for something happened, right, Oh, lots happened, 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.840 but the but in the beginning, at least, if you remember, 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.280 UM uh Putin reached out to Bush and vice first 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.080 to call him. He made the first phone call, first 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.480 foreign leader. He didn't get through that night, by the way, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.320 but the next morning UM Bush didn't call him back. 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.680 And Putin authorized an immense amount of cooperation with the 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.840 United States at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.000 intelligence sharing, UM in a very concrete way. I think 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.640 at that moment there was a feeling that we had 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.279 innered this common cause with Russia. UM. In those months 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.400 right after the Nini have an attack. When when you 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.520 arrived there to do the job, it's what year you 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.400 begin in? What year I was I was studying Russian 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.200 when nine eleven happened. In preparation for the job exactly, 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.480 I was still in d C when the attacks happened, 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.480 and I went back to work that day in the Pentagon, 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.240 which I had left a few months before to art 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.120 my studies and went to Afghanistan and then came back 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.680 picked up my studies and then in summer of two 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.719 thousand and two started in Moscow. What would you describe 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.400 was the relationship between the US and the Russians done? 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.000 UM was just the period as well when Putin it 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.080 was like some comment he made about, uh, you know what, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.400 however you want to describe it of Russia potentially entering NATO. 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.359 He was asked and in a television interview, I believe 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.599 it was BBC uh and attend it was. It was 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:28.920 even earlier. It was. It was when he first emerged 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.719 on the scene as Prime Minister and then president elect, 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:33.480 and he said that it was something that they wouldn't 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.480 rule out. It's hard to think back at that period 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.839 when I think Putin was looking towards the United States 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.520 and NATO, UM the West generally UM for a different 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.640 kind of arrangement, a new UM, a new security infrastructure 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:51.240 or architecture, and um, there were you know, people will 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.080 say that there were missed opportunities on both sides in 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.719 that case. Um. So when you got there, how would 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.560 you describe the US Russian relations? They were still that point, 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.680 fairly good and there was quite a bit of cooperation. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.000 Putin came to the ranch in Crawford, Texas, if you remember, 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.640 you know, appeared with Bush at the high school there. 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.280 So I do think that there was still a fair 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.400 bit of goodwill. Even there were a lot of business 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.440 deals starting. There was a lot of American companies eagerly 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:24.160 investing in the oil and gas industry in Russia. UH. 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:29.960 And so it seemed like there was a lot of potential, yeah, potential, um. 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.080 And then what happened is the Bush administration was very 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.880 eager to build missile defenses. This has always been a 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.039 Republican pipe drain, going back to Reagan and Star Wars. So, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.760 with very little notice, after all of US help that 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.320 Russia had given to the United States in Afghanistan, Bush 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.640 announced that we were going to pull out of the 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.400 Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty UH and gave Putin notice only 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.800 a few days before he went ahead and did it. Publicly, 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.279 and that really embittered Putin and gave him pause about 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.360 what is really the American intentions here? You know, act 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.560 nice bushes chummy, but you know, at the end of 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.640 the day, the US sees itself as the hedge them on, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.279 and it's is really going to control the world. And 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.880 and um and from there, shortly after, if you remember, 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.600 they went into the build up to the war in Iraq, Um, 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.000 which Russia was very much opposed to. The idea of 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.239 overthrowing another country by military force is something that he fears, 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.680 and so he was pushing back hard against that. I 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.000 remember when we had an interview with The New York 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.120 Times had an interview with him in two thousand and three, 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:32.560 a few months after the invasion. He talked about the 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.160 consequences and how we didn't foresee how bad this was 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.560 going to go, and he was largely right. Well, when 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.560 you arrive at a job like that, I'm sure you're 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:45.960 briefed about how to go about that job, who are 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.400 your contacts? And it might not be as much as 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.360 you would think. Um. They did give me the time 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.160 off to study. That time was shortened because of nine 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.640 eleven and um and the work I did in Afghanistan. 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:00.640 But um, beyond that, it's it's more of a collegial process. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:03.160 I mean, I turned to the correspondence who'd been there 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.600 before and asked them for advice. Um, there were um 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.440 different you know, different ones said different things. They said, 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.720 you should know this person, you should eat at this restaurant. 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.600 The best advice I got was from Joe Lalibeld, who 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:17.920 was the executive editor at the time, who told me 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.200 not to bother reading the books by journalists. He said, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.400 read the literature, Understand the books that people are going 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.000 to be referring to. That putting himself refers to a lot. 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:28.559 It's great advice and I'm doing that now in China 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.600 reading the novels. And when you were there, did you 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.600 feel that you were being watched or you were being 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.880 so I remember when the bureau manager I asked her 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.320 this question and she said, they don't come around anymore. 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.320 First of all, when the Soviet Union collapse, so did 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.520 the KGB, and then it was disbanded, and then it 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.079 was reconstituted in different forms. Um. But under putting it's 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:52.280 clearless security services under new names have've reasserted their primacy, 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.800 whether or not we were tapped. I mean, I assume yes, um, 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.040 But I also don't think they really cared that much. 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.640 I mean, they could, they could read every thing we did. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:02.600 It wasn't they like in the old days where they 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.320 were pleasing you know, which dissidents were talking to the 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.120 foreign media um, which by the way they do in 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:12.360 China now they watched that very closely. Who's quoted, um. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.000 But towards the end, you know again when I win, 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.760 it was a hopeful period um, and it Russia seemed 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.760 like it was opening up. There were their debates in parliament, 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.680 they were going on UM. As a reporter, it felt 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.480 wide open um. And there was obviously the war in 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.920 Czech new which is extremely controversial and it's very sensitive. 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.840 There were restrictions on reporting there and so forth, but 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.680 it didn't feel oppressive the way it did in the 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.560 Soviet times and now where it seems to be much 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.320 more hostile environment to work in. You read a little 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.800 bit about Putin and not a great student, poor family. Uh, 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:50.880 how does he get that job? What happens in that 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.360 country that he rises to this position. Well, first of all, 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.480 he wasn't he wasn't a poor student. He seemed in 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.959 fact to be quite smart and quite clever. He is. Um, 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.760 but you can go to the best schools. Well yeah, no, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:05.559 I mean he was not part of the elite. Um. 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.600 That's the thing about him. His parents, um, were survivors 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.160 of the Siege of Leningrad during World War Two. He 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.120 grew up in a city that was still living with 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.440 the effects of that, the damage literally from it. His 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.400 father worked in a train factory and his mother held 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:25.040 odd jobs. They were good Soviet citizens, um, but they weren't, 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.480 you know, any part of the intelligencia. He grew up 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:32.640 in a pretty typical Soviet experience. It was poverty by 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.200 our standards even then in the in the fifties and 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.280 sixties when he was young, not somebody you would see 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:40.199 a you know, at the honest that was going to 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.439 be primed for this job. He did sort of find 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.600 a purpose in school through the martial arts. You know, 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.840 he wanted to take up judo and to stick with 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.200 the judos. Then he was a young teenager, um and 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.600 uh uh so he would have been like our equivalent 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.880 of junior high school or middle school. And um, you know, 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.600 he took he took that quite seriously. So when he 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:06.160 put his mind to something he could do, and discipline 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.920 is what he shows when he's committed to something. There 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:11.640 was versed a book and then a movie that came 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.720 out that inspired him to join the KGB. It's called 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.240 The Sword in the Shield and it's a pretty propagandistic 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:23.720 novel about a spy who infiltrates the Nazi army and 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.760 rises through the ranks from a pretty low position and 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.760 helps win the war. Was serialized on tv UM and 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.240 this enchanted Putin as he tells it, and he um 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.440 tells the story of wanting to volunteer even when he 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.280 was um still a teenager. And then you know, the 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.200 KGB doesn't take volunteers. They they come and volunteer you 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.400 and Um. You know, there's obviously a screening process to 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.680 work in the intelligence agencies. But he understood that he 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.400 had to show some discipline and he got into university, 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.360 and he got into Leningrad State University, which was a 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.920 prestigious school, maybe not the top one. He didn't go 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.560 to Moscow. But what did he study law? Do they 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.320 have a similar system when he got a law degree 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.599 and became an attorney. It's more you study law and 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.400 you become a police officer or or you know, maybe 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.920 a court officer or something like that. It's not a 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.200 law degree that you do after you complete your undergraduate program, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.079 so assist in there is a little bit different. But 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.679 the but you know, he studied that with the goal 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.640 in mind of joining the security services, and when he 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.120 was in his fourth year, they came to him and 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.280 and said, yes, are you interested, and so he um, 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.280 he signed up. Then what happens he spends how many 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.920 years in the intelligence services there from nineteen seventy five 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:40.360 to nineteen ninety or ninety one. There's a little bit 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:45.000 gray area about when he finally resigned, UM several years. Yeah, no, 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.320 it was fifteen years UM of his early life. And 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.080 when you researched that, what kind of work was he doing? 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:51.840 I mean he worked at home for the first part 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.240 for ten years. He claims counter intelligence, you know, chasing 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.400 foreign spies. He claims he never worked for the domestic KGB, 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.920 which was oppressing its own people. He held kind of 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.760 bureaucratic jobs, mostly in learning grand and then after a 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.960 number of years he was finally assigned to the advanced 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.160 training courses that would put you into the pipeline to 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.680 go overseas. But he got into a fight this first 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.280 year that he was in this program, and this is 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.400 the finishing school when you when you're a spy. Is 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.600 fascinating that Soviet spies could be tripped up on basic 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.640 things like not knowing what a mortgage was because there 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:30.880 was no such thing. And so, I mean, we've all 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.760 seen the Americans. Now you have to really be immersed 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.199 in the culture to pass. Putin had studied German when 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:39.559 he was younger, so when he went to the school, 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.800 the assumption was he would be in you know, Berlin 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.440 or Bond or he would get one of the premier assignments. 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.000 But because he washed out early after one year, he 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.960 ends up in East Germany, which was an ally of 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.840 the Soviet Union, and he wasn't even in the East 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.760 German capital, East Berlin. He was sent to Dresden, which 0:13:57.800 --> 0:13:59.680 was kind of seen as an outpost. It was a 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:04.559 small office engaged mostly in cooperating with the Stazi, the 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:09.520 East German secret police. It was really just pushing papers 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.880 and reports back to Moscow. It wasn't a glamorous spying 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.599 job at all, and he wasn't even undercover, which is 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.360 you know, like the movie that inspired him. You know, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.080 he wasn't doing any James vonn stuff. As as he 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.600 put in himself once, how would you describe his political assent? 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.560 I mean he gets to become prime minister first, does 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.440 he have some other office before prime minister? So what 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.760 happened is when the Soviet Union fell apart. He was 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.400 in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, and 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.960 this was a very serious experience for him because he 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:43.520 watched the Warsaw Pact nations crumble top of their communist 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.560 regimes and then lurch into the West. Um He, like 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:51.320 many others, then retreated back to the Soviet Union out 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.560 of work essentially, and the Soviet Army. To remember, there 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.000 are hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops in East Germany. 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.480 They all had to go back um through at the time. 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.480 Yes he did. He was married before he went, which 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.920 was a requirement of being a spy, of working for 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.440 the KGB, I should say, overseas, you had to be married. 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.480 They didn't want single officers who could be tempted into 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:18.120 UH liaisons by other agency exactly. So his second daughter 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.160 and was born in East Germany, so they were quite young, 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:23.720 and the whole thing comes poppling down and he has 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.400 to go back to UM to Russia. He goes back 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.240 to Leningrad at the time and took a KGB job 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.160 at the university, overseeing students and foreigners who came to 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.480 the university. You know, not it might be a comfortable job, 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.680 but it certainly wasn't a prestigious one. He was at 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.720 this point only a lieutenant colonel. He hadn't advanced very 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.160 far in rank. He he just in It's throughout his 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.160 career he didn't seem to show a great deal of ambition. 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.520 Going back to your question earlier, you know, it's not 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:53.640 that he wasn't smart or wasn't capable of but he 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.920 just didn't seem to have a burning drive UM to 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:01.160 move up and UM. At some point through his job 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.120 at the university, he comes in contact with a man 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.440 who was one of the leaders in the democratic movement 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.560 and in Russia when the Soviet Union still existed, a 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.440 guy named Ana Totally Solbcheck, who eventually became the governor 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.320 of St. Petersburg and then after the collapse of the 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:23.200 Soviet Union, served for six years until and Putin served 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:25.200 as his deputy. And that's where he began to get 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.760 political experience. I mean, he wasn't a politician by nature, 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:30.720 he never has been. But he worked as a very 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:35.160 efficient bureaucrat essentially for subject he was in because of 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.680 his German and his experience in East Germany. He was 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.000 the liaison for the city and trying to get new 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.640 investments to come in. I mean, you remember the communist 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:48.040 system collapsed and you know, Russia had nothing. They didn't 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.800 have banks, they didn't know how to do basic stuff. 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:52.680 It was it was you know, he was put in 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:57.160 charge essentially of attracting foreign business to St. Petersburg, and 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.320 well apparently he did, and some people he did. Um. 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.120 You know, it was a tough time and there were 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.960 there were assassinations, there were there. There there was a 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.919 lot of um, you know, mafia type activity. Lot what 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:11.879 years were this, This is in the early nineties. A 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:13.679 friend of mine, an actress, she was gonna be starting 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.679 some kind of business over there. They were there because 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.280 of that opening, because that cleaving of that of that 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.560 economy and that market. And my friend was gonna head 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:24.760 over there and over like a skincare line for runching 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.320 women's who was a Hollywood actress, and we we we 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.000 I helped her, and we reached out to different people 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.040 who knew the business realities over there, and they all said, 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.399 don't do it. And they said, because they said, you know, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:38.479 half of the products you're going to send over there 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.600 and more we're going to fall off a truck. And 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:42.919 they said, and transactions and credit cards and money and 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:44.800 all that. They said, it's a nightmare over there at 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.040 the beginning. And it certainly was a nightmare in the beginning. 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.040 It was interesting is how many came UM and big 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.600 companies UM they want to spend the way doctor and 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.120 gamble was there and and uh, you know otis elevator. 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.280 I mean, there was this real heady period when they 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.120 made this trand edition and became a capitalist country. Uh. 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.680 You know, it was painful for a lot of Russians involved, 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.760 and the system was certainly not well equipped for it. 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.440 And it was exploited by UM, by corrupt actors both 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.600 in government UM and and in the private sector, and 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:20.479 the criminality that you know is always lurking around. That said, 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.520 a lot of people became quite wealthy UM and uh, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.440 you know, the people who were willing to take that 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.920 plunge became quite rich. He become quite wealthy. That's an 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.479 interesting story and it's key to the question about him 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.560 and even today. Um. Early on, he was known for 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.880 not taking bribes. He was seen as an enforcer who 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.320 was very loyal to the city. He was the guy 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.879 you went to to get things done, and so people 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.000 that knew him got things done if you could get 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.399 to him, you know, it helped you succeed. You know. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.840 Did people give them gifts? I'm sure things like that happened. 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.119 He acquired apartment as part of his job, which is 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.680 a kind of you know what it is that perruption 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.239 or is he as a perk, you know, and it's 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.000 part of his salary. And you know, then he acquired 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.600 some other land, perhaps that was loaned to him from 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.600 people who were he was helping out. Um. But those 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.720 people who suggest that Putin has stolen billions, I mean, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:16.280 they don't hesitate to you with the word of the 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.320 b billions of dollars from the Russian treasury over the 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.119 last several years of its economic ascension. Do you think 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:28.600 that's true? The I don't doubt um at all that 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.800 people around him, including people related to him, became very 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:37.560 wealthy because of their access to the decision making in 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.360 in contracts. Um, you know, is he is he lopping 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.119 tw off every contract that's signed by the government and 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.080 putting it in in a bank in in Switzerland or 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:49.960 somewhere else. No, I don't think so. I think it's 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.800 more complicated than that. And you know, there's the famous 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.280 stories that came out of the Panama Papers of his 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.920 childhood friend who I interviewed, um, whose name was on 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.720 offshore companies worth billions of dollars. And I had a 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.800 chance before the Panama Papers came out to interview him, 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.960 and I was struck because I was writing about a 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.879 bank that's run by a bunch of people again very 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.679 close to Putin, that's become now one of the largest 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:17.480 banks and in Russia, and it's an operating banks. It's 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.440 it's not a fake, it's not an off shore. I 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.600 mean they're they they were a wealthy you know asset 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:27.960 now and his childhood friend has three percent share um 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.200 and three point six and at the time I remember 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:31.760 looking it up and it was more or less worth 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.400 three hundred million dollars. And he's a cellist, very accomplished, 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:40.359 the musician and um and he um, No, he's I 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.720 mean he's traveled the world. He's also the godfather of 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.320 Putin's oldest daughter, and now he runs a conservatory in 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.800 music school in Petersburg that's in this beautifully renovated imperial 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.600 palace in the city. So I asked him, like, how 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.760 did you end up with the shares in this bank? Um? 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.159 And I was working on a separate story on that, 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.160 but I also wanted to know for for the book. 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.320 And you know, he he seemed quite absent minded about 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.239 it or active that he was. He's he said, oh, 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.120 it was a complicated business. It was involved a lot 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:16.639 of lawyers. And it's like he didn't quite no. And 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:20.200 I mean, I would remember how I bought shares that 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.760 were worth three hundred million dollars. But then it turned 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:24.480