The New Tsar (67 page)

The protests in the Arab world had galvanized Russia’s beleaguered opposition, at least in the still safe space of the Internet, and Medvedev’s remarks sounded sympathetic to things that Putin feared most. Medvedev, while hardly endorsing protests at home, sounded irresolute. The American vice president, Joseph Biden, even had the audacity to quote him during a speech at Moscow State University in March 2011, in which he declared that Russians should have the same rights as anyone else. “Most Russians want to choose their national and local leaders in competitive elections,” Biden said in what amounted to a endorsement in the undeclared campaign taking shape. “They want to be able to assemble freely, and they want a media to be independent of the state. And they want to live in a country that fights corruption. That’s democracy. They’re the ingredients of democracy. So I urge all of you students here: Don’t compromise on the basic elements of democracy. You need not make that Faustian bargain.”
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Behind the scenes, Biden used his visit to press Medvedev to support a United Nations Security Council resolution to authorize a military intervention in Libya, where peaceful protests had turned into an armed insurrection against the country’s dictator, Muammar el-Qaddafi. The United States, its NATO allies, and some Arab nations wanted to establish a “no fly” zone over the country to prevent the bloody suppression of the rebels. Medvedev agreed, persuaded by the humanitarian case for
intervention, despite the opposition of the Foreign Ministry and other security officials who saw the prospect of a NATO-led campaign outside its border as an extension of American hegemony to another part of the world. He had drifted dangerously far from Putin’s path, making a confrontation seem inevitable.

Only weeks before, Putin had warned that the uprisings in Libya and other countries would fuel the rise of Islamic extremists allied with Al-Qaeda, aided and abetted by shortsighted sympathizers in the West trying to overthrow autocratic leaders. He was not wrong about the rise in extremism, which would later consume Libya and exacerbate a grinding civil war in Syria, a far more important ally of Russia in the Middle East. Putin’s support for the autocratic dictators of Libya and Syria was widely viewed through the prism of Russia’s geopolitical interests, including energy projects and a contract to build a railway linking Libya’s coastal cities (negotiated by Putin’s friend, Vladimir Yakunin), massive arms sales, and, in the case of Syria, Russia’s only military base outside the former Soviet Union. In truth, his wariness ran much deeper. There existed a dark association in his mind between aspirations for democracy and the rise of radicalism, between elections and the chaos that would inevitably result. “Let’s take a look back at history, if you don’t mind,” Putin said in Brussels in February. “Where did Khomeini, the mastermind of the Iranian revolution, live? He lived in Paris. And he was supported by most of Western society. And now the West is facing the Iranian nuclear program. I remember our partners calling for fair, democratic elections in the Palestinian territories. Excellent! Those elections were won by Hamas.” Reflexively, instinctively, he imagined the uprising in Libya as simply another step toward a revolution being orchestrated for Moscow.

Perhaps it was because he was younger, perhaps because he never served in the security services, perhaps because of his convivial nature, but Medvedev did not share this bleak distrust of the West, of democracy, of human nature. He had spent the first three years of his presidency wooed by Barack Obama’s administration, and now not only the United States but countries with much closer relations to Russia, including France and Italy, were appealing to him to help prevent a slaughter of civilians in Libya. And so, on his instruction, Russia abstained when the Security Council voted on United Nations Resolution 1973 on March 17, authorizing the use of military force to stop Qaddafi’s forces from moving on the insurgents’ stronghold in eastern Libya.
Medvedev’s decision provoked a revolt among Russia’s diplomats and security officials. Russia’s ambassador to Libya, Vladimir Chamov, sent a cable to the president warning against the loss of an important ally. Medvedev fired him, but the ambassador returned to Moscow and declared publicly that the president was acting against Russia’s interests. When NATO launched its first airstrikes two days later—a far more punishing initial barrage to destroy the country’s air defenses than many expected—Medvedev seemed to many in Russia to be complicit in yet another American-led war.

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ne of the prime minister’s closest advisers later claimed that Putin had not read the Security Council’s resolution before the vote, deferring to the president and being preoccupied as he was with “economic diplomacy” rather than foreign affairs. Once the bombing started, however, Putin understood its import; the unstated goal of the NATO air war was not merely the protection of civilians caught in the crossfire, but rather the overthrow of Qaddafi’s regime. He believed that Medvedev had been duped. “Putin read through the text of the resolution and saw that some countries could use the rubbery language to act the way they did,” the adviser said.
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As NATO bombs rained on Libya, Putin spoke out. Touring a weapons factory, he denounced the United Nations resolution as “flawed and inadequate.” “If one reads it, then it immediately becomes clear that it authorizes anyone to take any measures against a sovereign state. All in all, it reminds me of a medieval call to crusade, when someone calls upon others to go somewhere and free someone else.” He compared it to the American wars of the previous decade, the bombings of Serbia, Afghanistan, and, under a fabricated pretext, Iraq. “Now it’s Libya’s turn.”

Putin’s spokesman said he had merely expressed a personal opinion, but with Medvedev already facing criticism for the resolution, it was an unmistakable rebuke. Medvedev promptly assembled the Kremlin’s press pool at his dacha outside Moscow to defend Russia’s abstention and, at least obliquely, to criticize Putin. He wore a leather bomber jacket with a fur collar, zipped up tight. Appearing stern and a little uncomfortable, even nervous, he said the Security Council’s action had been justified in light of Libya’s actions. He sounded defensive. Russia’s decision not to veto the resolution had been “a qualified decision” to help find a resolution to the exploding conflict. “Everything that is happening in Libya is a result of the Libyan leadership’s absolutely intolerable behavior and
the crimes that they have committed against their own people.” Even as he expressed concern about the extent of the allied bombing campaign (which would continue for eight more months), he warned that Putin’s language would not help end the fighting. “I think we need to be very careful in our choice of words. It is inadmissible to say anything that could lead to a clash of civilizations, talk of ‘crusades’ and so on. This is unacceptable.”

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A
s his term wound down, Medvedev redoubled his efforts to make liberalizing reforms in the economy, as if his time were running out. In one instance he decreed that government ministers could no longer serve on the boards of the state corporations that Putin had made a centerpiece of his economic policy. Medvedev himself had served on Gazprom’s board while chief of staff and later deputy prime minister, but the move to bar officials from wearing two hats was an effort to weaken his chief rival in Putin’s camp, Igor Sechin, who had served as deputy prime minister and chairman of Rosneft. (Putin ultimately agreed to the measure, but exempted Gazprom, where Putin’s close ally and former prime minister Viktor Zubkov remained in place.) Medvedev’s desire to remain as president for another term was palpable, though he could not risk openly declaring it. He and Putin may have been fighting a primary of sorts, but the only vote that mattered was Putin’s, and Medvedev knew it.

In May, after three years in office, Medvedev held his first press conference, the event that Putin had used each year to great effect to demonstrate his mastery of politics and government. Medvedev’s was a pale imitation of Putin’s performances, though, and coming so late in his term, it seemed an act of political desperation. He held it at Skolkovo, the still evolving technological center he hoped would one day become a new Silicon Valley. Although he professed allegiance to Putin and praised their mutual commitment to the country’s interests, he said he did not think that relations with NATO “were that bad,” despite the war in Libya, and declared that Ukraine had every right to pursue its integration with Europe, something that Putin had viewed as a cataclysmic threat. In response to a question about replacing regional governors, he seemed to allude to the perpetuity of Putin’s power, saying that leaders should not cling to office for too long, but rather make way for a new generation, as was happening in Tunisia and Egypt. “I think this is important because no one can stay in power forever,” he said. “People
who harbor such illusions usually come to a rather bad end, and the world has given us quite a few examples of late.”

As the war in Libya dragged on, however, Medvedev’s handling of the presidency became an open target for criticism in the media, signaled no doubt by Putin’s own moves. In May, he announced the creation of a new organization, the All Russia People’s Front, which was intended to expand the political coalition at the heart of his power and to distance him from the “party of swindlers and thieves.” Within days, hundreds of organizations, unions, associations, and factories were rushing to join. The sole point of the project was to make Putin, not the country’s sitting president, the “national leader” who would unite them. Medvedev pressed ahead with his proposals to reform the economy, freeing up capital and innovation, but he was losing ground. He met privately with twenty-seven of the country’s leading businessmen—the oligarchs who like everyone else awaited the resolution of the presidential “primary” with growing alarm. He implored them to support his proposals, and by implication his candidacy, or to accept the stagnant status quo. Some of those in attendance interpreted Medvedev’s remarks as an ultimatum for them to choose, but his message was so muddled that the participants could not be sure of his desire—or his ability—to fight to hold office. Afterward, they mocked his appeals, according to one of those who attended: “Have you already decided?”
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In June, in an interview with
The Financial Times
, Medvedev acknowledged for the first time that he wanted to return for a second term, but then he had to admit that it was not his decision alone. “I think that any leader who occupies such a post as president, simply must want to run,” he said. “But another question is whether he is going to decide whether he’s going to run for the presidency or not. So his decision is somewhat different from his willingness to run. So this is my answer.”
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If Medvedev wanted to assert real political independence, he did not show it. He could have used any of his appearances or interviews to openly declare his intention to run, perhaps even against Putin himself, presenting a real choice to voters. Instead, he was left awkwardly not answering the question that by the summer of 2011 seemed to have dragged the country into a prolonged political crisis, recalling the uncertainties of the “2008 problem.” Unnatural disasters unfolded, like sad symptoms of the country’s paralysis, including the sinking of a ferryboat on the Volga River in July that drowned more than 120 people and the crash of an airplane carrying the players and coaches of one of the
country’s professional hockey teams, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Medvedev was scheduled days later to hold a conference in the team’s hometown, Yaroslavl, and it seemed a terrible omen.

By then, even senior ministers were afraid to attend these conferences lest it be seen as an endorsement of Medvedev over Putin. Putin’s steely charisma, his absolute determination, his ability to remain above the trials of Russian life, shielded him from blame when tragedies like these struck. Medvedev, though, looked overwhelmed as president. Perhaps by design, public blame for the sinking and the crash flowed toward him.

Putin’s prominence in state media suddenly surged noticeably, an orchestrated campaign that seemed to highlight the personal, even physical, differences between the two men. Putin appeared at the summer camp of the youth group Nashi; he prayed at one of the holiest sites of Russian Orthodoxy; he dove in the Black Sea to the ruins of an ancient Greek city and, behold, surfaced clutching two amphorae. That his spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, later acknowledged that the “discovery” was staged was an unnoticed footnote to the televised image of a man in a tight wetsuit, still fit and very much in his prime.

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y the time United Russia’s delegates gathered at Luzhniki in September, there remained a shivering uncertainty, even bewilderment, as another political transition approached. Even as they drafted their party platform for the elections, then only ten weeks away, no one—not even the party leaders, or the closest aides of Putin or Medvedev—knew whether a choice had been made or whether the excruciating limbo ahead of the 2012 presidential campaign would continue. Inside the stadium on that Saturday morning, the delegates listened to speeches extolling the stunning transformation of an ideological empire that had rotted and collapsed and now risen again, presided over, it was made clear, by one man: Putin. Boris Gryzlov, the Duma’s speaker, looked like an apparatchik of old, his face stern and pinched as he read the party’s platform, droning on about pledges of prosperity and competence.

Eventually, the lights dimmed and the crowd hushed. From the wings, lit like rock stars, Putin and Medvedev entered the congress, striding side by side, their shoulders swaying in tandem. Putin had a look of utter assuredness, which is what his supporters have said the country always craved, not the shamed visage of a cowering leader of a diminished power. Putin spoke first, adhering to the protocol of political rank. He began by referring to “the most pressing challenges facing
our nation,” and then addressed the most acute question on the delegates’ minds with an elaborate tease. He stopped short of revealing what exactly the answer was—just as he had done in the private councils he had held with his various aides in the preceding days. “I am aware that United Russia members, supporters, and the delegates of this conference are expecting the Russian president and prime minister to voice proposals on the country’s power configuration and government structure after the elections,” he said. “I want to tell you directly that we have long since reached an agreement on what we will be doing in the future. That agreement was reached several years ago. However, following this debate as observers, both Mr. Medvedev and I said that it is hardly the most important thing: who will do which job and occupy which position. What’s more important is the quality of work, what results we achieve, and how our people perceive our efforts, what their reaction is to our proposals for the nation’s future development and whether they support us.”