Overreach, page 42
From the Kremlin, I would like to thank Dmitry Peskov (Putin’s spokesman since 2012) for chats in his Kremlin office and over dinner that have been tours de force of adamantine defiance of reality as I understand it. I am also grateful to Sergei Kiriyenko (Prime Minister March–August 2008 and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the presidential administration since 2016); Sergei Stepashin (Director of the Federal Security Service 1994–95, Prime Minister May–August 1999); Igor Shuvalov (First Deputy Prime Minister 2008–18); the late Sergei Prikhodko (Deputy Prime Minister 2013–18, First Deputy Head of the Russian Government Office 2018–21); Oleg Sysuyev (Deputy Prime Minister 1997–98); and Aleksandr Voloshin (chief of Boris Yeltsin’s presidential administration who hired Vladimir Putin and later helped install him as president) for their official and especially their unofficial remarks. Usually the most significant things in any interview are said after the notebook is closed. Thanks also to the veteran Kremlin spin doctors Gleb Pavlovsky and Stanislav Belkovsky, who helped me understand the foundations of the Putin project.
From the Duma and Federation Council, thanks for insights and advice to Senator Oleg Morozov (Member of the Federation Council for Tatarstan 2015–20 and head of the presidential office for domestic policy 2012–15); Aleksandr Khinshtein (Duma Deputy for United Russia 2003–present and adviser to Rosgvardia head Viktor Zolotov); Leonid Slutsky (Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 2022–present); Sergei Zheleznyak (United Russia Duma Deputy 2016–21); and Gennady Zyuganov (General Secretary of the Communist Party of Russia since 1993). The late Vladimir Zhirinovsky – leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 1992–2022 – threatened on live TV to have me ‘sent to the gulag’ – but during a gruelling two-hour one-on-one debate in front of his entire parliamentary party at their Duma offices I learned almost as much about the mindset of Russian politicians as I had during two decades of reporting. The late Boris Nemtsov – whom I first met when he was Deputy Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin – always gave fearlessly clear and intelligent insights into the workings of power, which he had seen from both inside and out before being shot down in front of the Kremlin by Chechen gunmen in 2015.
From the Russian security services and military I would like to thank the bravely outspoken Colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok (Chief of the 1st Group of the 1st Directorate of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff 1998–2000); Major General Yury Kobaladze (spokesman of the Foreign Intelligence Service, 1992–99); Major Valery Velichko of the KGB Veterans club; Colonels Aleksandr Lebedev, Mikhail Lyubimov and Oleg Gordievsky, all former officers of the KGB’s First General Directorate in London; Major General Oleg Kalugin; Colonel Aleksandr Klubnikov of the Foreign Intelligence Service, who saved my backside in Afghanistan; Major Aleksandr Koshelev of the Russian Interior Ministry Forces, who hosted me in Chechnya; and retired Lieutenant-General Evgeny Buzhinsky, whose analysis of Russian military failures showed an admirably robust dedication to facts over spin.
Various Russian businessmen have been generous with their hospitality and time. Among them are Aleksei Miller, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom; Pyotr Aven and Mikhail Fridman of Alfa Group; Rustem Tariko of Russky Standart; Yandex founder Arkady Volosh; and Stuart Lawson, the former CEO of five Russian banks.
Many Russian journalists, on both sides of the ideological divide, have given me invaluable help – as well as insights into the inner workings of the Kremlin’s highly sophisticated propaganda machine. Olga Skabeeva and Evgeny Popov invited me to appear as a guest on 60 Minut, Rossiya-1’s top-rated politics talk show, over 40 times. Andrei Norkin of NTV’s Mesto Vstrechi and Vladimir Solovyov – who went on to become one of the vilest and most hysterical of the Kremlin propaganda machine’s attack dogs – also hosted me on their shows. The experience was unpleasant, but educational both on the methods of the Kremlin propaganda machine and on the assumptions and obsessions of Russia’s political class. Konstantin Ernst, CEO of Channel One Russia since 1999, is one of the most intelligent and talented people in the Kremlin’s media machine. Conversations with him have never been anything but revealing – both of how propaganda is created and of the mindset of former liberals like Ernst who have found a new ideological home at the heart of the new regime. Veteran broadcaster Vladimir Pozner has been gracious and invariably fascinating on how the Putin elite thinks. Ekaterina Shevchenko, news editor at Rossiya-24, and Maria Baronova, formerly of RT, have also given important glimpses into the belly of the propaganda beast.
Some other passionate supporters of the Kremlin deserve my thanks – though in the opinion of most liberal Russians they have become, in the pungent Soviet-era phrase, nerukopozhatniye, or people whose hand one can no longer shake. Oscar-winning film-maker Nikita Mikhalkov is a dacha neighbour and old friend of my wife’s family; his daughter is my son’s godmother. I find his Orthodox-fundamentalist, ultra-nationalist, openly imperialist views obnoxious. But I am grateful to Mikhalkov for his hospitality and his straight-talking frankness. He minces no words. Some things – the worst things – need to be heard straight. Ultra-nationalist ideologist Aleksandr Dugin – one of the few people I have ever interviewed who uses the term ‘fascist’ with approval – also falls into this category, as does the late Eduard Limonov. And of course the writer Zakhar Prilepin, who gave me a glimpse into one of Russia’s possible futures.
On the liberal side, I would like to thank Ksenia Sobchak, TV personality and Vladimir Putin’s goddaughter. Aleksei Venediktov, founding editor-in-chief of the Echo Moskvy radio station, is by far the best-connected political journalist in Russia. Natalia Sindeyeva, founder of the independent Dozhd TV, former editor-in-chief Mikhail Zygar, anchor Anna Mongayt and former Dozhd Kremlin pool reporter Anton Zhelnov have also been incredibly helpful. Mikhail Fishman, my former colleague at Newsweek, has done an extraordinary job of reporting the war from exile in Tel Aviv. Yevgenia Albats and Andrei Soldatov’s knowledge of the Russian security services has been a touchstone for years. Andrei Vasiliyev and Konstantin Remchukov, former editors-in-chief of Kommersant Daily and Nezavisimaya Gazeta respectively, have always been impressively well informed and generous with gossip.
In Ukraine, I would like to thank Iuliia Mendel, Volodymyr Zelensky’s press secretary until December 2021, and Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak’s adviser Serhiy Leshchenko for their frankness. Also Evgeny Kisilev, once Moscow’s most famous TV news anchor and now Kyiv’s; my old friend and political analyst Olesya Yakhno; Yulia Mostovaya, editor-in-chief of the Zerkalo Nedeli magazine. The incomparably talented Vlad Troitsky, the members of the Dakh Daughters group, artists Ilya Yusupov, Ilya Chichkan and his wife Masha Shubina, in different ways showed me the amazing spirit and, later, cheerful resilience of Kyiv.
Boroslav Bereza, who despite being proudly Jewish was the deputy head of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Right Sector political movement and militia, broke many stereotypes. So did Anatoly Ivanov, a softly spoken judge from Omul and volunteer Right Sector officer, who was very far from the ‘fascist’ caricature of Russian propaganda.
Across the front lines in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), Fyodor Berezin – a fantasy novelist turned deputy defence minister – offered the best insight into the mentality of the romantic-nationalist wing of the DNR leadership. Boris Litvinov, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and Aleksandr Kalyusskiy, Deputy Prime Minister of the DNR, demonstrated respectively the Soviet-bureaucratic and (to put it politely) business sides of the rebel republic’s leadership.
I have tried to base this book as closely as possible on Russian and Ukrainian sources and voices. Nonetheless, many Western experts – including academics, politicians, diplomats and journalists – have been enormously helpful in various ways and at various times. I would like to thank former Polish Foreign and Defence Minister Radosław Sikorski, former US ambassadors to Moscow Prof. Michael McFaul and Senator John Huntsman, and former British ambassadors Sir Rodric Braithwaite and Sir Andrew Wood.
I could not have told such a complex story without also drawing heavily on the work of many brilliant colleagues, whose hard work tracking down sources in both Russia and Ukraine underpins many of the personal narratives used in this book. The BBC Russian Service’s Svyatoslav Khomenko and Nina Nazarova’s two-month-long investigation into the story of Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin,1 The New York Times’s Yousur Al-Hiou, Masha Froliak, Evan Hill, Malachy Browne and David Botti’s careful reconstruction of the events at Bucha in the first month of the war and The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov’s reconstruction of the battle for Voznesensk in the early days of the war,2 and Manveen Rana of The Times of London’s contacts inside the Wagner Group are just a few examples of stellar reporting on which I have drawn.
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Owen Matthews, Overreach
