Securitising Russia: The domestic politics of Vladimir Putin 9781847792051

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Securitising Russia

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Securitising Russia The domestic politics of Putin

Edwin Bacon and Bettina Renz with Julian Cooper

Manchester University Press Manchester and New York published exclusively in the USA by Palgrave

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Copyright © Edwin Bacon, Bettina Renz and Julian Cooper 2006 The right of Edwin Bacon, Bettina Renz and Julian Cooper to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0 7190 7224 7 hardback EAN 978 0 7190 7224 6

First published 2006 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by Helen Skelton, Brighton, UK

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Contents

List of tables and figures Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

page vii ix xi xiii xv

Approaches to contemporary Russia The security forces The Chechen conflict The media Civil society Migration The economy Conclusion

1 22 48 76 102 126 151 177

Select bibliography Index

191 196

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List of tables and figures

Tables

1.1 3.1 7.1

Referent objects of securitisation page 11 Popular views of the situation in Chechnya 69 Leading personnel of Russian government economic agencies with military and security services backgrounds, July 2003 160

Figures

7.1 7.2 7.3

Number of articles on ‘economic security’ in three major economic journals, 1992–2004 Index of share of newspaper articles referring to ‘economic security’, 1992–2005 Index share of newspaper articles referring to ‘economic security’ minus articles also referring to Yukos, 1992–2005

170 171

172

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Preface

The main sources used for this book were the Russian press; official documentation, such as federal laws and presidential decrees; and official websites, for example, of the State Duma and the President of the Russian Federation. Access to the Eastview Universal Database of Russian Central Newspapers, which provides full text coverage of about fifty Russian periodicals, was indispensable for this research. Media sources were backed up by some forty expert interviews conducted in Moscow specifically for this project. Respondents were chosen from across the political and ideological spectrum and included politicians as well as journalists, academics, and NGO workers. The transliteration scheme used throughout the book is based on the British Standard scheme. Diacritical marks used in Russian, such as soft signs and hard signs, were omitted for stylistic reasons (for example, Glazev, not Glaz’ev). Additionally, commonly known names are spelled in their popular form (for example, Yeltsin, not El’tsin). All translations from Russian and German are by the authors.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Economic and Social Research Council for their generous support of the research project of which this book is the main outcome (ESRC Research Award R000239691, Principal Award Holder: Edwin Bacon). This award enabled the appointment of Bettina Renz as the project’s Research Fellow, as well as supporting research trips to Russia. The project was initially applied for from the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, the University of Birmingham. However, it moved with the project leader, Edwin Bacon, to Bishop Grosseteste College in Lincoln, during his secondment there as Director of Research. Although the project’s topic by no means fitted the disciplinary profile of BGC, the College readily agreed to host it. We are grateful to the then Principal, Professor Eileen Baker, for her support in enabling this, and to her successor, Professor Muriel Robinson, for the continuation of such support as the project came to an end. Thanks are due too to many others at BGC: to academic colleagues for their interest in the project’s work, to staff who assisted with the administrative side of the project, to the IT department for facilitating the hosting of the project website at BGC, and to Becky Bull for being part of the ‘Research House’ team. It was at BGC too that we were able to employ Margarita Stewart, who provided secretarial support and whose native Russian went above and beyond her post’s job description. Throughout the research for this book, the authors’ intellectual home has been the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), the University of Birmingham, where the project’s co-applicant and author of the chapter on the economy, Julian Cooper, is Professor of Russian Economic Studies. The support of our Birmingham colleagues has been vital, particularly in the latter stages of completing this book, when all three authors were once again based at CREES.

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In Moscow the assistance and friendship of Emilia Kosterina was a vital factor in making our research trips enjoyable and fruitful. Similarly we appreciate greatly the time given by our many interviewees – journalists, members of parliament, representatives of non-governmental organisations, and academics. There are too many to list here, but without exception they added to whatever understanding of Russian affairs is accrued in this work. We are grateful to our editor at MUP, Tony Mason, for his straightforward and sympathetic approach, and to the anonymous reviewer of the final manuscript, whose encouragement and critique alike proved beneficial. Finally, we dedicate this book to our families, whose unfailing support has been invaluable throughout the period of its writing. Edwin Bacon Bettina Renz Birmingham

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List of abbreviations

ABC AFB ARD BBC CAST CIS CNN CPSU CPT

American Broadcasting Company Agency of Federal Security Public Broadcasting Corporation of Germany British Broadcasting Corporation Centre for Analysis of Strategy and Technology Commonwealth of Independent States Cable News Network, US television news channel Communist Party of the Soviet Union European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the Council of Europe ETA Basque Homeland and Liberty FAPSI Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information FMS Federal Migration Service FPS Federal Border Guard Service FSB Federal Security Service FSK Federal Counter-intelligence Service FSN Federal Service for the Control of the Drugs Trade FSNP Federal Tax Police Service Gazprom open joint stock gas company GDP Gross domestic product GDR German Democratic Republic GFS State Courier Service Gosplan state planning committee IDP internally displaced person IRA Irish Republican Army IOM International Organisation for Migration ITAR-TASS Russian state news agency

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KGB KPRF LDPR MChS MVD NATO NDR NGO NKVD NTV ORT OSCE RFSFR RSPP RTR RTS SPS SVR UN USSR VTsIOM WTO

Committee for State Security Communist Party of the Russian Federation Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Ministry for Emergency Situations Ministry of Internal Affairs North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Our Home is Russia non-governmental organisation People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs Russian commercially owned television channel Public Russian Television Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Russian television and broadcasting channel Russian Trading System Union of Right Forces Foreign Intelligence Service United Nations Union of Socialist Soviet Republics All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion World Trade Organisation

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Introduction

In early September 2004 schoolchildren in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, southern Russia, returned to school at the start of the academic year. As is traditional across Russia, the first day of school was intended as a celebration. Parents accompanied their children in a public parade, having spent the preceding days anticipating this annual rite of passage, preparing uniforms, buying flowers for the teachers, and reassuring younger children of the benefits and pleasures of school. Instead of the celebrations and tears of normal life, however, there unfolded in Beslan a tragedy observed with disbelief in Russia and across the world. Terrorists, long in the plotting of this attack, seized the school and took hostage children of all ages, parents, grandparents, and teachers. The school gym had been rigged with explosives, and here the women and children were taken. The men were separated off. A strict regime was imposed by the hostage takers, apparently fighting for Chechen independence. In the gym the captives were kept without water or food in the heat of the southern Russian summer, and the children undressed to cope with the heat. No one was allowed to sleep. Some hostages who protested too much or disobeyed their captors were shot. From Wednesday to Friday the siege continued. On the second day of the siege a small number of women with younger children were released, those with older sons or daughters having to leave them behind. The tragic denouement of the siege came on the Friday as, in confused circumstances, shooting began, some children attempted to flee, and Russian troops, along with desperate local civilians, stormed the school. Live pictures beamed around the world presented images of the bloodied bodies of dead, dying, and injured children. Hundreds were killed as the explosives in the school were detonated or they were caught in the crossfire as they tried to escape. The human tragedy of the Beslan hostage crisis is difficult to comprehend. Amidst the stark facts are a myriad of individual stories of terror

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and grief, of survivors who lost parents or siblings, of families separated, of children deeply traumatised, of fifteen-year-old Inga Tuayeva, who was saved by the fact that she stopped to chat to a friend whilst her twin sister Inna went ahead and was killed, and of parents and relatives who for months clung to the hope that somehow their missing child had escaped the carnage. A week after the Beslan tragedy, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, addressed an expanded meeting of his government, to which the leaders of Russia’s eighty-nine regions were invited. He spoke movingly of an event ‘it is impossible to think about without tears’. In the same speech he announced a series of measures apparently designed to combat terrorism. These included the decision to halt elections for Russia’s regional heads in favour of a system of presidential appointment, and the declaration that from 2007 onwards elections to the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, would be conducted purely on a proportional representation basis, with the existing constituency element removed. The events of that one particular week in September 2004 in Russia serve to encapsulate the theme of this book. No one could deny the extent of the terrorist threat faced by Russia, given the tragedy of Beslan. Many observers, however, saw little connection between President Putin’s reforms announced on 13 September and the circumstances which led to the horrors of Beslan. Many liberal observers, in the West and in Russia, accused Putin of taking a step away from democracy under the guise of fighting terrorism. Others saw a strong president taking decisive action. The balance between freedom and security is a familiar conundrum for governments across the globe in the twenty-first century, against the background of events like the Beslan tragedy in Russia, or the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and on London on 7 July 2005. In the following chapters we consider the extent to which the domestic politics of Russia have been ‘securitised’. The securitisation of an issue occurs when a state takes measures beyond what is ‘normal’ on the grounds that a vital threat exists which demands such measures. In Russia this process of securitisation has been attempted across a range of policy areas, and terrorism is but one threat against Russia which has been cited in this regard. Political actors in Russia have also seen threats to key interests in such developments as, for example, illegal immigration, unconstrained media, non-traditional religious groups, and far-right political movements. The process of securitisation is analysed across the key areas of Russia’s domestic politics in order to gain a deep understanding of factors driving policy formation in contemporary Russia. This is particularly pertinent since the rise of to power of Vladimir Putin in 2000. Putin has often been portrayed as bringing the approach of his former employers,

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the KGB (Committee for State Security), to Russian politics, and of rolling back some of the democratic freedoms put in place by Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. By using the securitisation framework, we are able to interrogate these overviews of President Putin and his administration in detail. What this approach reveals is a far more nuanced picture than is often painted. There are clear continuities between the Yeltsin and Putin eras; there are examples of moves to bring certain areas of policy into the security framework to which Putin has objected, and of moves to securitise issues which have foundered, despite Putin’s support, on the rock of judicial objections; and there are areas of policy where the talk of security has convinced many that urgent measures are needed. In Chapter 1, the theoretical framework for our analysis is introduced, and the case for its use is put. The framework facilitates a conceptualisation of Putin’s Russia avoiding the democratic/undemocratic split which has dominated much analysis of the Russian Federation in the postcommunist era. A key element of this framework is the analysis of discourse, or how a policy issue is presented and the case for it being a security matter constructed. This emphasis on discourse is evident throughout the later chapters, with direct quotes from political actors being central to our analysis of the issues under discussion. Chapter 2 then turns to one of the most often cited criticisms of Vladimir Putin, namely that he is an ex-KGB man who has populated his administration with ex-KGB men and rules Russia in the style of a silovik (a person with a background in the Russian force structures). The analysis questions the assumption that we can form an opinion of someone’s political stance on the basis of their former employment, and details the many different roles, career paths, and political views of former forcestructure figures in Russian politics. The chapter also investigates the role of the KGB’s successor agency, the FSB (Federal Security Service), in contemporary Russia, paying special attention to the phenomenon of ‘spy-mania’, whereby an unusual number of espionage cases were launched against academics, journalists, and businessmen in Russia at the turn of the twenty-first century. From Chapter 3 onwards we turn, on a chapter by chapter basis, to consideration of particular policy areas which have been the subject of attempts to securitise them. Each of these chapters can be read on its own as a study of Russian policy in a given area of activity; taken together they provide a coherent overview of forces at play in Russian politics today. The clearest case for securitisation in Russia has of course been policy with regard to the conflict in Chechnya and its accompanying terrorism. Securitising moves in this area of policy are analysed, along with the counter-discourse used by the Russian authorities, which attempts to argue that the situation in Chechnya is becoming ‘normal’.

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Chapter 4 focuses on securitising moves in relation to the media, investigating successful and failed attempts to bring the activities of free media institutions into the realm of a state-controlled security complex. From a focus on the media, Chapter 5 moves on to look at civil society more widely, presenting the processes by which such diverse elements of life as religious belief, football hooliganism, and offences against national dignity have all been the subject of moves – some successful, some less so – to make them matters of urgent national security concern. Chapter 6 deals with the topic of migration. In Russia, as in many other states, the impact of immigrants on national life has been a sharply debated political issue. On the one hand, Russia more than most countries appears to be in urgent need of more people, given its dire demographic situation and prognoses of rapid depopulation. On the other hand, Russia, again more than many countries, has strong elements of the desire to protect its national identity, and even of xenophobia, within its political make-up. The balance between these two factors, both of which have been portrayed as vital threats to the well-being of the nation, is analysed. All but one of this book’s chapters are written jointly by the main authors. Chapter 7 is the exception and is written by Julian Cooper, an economist specialising on the economics of the Soviet Union and Russia. It provides a detailed account of the on-off battle in the postcommunist era to subjugate the Russian economy to security concerns. The chapter argues that, although there are some signs to the contrary in recent years, for now the notion that economic policy should be a function of perceived security threats has not won the day in Russia. In the final chapter, the preceding analyses are drawn together to bring out the key elements of the securitising discourse which are common across many policy areas in contemporary Russian politics. The chapter concludes by arguing for greater rigour, contextualisation, and differentiation in judgements of the Putin administration’s domestic politics.

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1 Approaches to contemporary Russia

For most of the twentieth century Russia was markedly more authoritarian than it is today. Nonetheless, many observers of Russia in the first decade of the twenty-first century see a country increasingly moving back in an authoritarian direction, in comparison with the democratising moves and mood of the 1990s. According to this view, if the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin was the decade of democracy then a new century and a new president, Vladimir Putin, have seen a shift in emphasis. Analysts interpret this shift in different ways, with some seeing a move back towards Russia’s traditional ways, and others seeing a regrettable, or necessary, hiatus on the road to a fully-fledged democracy.1 However, whilst there may be discussion about the meaning and extent of President Putin’s change in approach, that there has been such a change is no longer disputed. In this book we argue that our understanding of a shift in the content of Russian politics can be served by refining our analytical approach towards Russia. Using a concept developed in the field of international relations, we show that many developments in Russia’s domestic politics can be effectively explained and analysed through the discourse of ‘securitisation’ and the use by Russia’s political leadership – in a wide range of policy settings – of the rhetoric of existential threat to justify actions increasingly perceived as authoritarian. This is a book about domestic politics. We are interested in bringing to the fore the discussions and declarations of political actors in Putin’s Russia. The securitisation framework underlies much of our analysis, helping to explain how particular areas of Russian policy have become more authoritarian in recent years, and how other areas have been less susceptible to this shift. However, this book can also be read on a more straightforward level as an account of the changing face of Russian politics since the turn of the millennium. The areas selected for analysis

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are for the most part those commonly associated with moves towards greater state control, both in Russia and comparatively. There are chapters therefore on the Russian state’s recent policies in regard to the media, civil society, national separatism and terrorism (Chechnya), migration, and the economy. In addition, Chapter 2 considers the increasing role of former and current security service personnel in Russian politics. The growth of people with a security background in key positions within the Russian elite is detailed, but, although counting former security service personnel in key positions is useful and indicative of a general trend, it can only take us so far before the question ‘so what?’ is asked. The securitisation framework provides an approach within which to answer this. It concentrates on policy initiatives and their source, investigating areas of policy which have been taken ‘out of public view’ and are dealt with primarily behind closed doors, with the security services taking the lead. The concluding chapter considers the nature of the regime created under Vladimir Putin between 2000 and 2005 and cautions against too-rapid conclusions that Russia is returning to its past. It considers the institutional depth and political stability of the system of government established during the Putin presidency in the early years of the twentyfirst century and argues that the plurality of opinions, organisations, and social groupings present in contemporary Russia militates against any assumption that the period of retrenchment experienced during these years has an inevitable permanence. Our aim in this book is to detail developments in Russian domestic politics whilst avoiding any sense of inevitability in terms of future scenarios. In other words, a ‘return to authoritarianism’ is not the only realistic option for Russia. There are other forces (the judiciary, the media, political opposition, the international community, global communications, big business) which may work against such a process. There are key events too, most notably the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2007 and 2008 respectively, which will open up political debate and promote political intrigue, even if in a limited or controlled fashion. This opening chapter places developments in contemporary Russia within the empirical and analytical contexts of the post-Soviet period. There is an apparent duality about both of these contexts, and this duality is centred on the issue of democratisation. Since President Putin’s election in 2000, many observers have remarked on the ‘two faces’ of Vladimir Putin2 – is he a democratic or an authoritarian leader? Legitimate though this question undoubtedly is, we argue below that its inherent duality arises partly from the dominant analytical frameworks of the post-Soviet era, and militates against a more holistic and explanatory understanding of the current Russian regime. The second section

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outlines the securitisation approach, detailing its features and assessing its applicability to contemporary Russia. The two faces of Russia today

Using the terminology of democratic transition theory, difficulties arise in placing the Russia of the early twenty-first century on the democratic continuum. At the institutional level, the fundamental structures broadly accepted as features of democratisation under President Boris Yeltsin (1991–99) remain in place. The constitution has not been amended, multi-party parliamentary elections occur, as do multi-candidate presidential elections. In Russia’s regions, legislatures are elected. The major change which President Putin has made in regard to regional democracy is that since the beginning of 2005, the heads of regional executives (governors, republican presidents, and the mayors of Russia’s two ‘federal cities’, St Petersburg and Moscow) are no longer elected but are nominated by the President and approved by regional legislatures. This is a less purely democratic procedure than direct election, but in comparative terms is not undemocratic per se. Direct election of regional heads had only been in place in Russia since 1997, and there are other democratic countries where the heads of regional executives are not directly elected. Legal provisions are in place in Russia to protect the fundamental rights and values of a democratic society. Russia remains signed up to the key human rights commitments of the international community. Under President Putin, post-Soviet Russia seems to have come of age when compared with the erratic foreign policy zigzags of Boris Yeltsin. Russia no longer appears to simply kow-tow to the West and to the United States in particular, and Putin draws close to the US or distances himself and draws close to other allies, whilst maintaining a good relationship with many states and presenting a picture of a stable country acting consistently in the perceived national interest.3 And yet, there is much that the summary outlined above misses. A quite different summary would end with conclusions increasingly accepted in the thinking media in the West, and exemplified by the forceful headline in a leading news journal in late 2003, urging that ‘the West should stop pretending that Russia is a free democracy’.4 Within the scholarly literature too, the early years of the twenty-first century have seen a growing focus on issues such as registration laws, barriers to the development of civil society,5 the presence of former KGB officers in the political elite,6 and the classification of a regime for which the simple term ‘democracy’ will not do, and so numerous other definitions have been pressed into service – definitions summed up by Harley Balzer and others

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as ‘adjectival democracy’ (for example, delegative democracy, incomplete democracy, electoral democracy, illiberal democracy, and so on).7 In the period 2000–05, the Putin presidency has been engaged in a process of ‘state strengthening’, or centralisation, whereby the control of the Kremlin over many aspects of life has apparently been increased. The regions are now overseen both by presidential plenipotentiaries and heads of executives who owe their positions to presidential appointment. The national broadcasting media are under the control of the state, either directly or through state-owned companies, and although allowing a plurality of views they are able to limit coverage of particular issues and to promote particular people and policies. In 2003 the Freedom House survey of global press freedom downgraded Russia from its ‘partly free’ to ‘not free’ category, a status which it has retained through to Freedom House’s 2005 survey and in all likelihood beyond.8 Since 2001 three independent national television channels, the respected national newspaper Segodnya and the news magazine Itogi have been either closed down or brought under government influence, although the printed press continues to be largely privately owned and to cover the full range of political viewpoints. Election campaigns have seen the use of state resources, including the media, to boost the chances of the regime’s candidates. Civil society has been hedged about by registration laws and occasional harassment by the authorities of groups deemed undesirable. It is debatable to what extent such measures have managed to strengthen the Russian state. President Putin could be said to have too much and too little power, in the sense that he has so successfully centralised decision-making and dealt with political opponents that the ability of government to implement decisions has been damaged, since so few are prepared to act independently or with initiative. As the Moscow daily Moskovskii komsomolets put it after the tragedy of the Beslan school siege in September 2004, Putin is ill-served by advisers who ‘will never say anything critical or unpleasant’. As result ‘the fatal mistake of President Putin is that he refuses to understand that he has no instruments of power. He behaves as if … all his correct decisions will be immediately carried out.’9 Analysis of the strength of the state depends on a number of variables, most importantly on how one defines the state. Nonetheless, the preceding discussion of the process by which Putin has sought to strengthen the state suggests a Russia very different from the ‘country in which democracy and freedom and the rule of law thrive’, which US President George W. Bush cited as President Putin’s vision at the Camp David summit between the two leaders in September 2003. How then do we analyse the ‘two faces’ of Vladimir Putin and his regime, and how do we explain the political processes underway in Russia? How do we

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explore these apparent contradictions without oversimplification, and without succumbing to a priori assumptions about the nature of the Putin regime and of Russia today? More importantly for the political scientist, what tools are available to give us a more nuanced understanding of the nature of the Russian regime? By adopting and adapting the ‘securitisation’ approach developed in the international relations sphere, we offer a framework within which to explain, analyse, and define the apparently more ‘controlling’ aspects of the Russian state. We do not presume an authoritarian edge to policy. In fact one strength of the adapted securitisation framework lies in its rigorous procedurally based classification and testing of steps in an apparently authoritarian direction. In later chapters we apply this framework to a succession of areas where elements of the ‘security state’ might be said by critics to have triumphed over the demands of democracy. A two-way split?

It is too simplistic to argue either that contemporary Russia is democratic or that it is not. Such an argument does not take us very far in terms of understanding, and can easily lead into dispute over semantics and catchall judgements. A more nuanced assessment, dealing with degrees of democracy in different areas of Russian life, seems preferable and yet in essence represents merely a slightly more sophisticated sectoral variation of the initial argument. Indeed any analysis which simply points to a democratic/undemocratic bifurcation in Russian political affairs misses a potentially holistic understanding of what is largely a coherent set of policies put forward by an apparently stable regime with substantial majority support amongst the Russian people. Such a bifurcated analysis worked for much of the 1990s. It reflected the provenance of the Yeltsin regime in the polarised political – and sometimes military – conflicts of the Soviet break-up of 1989–93. It reflected too the ‘forwards not backwards’ banner under which Yeltsin and his team successfully fought to entrench their regime in the face of substantial popular opposition. However, some time in the years after Yeltsin’s 1996 presidential election victory, the defining split in Russian domestic politics between ‘reformers’ and ‘reactionaries’ became less and less significant. The opposition Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) not only looked ever more unlikely to offer a real alternative government to the voters, but it also increasingly accepted the changes of the post-Soviet era as given.10 By the time of the next set of elections (the parliamentary and presidential elections of 1999 and 2000 respectively), the issue of fundamental regime change was scarcely on the agenda. By then the central un-answered political question merely asked from which

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grouping in the political elite the new ‘party of power’ and new president would emerge. The elemental ‘reform versus reaction’ politics which dominated Russia from the late 1980s until shortly after Boris Yeltsin secured his second presidential term in 1996 has now given way to a domestic consensus centred on a strong state, economic reform, and a new realism in international affairs.11 Given that the political wallpaper in Moscow differs so markedly in the early years of the twenty-first century from that of just a few years earlier, so then the approach taken by analysts needs to respond to these changes. The working approach of this book is founded on two bases worth noting from the outset. The first is the rejection of any assumption that contemporary Russia will necessarily continue on a democratising path. This is not to deny – it would be foolish to do so – the achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years in producing a particular form of procedural democracy with institutions recognisable within the democratic pale. Nor indeed is it to deny the flowering of a range of freedoms in this same period. It is though to move away from any teleological undercurrent in this regard. Whether Russia becomes more or less of a democracy in the coming years is not simply a factor of the impersonal forces of history, the prevailing will of the international community, or the tick-box options chosen by respondents to Russian opinion pollsters. It also has to do with policy decisions made by political actors in specific circumstances concerning a range of individual issues. The second element of our approach is the mirror of the first. It is to reject the assumption that contemporary Russia is necessarily moving towards a Soviet-esque quasi-authoritarian society. Similar arguments apply as in the rejection of the democratising counter-argument. We shy away from the idea that just because Russia has repeatedly been ruled by a ‘strong hand’, it is doomed to continue in this vein. Nations can and do change. In the same way, talk of a thermidorian reaction after the revolution of the early 1990s may be beguiling, but to have analytical force it must ground itself firmly in empirical evidence.12 What we are about here then is moving away from the dichotomy represented by, in the words of Steven Rosefielde, ‘those who deny Russia’s habituation to authority and privilege’ and ‘the counterthesis – Russia is trapped in a Muscovite authoritarian mold’.13 The adapted securitisation model offers an additional explanatory framework within which official actions which are both ‘reformist’ and ‘reactionary’ – to use the terminology of old debates – make sense. For much of this book the substance of our analysis moves away from the macro-level. It deliberately takes its eye off the big picture in order to concentrate on particular areas of policy and gain an understanding of the

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actual substance of politics. In the end this focus on a more mezo-level analysis of distinct policies then enables a different ‘big picture’ to be assembled. Building on transition

We have argued so far that analysis of changing circumstances in contemporary Russia might benefit from additional conceptual and analytical tools. In some measure the situation is reminiscent of that found by analysts of the Soviet Union in the 1960s, when increasingly the totalitarian model seemed inadequate to many as an explanatory framework for a modern state with an educated society. New approaches were introduced, such as corporatism, convergence theory, and the ‘monoorganisational society’.14 The interest group analysis developed by Gordon Skilling and colleagues in the early 1970s is most akin to our work here, not because of any similarity in subject or conclusions, but rather in terms of its mezo-level, sectoral approach which then fed back into a macro-level conceptualisation.15 The predominant social science conceptualisation of Russia in the 1990s – that of a formerly authoritarian, even totalitarian, state with a centrally controlled economy engaging in a process of transition towards becoming a democratic state with a market economy – has been thoroughly explored by political scientists and area specialists. Transition theory in its various forms produced at its best a literature of considerable significance and insight, increasing our understanding of post-Soviet Russia.16 It is no part of our task here to gainsay the importance of that body of scholarly endeavour. At its crudest, however, transition theory is essentially predicated on a teleological linear dynamic, and through much of the immediate post-Soviet period major policy decisions in Russia were viewed in this light by a number of Western policy-makers and academics, who assessed each development in terms of its effect on progress towards a consolidated market democracy. Such an approach is less appropriate for conceptualising today’s relatively stable regime. Contemporary Russian policy no longer focuses on ‘transiting’ in the sense of institutionbuilding for market democracy or of learning the language and behaviour of a democratic regime. In the early twenty-first century there is little sense of momentum along a linear trajectory towards democracy. As President Putin put it when succeeding Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999: merely experimenting with abstract models and schemes taken from foreign textbooks cannot assure that our country will achieve genuine renewal … the mechanical copying of other nations’ experience will not guarantee success.17

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Russia’s priority since the beginning of the Putin presidency in 2000 has been the strengthening of the state; not an undemocratic priority in itself, but nor is it an explicit commitment to the deepening of democracy. When Vladimir Putin came to power he declared that ‘Russia is completing the first transition stage of economic and political reforms’.18 Such a statement has particular significance in the Russian context, where decades of political discourse have seen great importance attached to the place of Russia (or, more particularly, the Soviet Union) in terms of stages of political development. During the Soviet era, major policy stances were repeatedly signalled by a leader asserting that the Soviet state had reached a particular stage on the path to communism. Nikita Khrushchev’s overly ambitious declaration in 1961 that the Soviet Union stood in sight of communism was followed by Leonid Brezhnev’s far more cautious assertion in the 1970s that the stage of developed socialism had been reached. Brezhnev’s successor, Yurii Andropov, in turn dampened expectations still further, arguing at the Party Plenum in 1983 only that Soviet society stood at the beginning of the historically long period of developed socialism. That these Soviet leaders would turn in their graves to hear a Russian leader talk of progress on the road to capitalism is not to undermine the view that essentially Putin was engaging, in 2000, in the same process of signalling his own policy priorities. The stage known as transition was declared to be all but completed. Democratic transition was no longer to come so high up the agenda of the Russian president, nor indeed of the Russian political elite as a whole. By 2004 President Putin was talking – in his annual address to Russia’s parliament – about three distinct stages in the postcommunist era, namely: dismantling the old system, clearing away the debris from such a dismantling, and embarking on a path of rapid development. His implication was that the first stage occurred during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency (1991–99), the second in Putin’s own first term (2000–04), and the third was just underway. Putin had abandoned the concept of transition per se. Approaches based explicitly or implicitly on transition theory have tended to major on particular subjects – party development, elections, parliament, constitutional debates, popular and elite views of ‘democracy’, legislation, the development of a market economy, and so on. These are all issues of importance which merit serious academic analysis. However, a focus on formal procedures and institutional responsibilities can miss key elements which all observers of Russian politics know to be essential to our understanding of contemporary Russia. The behindthe-scenes elements of ‘politicking’ – bargaining, corruption, patronage, secrecy, security service involvement, and so on – do not so readily lend themselves to academic conceptualisation within the transition

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framework. An approach is required that makes it possible to theorise factors exerting influence on the political decision-making process and distorting the formal mechanisms of the constitutionally democratic Russian system. Such an approach requires neo-institutionalist sympathy to the ‘informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions’ which influence the policy-making mechanisms of a state.19 Against this background, different macro-level conceptualisations of contemporary Russia have been suggested. Many of these can be summed up as ‘not quite democracy’ and were applied to Russia during the Yeltsin era as well as under Putin. The difference is that under Putin the sense of momentum and the expectation that these concepts are phases on the road to a liberal democracy is increasingly absent. Instead a sense prevails that so far as a constructivist approach to democracy is concerned, the Putin regime happily settles, in the medium-term at least, for a subSchumpeterian minimalist institutional definition.20 A number of these conceptualisations tackle the question of access to power and the influence of ‘oligarchs’, regional leaders, and the presidential ‘court’, as well as the lack of influence of society as a whole, with an underdeveloped civil society in Russia ensuring that politics remains the preserve of the elite.21 Such conceptualisations as illiberal democracy and delegative democracy allow international comparison,22 and indeed spring from growing concerns amongst political scientists such as Guillermo O’Donnell over the inadequacies of democratic theory when it comes to ‘including into its scope many of the recently democratized countries, as well as some older democracies located outside of the Northwestern quadrant of the world’.23 As conceptualisations of contemporary Russia, however, it could be argued that they suffer from some of the drawbacks associated with transition theory in general, in that their focus is on democratic procedures and institutions, even whilst noting the absence of the supporting structures of civil society and embedded rights and freedoms. The concern is that using such a framework leads to analysis of absences, a concentration on what is not in place in Russia’s political system, rather than a focus on the actually existing regime.24 Thomas Carothers argues – in a phrase which echoes our own approach in writing this book – that the question to ask is not ‘how is a country’s democratic transition going?’, but ‘what is happening politically?’.25 The search then for new conceptualisations of contemporary Russia might usefully look beyond the models of the 1990s, not as a criticism of them per se but because Russia has moved on. What applied in the later Yeltsin years in terms of democratic development may still apply in some respects under Putin, but first, the momentum of transition has largely disappeared, and second, the insights of these approaches have

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largely been absorbed. Consequently new conceptualisations offer new insights. Richard Sakwa’s work on the normalisation of Russian politics under Putin, incorporated into our own analysis below, is one example of a new approach to Russia today.26 His analysis again focuses on the macro-level, as do those considered above, and others have likewise adopted the concept of ‘normality’ in considering contemporary Russia.27 In contrast, the approach taken in this book concentrates on a mezo-level analysis based on the concept of securitisation. Instead of ‘what is Putin like?’, ‘how do we sum up the Putin regime?’, the question we ask is of a lower order to some extent. It focuses on policy content – ‘what is the Putin regime doing?’. Clearly mezo-level analysis may then feed back into macro-level questions of regime type, and the model of Putin’s domestic policy being developed has clear potential for comparability across other states. What is securitisation?

The additional conceptualisation of contemporary Russian politics developed in this book is an adapted version of the securitisation framework elaborated by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde in their 1998 book Security: a new framework for analysis.28 The most significant adaptation which we make is to apply to the domestic politics of a single state a theory originally developed and used within the sphere of international relations. The application of this framework to contemporary Russian domestic politics offers an approach to theorising the dualism of democratic and authoritarian policy decisions taken by the Putin regime, a dualism often unresolved in the familiar ‘who is Mr Putin?’ analysis of many observers.29 At the same time, the application of the securitisation framework provides too an alternative approach to comparative analysis, as the analytical design proposed can be applied to Western democracies, ‘transition’ states and ‘developing’ countries alike. What then is securitisation, in the sense developed by Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde? We will set out in brief the theoretical definition and then move on to give examples. In short, securitisation happens when ‘normal politics is pushed into the security realm’.30 The securitisation of an issue in a policy sector occurs when a political actor by the use of the rhetoric of existential threat against a referent object succeeds in justifying the adoption of measures outside the formal norms and procedures of politics. There are then two major variants in the process of securitisation, namely the securitising actors on the one hand, and the referent objects on the other. Securitising actors are those people or groups of people – such as individual leaders, governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – who make the case for a particular issue to become a security

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Table 1.1 Referent objects of securitisation Sector

Referent object

Military Politics Economics Society Environment

State, nation Sovereignty, ideology National economy Collective identities (for example, spiritual, national) Species/habitat/climate/biosphere

Source: adapted from Buzan et al. (1998), pp. 22–3.

concern due to the threat posed to a referent object. Referent objects are identified by securitising actors as being existentially threatened and as having a legitimate claim to survival. They must be sufficiently significant to warrant a threat against them being seen in security terms, and their identity depends largely on the sphere within which a securitisation is attempted (Table 1.1). In our case, and in broad terms, the actor is ‘the Putin regime’;31 the referent object is the Russian state, the Russian nation, or the Russian economy; and the discourse of existential threat is used to justify bringing issues into the security realm by, for example, subordinating policy decisions to the security apparatus or contravening otherwise accepted human rights or political norms. Securitisation may also manifest itself when an issue is taken out of the political realm altogether and dealt with ‘in secret’. The central question to be asked within the securitisation framework is, ‘has a successful securitisation occurred?’. In other words, has ‘normal politics’ within a given policy area been pushed into the security realm? To answer this requires investigation not only of the process of securitisation, but also of the extent to which the process is contested, the nature of this contestation, and the identity of countervailing forces. According to Buzan et al., ‘the way to study securitization is to study discourse and political constellations’.32 Different stages lead to the securitisation of an issue. First, there is the ‘speech act’, that is, a political actor’s decision to portray an issue as a matter of security by building around it a discourse of existential threat to a referent object. A speech act of this sort does not yet constitute a securitisation. It merely qualifies as an attempt at securitisation – as a ‘securitising move’. The second stage, when an issue can be considered as having been successfully securitised, comes only once a securitising actor acquires legitimacy with an audience for the necessity of taking securitising measures to deal with a particular issue. In this respect, Buzan et al. note that

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we do not push the demand so high as to say that an emergency measure has to be adopted, only that the existential threat has to be argued and just gain enough resonance for a platform to be made from which it is possible to legitimise emergency measures or other steps that would not have been possible had the discourse not taken the form of existential threats, point of no return and necessity.33

It is one problematic shortcoming of Buzan et al.’s framework that the audience which is supposed to finalise the success of a securitisation is lacking in clear definition. Wagnusson, in reconsidering the securitisation approach, emphasised the importance of identifying the particular audience to which the discourse of an existential threat is supposed to appeal: [Scholars] should focus on whether an issue is securitised in the eyes of a particular audience … For example, it may turn out that an issue is securitised in the eyes of a nationalist party, but not in the eyes of the government. In other words, we should always begin the analysis by asking to whom a securitising move is directed and/or in the eyes of whom an issue is securitised … The concept should be used to describe the actors’ success or failure in relation to a specific audience and not to stipulate success or failure in some general sense.34

This concentration on the mechanisms of securitisation – the discourse of securitising actors, securitising moves, referent objects, and audiences – is especially appealing when seeking to understand the process by which Russian politicians have introduced measures which appear to be moving the country back in a more authoritarian direction. As the following chapters demonstrate, such measures have repeatedly been argued for in security terms, and a process of convincing key audiences in the legislature or the executive has taken place. It is important to note that not all such attempts at convincing key audiences are successful. For example, a number of clear attempts to turn economic policy-making into a primarily security-focused question have been unsuccessful in Russia since the mid1990s (see Chapter 7). The failure of a securitising move is as valid and valuable a finding as the success of such a move. In considering contemporary Russia it is of some interest and importance to be able to identify policy areas where attempts to prioritise security have not been able to succeed. Analysis within the securitisation framework is able to identify such cases and examine the discourses and counter-discourses in play. A further element of the securitisation approach to note is that the securitisation of an issue can be initiated in two ways: an issue can be framed ‘either as a special kind of politics or as above politics’.35 This means that we can speak of an attempt at securitisation both if an issue is

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taken ‘out of obscurity’ and put on the political agenda as a security threat, but also if it is removed from the political agenda, taken ‘out of the limelight’ and pushed into the security realm. In the Russian case, the role of the Federal Security Service (the FSB) in certain policy areas may represent such a securitisation. Whilst a politicised issue is dealt with within the realm of ‘normal’ political bargaining, a securitised issue is taken care of by the advocacy or implementation of measures bypassing or breaking the rules of ‘normal’ political decision-making, or by taking it out of the political realm altogether and dealing with it ‘in secret’. The final issue to consider in terms of adapting the securitisation approach to the domestic politics of Russia is the question of what is ‘normal’ politics. If our definition of securitisation is that it occurs when ‘normal politics is pushed into the security realm’,36 then the difficulty arises of defining what normal politics is in Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It could be said with some accuracy that the essence of the ‘Putin project’ since his election in 2000 has been to return Russia to ‘normal politics’. As we noted above, Putin’s political rallying cry on taking over the presidency was that the time had come to end the experiments with abstract models and theories. He sees himself, by 2005, as having cleared away the debris from the 1990s, stabilising the country in order that it might progress.37 However, we have already seen that there is a duality present in conceptualisations of the Putin regime. Is ‘normal’ then a Western-type democratic system, or a neo-Soviet authoritarian regime? Richard Sakwa distinguishes between these two options by the terms, respectively, ‘normality’ and ‘normalisation’.38 Normality is a recognisably democratic system on the Western model with ‘a set of liberal rights, democratic methods, the rule of law and the individual right to economic self-affirmation (including property rights), as codified in the European Convention on Human Rights’.39 In such a system, the achievement of which has been the declared aim of the both Yeltsin and Putin administrations, self-sustaining independent institutions are established and function according to agreed norms and rules. In contrast to normality, normalisation relies on ‘a system that tries to impose stability from above by managing political processes, and thus impeding the free operation of political institutions’.40 It is a process of the top-down imposition of ‘order’, pursued by coercive means. In terms of the securitisation approach, when an issue is successfully securitised it is taken out of ‘normal’ politics in the sense of a system where institutions are able to operate within an agreed democratic framework without undue political interference and constraint, and placed within a framework managed or controlled from above in the name of security and order.

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Applying securitisation to contemporary Russia

The application of the securitisation model to domestic politics in contemporary Russia since the end of the 1990s has an immediate superficial attraction stemming from President Putin’s professional past. For some observers it is enough to put ‘former KGB colonel’ and ‘strengthening of the state’ together to conclude that Russia has become more authoritarian, and that the methods of the security forces are the methods of the Russian government. Furthermore, as we noted above, there has been a marked trend for the Putin administration to be made up of a significant proportion of former security service personnel. Russian sociologist Olga Kryshstanovskaya estimates the proportion of former security personnel in the government apparatus to be 30 per cent.41 However, we must not attach undue importance to the appointment of particular individuals, and indeed this trend was present to some extent under President Boris Yeltsin, whose last three prime ministers (Yevgenii Primakov, Sergei Stepashin, and Vladimir Putin himself) had a background in the security structures. Such moves provide a neat illustration of broader ‘securitising’ trends perceived by analysts in several policy areas. Nonetheless, these are not examples themselves of securitisation. They may intersect with the securitisation model, but the model itself, as outlined above, is more robust than the simple counting of security personnel in key positions. After all, noting the number of security personnel within the political elite does not necessarily tell us anything about the policy stances of these individuals or of the regime as a whole. It is well established, for example, that in the Soviet era two former KGB chiefs, Lavrentii Beria and Yurii Andropov, in their admittedly brief periods at the apex of Soviet power, put forward policies which, for their time, were markedly reformist.42 (For further discussion of the role of force structure personnel in Russian politics, see Chapter 2). Several examples across the policy spectrum illustrate the way in which the securitisation framework can be applied to current issues in Russian domestic policy. These and other issues are treated in far greater depth in later chapters. For now though they serve as illustrations of how the securitisation model might be applied. We start with the Chechen conflict, as it is most self-evidently a security issue in the traditional sense, and move on to concerns less obviously in the traditional security sphere. •

In its military efforts to keep Chechnya within the Russian Federation, the Putin regime justified a range of ‘extreme measures’ (the use of force, the bombing of civilian targets, alleged massacres, detention without trial, the suspension of democracy, the limitation of media access) by means of the discourse of existential threat to the

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•

•

•

Russian state. This is a necessarily oversimplified account and the securitisation of the Chechen conflict is dealt with in much greater detail in Chapter 3. Less obviously a security issue than the war in Chechnya, is the policy on religious freedom adopted under the Yeltsin regime and continued under Putin.43 In this case the referent object is not the state, but the Russian nation. The discourse justifying the restriction of religious freedom, subsequently enforced in numerous cases by local authorities and security forces, was one of a threat by ‘alien cults and sects’ to the predominance of the ‘national’ Russian Orthodox Church, and hence to the national identity, or indeed national soul, of Russia. The Orthodox hierarchy, and supportive politicians, have increasingly talked about the ‘spiritual security’ (dukhovnaya bezopasnost) of the Russian nation.44 Russian economic policy has been the subject of a number of securitising moves, especially in the early post-Soviet years from 1992–96. As the economy started to recover after the 1998 financial crisis, securitising moves in the economic sphere diminished a little, and the liberals in the government who proposed a market-oriented approach continued to win out. However, the rhetoric of securitisation in the economic sphere began to be heard once more in 2003, as moves against leading businessmen, such as the arrest and jailing of the oil magnate Khodorkovskii, began to call into question the privatisations of the 1990s. Changes in migration policy in the recent past have again been conceptualised in security terms by the Putin regime. Migration procedures have largely been brought under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), accompanied by a discourse of security threat to three referent objects: the Russian state, the Russian nation, and the Russian economy.

A similar approach can be used to analyse and conceptualise Russian domestic policy across a number of other key areas: •

•

• •

Demographic security – covering such issues as drugs policy, broader health concerns, military policy relating particularly to conscription, youth policy. Information security – the Information Security Doctrine, legislation on the media and the internet, media ownership, reporting restrictions (for example, in relation to terrorism). Societal security – the law on extremism, the law on public associations, the law on political parties. Security of statehood – the law on extremism, reforms to regional governance.

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The strengths of the securitisation approach

As argued above, the securitisation approach can underpin analysis of a range of key issues in Russia’s domestic policy. What benefits does this conceptualisation bring with it? First, securitisation provides a framework in which to consider key policy areas in an holistic manner. The issues noted above at first glance seem disparate, and they would not easily be drawn together within an analysis focused, say, on democratic transition. And yet these are not disparate topics, but together cover many of the key domestic policy initiatives of the Putin regime. The securitisation approach makes sense of them as a coherent whole within the overall policy framework and philosophy of Russia’s political leadership. Through the analytical prism of securitisation the sum of the whole is greater than its parts; a series of mezo-level analyses builds into a macro-level conceptualisation. Second, the securitisation approach illuminates one of the overarching self-conceptualisations of the Putin government. If the Yeltsin regime defined itself in terms of democratisation, then much that has been done since that time is defined in terms of security. Analysis of discourse, which is central to the methodological approach employed here, reveals repeatedly the power of the key signifier ‘security’ and the frequency of its adoption by the forces seeking hegemony within Russia’s political elite. Third, securitisation provides an explanatory framework. It is one thing to argue that there is an apparent ‘hardening’ of the Russian regime in terms of moves in an authoritarian direction. However, academic analysis must not only describe but also explain, and the securitisation approach offers an explanation of the methods by which allegedly authoritarian measures are implemented. Securitisation analysis focuses on the arguments employed, and the selection, acceptance, and rejection of securitising moves. It explains why such moves are successfully made in some areas, and not in others; it explores the substance of the arguments made in each case, facilitating an evaluation of their relative merits; and it investigates the relationship between these arguments and the relevant audience on whose acquiescence a successful securitisation depends. Fourth, the strict criteria for defining a successful securitisation facilitate an assessment of the policy-making process which goes deeper than simply decision-making within the executive and brings in a wider political elite, elements of civil society, and even, at times, the ‘masses’. A securitisation requires that the discourse convinces an audience. Depending on the securitising move in question that audience may be the parliament, regional leaders, certain political parties, perhaps elements of the media, or even the population as a whole.

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Fifth, the securitisation approach offers a means for ‘measuring’ authoritarian moves. By providing a clear process within which to categorise such initiatives it is possible to differentiate between a securitising statement by a political actor (an individual or a group) and a consolidated attempt to make a ‘securitising move’, between actions by regional authorities which might be seen as outside of ‘normal’ politics and a fully-fledged securitisation of an issue at national level. By these means structured comparative analysis between different securitising moves within Russia’s domestic politics is possible. A return to ‘totalitarian’ authoritarianism in Russia is unlikely for reasons of both political will and, to oversimplify, a combination of the globalisation and democratisation of the past decade. The same argument would apply elsewhere to largely democratic states in a largely democratic world. Instead a more sectoral authoritarianism is possible – where regimes prioritise policy areas as security issues requiring responses outside of the norms of a state’s behaviour. This ‘snatch squad authoritarianism’ – where the state moves into targeted political spaces – offers an area of potentially rich theoretical development. Sixth, the securitisation model provides the opportunity to develop an original internationally comparative framework for analysis of contemporary Russia. The securitisation approach can be equally applied to other states, be they firmly within the democratic camp or not. Indeed, since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, the balance between security and ‘normal’ politics, between rights and freedoms, has been an increasingly pertinent and central issue in many countries, perhaps particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. Presidents Putin and Bush have been using similar arguments to defend measures taken as necessary given the global ‘war on terror’ and other current security threats (see Chapter 3). The securitisation approach again provides a structure within which comparison of such measures is possible. It isolates the component parts of actor, argument, and action, thereby facilitating analysis. It provides too a comparative tool different from that employed by transition theorists, when Russia was compared – always unfavourably – against the long-standing market-democratic achievements of Western countries, or even against a list of criteria to which few democratic states could measure up. Comparisons of this nature had a tendency to be counter-productive in that they were perceived in Russia to be based on hegemonic notions of democratisation, and to belittle a great power. Comparisons based on the securitisation approach are stripped of these hegemonic notions, and offer in some senses a more genuinely comparative framework in which the behaviour of the Russian state is compared with that of Western states. Again, this is not to preclude or downplay any judgement on the process

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of democratisation. Instead, it to some extent side-steps that overarching question in order to focus on specific aspects of policy which appear, at least superficially, to have clear counterparts elsewhere in the world. Seventh, securitisation provides a point of departure from the ‘democratic/undemocratic’ bifurcation. The key issue is not democracy per se but control. The model provides an explanation for apparent authoritarian moves which does not necessarily require a rejection of democratisation and marketisation in the medium term, in that it places the rationale and justification for the adoption or rejection of particular policies outside of the democratic/undemocratic bifurcation. Political actors may support one securitising move and reject another without this necessarily leading to a sense of confusion over whether they belong to the democratic camp or not. Furthermore, the securitisation of an issue can be framed as limited temporally, thereby making it easier for those who broadly support democratic normality to justify backing a particular securitising move. Eighth, the securitisation framework may shed some light on the high popularity levels enjoyed by President Vladimir Putin during his first years in office. Opinion polls in post-Soviet Russia have long shown significant popular support both for liberal democratic freedoms and for a strong state.45 Two particular elements of the securitisation model help to square these elements which at first sight do not appear to sit together well. Our adaptation of securitisation demands a mezo-level sectoral conceptualisation, which does not have to apply to the regime as a whole. Furthermore, a securitisation is not successfully introduced without a discourse of sufficient potency to convince its audience. Taken together, these features move us away from the apparent dilemma of those who see Putin as leading Russia along an anti-democratic path, and yet have to explain his continuing popularity. Securitising measures by definition must have a convincing – or popular – justification, and the application of such a discourse to a specific policy sector may reduce fears that such an approach is to be employed across all policy areas.

The changing policies and discourses of Russian politics since the late 1990s present a number of challenges to academics. Explanatory frameworks help us to make sense of developments within a wider context. The securitisation approach offers an holistic account of a range of domestic policy areas. It also places Russia within a context familiar internationally at a time when reconciliation of the competing demands of freedom and security is a common dilemma across many states. Is Russia’s apparent shift in a more authoritarian direction in the first years of the twenty-first century a temporary response to domestic and

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international stimuli? Or does it mark the beginning of an ongoing process, whereby the old habits of the former Soviet security elite continue to support an oligarchic regime? In order to answer these questions, it is helpful to have an understanding of the processes by which apparently authoritarian moves are introduced or prevented. Using the concept of securitisation as a framework, the following chapters present a detailed assessment of these issues in relation to different areas of policy. In this way we are able first of all to be clear about the extent to which the regime as a whole has sought to securitise issues. We will find that this differs from issue to issue. Through an emphasis on discourse we will note the way in which the notion of security has been used repeatedly, but not ubiquitously, to frame policy developments. We will assess too the hegemonic nature of that discourse by means of its success, or otherwise, in carrying key audiences with it. Before looking at specific policy areas, however, let us investigate the role that the security forces play in contemporary Russian politics. Notes 1 T. Bjorkman, Russia’s Road to a Deeper Democracy (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), p. 49. 2 G.M. Hahn, ‘Mr Putin’s Two Biographies’, The Russia Journal (8–14 February 2002), www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6067-14.cfm (last accessed 25 October 2005); D. Filipov, ‘Putin’s Paradox: in public, he’s boss; behind the scenes, he takes political cues’, Boston Globe (21 June 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7232-6.cfm (last accessed 25 October 2005); ‘Mr Putin’s Two Faces’, Guardian (12 July 2000), www.guardian.co. uk/print/0,3858,4039450-103682,00.html (last accessed 25 October 2005); O. Latsis, ‘Putin’s Split Personality’, The Russia Journal (19–25 July 2002), www.cdi.org/russia/ Johnson/6359.cfm (last accessed 25 October 2005). 3 After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, 11 September 2001, President Putin offered swift and notably strong support for the United States. In the run-up to the Iraq war of 2003 the Franco-Russian alliance in the United Nations proved a source of annoyance to the US and UK governments in particular. 4 ‘Putin Power’, The Economist (11 October 2003), pp. 15–16. 5 E. Bacon, ‘Conceptualising Contemporary Russia’, Slavonic and East European Review, 81:2 (April 2003), 293–301. 6 O. Kryshtanovskaya and S. White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 19:4 (2003), 289–306. 7 H. Balzer, ‘Managed Pluralism: Vladimir Putin’s emerging regime’, Post-Soviet Affairs 19:3 (2003), 189–227. See also D. Collier and S. Levitsky, ‘Democracy with Adjectives: conceptual innovation in comparative research’, World Politics, 49 (April 1997), 430–51. 8 K.D. Karleker, Freedom of the Press 2003: a global survey of media independence (Freedom House and Rowman & Littlefield 2003) p. 129, www.freedomhouse. org/pfs2003/pfs2003.pdf). See also www.freedomhouse.org/research/pressurvey/ pfs2005.pdf (both last accessed 25 October 2005).

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9 Yu. Kalinina, ‘Vremya v zerkale itogov. Impotenty’, Moskovskii komsomolets (10 September 2004), p. 3. 10 L. March, The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). 11 The situation in foreign policy is similar to that in domestic affairs, though arguably it was not until a year or so into the Putin presidency that a broad consensus came together from the previously polarised pro- and anti-West camps. As late as September 2001, when Vladimir Putin surprised many observers at home and abroad by the speed and forcefulness of his support for the United States in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, there were reportedly serious murmurings of dissent amongst the Russia military hierarchy. In fact it may well have been this decisive stance taken by President Putin which brought an end to the gesture politics of the Yeltsin era in this regard. The overarching point though is that Russian policy in both domestic and international affairs was, by the end of 2003, built around a consensus. 12 For a discussion of this approach, see S.E. Hanson and J.S. Kopstein, ‘The Weimar/ Russia Comparison’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 13:3 (1997), 252–83. 13 S. Rosefielde, Russia in the Twenty-First Century: the prodigal superpower (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 3–4. 14 T.H. Rigby, ‘Politics in the Mono-Organisational Society’, in A.C. Janos (ed.), Authoritarian Politics in Communist Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 31–80. 15 H.G. Skilling and F. Griffiths (eds), Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971). 16 S. White and D.N. Nelson (eds), The Politics of the Postcommunist World, Volumes I and II (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001). 17 V. Putin, ‘Russia at the Turn of the Millennium’, in V. Putin, First Person: an astonishingly frank self-portrait by Russia’s president (London: Hutchinson, 2000). ‘Russia at the Turn of the Millennium’ was first published on the official Russian government website on 31 December 1999. 18 Putin, First Person, p. 211. 19 P.A. Hall and R.C.R. Taylor, ‘Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms’, Political Studies, 44:5 (1996), 936–57. 20 For the argument that Joseph Schumpeter’s definition of democracy was less minimalist than popularly portrayed see: G. O’Donnell, ‘Democratic Theory and Comparative Politics’, www.law.berkeley.edu/institutes/csls/o’donnell%20paper.doc (last accessed 25 October 2005). 21 G. Gill and R. Markwick, Russia’s Stillborn Democracy? From Gorbachev to Yeltsin (Oxford University Press, 2000) p. 256. See also M.M. Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 22 For example, the notion of ‘illiberal democracy’ was developed in relation to the Pacific Asia region before being applied to Russia. See: D.A. Bell, D. Brown, K. Jayasuriya, and D.M. Jones, Towards Illiberal Democracy in Pacific Asia (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995). 23 O’Donnell, ‘Democratic Theory and Comparative Politics’. 24 Balzer, ‘Managed Pluralism’. 25 T. Carothers, ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’, Journal of Democracy, 13:1 (2002), 18. 26 R. Sakwa, ‘Putin’s Politics: normality, normalcy or normalisation?’, paper presented at the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies Conference, University of Cambridge, April 2003.

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27 A. Schleifer and D. Treisman, ‘A Normal Country’, Foreign Affairs, 83:2 (2004), 20–38. 28 B. Buzan, O. Wæver, and J. de Wilde, Security: a new framework for analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998). 29 For example A.A. Mukhin, Kto est Mister Putin i kto s nim prishel (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Gnom, 2001). 30 Buzan et al., Security, p. 27. 31 ‘The Putin regime’ is defined as the pro-Kremlin political elite under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, consisting of appointed executive officials and elected proKremlin political actors. 32 Buzan et al., Security, p. 25. 33 Ibid. 34 C. Wagnusson, Russian Political Language and Public Opinion in the West, NATO and Chechnya: securitisation theory reconsidered (Stockholm: University of Stockholm Department of Political Science, 2000), pp. 18–19. 35 Buzan et al., Security, p. 23. 36 Ibid., p. 27. 37 Vladimir Putin, ‘Poslanie federal’nomu sobraniyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii’ (25 April 2005), www.president.kremlin.ru/appears/2005/04/25/1223_type63372type82634_ 87049.shtml (last accessed 25 October 2005). 38 R. Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s choice (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 40–3. 39 Sakwa, Putin, p. 41. 40 Ibid., p. 43. 41 Yu. Vasiliev, ‘Operativniki – Plokhie Strategi’, Moskovskie Novosti (8 July 2003), p. 6. 42 Lavrentii Beria never became Soviet leader, but was briefly – between Stalin’s death in March 1953 and Beria’s own arrest in June of that year – a leading contender for that office. Yurii Andropov was General Secretary from Brezhnev’s death in November 1982 to his own death in February 1984. 43 E. Bacon, ‘Church and State in Contemporary Russia: conflicting discourses’, in R. Fawn and S. White (eds), Russia After Communism (London: Frank Cass, 2002). 44 Metropolitan Kirill, ‘Istoriya Rossii neotdelima ot istorii Pravoslavnoi tserkvy’, Religiya i pravo, 1:26 (2002), 8–10. 45 Bjorkman, Russia’s Road, p. 27.

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2 The security forces

In this chapter we introduce the role in Russian political life of the siloviki (that is, personnel from the ‘force structures’ or ‘power ministries’, chiefly the security services, the armed forces, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD)).1 We critically analyse the degree to which the Putin administration has acted to boost the role of the force structures in Russia in the public space, by which primarily we mean political life and civil society, concluding that the picture is not so straightforward as is often portrayed. This chapter argues for a stronger emphasis on existing policies and procedures than on conclusions based simply on the provenance of individual politicians and officials.2 On one level – intuitively and anecdotally – there seems to be little doubt that siloviki have played an increasing role in the governance of Russia since Vladimir Putin became president in March 2000. Many people who have known Russia in the past decade or so will confirm that under Putin the force structures have a new visibility and presence. A phrase that was increasingly being heard by observers as President Putin moved into his second term in office in 2004 was that ‘the atmosphere has changed’. There is a validity to such perceptions, and they are to some extent backed up by opinion polls. In the five years from Putin’s election as president in 2000, there was virtually no change in opinion-poll findings in answer to the question ‘the interests of which section of society does Vladimir Putin cultivate?’3 Over the period 2000–05, the group which has consistently and clearly been seen as being Putin’s priority, in the views of two-fifths of all respondents, is the siloviki. However, perceptions, moods, and opinion polls can only tell us so much. In this chapter we focus on more specific questions. In particular, we analyse the place of siloviki in Russian life under Putin by considering not only the reported growth in the number of such figures in political positions, but also the role of such variables as the force structure from

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which they come, their rank and position in the force structures and politics, their roles, the length and date of their force structure service, and so on. We conclude that to talk of siloviki as if they were an homogenous group with similar political opinions increasing in influence on the Russian political scene is to oversimplify. This chapter investigates too the perception that there is a clear divide between the Yeltsin and the Putin eras in regard to the role and influence of siloviki in political life and civil society. We show that the situation is by no means so clear cut. Yeltsin’s last years in office saw a substantial influx of siloviki into high political positions in Russia. In regard to the question of the ‘spy-mania’ often cited as having developed during the Putin presidency, we demonstrate that this phenomenon too has its roots almost totally in the Yeltsin era, and indeed that some improvements in this regard can be found under Putin. Siloviki in political life

We noted in the preceding chapter that the presence of former security service personnel in government does not in itself represent an act of ‘securitisation’ using the definition of Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde. The securitisation of an issue occurs when it is taken out of ‘normal’ politics and brought into the security realm by, for example, subordinating policy decisions to the security apparatus or contravening otherwise accepted human rights or political norms. Securitisation may also manifest itself when an issue is taken out of the political realm altogether and dealt with ‘in secret’. The presence of a significant proportion of former security service or military personnel in political roles may of course be an indicator that increasing numbers of policy issues are being securitised; however, such a proposition needs proving. It is insufficiently rigorous to draw conclusions about either the political stance of individuals or their approach to governance simply on the basis of their former employment. After all, every US president since the Second World War, with the exception of Bill Clinton (1992–2000), has had some degree of military background, and like Russia today the United States has in recent history had a president who had previously headed his nation’s intelligence services, without the presumption being made that the security services were taking over the government.4 Admittedly, the context is different in the United States from that in Russia. However, it is these very contextual differences which are significant. The place of siloviki in Russia has a history and significance of its own. It is not enough to simply count the number of such figures in governmental posts and draw conclusions, without asking questions such as:

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• • •

• • • • •

How unique is the Putin regime in employing such figures? From which particular force structures do they come? Is there a distinction to be made between former members of Soviet era force structures and those whose careers have been primarily post-Soviet? What about the difference between former members of the armed forces, the security forces, and the interior ministry? Should former force structure employees be assessed as a coherent group when former members of the CPSU rarely are? What are the political stances of the siloviki in question? How senior were their positions in the forces structures? How senior are their positions in Russian politics?

It is these sorts of questions to which we turn in this chapter, in order to provide a considered context to the assessments of securitising moves in particular policy areas on which the following chapters focus. Siloviki in power before Putin

Vladimir Putin became prime minister in 1999 and was elected president of the Russian Federation in March 2000; he was by no means the first former intelligence officer entering the highest political offices in Russia. Putin’s clearest forerunner in this regard reaches back to the Soviet era when Yurii Andropov – a man much admired by Putin – succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet leader in November 1982, having been head of the KGB for fifteen years between 1967 and May 1982.5 Even earlier than that, the infamous Lavrentii Beria, who served a dozen years as head of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) during the Stalin dictatorship, was effectively acting leader of the Soviet Union for several months in 1953, though interestingly his hold over the security forces, and the fear thus inspired in his colleagues, contributed in no small part to his removal by the rest of the Soviet leadership and his execution later that year. Andropov and Beria, however, represent exceptions to the rule in the Soviet period, scarcely showing a general proclivity for siloviki to rise to power through the force structures. They were both party men through and through, demonstrating the hold of the CPSU over the security forces, rather than vice versa. Furthermore, their total tenure of supreme power was markedly short in terms of the Soviet period as a whole. Andropov was Soviet leader for fifteen months between November 1982 and his death in February 1984; Beria was never officially Soviet leader, and, as we have noted, was ousted largely because of his security service connections.

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The only case which might be deemed to represent the power ministries attempting to usurp the power of a Soviet ruler came at the very end of the communist era in the abortive coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev of August 1991, when KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov and defence minister Dmitrii Yazov were amongst those who initiated this illorganised insurrection. It would be a distortion, however, to represent the failed 1991 coup as a move by the siloviki against the government, since alongside Kryuchkov and Yazov on the plotters’ ‘emergency committee’ were such figures as the head of the government, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, and Gorbachev’s own deputy, Vice President Gennadii Yanaev. In the early post-Soviet era the participation of former KGB personnel in politics and in administrative positions was not welcomed by the Russian civilian leadership headed by President Boris Yeltsin, influenced in no small measure no doubt by the involvement of the KGB in the August coup of 1991 when he had himself been on the list of intended arrestees. During the Soviet endgame, both Gorbachev and Yeltsin sought to decrease the potential and actual power of the security services by fragmentation. In May 1991, with Russia still a subject republic of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin and Kryuchkov signed an agreement creating the Russian KGB, a body which was swiftly renamed the AFB (Agency of Federal Security) in November as Yeltsin’s attempts to create Russian governing structures separate from those of the Soviet Union gained increasing success. The Soviet KGB was finally abolished by Gorbachev in December 1991.6 Yeltsin’s aim of fragmenting the Soviet KGB in 1991 can be compared with his approach to the Soviet state in general at the time. He sought to undermine the power of Gorbachev and the Soviet authorities through such tactics, but they ought not to be taken as indicative of any deepseated political beliefs on his part. So, Yeltsin engineered the final collapse of the Soviet state, but it is far from clear that this was anything other than a means to gain power, and he was determined that Russia itself would not break up. Similarly, whilst happy to see the fragmentation and undermining of the Soviet KGB in 1991, by the next year he was attempting to consolidate the security forces in Russia. The period 1992–93 represented an interregnum in Russia, as the president and the parliament of a newly independent state fought – both figuratively and, by October 1993, literally – over the distribution of power. Consequently, a lack of clarity existed in the control and make-up of the power ministries, as in many other areas. President Yeltsin’s tactic was to bring together the major force structure bodies that they might be easier for him to control. In mid-December 1991, with the Soviet Union on the verge of final collapse, Yeltsin issued a decree creating a Ministry of Security and Internal Affairs in Russia, amalgamating the Russian

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Ministry of the Interior and the counter-intelligence agency, the Ministry of Security – which had itself recently incorporated the political security body, the AFB. Parliament, with only one vote against, overwhelmingly called for the repeal of this decree,7 and in January the Constitutional Court ruled it illegal. Although stymied by opposition from the legislature and judiciary in these initial moves, the executive, in the form of Boris Yeltsin, continued its attempt to bring about some consolidation in the security sphere, creating in March 1992 the Security Council, under the president, with a broad remit to examine ‘questions of the Russian Federation’s domestic and foreign policy in the sphere of ensuring security and strategic problems of state, economic, public, defence, information, ecological and other types of security’.8 Such a remit, if taken literally, provides carte blanche for the Security Council to consider any area which it deems to be relevant to the maintenance of state security.9 Yeltsin strengthens the silovik bloc

For much of the early 1990s, many former leading intelligence personnel found it far more lucrative to enter business careers rather than political office.10 Even in these years, however, the appointment of ex-KGB officers to important administrative posts was not unheard of. Such figures were included, for instance, in the structures of Russia’s first ‘party of power’, Our Home is Russia (NDR). Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin’s longserving chief of staff was former KGB officer Gennadii Petelin. Also during Chernomyrdin’s term in office, ex-KGB official Nikolai Svanidze was appointed head of the state television channel RTR, whilst KGB lieutenant Eduard Gendeliev was put in charge of the news programme, Vesti.11 Similarly, the presence of former army officers in high-level state positions was far from unusual. A prominent army general, Aleksandr Rutskoi, was Yeltsin’s vice-presidential running mate in Russia’s 1991 presidential elections, and General Aleksandr Lebed was appointed to the post of secretary of the Security Council, albeit for a short time, in August 1996. The first serious discussion in Russia of security service personnel entering politics in the Russian Federation was evoked by the appointment of Yevgenii Primakov as prime minister from September 1998 until May 1999. Primakov had been appointed deputy head of the KGB in September 1991, and became head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) until 1996 when he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. Later Primakov recalled in his memoirs of his time in government that the media, throughout his prime-ministership, emphasised his security background and wrote about ‘agent Primakov’. This tendency was not

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helped, as Primakov admits, by the fact that Yurii Zubakov was appointed as head of the government administration and Robert Makaryan as head of the government secretariat. Zubakov had already worked for ten years with Primakov, and Makaryan for about twenty years.12 In Primakov’s version of events, the media took against him because of his security service background, and an accumulation of negative articles, helpfully submitted to Yeltsin with the best bits marked with a highlighter pen, contributed to his dismissal.13 Yeltsin himself has a different take on the sacking of his prime minister. By the end of the 1990s he was searching for a potential successor, and in this regard it was neither Primakov’s security background nor some negative press coverage that bothered Yeltsin, but his unreformed Communist background. As he put it, ‘deliberately or not, Primakov had too much red in his political make-up’.14 That Yeltsin was unconcerned about security background as he searched for a successor in 1998 and 1999 is evident from considering the four prime ministers he appointed in this period: Sergei Kirienko, Yevgenii Primakov, Sergei Stepashin, and Vladimir Putin. Of these, only Kirienko was not a silovik. Primakov’s former career in the security services was not discussed to the extent that is the case with Vladimir Putin, largely because he was prime minister not president, and in any case he was in post relatively briefly. Nonetheless, it is in this period that we begin to see, albeit to a lesser degree, the sort of discussion which would become familiar during the Putin presidency. Western and Russian publications alike weighed in, describing Primakov as an ‘old ex-spymaster … dotting the government with ex-KGB officers’,15 and warning of the negative effects of former ‘chekists’ coming to power.16 As has been done extensively in the case of Putin, journalists started compiling lists of former security services personnel whom they perceived as having ridden into office on Primakov’s coat-tails.17 During this period General Yuri Kobaladze, formerly the head of the press office in the SVR, became first deputy director of ITAR-TASS, the Russian state news agency. Primakov also secured the appointment of Grigorii Rapota, former deputy of the SVR, as head of the state arms export company, Rosvooruzhenie. In December 1998 Nikolai Bordyuzha, a former KGB officer, was named as Yeltsin’s chief of staff, and was reportedly considered as a potential successor to the president. In May 1998 Vladimir Putin was promoted to the position of first deputy chief of staff in charge of Russian regions, before being appointed head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) later that year. After Primakov’s dismissal in May 1999, he was replaced as prime minister by another security figure – Sergei Stepashin. After a long career in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and political involvement in the democratic movement of the early 1990s, in October 1993 Stepashin was

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appointed director of the KGB successor agency, the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), renamed FSB in 1995. Stepashin was sacked as head of the FSB in 1995, when he was held responsible for a disastrous attempt to solve a hostage crisis at a hospital in Budennovsk, at the height of the first Chechen war, that cost the lives of over a hundred civilians. In April 1999, Stepashin, who had until then served as the interior minister of the Russian Federation, was appointed deputy prime minister in Primakov’s office. As Primakov recalls in his memoirs, the appointment was made at the request of President Yeltsin, who chose Stepashin not despite, but precisely because of his background in the power ministries, as he saw it imperative to ‘strengthen the bloc of siloviki’.18 As was the case with Primakov, Stepashin’s career background in the Soviet and Russian power ministries was pointed out by journalists, especially in Russia. However, probably due to his participation in the early stages of the democratic movement in post-Soviet Russia, journalists’ evaluations of Stepashin were much softer than of Primakov. One journalist, for instance, termed him ‘a democratic silovik’.19 Another cautioned, however, that ‘still, he is coming from the secret services. And the chekist mentality costs dearly.’20 Under the Putin leadership, figures with a KGB and FSB background have been portrayed as playing an important role especially in the presidential administration.21 The legacy of security services personnel in this ‘civilian’ institution long before Putin came to power should not, however, be underestimated. As noted above, from December 1998 to March 1999, Nikolai Bordyuzha, a former KGB military counterintelligence officer and leading figure of the KGB successor agencies FAPSI (the Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information) and the FPS (the Federal Border Guard Service), was the president’s chief of staff. From 1998 until 2000, Vladimir Makarov, who had served in the KGB and FAPSI until 1994, served as deputy head of the presidential administration. Vladimir Osipov, who served in the KGB and FAPSI from 1975 until 1998, was appointed as the head of the administration’s directorate of cadres in 1998 and was still in this position in mid-2005. The current (2005) director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, served as deputy head of the main control directorate and deputy head of the administration from May until October 1998. Indeed it should not be forgotten that Vladimir Putin himself started his career in the federal state structures in Boris Yeltsin’s presidential administration: he joined in June 1996, where he rose to the position of first deputy head before his appointment as FSB director in July 1998. Many of the figures mentioned above continue to fill prominent administrative and political positions in Russia at the time of writing.22 It would therefore be wrong to conclude that former intelligence

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officers entering political careers in Russia is a phenomenon entirely characteristic of the Putin era, or that all such people came into office on the back of Putin’s rise to the presidency. It appears unlikely that his predecessor, President Yeltsin, excluded military figures from politics as a conscious policy choice determined by his striving for a democratic governing style, and as we have seen, he was far from averse to the inclusion of figures with a force structure background in the country’s governing bodies. Instead, political appointments made by Yeltsin ‘were tactical combinations to maintain a balance pivoted on himself’, which included the ‘playing off of groups and institutions against each other’.23 Whilst a balance of different interests had to be maintained, the key group in politics and the predominant power base of the Yeltsin regime was centred around the so-called ‘Family’ – a fluid group of Kremlin insiders including powerful oligarchs, like Boris Berezovskii and Roman Abramovich, but also powerful figures like Berezovskii’s former business partner and head of Yeltsin’s presidential administration, Aleksandr Voloshin, Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, and Pavel Borodin, a high-ranking state official. Whilst important political appointments naturally focused on figures and allies of Yeltsin’s inner circle, sometimes the appointment of persons outside this group, including force structure figures, to political posts was a part of Yeltsin’s strategy of maintaining power and balancing interests. For instance, the appointment of General Lebed as national security adviser and secretary of the Security Council seems to have been a pay-off for Lebed, who had come third in the first round of the 1996 presidential elections, coming out in favour of Yeltsin in the second round of the elections. The appointment of Primakov as prime minister in 1998 was a compromise in the face of the refusal of the communist-dominated Duma to accept the reappointment of Viktor Chernomyrdin to the post. However, ‘military politicians’ and civilian appointees alike were subject to the same arbitrary ‘hire-and-fire’ strategy that accompanied the highly personalised system of governance of the Yeltsin regime. Figures such as Lebed and Primakov were brought into politics by appointment (they did not encroach into it), and had to more or less gracefully accept their dismissal that sometimes occurred not long after. If seen within this context, ‘military politicians’ under the Yeltsin regime were regular participants in the political process, rather than an expression of any more sinister ploy to militarise or ‘securitise’ the political process. Siloviki in politics under Putin

We have detailed the fact that siloviki have been involved at high levels in Russia’s governing structures throughout the post-Soviet era. None the

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less, it would be disingenuous to suggest that what has happened in this regard under Putin is a mere continuation of previous practice. In fact it is an acceleration rather than a continuation, since the number of appointed officials with a force structure background has increased under the leadership of President Putin. According to Kryshtanovskaya and White, the average of force structure representatives in Yeltsin’s cohort was 11.2 per cent in 1993 and 17.4 per cent in 1999. The percentage of ‘military politicians’ in Putin’s ‘cohort’ in 2003 was 25.1 percent.24 What though do these data tell us about the role of siloviki in politics under President Putin? When Putin emerged as Yeltsin’s chosen successor for the presidency at the end of 1999, some political analysts soon started to interpret the rising number of politicians and officials with a force structure background as a conscious policy choice and strategy of the new president that both embodied and realised, in their eyes, his striving for a more authoritarian leadership style and system of rule, even going so far as to suggest that this development denoted a ‘peaceful military takeover’.25 A number of analysts appear to be alarmed by the anticipation of a more undemocratic or authoritarian policy direction, setting such figures apart from civilian politicians as a result of their ‘military frame of mind’,26 embodied in ‘common … military-style traditions’.27 It has been argued that such figures are accustomed to ‘command oriented bureaucratic styles’ and ‘rigid hierarchies of military-style organisations’, which are perceived to be a ‘poor school for the logrolling and compromise of modern state bureaucracies’.28 Robert Epperson, for example, asserted that ‘it is important to distinguish civilian politicians from ‘military politicians’. Military politicians are used to risking lives, including their own. Military politicians are less willing to compromise on issues involving the state than career politicians’.29 In a nutshell, the concern has been expressed that as a result of the participation of ex-force structure personalities in the political process of post-Soviet Russia, ‘the authoritarian methods that are inherent in military structures might be transferred to society as a whole’.30 Such assertions, for this is what they usually are, too often lack an evidential basis. The significance of a politician’s background in the force structures is not inherently obvious and it is insufficient, for example, to point towards the ‘political psychology’ of a ‘military politician’ without further elaborating this assertion.31 If the logic of institutional background as a permanent basis for the formation of an individual’s ideological orientation is perceived as applicable to force structure representatives wholesale, the same logic could be applied to the not inconsiderable part of the civilian political leadership in post-Soviet Russia with a ‘communist frame of mind’, as they started their careers in

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the CPSU. However, whilst the institutional background of Vladimir Putin and of other siloviki-turned-politicians is often noted even if this fact is not necessarily relevant to the context of the discussion, the past membership in the CPSU of many prominent politicians – such as leading liberals of the post-Soviet era, Grigorii Yavlinskii or Irina Khakamada – does not tend to be depicted as being of lasting significance. In a study of the political elite in Russia, Sharon Werning Rivera argued against using party membership as a criterion to evaluate elite continuity and in favour of ‘a more finely tuned, differentiated view of what constitutes membership of the old elite in order to evaluate levels of continuity’.32 Werning Rivera suggests that an analysis of the respective ranks and tasks attached to the party or governmental posts held by such figures during the Soviet era could contribute to a more balanced view of their degree of association and identification with the Soviet political order.33 Following Werning Rivera, considering the wide array of possible functions and positions taken up by siloviki, their respective previous ranks and tasks are likely to be important for differentiating what is too often portrayed as a homogeneous whole. So, for example, we can look at Putin himself. Whilst his career background in the KGB is regularly pointed out, analysts rarely clarify that he did not hold a leading position in this particular institution, reaching merely the rank of lieutenantcolonel, before resigning at the time of the August 1991 coup and entering the service of one of Russia’s leading democrats, Anatolii Sobchak. The Russian defence analyst Vladislav Shurygin viewed the following differentiation as significant: Putin should not be regarded as a fully-fledged figure of the secret services. He used to work there, but has not become a part of them. He isn’t Kryuchkov, who knew everybody and everything there, who had his generals and his system … No. Putin is a regular lieutenant-colonel, who finished his career in a small sub-unit on the territory of the former GDR [German Democratic Republic] and he knew, at best, this small area of work. And when he succeeded in getting to the top of the FSB hierarchy, he arrived there as a person who only just started to get experience. You know how cadres work. If a person gets appointed to a post, even to that of director of a polyclinic, he needs at least one and a half years until he knows what is going on, even if he was the registrar for fifteen years. He is acting on a completely different level … Putin, who was taken from a civilian post he held for seven or eight years, was made director of the FSB but remained in that position for less than a year. Putin could not really manage to get to know this system fully, despite the fact that he knew it already.34

We are not saying here that Vladimir Putin does not have authoritarian tendencies as president, but rather that the link between any such stance

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and a background, some time ago and at a relatively low rank, in the KGB is not as intuitively obvious as is often presumed. Former KGB officers hold a wide range of posts and opinions; politicians with no silovik background whatsoever can be more authoritarian than Vladimir Putin. When we consider Putin himself, we can point to a childhood where he was reportedly set on being a spy and was, according to one classmate, a schoolboy political informant;35 to a minor career in the KGB, much of it spent outside of the Soviet Union in East Germany; or to the decision to resign from the KGB and join the democratic camp in 1991. Differentiation according to rank can be complemented by differentiation according to role. So, for example, what are the commonalities of mindset shared by such siloviki as Viktor Kazantsev, Andrei Chernenko, and Vladimir Putin? •

•

•

Kazantsev was appointed presidential representative in the Southern federal district in 2000, having within the previous year commanded the Russian forces in the field during the second Chechen war. Colonel-General Andrei Chernenko was appointed the head of the Federal Migration Service under the MVD since 2002. With a varied career background in the Soviet and Russian force structures, and having served as the director of the State Courier Service (GFS) from 1999 to 2002, Chernenko fits the description of a silovik-turnedpolitician, but throughout nearly all of his career, including periods in civilian positions, he worked in the area of journalism and public relations. Putin himself worked for the KGB in East Germany ‘recruiting sources of information, obtaining information, analysing it, and sending it to Moscow’.37 A line of work which required a different skill set again from those in the preceding examples.

Again, the issue is not what the political stance of these individuals might be, but rather how much weight should be given to their ‘common’ background. In many analyses they are classified together as siloviki with no differentiation as regards rank, role, length of service, period of time in civilian employment, or force structure in which they were employed.38 When Vladimir Putin became president, he was faced with a political system accurately described by George Breslauer as a ‘personalistic and patriarchal’ regime.39 The key players were a coterie of closely linked individuals known as ‘the Family’. Putin owed his position to this regime and was thus a part of it, at least in the initial stages. Although Putin did not dissociate himself from the regime completely, it soon became evident that he was not the ‘puppet president’ some analysts initially expected him to be. Seeking a degree of autonomy in order to be able to pursue his

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own policies, Putin set out to establish his own power base utilising the possibilities at his disposal, within the framework of the political system he inherited. Having served as prime minister from August until December 1999, he had only five months’ experience in a federal public political post. He therefore lacked a ready-made political base of his own that was ready to run the federal state machine. Putin, like his predecessor and the vast majority of Russian politicians in the executive, was not a member of a political party and, due to the nature of the regime he inherited, could not resort to institutionalised channels of recruitment via the parliament and political parties. It should therefore not come as a complete surprise that especially in the initial stages of his presidency, in addition to retaining key figures of the Yeltsin regime, Putin had no choice but to build his own power base on trusted individuals he had previously worked with. These people came predominantly from St. Petersburg, where they had worked with him in his early career as a KGB officer or later in the administration of mayor Anatolii Sobchak.40 When it came to replacing key members of the Yeltsin elite with his own people, two of the most significant posts in the executive – that of prime minister and head of the presidential administration – were given to civilians. Yeltsin’s former head of administration, Aleksandr Voloshin, resigned in October 2003 and was replaced by Dmitrii Medvedev, an academic and lawyer who had worked with Putin in Sobchak’s administration. Prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, was sacked shortly before the presidential elections in 2004 and was replaced with Mikhail Fradkov, an economist and long-serving state official. In addition to such appointments, a number of high-profile posts went to Putin’s former colleagues in the Leningrad KGB and to other FSB officers, some of whom had served under his directorship from July 1998 to August 1999. The most prominent politicians and officials of Putin’s early KGB years, all of whom are viewed as key figures in Putin’s ‘team’, are: Sergei Ivanov, secretary of the Security Council from 2000 and defence minister since 2001; Viktor Cherkesov, presidential plenipotentiary in the Northwestern region from 2000–03, then director of the Federal Service for the Control of the Drugs Trade (FSN); and Viktor Ivanov, one of eight presidential aides in Putin’s administration.41 Putin’s reliance on former colleagues in building his own team was cited by many respondents interviewed in our research as the obvious explanation, in their eyes, for the increasing number of ‘military politicians’ with a forcestructure background. The decisive factor for the appointments, in their opinion, were personal links and loyalty typical of the personalisation of the political system of post-Soviet Russia, rather than these persons’ military background as such.

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According to Valerii Ostanin, a liberal Yabloko deputy and former MVD employee the mechanism [of elite appointment under Yeltsin and Putin] is the same. They included people in their entourage who were personally devoted to them, who came from the same institution, the same community, on the basis of nepotism. Nepotism is our specific tradition here in Russia … There is nothing new about it. Both Yeltsin and Putin used the same mechanisms to arrange their entourage.42

The ‘common background’ explanation for the number of former FSB officers in political and administrative posts under Putin is significant, as it indicates that the increasing number of such figures might be a product of the way the country is governed, rather than being the result of a conscious strategy to establish a ‘well-ordered police state’.43 When the seven new federal administrative districts were created in 2000 and siloviki were appointed to head five of these regions, some analysts interpreted this as evidence that the increased inclusion of military personnel was a conscious strategy pursued by the new leadership, particularly when it was noticed that these plenipotentiaries’ administrations were staffed ‘largely by security or military people’.44 However, having studied the seven administrative districts and their leaders in detail, Nikolai Petrov asserted that ‘one might conclude that the envoys have considerable freedom of choice in the staffing of their teams’. In line with the ‘common background’ explanation, Petrov found that, rather than following a plan for the ‘rapid advance of the military’ in the regions,45 the former bureaucrat and politician, Sergei Kirienko, had surrounded himself with ‘businessmen and retired politicians’, Putin’s former KGB associate, Viktor Cherkesov, with ‘KGB colleagues’, and army general, Viktor Kazantsev, with ‘fellow officers’.46 In 2003 and 2004 respectively, two of the initial appointments, Cherkesov and Kazantsev, were moved from their positions and replaced with civilian career politicians and administrators.47 Nonetheless, other observers insist that a key role of the presidential representatives and their teams since 2000 has been to strengthen the hand of the FSB and to gather information which is reported back to the centre. The creation of seven administrative okrugs was a major aspect of Putin’s attempts to strengthen the control of the federal centre over Russia’s regions and to build a strong ‘power vertical’. According to Olga Kryshtanovskaya, the apparatuses of the seven presidential envoys have emerged as the most ‘militarised’ state structures in contemporary Russia with up to 70 per cent of personnel coming from a power structure background.48 These 70 per cent are distributed on all levels of office and include figures with backgrounds in all power ministries including the

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FSB. However, the clear presence of former FSB officers in the apparatuses of the presidential envoys becomes obvious when looking at the position of deputy presidential envoy in the regions. Whilst, as mentioned above, only two envoys have a security background, six deputy envoys started their careers in the Soviet KGB.49 Although the presidential envoys’ public political role has been limited and not exposed to much scrutiny after initial discussions of the creation of the seven administrative regions, their formal and informal influence is not negligible due to their direct access to the president and their inclusion in the permanent staff of both the presidential administration and the Security Council. According to Peter Reddaway, one of the goals of Putin’s federal reforms was the strengthening of the FSB which ‘would work both to bring the other power ministries under his control, and also to strengthen vertical discipline in all the federal ministries’.50 He cites an interview with the chief federal inspector for the Perm region, Nikolai Fadeev, who declares, with regard to the FSB, that ‘among all the federal agencies, this one is special … Every federal official from the level of chief federal inspector downward has to be continuously monitored by the FSB’.51 In Fadeev’s experience, it is the FSB that has the power to vet and veto nominees for top posts. From the forty-two leading officials in Putin’s administration in 2004,52 seven had a force structure background. None of these seven officials were in the top three positions of the administration (chairman and two deputy chairmen).53 Three of the seven were presidential plenipotentiaries in the federal districts discussed above. Two further figures with a force-structure background in the administration were presidential advisers (of an overall total of nine advisers). These were Aleksandr Burutin, a former army officer and administrator in the General Staff advising on military-technical policies and the Military Industrial Complex, and Gennadii Troshev, a former army officer in charge of preparing information and analyses concerning Cossacks. Due to the distinctly military-related subject area of their advisory role, their appointments appear appropriate (other advisers seem to have been picked for their appropriate specialisation, too, for instance, a native Chechen and former Duma deputy for Chechnya for questions of the North-Caucasus, a musician and theatre director for culture, and so on). The remaining silovik figures in the administration were Vladimir Osipov, a Yeltsin appointee discussed above, and Viktor Ivanov, one of nine presidential aides and a former KGB officer who worked with Putin in the administration of St Petersburg mayor, Anatolii Sobchak. With regard to federal ministries, in 2004, from eighteen federal ministers, four were of a force structure background.54 One was Rashid Nurgaliev, the interior minister, who served in the KGB and FSB from

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1981 until 2002, when he was appointed first deputy interior minister to the civilian minister, Boris Gryzlov. When Gryzlov was elected to the State Duma in December 2003 (becoming speaker of the Duma in January 2004), Nurgaliev was first appointed acting interior minister and then interior minister in March 2004. Another such figure is the minister of transport and communications since March 2004, Igor Levitin. Having enjoyed a long career in the Soviet and Russian railway troops, he gained further experience as deputy director of the large Russian transport company, Severastaltrans, from 1996–2004, where he was in charge of railway transport and the operation of seaports. The third force structure minister is Sergei Shoigu, heading the Ministry for Emergency Situations (MChS). Shoigu is Russia’s longest standing minister and a Yeltsin appointee. While he does not come from a military background per se, he was awarded the military rank of army general (general armii) in 2003 for his service as MChS minister. The fourth federal minister with a force-structure background is Sergei Ivanov, a former KGB and FSB officer, who served as deputy director of the FSB under Putin in 1998 and was secretary of the Security Council until his appointment as defence minister in 2001. Having closely worked with Putin before he became president, Ivanov is widely believed to be one of Putin’s closest allies and a key member of the president’s ‘team’. His appointment as minister of defence in 2001 can be interpreted in two ways, both significant. Emphasis can be laid on the fact that a security service man was appointed to head the ministry of defence. Given the long history of turf wars between these force structures – the security services and the military – Ivanov’s appointment can be seen to represent a remarkable victory, wrought by ex-KGB man Putin, for the primacy of the former over the latter. Equally, however, the view had long been held by democrats in Russia and the West that a key sign of Russia becoming more like a ‘normal’ liberal-democratic country would be the day when the ministry of defence was overseen not by a serving officer, but by a civilian politician. Sergei Ivanov, reviewing the troops at Red Square parades in his lounge suit rather than a medal-bedecked uniform, can be seen as such a figure, despite his relatively recent service in the security forces. Putin himself explained the move as a ‘step towards the demilitarisation of Russian public life’.55 An interpretation of the increasing number of appointments of force structure representatives as a conscious strategy pursued by Putin can at best provide a simplified explanation of events. According to Richard Sakwa, ‘the concept of a struggle between the “siloviki” and “the family”’ was invented by Gleb Pavlovskii, a key political consultant during Putin’s first presidential campaign, ‘as a way of explaining the difficulties and impediments in the way of implementing Putin’s policies’.56 However, this

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concept should not be taken in too straightforward a manner. There are camps and cliques in most governing regimes, and although it can be useful to label them, they are rarely so stable in membership and identity as such labelling implies. An observation made by Peter Reddaway is significant in this respect: ‘the siloviki appear … not to have a leader or leaders, not to meet in even a semi-public way, and not to have any means of coordinating their goals and plans’.57 At least equal credence should be given to the notion that engagement of the siloviki in Russian politics, under both Yeltsin and Putin, is a ‘normal’ feature of political life in two senses. First, as suggested above, the personalised system of rule developed under Boris Yeltsin encouraged the development of teams based on loyalty to individual leaders. Furthermore, this is by no means a distinctly post-Soviet innovation in Russian politics. During the Soviet era the notion of leaders rising to power followed by their khvost (or tail) of associates is well documented. Second, the role of former force structure employees in politics – especially electoral politics – is clearly regulated in the country’s legislation, in terms which are broadly similar to those in the US or in the United Kingdom. From that point of view the political participation of figures with a force structure background is a lawful practice, rather than an intervention or encroachment into the political process. The discussion above of siloviki in Putin’s government should by no means be interpreted as a wholesale defence of the policies pursued by Putin. Indeed, the purpose of this chapter in many ways is to point up the need to focus on actual policies rather than on the backgrounds of those implementing them. The chapters which follow will explore the security aspects of Russia’s policies under Putin in different areas of domestic politics. As discussed earlier, the presumption of a link between a silovik background and authoritarian tendencies in politicians can too often be used as an overarching explanation of political developments in contemporary Russia under the Putin leadership. Whilst such an approach might be both intuitively appealing and convenient for explaining, for instance, the limitation of democratic freedoms in the sphere of information or the economy, its oversimplified nature does an injustice to the complexity of the Russian political system and of the political process at work. In the words of the veteran Moscow correspondent of the German public television channel ARD, Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, ‘people attempting to evaluate Putin and his policies unidimensionally risk getting it wrong altogether’.58 Putin and the force structures

As we have argued above, a more important analytical focus than the background of politicians is the direction of the policy they pursue. Let us

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turn then to consider briefly the actual decisions taken by Vladimir Putin in relation to the force structures. The perception of an ‘FSB-isation’ of Russia under Putin is not only apparent in the increasing number of appointments of former secret service officers to civilian administrative positions, but also in the strengthening of the FSB as an institution. At the end of March 2001 there occurred what one Russian newspaper called ‘Putin’s first revolution’, when an extensive personnel reshuffle affecting several of the Russian power ministries was announced.59 The most ‘sensational’ of the changes was the appointment, as discussed above, of Putin’s close ally, the former KGB/FSB officer and secretary of the Security Council Sergei Ivanov, as minister of defence. Additional changes saw the appointment of Mikhail Fradkov, a deputy secretary of the Security Council, as the head of the Federal Tax Police Service (FSNP); the appointment of Vladimir Rushailo, who had until then been interior minister, as the new secretary of the Security Council; and the elevation of Boris Gryzlov to the post of interior minister. It is even clearer several years later than it was then that Putin was bringing together his own team; by 2004 Gryzlov had become speaker of the Duma and Fradkov prime minister. Gryzlov is an interesting illustration of the ease with which Putin appointees are labelled siloviki, and of the difficulties inherent in using previous employment as a guide to current action. In many ways Gryzlov fits the silovik profile well; he came from nowhere politically, having been rapidly promoted under Vladimir Putin so that from entering parliament in December 1999 within a little over two years he was in charge of one of the major force structures, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In January 2004 he became speaker of the Duma, constitutionally one of the most significant posts in Russia, perhaps behind only the presidency and the prime-ministership. He has, therefore, all of the traits of the silovik in the common discourse, which has Putin privileging men with such a background as he strengthens his grip on power. Respected observers have written about how, ‘as a “former” KGB officer’, Boris Gryzlov is well suited to a role in Putin’s efforts to bring order to the state.60 In fact, however, Gryzlov is not a silovik, was never a KGB officer, and has no force structure background, having worked as an electronic engineer and gained a PhD in political science, before entering the Duma in 1999. He may well be a ‘siloviki sympathiser’,61 but that is a matter of political stance and allegiance, not of background. Although the appointment of Sergei Ivanov as defence minister in March 2001 was not completely unexpected,62 more surprising were the extensive structural changes to the Russian power ministries which were announced in March 2003. Following a series of presidential decrees, the abolition of the KGB successor agencies FAPSI and FPS was made known.

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Additionally, as well as a number of personnel changes, the FSNP, which until then had been a separate institution reporting directly to the president, was subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and a new non-ministerial force structure – the State Committee to Combat the Trade of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances – was created on the basis of the abolished FSNP.63 When Putin publicly announced the impending changes on 11 March 2003, he explained them by the need to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the Russian power ministries in view of the growing threat of drug crime and terrorism both in Russia and on a worldwide scale. Voicing explicit criticism of the Russian lawenforcement agencies, Putin said that ‘we cannot say or consider that the authorities responsible for these matters are operating with sufficient effectiveness and coordination’.64 The idea of merging some of the numerous power ministries that had arisen as a result of the splitting up of the KGB for political reasons in the early post-Soviet period was not new – as we have seen above, President Yeltsin had been keen to accomplish this himself in 1992. However, before Putin’s decrees in March 2003, a merger to the advantage of one specific power ministry was perceived as unlikely because of the conflict of interests of different organisations. At the beginning of 1998, Sergei Stepashin, then minister of justice, attempted to initiate the reintegration of the Border Guards into the FSB. However, despite Yeltsin’s approval of the idea the plans were never realised, because of the considerable institutional opposition emanating from both structures concerned.65 The fact that in 2003 the FPS and FAPSI silently had to accept their dissolution emphasises the FSB’s confirmation in recent years at least as the most politically influential and powerful of the Russian power ministries. The dissolution of the FPS was the most controversial aspect of the announced changes, as its functions were to be passed on to the FSB. It was a former directorate of the Soviet KGB, so the March 2003 reshuffle led to the publication of headlines announcing the recreation of the KGB.66 No matter whether Putin’s decisions were driven to an extent by nostalgia for the KGB or not, as a result of the 2003 reorganisation the FSB gained significantly in terms of personnel. The numerical strength of the FSB before Putin’s decrees was estimated at about 100,000. The Border Guard troops amounted to 200,000 employees.67 Subsequently, the number of employees under the direct control of the FSB as much as tripled in March 2003. The reorganisation did not address some of the central concerns of reformers, who had long argued that the power ministries needed to be brought under civilian control and cut in size. There was no change in the numerical strength of the power ministries as a whole, but simply a concentration under a single command, and the question of establishing

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an effective system of civilian authority over the Russian force structures was not addressed by the reform. The FSB as an organisation continues to be answerable only to the president. As a result of the decrees, the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were strengthened considerably. These institutions were in the charge of figures who are considered two of the most influential actors in Putin’s circle of confidants – the FSB director Nikolai Patrushev and the then interior minister Boris Gryzlov, both of whom Putin had ‘brought’ with him to Moscow from St Petersburg when he took up the presidential post. As was the case with Putin’s personnel reshuffle in March 2001, the decision-making process behind the changes announced in March 2003 raised concerns because of the lack of prior debate. Employees of the tax police, including its senior leadership, learned about the abolition of their organisation from media reports.68 Spy-mania and scandals

With the accession of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency, the number of former KGB and FSB personnel in administrative and political positions has increased, and personnel and structural changes to the Russian power ministries in March 2001 and March 2003 have considerably strengthened the influence of the FSB. Characteristically, specific activities of the intelligence agencies, and in particular of the FSB, are widely known and highly visible in the Russian media. Vladimir Putin noted this when director of the FSB, pointing out that ‘practically every day the television or the press report on one FSB operation or another’.69 Consequently in Russia, as opposed to most other countries, the head of the security services is a reasonably well-known figure. Nikolai Patrushev became the director of the FSB in August 1999, replacing Putin who was appointed prime minister. He is regarded as a close confidant of the president. Following Putin’s arrival in office, media reports of an evolving ‘spy-mania’ in connection with the FSB have been published widely both in the Russian and in the Western press, in connection with a series of treason trials of particular individuals or groups, both Russian and Western, instigated by the FSB and the Foreign Intelligence Service. The Council of Europe’s report on Russia of June 2005 commented at length on what it sees as the continuing spy-mania in Russia, focusing particularly on ‘about a dozen scientists, journalists and environmentalists’, though in fact only ten such cases were named.70 Although journalists often tend to ascribe the development of spymania to President Putin’s KGB background and the growth of FSB influence in Russia, in fact a clear majority of the indictments that led to the most controversial espionage cases in post-Soviet Russia were made before Putin rose to the presidency. Of the ten cases identified by the

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Council of Europe in its report, seven indictments were made before Putin came to power in March 2000, and a further two cases were investigated by the FSB prior to this date. Indeed of the ten cited, only one case was initiated since 2000, that of Oskar Kaibyshev, who was charged in February 2005 with the illegal export of secret technology to South Korea. (With regard to this latter case, it is far too early at the time of writing to be able to comment with any degree of certainty on the content of the case and procedure involved in prosecuting it.) It is clearly not the case then that the Putin era, in the sense of the period of his presidency, has seen a great increase in this sort of espionage case; what we have seen since 2000 is the continued prosecution, with varying results, of a number of cases established by the FSB in the latter years of the Yeltsin presidency. Nonetheless, it has been alleged that Putin personally is behind such cases since most of them arose in 1998–99 when he was the head of the FSB and then prime minister.71 The 2005 Council of Europe report on Russia deals with the cases of Aleksandr Nikitin (charged in February 1996), Grigorii Pasko (November 1997), Valentin Danilov (May 1998), Valentin Moiseev (July 1998), Vladimir Soifer (July 1999), Vladimir Shchurov (October 1999), Igor Sutyagin (October 1999), Anatolii Babkin (April 2000), Valerii Kovalchuk (August 2000) and Oskar Kaibyshev (2005). In addition, the Russian Committee for the Defence of Scientists has included several other FSB-initiated cases of alleged espionage in its appeals, notably, journalists Konstantin Sterledev (2002), Konstantin Bakharev (2002), Viktor Akulichev (1997), Yuri Khvorostov (2002), Mikhail Trepashkin (2002), and Viktor Kalyadin (1998).72 Of course there have been a number of other espionage cases in Russia in the post-Soviet era which have not attracted the criticism of human rights organisations or the wider international community.73 Several factors reoccur in many of the cases mentioned above. First, with particular regard to scientists and journalists, there has often been an apparent lack of clarity over what constitutes a state secret, with a number of academics and scientists charged by the FSB insisting, with good evidence, that they have had no access to state secrets and have only worked with open sources. Second, most of the cases noted have been brought by regional FSB officials, with very little sense that – except possibly in the case of Trepashkin – there is much initial engagement with them at senior level. However, sufficiently high-profile cases come under the control of the FSB Investigations Department.74 Third, once the FSB has brought a case, it rarely if ever backs down, even in the light of significant evidence undermining a prosecution. Before the judicial reforms of 2003, the practice of sending criminal cases back for ‘additional investigation’ – that is, enabling the prosecution to patch up a

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poor case – was common, but this practice has now been ended. Fourth, the FSB is engaged not just in investigating the cases, but in bringing the prosecution and holding a number of the suspects in its own custody in the FSB-controlled prison, Lefortovo, in Moscow. This lack of a separation of roles and responsibilities has been criticised by Western observers, including the Council of Europe. To summarise, international organisations and human rights activists have highlighted sixteen spy-mania cases, that is where they believe there are grounds for asserting wrongful conviction, malicious prosecution, and other violations of accepted norms.75 Excluding the Kaibyshev case noted above, about which insufficient detail is known at the time of writing, of the remaining fifteen cases, six were launched in the period 1996–98, five more by the end of 2000, and the rest by the end of 2002. In these fifteen cases, six of the accused were completely acquitted. In a country where between 98 and 99 per cent of court cases result in the conviction of the accused, such an acquittal rate is notable, particularly given the widespread assumption that the courts are more willing than they ought to do the will of the authorities in Russia. The reason for acquittal in most of these cases was simply lack of evidence of a crime, suggesting that the FSB have indeed been overzealous in pursuing ‘spies’, but that the courts in some cases serve as a sufficient check on this tendency. This is not by any means to argue that all of those who have been found guilty enjoyed fair trials; Pasko, Sutyagin, Danilov and Moiseev have all lodged appeals with the European Court of Human Rights over the conduct of their cases. Nine of the defendants in the cases noted above were found guilty, of these, two were given suspended sentences, three were sentenced to between four and five years in prison, one was sentenced to eight years, and the remaining three were sentenced to between ten and fifteen years.76

In conclusion, the analysis presented in this chapter provides a context to the place of siloviki in Russian political and social affairs, arguing that conceptualisations of the Putin regime as representing ‘a peaceful military takeover’ by force structure personnel demand a more nuanced consideration.77 A number of features of the Putin presidency in this regard – for example, high-level silovik appointees and overzealous prosecutions for espionage – had their beginnings in the Yeltsin era. Furthermore, the legal and historical context of silovik involvement in political affairs in Russia, along with comparative assessments of former military men in the political life of other countries, facilitate a deeper understanding of the situation in Putin’s Russia. In particular, the concept of a silovik, though an attractive shorthand term, masks wide-ranging differences between those who are labelled with this epithet. A silovik could have served in a

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diverse group of force structures (for example, the military, the police, the intelligence services), in a diverse range of roles, at different levels of seniority, in different periods, and for differing lengths of time. There are democratic siloviki, and authoritarian non-siloviki. In short, a concentration on the background of political appointees can only take us so far in analysing the domestic politics of the Putin regime. The policies pursued matter more than the curricula vitae of those pursuing them. It is to a detailed analysis of these policies, and their engagement with security concerns, that the following chapters turn. Notes 1 ‘Force structures’ are defined here as ministries and institutions within the federal system of executive power that are in charge of uniformed personnel and/or in command of their own militarised or armed formations. Such a definition is broadly accepted, see for example N. Petrov, ‘Power Ministries and Federal Reform in Russia’, PONARS Policy Memo No. 282, October 2002, p. 1; R. Kaliyev, ‘Can “Power Ministries” be Reformed?’, Perspective, 8:1 (September–October 2002), www.bu.edu/ iscip/vol13/kaliyev.html (last accessed 28 October 2005); B. Taylor, ‘Strong Men, Weak State: power ministry officials and the federal districts’, PONARS Policy Memo No. 284, October 2002, p. 1, www.csis.org/ruseura.ponars. 2 Parts of this chapter are based on B. Renz, Civil-Military Relations in Post-Soviet Russia: the case of military politicians, doctoral thesis, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham (September 2004). 3 Opinion polls carried out by VTsIOM and the Levada Centre. See the Levada Centre’s poll, ‘Sotsialno-politicheskaya situatsiya v Rossii v Aprele 2005 goda’ (4 May 2005), www.levada.ru/press/2005050401.html (last accessed 20 July 2005). 4 George H.W. Bush was director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1976–77, and president of the United States, 1988–92. 5 For an assessment of the similarities between Vladimir Putin and Yurii Andropov, see Y. Drozdov and V. Fartyshev, Yurii Andropov i Vladimir Putin: na puti k vozrozhdeniyu (Moscow: Olma-Press, 2002). 6 G. Bennett, ‘The Security Service of the Russian Federation’, Conflict Studies Research Centre Document C102 (March 2000), p. 5. 7 Izvestiya (31 December 1991). 8 Russian Federation Law on Security (May 1992). 9 E. Bacon, ‘The Power Ministries’, in N. Robinson (ed.), Institutions and Political Change in Russia (Basingstoke: Macmillan 2000). 10 A.A. Mukhin, Spetssluzhby Rossii i ‘bolshaya’ politika (Moscow: Spik Tsentr, 2000), p. 22. 11 Ibid., p. 17. 12 Ye. Primakov, Vosem mesyatsev plyus (Moscow: Mysl, 2002), pp. 23–5. 13 Ibid. 14 B. Yeltsin, Prezidentskii marafon: razmyshleniya, vospominaniya, vpechatleniya (Moscow: AST Publishers, 2000), p. 302. 15 Margaret Coker, ‘Is this Russia’s next Prime Minister?’, BusinessWeek Online (17 May 1999), www.businessweek.com/@@Seh7d2UA0cwOEgEA/datedtoc/1999/9920.htm (last accessed 28 October 2005). 16 D. Pinsker, ‘Shchit i Mech’, Itogi (16 February 1999; accessed via EastView database).

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17 A.G., ‘Nedra’, Itogi (16 February 1999; accessed via EastView database). The journalist lists nine former security officers who were appointed to key administrative positions since Primakov’s appointment in September 1998. 18 Primakov, Vosem mesyatsev plyus, p. 180. 19 F. Tyunin, ‘Demokraticheskii silovik’, Vremya MN (May 1999; accessed via EastView database). 20 A. Khinshtein, ‘Sergei Vadimovich i zmei’, Moskovskii komsomolets (27 May 1999; accessed via EastView database). 21 See, for instance, P. Felgenhauer, ‘Unbridled dictatorial drift’, Moscow Times (4 November 2003), p. 11. 22 Yevgenii Primakov currently (July 2005) is the director of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Sergei Stepashin is the head of the Audit Chamber; Vladimir Makarov has been deputy head of the State Customs Committee since 2000; Vladimir Osipov continues to serve in the presidential administration; Nikolai Patrushev is director of the FSB. 23 R. Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society (3rd edn), (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 458. 24 For a detailed breakdown of these cohorts see O. Kryshtanovskaya and S. White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 19:4 (2003), 289–306. 25 N. Petrov, ‘Seven Faces of Putin’s Russia: federal districts as the new level of state-territorial composition’, Security Dialogue, 33:1 (2002), 73–91. 26 I. Isakova ‘The Evolution of Civil-Military Relations in Russia’, in A. Cottey, T. Edmunds and A. Forster (eds), Democratic Control of the Military in Postcommunist Europe: guarding the guards (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 221. 27 See, for instance, Kryshtanovskaya and White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’; P. Reddaway, G. Lapidus, B.W. Ickes, C. Saivetz, and G. Breslauer, ‘Russia in the Year 2003’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 20:1 (2004), 2. 28 Taylor, ‘Strong Men, Weak State’, pp. 1 and 5. 29 R. Epperson, ‘Russian Military Intervention in Politics 1991–1996’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 10:3 (1997), 99. 30 Kryshtanovskaya and White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’, pp. 303–4. 31 R. Barylski, The Soldier in Russian Politics: duty, dictatorship, and democracy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1998), p. 238. 32 S. Werning-Rivera, ‘Elites in Post-communist Russia: a changing of the guard?’, Europe-Asia Studies, 52:3 (2000), 417. 33 The usefulness of differentiating military personnel by rank was pointed out by Morris Janowitz in his study of the US military. In studying political opinions of soldiers across the ranks, he found that the higher the rank held in the military hierarchy by an individual, the more likely he was to identify himself as having a conservative outlook. See, M. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: a political and social portrait (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1960), pp. 236. 34 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (11 January 2002). 35 O. Demidova, ‘Posle bala. Prosto Volodya’, Komsomolskaya pravda (20 June 2005), pp. 1 and 10. 36 Chernenko served as deputy interior minister and head of the FMS under the MVD from February 2002–April 2003. Having served as a deputy to Valentina Matvienko first in her position as the presidential envoy to Russia’s North-Western administrative region and then as governor of St Petersburg in the intermittent period, he was reappointed to head the FMS in June 2004.

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37 V. Putin, First Person: an astonishingly frank self portrait by Russia’s president (London: Hutchinson, 2000), pp. 69–70. 38 For example, Kryshtanovskaya and White in ‘Putin’s Militocracy’ speak about the ‘FSB-isation’ of Russian politics, but their figures do not distinguish between military and a variety of security backgrounds. 39 G. Breslauer, ‘Personalism versus Proceduralism: Boris Yeltsin and the institutional fragility of the Russian system’, in V. Bonnell and G. Breslauer, Russia in the New Century: stability or disorder? (Boulder, CO: Westview 2001), p. 37. 40 See also R. Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s choice (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 61–2. 41 All three were appointed to high-ranking positions in the FSB previously, when Putin was its director from 1998–99. Until the restructuring and streamlining of the presidential administration in March 2004 (reportedly the administration was downsized from 1,500 to about 1,200) Ivanov and the other presidential aides had the post of deputy head of the administration. P. Aptekar, ‘Konets reforme. Kamen za kamnem’, Gazeta (5 August 2004), p. 2. 42 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (6 December 2001). 43 Kryshtanovskaya and White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’, p. 303. 44 See, for instance, D. Betz, ‘No Place for a Civilian? Russian defense management from Yeltsin to Putin’, Armed Forces and Society, 28:3 (2002), 484. 45 Kryshtanovskaya and White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’, p. 300. 46 Petrov, ‘Seven Faces of Putin’s Russia’, p. 83. 47 Cherkesov was replaced with Putin’s colleague from Sobchak’s administration, the engineer and former minister Ilya Klebanov, and Kazantsev was replaced with the former mayor of St Petersburg, Vladimir Yakovlev. 48 O. Kryshtanovskaya, ‘Kadry: Lyudi Putina’, Vedomosti (30 June 2003; accessed via EastView database). 49 According to a list published by Kommersant-vlast, two former security officers each serve as deputy presidential envoy in the Central and Siberian region, and one each in the Ural and North-Western region. Yu. Likinova, M. Lukin, A. Stukalin and P. Chernikov, ‘Spravochnik: KGB vo vlasti. KGB vo vlasti i biznese’, Kommersant-vlast (23 December 2002), p. 65. 50 P. Reddaway, ‘Historical and Political Context’, in P. Reddaway and R.W. Orttung (eds), The Dynamics of Russian Politics: Putin’s reform of federal-regional relations, (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), p. 13. 51 Appendix, Reddaway and Orttung, The Dynamics of Russian Politics, p. 307. 52 These forty-two individuals were named on the website of the presidential administration in August 2004 (www.kremlin.ru). They include the head and two deputy heads of the administration, eight presidential advisers, the seven presidential plenipotentiaries in the federal districts, nine presidential advisers and eleven additional heads of sub-units of the presidential administration. 53 Igor Sechin, a deputy head of the administration, is often presumed to have a KGB background. However, unlike the other force structure representatives in the presidential administration, his biography does not indicate such an occupation. Instead, the presumption of his KGB background is based on rumours circulated in the press that he might have been on KGB missions during his time as an interpreter (see, for instance, Kirill Vysokov, ‘Gospodin Ispolnitel’, Profil (17 December 2001), p. 106; ‘My slyshaly, chto…’,Vedemosti (20 March 2002; accessed via EastView database); and ‘Chekisty vo vlasti’, Novaya gazeta, No. 50 (July 2003), p. 2. Sechin worked with Putin in Sobchak’s administration from 1991–96. 54 This figure was correct in August 2004 in accordance with the official governmental website (www.government.ru). It includes the prime minister and the deputy prime

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55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68

69 70

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minister. In the first half of 2004, the number of federal ministers was reduced from about thirty to eighteen due to a number of presidential decrees initiating the wideranging restructuring and streamlining of the Russian system of federal executive power. (Presidential decrees No. 314, ‘O sisteme i strukture federalnykh organov ispolnitelnoi vlasti’, signed 9 March 2004, and No. 0649, ‘Voprosy struktury federalnykh organov ispolnitelnoi vlasti’, signed on 20 May 2004). M. Warren, ‘Putin shifts control of armed forces from soldiers to civilians’, Daily Telegraph (29 March 2001), p. 4. Sakwa, Putin, p. 64. Reddaway et al., ‘Russia in the Year 2003’, p. 4. G. Krone-Schmalz, ‘Jenseits der Klischees’, Rheinischer Merkur, No. 15 (8 April 2004). L. Andrusenko, ‘Pervaya Revolyutsiya Putina: Prezident predpochitaet lichnnuyu predannost’’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (29 March 2001), p. 1. M. McFaul, ‘Russia: An ominous trend’, Hoover Digest, Vol. 1 (2004), www.hoover digest.org/041/mcfaul-side.html (last accessed 20 July 2005). A. Medetsky, ‘Siloviki’s Pyramid of Power Revealed’, St Petersburg Times (20 January 2004), www.sptimes.ru/story/12039 (last accessed 28 October 2005). When Ivanov retired from active FSB service in December 2000, some analysts interpreted this as a sign that this might be the first step of his impending appointment as minister of defence. Donald N. Jensen, ‘The Rise of Russia’s Security Council’, RFE/RL Newsline (8 January 2001), www.rferl.org/newsline/2001/01/080101.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). For a more detailed account of these changes see E. Bacon and B. Renz, ‘Return of the KGB? Restructuring Security in Russia’, The World Today, 59:5 (2003), 26-27. Vstupitelnoe slovo na soveshchanii s chlenami pravitelstva, (11 March 2003), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2003/03/40494.shtml (last accessed 20 July 2005). Mukhin, Spetssluzhby Rossii, p. 6. For example, ‘Vladimir Putin vossozdaet KGB’, RosBusinessConsulting (11 March 2003), www.top.rbc.ru. ‘Die Nachrichten- und Sicherheitsdienste der Russischen Föderation’, in Verfassungsschutzbericht 2002 (Berlin: Bundesministerium des Innern, 2003), pp. 223–5. F. Sterkin, ‘Pyat glavnykh voprosov po povodu transformatsii silovogo bloka’, strana.ru (13 March 2003), www.strana.ru/stories/02/08/16/3121/173615.html (last accessed 28 October 2005). V. Putin, ‘FSB – ne mechenaya karta, chtoby eyu kozyryat v politicheskikh intrigakh’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (18 November 1998; accessed via EastView database). Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Report on Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by the Russian Federation, Strasbourg, (3 June 2005), p. 76. This argument was put in an open letter to the US Congress from the Committee for the Defence of Scientists, signed by Lyudmila Alexeeva, Moscow Helsinki Group; Elena Bonner, Andrei Sakharov Foundation; Vitalii Ginzburg, Nobel Prize laureate, RAS academician; Sergei Kovalev, prisoner of conscience, Institute of Human Rights; Alexander Nikitin, prisoner of conscience, Ecological and Human Rights Center ‘Belluna’; Yuri Rizhov, RAS academician; Yuri Samodurov, Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center; Grigory Pasko, prisoner of conscience, journalist; Lev Ponomarev, All-Russian Public Movement ‘For Human Rights’; Ernst Cherny, executive secretary of the Public Committee for Protection of Scientists; Gleb Yakunin, priest, prisoner of conscience, Committee for the Protection of the Freedom of Conscience. See, www.sutyagin.org/eng/archive/2004_05.shtml (last accessed 20 July 2005). Ibid.

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73 ‘Top-10 prigovorov po state 275 “Gosudarstvennaya izmen?” UK RF’, Kommersantdaily (25 November 2004), p. 6. 74 ‘Shpionov budet bolshe’, Moskovskie novosti (12 November 2004), p. 9. 75 It must be noted that in both the Council of Europe report of June 2005 and the open letter to the US Congress from the Committee for the Defence of Scientists, the names of some of those charged by the FSB are wrongly reported. The Council of Europe report has ‘Vladimir Stiffer’ instead of Vladimir Soifer. The open letter has ‘Konstantin Sterlegin’ instead of Konstantin Sterledov. 76 Kovalchuk was cleared of all charges. Khvorostov had his charges dropped in June 2003. Sterledev and Bakharev has their charges dropped for lack of evidence of a crime in July 2003. Soifer was acquitted in 2000. Nikitin was acquitted in September 2000. Akulichev received a four-year suspended sentence in 1997. Shchurov was found guilty in 2003, but given a suspended sentence and amnestied. Pasko served two-thirds of a four-year sentence and was released in 2003. Moiseev was originally sentenced to twelve years in 1999, this was reduced on appeal to four-and-a-half years in 2001, he was released at the end of 2002. Trepashkin was sentenced to five years in total in 2004. Babkin was sentenced to eight years in 2003. Danilov was initially acquitted, but then retried and sentenced to fourteen years in 2004 and is appealing to the Russian Supreme Court. Kalyadin was sentenced to fourteen years in 2001 and died in prison in September 2004. Sutyagin was sentenced to fifteen years in 2004. 77 Petrov, ‘Seven Faces of Putin’s Russia’, p. 88.

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3 The Chechen conflict

In September 1999, Russian federal forces moved into the Republic of Chechnya, a constituent part of the Russian Federation located in the North-Caucasus region. This military campaign came to be known as the second Chechen war, following on from the first Chechen war of 1994–96, and an uneasy period of peace and de facto self-rule lasting for three years between 1996 and 1999. This peace was decisively broken when in August 1999 a unit of Chechen fighters under the leadership of former Soviet General Shamil Basaev invaded the republic of Dagestan, a Russian region bordering Chechnya. In addition to fighting the insurgents, the federal authorities’ decision to intervene militarily in Chechnya itself was influenced by the devastating bombing of random apartment buildings in Moscow, Volgodonsk, and Buinaksk in September 1999 in which around 300 citizens lost their lives. These attacks were blamed on Chechen extremists.1 Their emotional and physical impact, particularly in the heart of Moscow, made any attempt to ‘securitise’ the Chechen crisis unnecessary in their immediate aftermath, as the capital took on an almost palpable atmosphere of fear and suspicion, and demands for the authorities to take firm action were legion. Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s newly appointed prime minister, cut short a summit meeting with US President Clinton in New Zealand to fly back to Moscow, where he sought to calm the more strident voices, strongly discouraging growing calls for a state of emergency to be declared across Russia.2 From its very beginning the second Chechen campaign – in contrast to the first – was officially framed as an anti-terrorist operation and as a part of a wider global effort to fight the emergence of international terrorist networks. Although many observers and critics continue to speak about a ‘war’ when describing the ongoing events in the troubled republic, the end of the military phase aimed at the forceful elimination of terrorist gangs in Chechnya was declared officially on several occasions

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starting in the latter half of 2000.3 Subsequent events in Chechnya have then been framed not as a military operation, but, to quote former interior minister Boris Gryzlov and Federal Security Service (FSB) director Nikolai Patrushev, as a ‘police job’ and ‘an operation to maintain public order’.4 In addition to the official Russian securitising discourse, framing the Chechen campaign as an anti-terrorist operation with an international dimension, we have therefore a second strand of discourse that started at the end of 2000. This discourse has depicted a process of ongoing ‘desecuritisation’ and ‘normalisation’ in the republic expressed, for example, in the handing over of responsibilities from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), the conducting of a referendum and elections, and the return of refugees to their homeland. The existence of conflicting discourses in relation to the situation in Chechnya illuminates well the way in which the Putin government, and particularly in this case Putin himself, have consciously used the discourse of securitisation in some settings, at the same time as employing the conflicting discourse of normalisation in others. As we detail in this chapter, the normalisation approach has been employed consistently when talking to audiences in Russia about policy in Chechnya since late 2000. At the same time, domestic audiences have also been told that the threat from terrorism is sufficiently great that a range of measures in other policy areas result from the situation in Chechnya, and international criticism of Russian actions in the republic has been countered by the insistence that the Chechen conflict is a key part of the war against terrorism. Both of these stances undermine the conflicting discourse that life in Chechnya is returning to normal. From the point of view of the securitisation approach, it does not come as a surprise that the military intervention in Chechnya in 1999 was initially conveyed discursively in strongly securitised language. After all, the advocating and use of military means to counter a security threat is the epitome of asserting that an issue belongs in the security realm and disregarding the procedures of ‘normal politics’. However, the analysis in this chapter of the events in Chechnya through the prism of the securitisation framework advocated in this book serves an important purpose. First, a study of President Putin’s securitising discourse, framing the campaign as a part of the international ‘war’ on terror, can explain why a military intervention was considered by Russia as the only viable option for solving the conflict. As discussed in more detail below, the nature of the military means employed by the federal authorities has been the major point of criticism by domestic and international opponents of the war, who have persistently called for political negotiations and a ‘peaceful’ solution to the conflict. This criticism in turn has been rejected from the official Russian side as unconstructive and based on double standards. An

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awareness of the discourse underlying the Russian authorities’ reasoning for their policies in Chechnya is important in order to avoid misunderstanding the Russian side as fundamentally unwilling to engage in international dialogue about the problems at hand, and opponents of the war as being guilty of holding double standards. Following an analysis of official Russian securitising discourse related to the Chechen situation the chapter then turns to the aforementioned discourse of ‘de-securitisation’ or ‘normalisation’ in the republic, which has grown increasingly prominent since the end of the official military phase of operations was announced. Contrasting official Russian representations of developments in Chechnya with how the situation has been reported by analysts and organisations active in the republic, the chapter concludes that despite the Russian authorities’ insistence that they are attempting to de-securitise the problems of Chechnya, the situation in the republic remains far from normal, and the competing official discourse of securitisation undermines that of normalisation in the eyes of the key audiences. The counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya: official Russian securitising discourse

Successfully securitising the second Chechen war by winning acceptance and support for the military operations from the side of the Russian population was a top priority of the Russian leadership from the outset. The failure to ensure popular legitimacy for the military operations from 1994–96 came much to the detriment of the political and military leadership at the time, and today is seen as a major reason for the ‘loss’ of the first Chechen war.6 It is clear that the Russian leadership, at least in the initial stages of the conflict, was successful in securing audience acceptance of the need for military intervention: it is now a commonplace perception that the then prime minister Vladimir Putin emerged as the overwhelming victor in the presidential elections in March 2000 largely due to his tough stance on the Chechen issue. From the outset, the second Chechen war was framed as an antiterrorist operation. In numerous instances Putin was careful to point out that, in contrast to the first war, the second wave of military operations had nothing to do with preventing separatism and Chechen independence. In April 2000 he pronounced his views at a joint press conference with British prime minister, Tony Blair: Today we are not dealing with the question of Chechen independence. We are facing completely different problems in the North Caucasus … The problem is that the people who launched an unprovoked attack on the neighbouring

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republic of Dagestan – and I want to emphasise that this also is an Islamic republic – entered this republic not under the slogan of Chechen independence. They came under different slogans, under terrorist slogans calling for the seizure of additional territory.7

Putin often pointed out that the forceful suppression of terrorists active in Chechnya is of vital importance for the Russian Federation, which cannot allow one of its constituent republics to be abused as a ‘bridgehead’ for terrorists organising attacks on other Russian territories and posing a clear threat to the civilian population.8 In addition to the threat immediately facing Russia, the international dimension of terrorist activity in Chechnya took a central place in Putin’s argumentation. In an interview with the American television news channel CNN, for example, Putin asserted that ‘the territory of the republic has become occupied by foreign mercenaries and religious fanatics – fundamentalists from Afghanistan and from a number of groups from the Arab east. These are facts.’9 In the language of securitisation, the internationalisation of the Chechen conflict in official Russian discourse had a direct impact on how the threats emanating from it were represented. Particularly in speaking to foreign audiences Putin emphasised the wide-ranging nature of threats coming from terrorist activity within the Chechen republic. In an interview with the French newspaper Figaro in October 2000, Putin pointed out the global character of developments in the Chechen republic: ‘We are talking about a global threat. And Russia was one of the first states to encounter it.’10 According to Putin this global security threat emanated from international terrorism and religious extremism. These tendencies, he argued, had found a fertile breeding ground in Chechnya, which in the inter-war period of 1996–99 constituted an uncontrolled area on European territory and facilitated the training of terrorists, and the trafficking of drugs, weapons, and prostitutes on an international scale.11 Instead of merely justifying the military operation in Chechnya to foreign audiences, Putin’s emphasis on the international dimension of the problem served specifically to rationalise the necessity of military means and the impossibility of resolving the situation by way of political negotiations. According to the official line, the involvement of internationally motivated players in terrorist activities coming from Chechnya rendered political negotiations, which have been frequently demanded by Russian and Western critics, a meaningless exercise. In a televised question-andanswer session on Russian television in December 2002, Putin expressed this idea as follows: ‘Who is left for us to negotiate with? Today our opponents are international terrorists and bandits. It is generally impossible to negotiate with terrorists and bandits.’12 In accordance with this argument, military means were the only feasible solution to the problem.

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In addition to the threat to Russian and international security, the state – in the form of the integrity of its borders and territories – was another referent object of Putin’s securitising discourse. Whilst, in the main, he represented this threat as applying first of all to the Russian Federation, Putin also stressed the international aspect of this issue. Although the protection of the Chechen people and the Russian and international public from domestic and international terrorists active in Chechnya were presented as the main reason for the military operations, the danger of the spread of persistent secessionist tendencies was not omitted completely. In January 2002, Putin characterised the enemy forces in Chechnya as an ‘explosive mixture of international terrorists and separatists’.13 With reference to this particular threat, he repeatedly appealed to the international community not to be guided by what he perceived as short-sightedness and double-standards in their evaluation of Russia’s military operations, warning that to allow separatism to succeed in Russia would open the way for further destabilisation in Europe.14 With respect to preserving the territorial integrity of Russia, too, Putin asserted that military means were the only solution: ‘only a counterterrorist operation was able to avert Russia’s collapse. Professional soldiers helped save the dignity and integrity of the state.’15 A third threat and referent object of Putin’s securitising discourse of the second Chechen conflict was the Chechen nation itself, along with its economy. The safety and prosperity of the Chechen civilian population were depicted as threatened by economic problems, lawlessness and crime that resulted from the spread of terrorism over many years. Being aware of the concerns voiced both abroad and in Russia regarding the safety of the civilian population in Chechnya with respect to the military operations, President Putin repeatedly asserted that this was a war not against the Chechen people, but for the Chechen people. In a joint press conference with British prime minister Tony Blair in April 2000 he explicitly made this point: ‘Again I want to emphasise that Russia’s actions are not directed against Muslims or Chechens. They are directed exclusively against international terrorism and international extremism of a global character.’16 In an interview with the French press in the same year, Putin explained that ‘The main problem [in Chechnya] today, as strange as it might seem, is the economy. In Chechnya there is full unemployment. We have to give people work, build schools and hospitals.’17 Vladimir Putin put the blame for the economic catastrophe in Chechnya squarely on the ‘bandits’ who were the only rulers of the republic in the 1996–99 inter-war years. He asserted that ‘children did not go to school for three years and pensioners did not receive a pension for three years – not even what had been sent from Russia, because during all these years Russia continued to send financial resources to Chechnya for

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the support of children and of the elderly.’18 The issue of economic recovery and material support for Chechnya, including the rebuilding of its infrastructure, figures prominently in Putin’s discourse about Chechnya on a domestic level. A majority of transcripts of meetings between Putin and federal ministers or Chechen officials published on the presidential website deal exclusively with problems connected to economic recovery and support. The physical threat to and human rights abuses of Chechen civilians through terrorist attacks in the republic have consistently been represented as a further threat necessitating military intervention. In December 2000, Putin told the Russian press that the stationing of federal troops in populated areas was a necessity because ‘the fighters started to direct terrorism against their own people. This put the problem of protecting them from the fighters on our daily agenda. You know about the recent tragic events, peaceful citizens have suffered from explosions in the streets.’19 To drive home the point that the second Chechen campaign is a war not against but for the Chechen population, Putin emphasised that the federal forces’ military activities in the republic were met with agreement by the local populace. In September 2000 he told CNN that ‘when our forces entered Chechnya, they were surprised to receive a warm welcome from the side of the local people’.20 In sum, official Russian discourse on the war in Chechnya has addressed three overarching threats in rationalising the need for military intervention to the domestic and international audiences. These threats were, first, a multi-faceted security threat to both Russia and the world posed by Chechnya as a breeding ground for international terrorism; second, a threat to the integrity of borders and territories in Russia and abroad; and third, economic and physical threats to the civilian population in Chechnya. Whilst during the early stages of the conflict the Russian audience seems to have accepted this discourse and in its majority supported the military actions,21 Western audiences were less easily persuaded. In Putin’s discourse then, Western criticism of the military operations in Chechnya, repeatedly voiced by media outlets, politicians or NGOs, has at times been represented as an additional threat connected to the conflict. The referent object of this threat is international security which, according to Putin, was at stake due to the one-sided approach in the West towards Russia’s policy in Chechnya. In October 2000, he warned in no uncertain terms that, ‘If somebody in the world or in Europe does not notice, or for whatever reasons is trying not to notice, the danger of international terrorism and fundamentalism – Islamic or of any other religious origin – then I think that this is a mistake. And it seems to me that this mistake could turn out to be very costly, because the extremists will feel that they can go unpunished.’22 At an EU-Russian

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summit in May 2001, Putin explicitly warned Europe about the terrorism-related dangers it faced and appealed to its leaders not to ignore them.23 Criticism of Western stances on Chechnya figured repeatedly in the 133 speeches and interviews by Putin analysed for this chapter. Whilst in some instances, Putin held the continuation of Cold War sentiments responsible for the West’s negative attitude towards Russia’s intervention in Chechnya,24 he represented the short-sightedness of Western critics as the major reason for their rejection of the military intervention. From the early stages of the second Chechen campaign, Putin stressed that he welcomed constructive dialogue on the conflict with foreign partners and audiences. However, he rejected what he saw as the one-sided attention paid to the issue particularly by Western journalists. Instead of concentrating entirely on human rights abuses committed by federal forces, the occurrence of which he did not deny, and demanding political negotiations with the militant Chechen opposition, which Russia had rejected for the reasons discussed above, he called for constructive criticism and support in solving the entire range of problems apparent in Chechnya. The result of this one-sided approach, Putin argued, was that growth of terrorist activities in the North-Caucasus was inadvertently aided by Western critics. He warned the Italian publication Corriere della Sera that European journalists ignore ‘fundamentalists’ committing terrorist acts against the Chechen population, ‘there is permanent murder, but nobody is paying attention to this. Ignoring these facts also contains an element of conspiring with terrorism.’25 Putin also condemned what he perceived as the double-standards of parts of the Western world in its evaluation of the events in Chechnya. In particular, he drew parallels with NATO’s intervention in the former Yugoslavia and later the American and Britishled war in Iraq. Responding to criticism of the military campaign in Chechnya by an Italian journalist, Putin countered in July 2001: You said that Russia is unable to solve the Chechen problem. So you are saying that you can solve the problems in the Balkans? At the end of the day NATO is only trying to solve these problems, too, moreover with the help of bombardments. Do you consider it legitimate to use force there but not here? And if so, then you think that [force] is legitimate sometimes? If it is legitimate in principle, then why isn’t it in Chechnya specifically?26

‘9/11’ and the Chechen discourse

The terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 served to reinforce Putin’s line of argument regarding a common global threat. In a declaration in the aftermath of the attacks, he stated the following:

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After the barbaric terrorist acts on New York and Washington, the whole world is still in shock from this tragedy. The Russian Federation has been leading a war against international terrorism for a long time, relying exclusively on its own strength after repeatedly having called on the international community to combine forces.27

A similar statement was made by FSB director Nikolai Patrushev shortly after the attack. He insisted that the Russian intelligence services had clearly and repeatedly warned the US of the possibility of terrorist strikes but that their American counterparts ‘did not pay the necessary attention’ to these warnings.28 In an interview with the American television channel ABC a few weeks after the events, Putin confessed to feeling ‘guilty’ about not having driven home the danger of international terrorism to the American people sufficiently. Asked by the journalist why he had not been more persistent then, Putin replied: I don’t want to pass judgment on the behaviour of my colleagues now, moreover not on the former President of the United States [Bill Clinton]. He acted under sufficiently difficult circumstances. But, of course, even back then we counted on a more active co-operation in the fight against international terrorism. I don’t know if the terrorist attacks on the United States could have been avoided, but I repeat that we did count on closer co-operation.29

In the aftermath of ‘9/11’, alterations in the tone of Western evaluations of Russia’s military operations in Chechnya were considerable. This was true especially for the highest level of political leadership.30 The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was one of the first Western politicians to revise his opinion about the war in Chechnya and to explicitly link this conflict with the terrorist attacks on the United States. In the course of a Russian-German summit at the end of September 2001, Schröder said that ‘in the face of current developments, specific questions need to be assessed anew.’ He expressed the expectation that with regard to Chechnya, the international community would have to come to a ‘more complex’ judgement.31 Similar changes in attitude were subsequently displayed also by the political leadership of Great Britain and the United States. On the eve of a visit by Putin to Great Britain in June 2003, human rights organisations called on Prime Minister Blair not to ignore the Chechen issue in his talks with the Russian president. In his reply, Blair explicitly linked the events in Chechnya with international terrorism: I always raise Chechnya with President Putin, but I do so in a way that also recognises this point that as a result of terrorism coming out from extremists based in Chechnya, the Russian people have also suffered a great deal. And it’s worth just pointing out that when we finally won the conflict in Iraq, some of those people that were still offering resistance were in fact from Chechnya, extremists who were based there.32

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In February 2003, the United States classified three Chechen organisations as ‘specially designated terrorists’ of global reach and included them in the roll of the US President’s Executive Order 13244, a terrorist blacklist.33 In August of the same year the Chechen warlord Shamil Basaev was included on this list. The then US secretary of state, Colin Powell, called Basaev a threat to the security of the United States and to its citizens.34 Predictably, these developments were officially greeted with satisfaction in Moscow,35 because they moved in the direction of lending international recognition to Russia’s policies towards Chechnya. In the words of the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Vladimir Rushailo, ‘earlier, our American colleagues directly or indirectly criticised us for Chechnya. Since 11 September we are speaking the same language.’36 Although Western attitudes towards Russia’s policies in Chechnya have softened somewhat since ‘9/11’, particularly on the level of the highest political leadership, the impression remains that international dialogue on the issue continues to be undermined by mutual misunderstanding rather than the actual unwillingness to engage in a more constructive form of co-operation. Particularly in the face of contemporary developments with regard to the international fight on terrorism, such as the war in Iraq and aspects of restrictions of freedom in the name of security also in Western states, critics have to be explicit about their exact criticism of the Russian authorities if they want to avoid accusations of double-standard attitudes. Some critics specified, for example, that they did not per se negate the necessity of military intervention in Chechnya, but were concerned rather with the scale and effect of the means employed.37 In this vein, George Bush remarked during his presidential campaign in 2000 that ‘we want to cooperate with [the] Russian [government] on its concern with terrorism, but that is impossible unless Moscow operates with civilized restraint.’38 In condemning the means employed by the Russian authorities to regulate the situation in Chechnya, some critics specifically objected to the discrepancy between Putin’s discourse of a targeted anti-terrorist operation, and the harsh reality of the campaign with all its consequences. In particular, they disapproved of the large-scale bombardments of densely populated areas in the early stages of the war; the unaccounted disappearance of Chechens suspected of collaborating with terrorists; the large number of refugees and displaced persons; a ‘leave or die’ ultimatum issued to the population of Grozny in December 1999; the high number of casualties, both civilian and military, including conscripts; the hamfisted approach to counter-terrorism during the Moscow theatre siege in October 2002 and the school hostage crisis in Beslan in September 2004, which in the eyes of many led to hundreds of unnecessary civilian deaths;

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and the seizure of the families of leading Chechen rebels by Russian forces during the Beslan siege. What is questioned here is not the necessity for decisive action and military means per se, but the scale of the conflict and the nature of the means employed, which devalued also Putin’s comparison of Chechnya to what he perceived as analogous scenarios facing other European states. The analyst Uwe Hallbach wrote in this respect: In Moscow, comparisons were made between the military measures against the armed forces in Chechnya and anti-terror measures in Spain and Northern Ireland … Already the choice of weaponry and the number of civilian casualties make this line of argumentation absurd: the measures in Chechnya more closely resemble a massive military offensive against an external enemy than a limited action in an internal conflict.

Western discourses which produce a litany of alleged and actual failures and abuses on the Russian side often produce angry responses in Russia itself, amongst officials and populace alike. Despite the occasional official comparison with the terrorist threats faced by the United Kingdom and Spain from the IRA and the Basque Separatists, ETA, respectively, there is a widespread perception that the terrorism faced by Russia in recent years is on a different scale from that known elsewhere in contemporary Europe. Difficult though it may be to measure terror, there is clearly something in this view. In September 2004 in the small town of Beslan in North Ossetia over a thousand people, mostly young children on their first day back at school, were held hostage without food or water by terrorists supporting Chechen independence; at least 300, possibly over 400, died in the siege’s bloody end. The horror of the Beslan tragedy in terms of its scale, deliberate mistreatment of hostages, the age of the chosen victims, the apparent lack of a clear exit strategy by the perpetrators, and the carnage of its denouement were on an unprecedented level. In the words of the Council of Europe’s report on Russia, Beslan marked a ‘new level of ruthlessness in the world terrorists’ war against mankind’.40 In the fortnight before the Beslan siege, a female suicide bomber at a Moscow metro station killed at least ten people and injured around fifty more by detonating a bomb packed with nuts and bolts in apparent revenge for Russia ‘slaughtering Muslims time and again’, and two domestic passenger aircraft were blown up in flight, killing all eighty-nine people on board. To this particularly bloody fortnight can be added many more incidents of terrorism connected to the Chechen conflict: the apartment bombings mentioned above in which 300 citizens were killed at night in September 1999, the Moscow theatre siege of October 2002 which resulted in the deaths of 120 hostages (many apparently dying as a result of the gas pumped into the theatre by the

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security forces essaying a rescue), suicide bombs at a Moscow rock festival and outside a hotel in the centre of the capital in 2003 which killed over twenty people in all, a bomb attack on a train in southern Russia in December 2003 where more than forty lost their lives, and a suicide bomber on a Moscow metro train in February 2004 who likewise killed over forty people. De-securitising the war in Chechnya: towards normalisation?

Having declared the end of the military phase of operations in Chechnya in the latter half of 2000, much official Russian discourse since has sought to ‘de-securitise’ ongoing developments in the republic in emphasising efforts and processes aimed at bringing life in the republic back to normal.41 These efforts and processes include the handing over of responsibility for upholding security in Chechnya from the Ministry of Defence to the MVD, steps towards political stabilisation such as the holding of a referendum on a new Chechen constitution and the elections of a new Chechen president, and the return of refugees from neighbouring republics to their Chechen homeland. As discussed in more detail below, these developments have been held up by the Russian authorities as evidence of the ongoing normalisation in Chechnya, but have been rejected by many critics and organisations active in the republic as unsubstantiated. In contrasting official Russian discourse of de-securitisation in Chechnya with the arguments and evidence brought forward by opponents of this discourse it will be concluded that it is premature to speak of Chechnya as returning to normal. Instead, problems faced in the republic continue to be dealt with in a highly securitised manner, characterised by the implementation of measures outside the formal norms and procedures of politics. Furthermore, the authorities’ own commitment to the discourse of de-securitisation is undermined by the recourse to the conflicting discourse of securitisation in settings where this is more suited to their aims. A major aspect of the Russian discourse of normalisation is the reduction in the number of federal troops stationed in Chechnya and the gradual handing-over of responsibility for upholding security in the republic first from Ministry of Defence forces to troops of the FSB in January 2001, and then to the forces of the MVD starting in July 2003.42 In March 2001 at a summit meeting with the leaders of European Union member states, Putin asserted ‘you know, no military operations are going on [in Chechnya]’.43 The end, or imminent end, of the military campaign in Chechnya was declared in several instances by official Russian spokespeople, starting at the end of 2000.44 The Russian authorities’ claims of an ongoing de-securitisation of

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Chechnya by way of troop reductions and the shifting of responsibility away from the Ministry of Defence have been fervently rejected by Russian and international observers. These have seen Russia’s policies as an unwarranted securitisation in terms of implementing measures exceeding the limits of ‘normal’ politics covered up with a deceptive discourse of normalisation. When in March 2003 the withdrawal of around 1300 servicemen from the republic was announced, the late Duma deputy and vocal critic of the Chechen war, Sergei Yushenkov, labelled this move as propaganda and remarked that the withdrawal of a few thousand men from an estimated 80,000 federal soldiers ‘is not a real step on the path towards restoring peaceful life in Chechnya’.45 A similar line of criticism was published by a journalist of the Russian daily, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, on 9 June 2003.46 Despite repeated announcements of troop reductions, the number of approximately 80,000 federal servicemen stationed in the republic does not appear to have fallen significantly between 1999 and 2005.47 The handing over of responsibility for upholding security in Chechnya from the FSB to the MVD in 2003, too, was interpreted as a bluff by many analysts. In their eyes such a move cannot be equated with a de-securitisation or normalisation of the situation, but as a mere pretence of no longer fighting a ‘real’ war.48 The Washington Post described the move as a part of the Russian government’s ‘strategy to depict the war, to its public and the world, as a limited anti-terrorist operation’.49 Other critics cautioned that the increased role of the Chechen MVD at the expense of the FSB and the federal centre was to be seen as ‘very relative’.50 First of all the appointment as the new leader of the regional operational headquarters under the auspices of the MVD in 2003 of Yurii Maltsev, who had occupied a top position in the headquarters for more than two years as an FSB counter-intelligence officer, was criticised. Coinciding with the decision to hand over responsibility to the MVD, a new post of deputy interior minister in charge of Chechnya was created, and Maltsev was promoted to it. Concerning this episode the tenor of many observers appeared to be that ‘it will continue to be a Chekist creating order in Chechnya, but now he is wearing a police uniform’,51 concluding that ‘thus, formally, the Chechen police will be at the helm, but all decision-making power will rest with the FSB’.52 In equating the MVD takeover with a de-securitisation of the conflict it also has to be kept in mind that the ministry not only incorporates regular police forces, but is a highly militarised power structure, whose troops do not seem to lag behind forces of the Ministry of Defence or FSB in terms of being implicated in, or accused of committing human rights abuses against the civilian population in Chechnya. According to Russian human rights groups, police units have carried out many of the most

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serious abuses they have documented in Chechnya.53 The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the Council of Europe (CPT), for instance, on 10 July 2003 issued a ‘public statement concerning the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation’ about the continuing ill-treatment and torture of Chechen prisoners which stated the following: the allegations of ill-treatment received by the CPT concerned law enforcement establishments (Departments of Internal Affairs and certain Federal Security Service facilities) throughout the territory of the Chechen Republic … One establishment stands out in terms of the frequency and gravity of the alleged ill-treatment, namely ORB-2 (the Operative and Search Bureau of the North Caucasus Operations Department of the Chief Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Southern Federal District of Grozny).54

In conclusion, many critics of the Russian authorities were of the opinion that the persistent intensity and scale of the hostilities devalue official claims of a normalisation in the republic. Continuing hostilities are apparent in many forms, for instance the conduct of so-called zachistki, or ‘mopping-up’ operations, which manifest themselves in the surrounding of a village by federal forces, house-to-house searches and the detainment of those suspected of collaboration with Chechen fighters. Reportedly, such zachistki often occur at night and they have been widely associated with human rights abuses, such as robberies and the unaccounted ‘disappearance’ of detained persons. In response to the insistent concern voiced about these disappearances by Russian and international human rights organisations,55 a special order No. 80 was signed on 27 March 2002, stipulating that zachistki were to be conducted only in the presence of both procurators and local authorities in order to stop the occurrence of unaccounted disappearances and other crimes.56 Later it was noted, however, that the order had never been implemented and that unaccounted disappearances continue to happen on a daily basis.57 In April 2003, Rudolf Bindig, rapporteur of the Council of Europe’s committee for legal affairs and human rights who had visited Chechnya on several occasions, asserted that ‘last year nearly two persons went missing per day in the Chechen Republic – a worryingly high figure, which clearly shows how far removed from normality the situation in the Republic remains’.58 Hostilities are also continued of course from the Chechen side with the intensification, in terms of both numbers and scale, of bombings and suicide attacks both in and outside the republic in recent years. We noted above the terrorist attacks outside of Chechnya carried out since 1999. In addition attacks continue within Chechnya itself, including suicide bomb

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attacks against government facilities in December 2002 and May 2003, killing over a hundred people in total, and two similarly lethal suicide bomb attacks against Russian military personnel near the Chechen border in the summer of 2003.59 One further indicator showing that by 2003 the military campaign was far from being completed was the fact that losses on the federal forces’ side continued to be estimated at about 100 soldiers a month.60 The Putin regime’s claims concerning the normalisation of the situation in Chechnya, however, have not been based simply on the military aspects discussed above. Three developments in the political sphere in 2003 gave further justification for these claims. First, there was the conduct of a referendum in Chechnya in March 2003 concerning the adoption of a new Chechen constitution. Second, there were elections of a new Chechen president, and third, the return of Chechen refugees from neighbouring republics has been represented as an additional indicator for the progress of normalisation. According to official Russian figures, on 23 March 2003, 96 per cent of voters approved a new Chechen constitution in a referendum vote that attracted an 85 per cent turnout. The new constitution placed Chechnya firmly inside the borders of the Russian Federation, but granted it ‘wide autonomy’ within this agreement. Two additional questions included in the referendum paved the way for the conduct of elections for a new Chechen president at the end of 2003. On the day following the referendum, its results were proclaimed by Putin as an overwhelming success and as evidence of the fact that Chechnya was indeed normalising. At a meeting with the government on 24 March 2003, he stated, ‘I have to say that the results of the referendum are positive and exceeded even our most optimistic expectations. This tells us that the Chechen people have spoken out in favour of peace and in favour of a positive development together with Russia.’61 On 4 July 2003, President Putin signed a decree ‘On the Elections of the First President of Chechnya’, which came into effect the next day. The elections were called for 5 October 2003, the earliest possible date for this undertaking in accordance with the newly adopted constitution. At a meeting with representatives of the Chechen political administration on the day the decree was signed, Putin pointed out the essential importance of these elections for Chechnya’s normalisation, and the need for ensuring their free and fair conduct. He stated that, ‘I have said this before and I want to repeat it again: no matter who the [Chechen] people are going to elect, we will work with that person. Because only then we can finally normalise the situation in Chechnya. Only a person enjoying wide support of the population has the authority – not only the power – to normalise the situation. And first of all, this is what we are interested in.’62

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A third important aspect of Putin’s efforts to propagate the normalisation of the Chechen republic was to support the return of Chechen refugees to their homeland. At the same meeting with representatives of the Chechen leadership, Putin noted the importance of discussing the issue of Chechen refugees in connection with the upcoming elections. In response, the head of the Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, assured the president that at the time of the elections refugee tent-camps in Ingushetia would no longer exist. He promised that ‘not only will people be able to come [to Chechnya] in order to vote, but they will already be living there on a permanent basis’.63 According to official Russian figures, which are supported by findings of UN officials, the number of refugees returning to Chechnya, counting several thousands, more than doubled starting from July 2003.64 The Chechen military campaign started in September 1999. It did not turn into the ‘small victorious war’, for which the Kremlin leadership had hoped, and public support for the war has been dwindling over the years. According to a Russian public opinion poll, by May 2005 only 25 per cent of respondents advocated the continuation of the operations as opposed to 70 per cent in March 2000.65 It is also within this context that opponents of the Russian leadership’s policies in Chechnya have interpreted Putin’s increasing efforts to build a convincing discourse of normalisation concerning the war-torn republic. As discussed below, the referendum, the elections, and the return of refugees to Chechnya starting in 2003 were interpreted as forced attempts at creating the impression of normalisation in the face of increasing public concern over the seeming impasse of the situation. The constitutional referendum in March 2003 was controversial from its early planning stages. Already in December 2002, Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Union of Right Forces, denounced the plans of a referendum as a ‘complete farce’.66 Criticism of the referendum was manifold, but it existed essentially of one major concern. This concern referred to the timing of the referendum, which many critics considered as far too early in view of the ongoing hostilities in Chechnya. Most prominently, this concern was voiced by Lord Judd, the Council of Europe’s rapporteur on Chechnya. Before the referendum Lord Judd repeatedly pointed out the unsuitability of the circumstances under which the voting was to take place. He asserted that ‘I am convinced it is impossible to have a valid referendum. The security situation is such that there is no way people can meet and discuss [the constitution].’67 This concern was echoed in the report of a joint assessment mission by the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the Council of Europe about the preparation for the referendum, which stated that ‘obviously, the preparations for the referendum are proceeding under extraordinary

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conditions and the voting on 23 March will take place in equally exceptional circumstances’.68 In addition to criticising the lack of security for the conduct of a referendum vote, Lord Judd noted the haste with which the new constitution had been drafted so it allowed neither the involvement of the Chechen community on a grass-roots level, nor enough time for the electorate’s familiarisation with what they were voting for.69 At the time of the referendum, an estimated 80,000 refugees still lived outside the boundaries of the Chechen republic. Despite the Russian and Chechen authorities’ promise that voting stations would be organised in refugee camps based in Ingushetia, it was officially acknowledged that 48,000 refugees – about 10 per cent of the eligible electorate – did not live in organised Ingush camps and could therefore not be included in the vote unless they travelled back into Chechnya.70 Critics also cautioned that very few eligible voters would actually have had a chance to read the text of the constitution before the referendum vote was conducted.71 Lord Judd repeatedly threatened his resignation as Chechnya rapporteur for the Council of Europe, should the referendum not be postponed. He realised his threat when the Russian authorities conducted the vote despite the concerns voiced in Russia and abroad. Many Russian opponents of Putin’s Chechnya policy, among them Sergei Kovalev, a prominent human rights activist, and the Russian human rights group Memorial, echoed Lord Judd’s apprehensions.72 In addition to reservations about the timing of the referendum, doubts were voiced about the outcome of the referendum. Some analysts remarked that the expected positive outcome of the referendum would be exacerbated by the fact that around one-sixth of eligible voters were 23,000 federal soldiers from two military units permanently based in Chechnya.73 When on the day following the referendum an 85 per cent ‘yes’ vote and 96 per cent turnout was announced, numerous Russian and foreign human rights activists and journalists who had followed the vote on the ground expressed serious doubts about the accuracy of this result in view of their own observations. Many of them reported having seen merely a handful of voters at polling stations, whereas some of the foreign correspondents were not stopped from casting a vote themselves.74 The sentiments of critics regarding the presidential elections in Chechnya on 5 October 2003 and 29 August 2004 were characterised by similar concerns as those regarding the referendum. Again, the conduct of elections despite the ongoing atmosphere of war in the republic was perceived as premature. In the eyes of Sergei Kovalev the 2003 elections were far from being an expression of the proclaimed normalisation of Chechnya:

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Today, an unofficial, but nonetheless strict, state of emergency is in force in Chechnya. A curfew is imposed on villages when darkness sets in, and there are still checkpoints on the roads. In a state of emergency, voting cannot be an expression of free will. Both Russian law and international law prohibit the holding of elections under such circumstances. How can candidates freely conduct their campaign in accordance with the law, if there is no freedom of movement? Neither is there a free press in Chechnya these days.75

In Kovalev’s view the real intention behind the elections was to make it possible to say before the federal Duma elections that ‘The situation in Chechnya is finally sorted out and normalising, here come the elections’.76 Critics’ reservations about the elections were aggravated further, when during September 2003 several presidential hopefuls withdrew their candidacy or were removed from the list, leaving the incumbent head of the Chechen administration and pro-Kremlin Akhmad Kadyrov as the only realistic contender for the post. According to a public opinion poll conducted in Chechnya at the end of June 2003, only 12.5 per cent of respondents had expressed the intention of voting for Kadyrov, leaving him trailing far behind the businessman Malik Saidullaev (20.1 per cent), former speaker of the Russian Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov (19.2 per cent) and the Duma deputy for Chechnya Aslambek Aslakhanov (17.6 per cent).77 Khusein Dzhabrailov, another prominent businessman, was not included in the poll in June, but emerged as an equally serious candidate in July and August 2003.78 In mid-August, Khasbulatov announced his intention not to participate in the presidential race, because, as he asserted, he had ‘come to the conclusion that it is not worthwhile for me to take part in this campaign. The conditions for holding a normal election are not there’.79 A week later, Dzhabrailov withdrew his candidacy, and by mid-September the names of the two remaining potential rivals of Kadyrov – Aslakhanov and Saidullaev – had also been removed from the list of candidates. The former withdrew voluntarily by accepting the post of presidential adviser that had been offered to him in exchange for his candidacy, whereas the latter was forcibly removed from the list by the Chechen Electoral Committee due to alleged irregularities in his registration documents. In all three cases, the Kremlin’s involvement in the withdrawal or removal of the candidacies was suspected.80 In September 2003, the leaders of Russia’s main human rights organisations – For Human Rights, The Moscow Helsinki Group, Civic Action, and the Sakharov Centre – announced their decision not to legitimise the elections by sending their own observers or by inviting observers from abroad.81 The Islamic Conference and League of Arab States were the only international organisations to observe the elections.

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As expected, Kadyrov won the 2003 presidential elections in a landslide victory, having received over 80 per cent of the vote. However, the Kremlin’s portrayal of the elections as evidence of a political stabilisation in Chechnya was negated when merely half a year later Kadyrov was killed in a terrorist attack in Grozny in May 2004. New elections were called for August 2004 and critics’ concerns and reservations again were very similar to those voiced in the run up to the 2003 elections. In August 2004 the pro-Kremlin candidate, Alu Alkhanov, emerged as the clear winner in the elections, having received 74 per cent of votes against the 6 per cent of Movsur Khadimov, the runner-up. Again, the abovementioned Saidullaev, who had been touted by many as the only credible opponent to Alkhanov, was denied registration a month before the elections, as according to a Chechen Electoral Committee official, his passport ‘was ruled to be invalid, because his place of birth was listed as the village of Alkhan-Yurt, Chechnya. But there is no such region as Chechnya. It should have said the Chechen-Ingush republic, which was the name of the region in Soviet times when he was born.’82 As was the case for the presidential vote in 2003, the consensus of many Russian and international observers with regards to Alkhanov’s election was that its official portrayal as evidence of political normalisation was a farce.83 In order further to promote the image of Chechnya as a normalising republic, the Putin leadership has pointed to the voluntary return of Chechen refugees from neighbouring republics to their homeland starting in 2003. As is the case for the two indicators of normalisation discussed above, however, this issue, too, attracted considerable criticism from both international and Russian human rights organisations and opponents of the military operations in Chechnya. Usam Baisaev, a Memorial activist, suspected hidden motives behind the Russian leadership’s efforts of promoting the return of refugees: ‘The return of the refugees to Chechnya is an important component of this entire image of a political settlement in Chechnya that the Russians are trying to create. There’s only one thing that spoils this rosy picture of a political settlement: the fact that there are tens of thousands of refugees who are still afraid to go home.’84 According to figures of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in August 2003 an estimated 80,000 Chechen refugees still were registered in Ingushetia alone.85 In response to concerns voiced about the condition of Chechen refugees, the Russian authorities have repeatedly assured their critics that any returns to Chechnya would be voluntary. At a meeting with representatives of the presidential human rights commission in December 2002, for example, President Putin asserted the following: Now to the problem concerning where these people should live and what to do with the [refugee] camps … Of course they have the right to choose, and

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of course they should live where they want to live. This is what it should be like in a normal country … On the other hand, it is not good to preserve the camps, either. People there live in tents. But it is wrong to forcibly move people to where it is even worse. Of course it is absolutely inadmissible to just make them move anywhere. They must not be moved by force.86

Despite these verbal assurances from the president himself, human rights organisations active in Chechen refugee camps have repeatedly reported instances in which refugees were forcibly returned to Chechnya by officially announcing the imminent closure of tent camps, the cutting off of supplies to refugee camps, the removal of names from the list of registered refugees, and the spill-over of military raids onto the territory of Ingushetia where many refugee camps are based. In the summer of 2003, the office of the UN Commissioner for Refugees, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued statements and reports condemning these instances in no uncertain terms. Amnesty International’s report from August 2003 reads: Amnesty International is seriously concerned that internally displaced persons (IDPs) are being returned from tent camps in Ingushetia to the Chechen Republic against their will and without guarantees for their security … Despite assurances by the authorities that life in the Chechen Republic is returning to normal, the situation is still characterized by gross human rights abuses such as ‘disappearances’, torture and ill-treatment, and extrajudicial executions.87

A Human Rights Watch Report from September 2003 asserted that far from being an expression of the normalisation of the situation in Chechnya, the forcible return of refugees was conducted for the following reason: ‘Russian authorities … viewed the presence of thousands of displaced persons in Ingushetia as a serious obstacle to their new Chechnya strategy, which consisted of blocking independent scrutiny of conditions in Chechnya and zealously persuading the outside world that the situation there is normalising.’88 Despite protestations from Russian and international organisations about what they saw as a de facto forcible return of refugees to Chechnya, where insufficient appropriate housing was made available to the returnees, the last refugee tent camp in Ingushetia was closed down in June 2004.89 Although this event was marked with an official ceremony and used as further proof that ‘peace and rule of law are returning to Chechnya’,90 migration officials estimated that in the summer of 2004 about 37,000 Chechen refugees remained in Ingushetia alone.91 At the beginning of the second Chechen conflict the ensuing military operations were securitised by the Putin regime as an anti-terrorist

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operation and as a part of the international ‘war’ on terror with a discourse of existential threat to both Russian and international security emanating from the situation in Chechnya. Initially, the Russian leadership was rather successful in acquiring legitimacy for their military actions by convincing the Russian public of the necessity of the operations. From the outset of the conflict, however, strong opposition was voiced against the military operations by Russian and international human rights organisations and by investigative journalists who perceived the military measures applied by the Russian federal forces as excessive. During the early stages of the military intervention some Western political leaders were among those condemning the means applied in the course of the Russian military campaign. With the events of 11 September 2001, however, criticism voiced previously by many Western political leaders ebbed, as the Putin leadership’s framing of the Chechen campaign as a part of the international war on terror started to be received as more substantiated. Russian and international organisations as well as journalists called upon Western political leaders not to close their eyes to events in Chechnya in their commitments to an ever-closer relationship with Russia as an ally in the international war on terrorism. In the run-up to official state visits, Human Rights Watch since 2001 repeatedly urged both Prime Minister Blair and US President Bush in open letters to ‘send a principled message’ to President Putin about human rights abuses in Chechnya.92 In 2003, the German Society for Endangered Peoples sent a letter with a similar message to the German Chancellor Schröder.93 Oleg Panfilov, a prominent Russian human rights advocate and director of the Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations, expressed his disappointment about the impact of ‘9/11’ on official Western attitudes to the war in Chechnya: I have to say that in this respect the West is behaving very poorly, because after 11th September the Russian military in Chechnya started to behave even more aggressively. There are constant zachistki, murders, kidnapping of people, and so on ... And international organisations are silent. The exception is Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. I mean, international state organisations are silent. I would say that they are not actively telling the Russian authorities that the tragedy of Chechnya is continuing and should be stopped.94

Towards the end of 2000 the Russian leadership started to proclaim the end of the active military phase of the operations in Chechnya and increasingly presented developments in the republic as a process of normalisation and political stabilisation. Human rights organisations and other critics strongly rejected these claims arguing that the human rights abuses and excessive military means they had been condemning since the start of

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the campaign had by no means subsided. Instead, they interpreted the Russian authorities’ attempts at painting a picture of Chechen life returning to normal as a desperate measure in the absence of other ways of overcoming the stalemate of the prolonged conflict. As elaborated in the second part of the chapter, the critics’ argument that persistent negative effects of the war in Chechnya are making the Putin leadership’s claims of a normalisation in the republic premature, is convincing. Far from returning to normal, given the persistently strong presence of federal forces in the republic, the conditions under which the constitutional referendum and presidential elections were conducted, and the continuing problem of refugees afraid of returning to their homeland, Russia’s Chechen policies continue to be ‘securitised’ with regard to the application of measures outside the formal norms and procedures or politics. In the remaining chapters of this book we note numerous occasions when political actors have sought to securitise particular policy areas – for example, the media and civil society – arguing that a threat is posed to such referent objects as the state and the nation by terrorism emanating from the Chechen situation. The clearest example for now is the speech given by President Putin after the traumatic events in Beslan in September 2004. He used this tragedy to justify long-planned reforms whereby parliament would be elected under a wholly proportional electoral system from 2007 and the heads of Russia’s regions would be appointed by the president, rather than elected as previously.95 Given both the nature of the events in Beslan, and Putin’s conclusion that the situation was so serious as to require Russia’s system of executive power to be ‘fundamentally restructured’,96 the idea that Chechnya is undergoing a process of normalisation seems intuitively untenable. Nonetheless, it can be argued that the discourse of normalisation serves as a tactic on the part of the regime – just as much as the discourse of securitisation does – seeking to create an impression amongst the populace both in Chechnya and in Russia itself, as well as in the international community, that the government is in control, that life for the ordinary people is improving, and that the state’s policy is not just a military one, but that it also involves tackling Chechnya’s severe socio-economic problems. Unfortunately for the Putin regime, the de-securitisation discourse has failed to convince its key audiences. Although, according to opinion polls, twice as many people in Russia in 2005 think that Chechnya is getting more peaceful as thought so in 2001, still a clear majority (almost 70 per cent), see the republic as continuing to be embroiled in warfare (see Table 3.1). As for the international audience, the Council of Europe’s report on Russia of June 2005 repeatedly noted that Chechnya was far from becoming a ‘normal’ part of the Russian Federation. Leaving aside

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Table 3.1 Popular views on the situation in Chechnya What do you think is happening right now in Chechnya?

War continues Process of peaceful regulation underway

February 2002 (%)

April 2005 (%)

76 13

68 25

Sources: L. A. Sedov. VTsIOM poll ‘Fevral’ 2002: sobytiya i mneniya’ (6 March 2002), www.levada.ru/press/2002030601.html, and Levada Centre poll ‘Sotsialno-politicheskaya situatsiya v Rossii v aprele 2005 goda’, www.levada.ru/press/2005050401.html.

the report’s emphasis on continuing military action and allegations of human rights abuses in the republic, it noted too that Chechnya remains an exception to a whole range of socio-legal provisions present across the rest of Russia, including being the only one of Russia’s eighty-nine regions without a regional bar association to represent lawyers able to act as counsel for the defence, one of only two regions without functioning magistrates courts, and the only region not yet required by federal law to implement jury trials.97 Nonetheless, it is worthy of note that throughout the fierce attacks by Chechen terrorists on Russian targets in recent years, Putin’s discourse on Chechnya, particularly in a domestic context, remained firmly committed to political normalisation through the support of accelerated reconstruction, social provisions and economic recovery. It is a different matter that these events effected a notable securitisation of other, sometimes seemingly unrelated issues as discussed in the chapters on the media, civil society, and migration. The French journalist Gwen Roche has remarked that, although for the time being the Putin leadership’s insistent discourse on the de-securitisation and normalisation of Chechnya appear nothing more than wishful thinking, it might have a positive psychological effect on the atmosphere in the republic in the long term. As a result of … the often proclaimed ‘normalisation’, two parallel worlds have been established in Chechnya. On the one hand, there is the real state of war with the occupying forces responding to guerrilla actions against military targets with massive repressions of the civilian population. On the other hand, there is the official Russian representation, which might appear surreal, but is gaining in realistic content in every-day Chechen life.98

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Notes 1 A good deal of speculation about the provenance of these bombings has circulated since that time, pushed by opponents of the Putin regime, alleging FSB culpability, complicity, or cover-up. See David Satter, Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003). 2 N. Konstantinova and O. Tropkina, ‘Protiv ChP vystupayut vse’, Nezavisimaya gazeta, (14 September 1999; accessed via EastView database). 3 See, for instance, Putin’s interview with the French newspaper Figaro (26 October 2000), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2000/10/28946.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005) and presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembskii’s assertion in January 2001 that the military operation had been completed ‘long ago’: ‘Moscow sets new plans for handling Chechnya’, Chechnya Weekly, 2:4 (24 January 2001), www.jamestown.org/ publications_details.php?volume_id=11&issue_id=469&article_id=22521 (last accessed 28 October 2005). 4 Quoted in P. Felgenhauer, ‘Combatants or Criminals?’, Moscow Times (7 August 2003), p. 9. 5 The main source for the analysis of official Russian securitising discourse are 133 speeches/interviews by Vladimir Putin on the issue of Chechnya from January 2000 – April 2005. These are available in the searchable archive on the official presidential website, www.kremlin.ru (last accessed 25 July 2005). Some speeches/interviews are available in English. The versions used in this chapter are the authors’ own translation. 6 G.H. Herd, ‘The “Counter-Terrorist Operation” in Chechnya: “information warfare” aspects’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 13:4 (December 2000), 58. For an analysis of the failure of the Yeltsin leadership to create legitimacy for the first Chechen war through securitisation see H. Furostøl, ‘Always the Stick, Never the Carrot? Russian use of military force in Abkhazia, Tajikistan and Chechnya’, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) (2001), pp. 20–1 7 Stenogram of the joint press conference of Acting President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair (17 April 2000). www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2000/04/28680.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). Putin repeated the same line of argument in numerous other speeches and interviews for Russian and Western audiences. 8 See, for example, interview with the French television channels TF-1, France-3, the radio corporation RFI and the Russian public television channel ORT (23 October 2000), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2000/10/28955.shtml, and The Annual Address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. 8 July 2000. www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2000/07/28782.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 9 Interview with the US television channel CNN (10 September 2000), www.kremlin.ru/ text/appears/2000/09/28866.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 10 Interview with the French newspaper Figaro (26 October 2000), www.kremlin.ru/ text/appears/2000/10/28946.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 11 Putin made this point at press conference concluding a Russia-EU summit on 21 May 2001. For a stenogram of the press conference see www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2001/ 05/28536.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 12 Stenogram of the programme Direct Line with the President of Russia V. Putin (19 December 2002), http://194.226.82.50/text/appears/2002/12/29647.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 13 Interview with the Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, and the Polish television channel TVP (14 January 2002), http://194.226.82.50/text/appears/2002/01/ 28773.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005).

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14 Ibid. See also Speech by President Putin and Questions and Answers during the Joint Press Conference with the French President Jacques Chirac (15 January 2002), http://194.226.82.50/text/appears/2002/01/28774.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 15 The Annual Address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (8 July 2000), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2000/07/28782. shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 16 Stenogram of the joint press conference of Acting President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair. 17 Interview with TF-1, France-3, RFI and ORT. 18 Ibid. 19 Interview with the television channels ORT, RTR and Nezavisimaya Gazeta (24 December 2000), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2000/12/28444.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 20 Interview with CNN. 21 In December 1999 and March 2000, 67 and 70 per cent of respondents in an opinion poll conducted in Russia favoured the continuation of military operations. Of voters in the 2000 presidential elections, 74 per cent of respondents either somewhat or strongly supported the Russian military actions in Chechnya. Public support for the war, however, has been steadily decreasing. In May 2005 only 25 per cent of respondents spoke in favour of a continuation of the military campaign. For these and more opinion poll results see www.russiavotes.org. 22 Interview with TF-1, France-3, RFI and ORT. 23 Press conference concluding Russia-EU summit. 24 In a speech at a gathering of Russian military leaders on 20 November 2000 Putin asserted that ‘Unfortunately there are still forces in the West today that continue to live according to the laws of the “cold war” … Today, and this is also a fact, some people are trying to represent our actions in the North Caucasus as a relapse of imperial ambitions’, www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2000/11/28413.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 25 Interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera (11 July 2002), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2001/07/28586.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 26 Ibid. 27 Declaration by the President of the Russian Federation V. V. Putin (24 September 2001), http://president.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2001/09/28639.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 28 ‘Russia gave “clear warning”’, Agence France-Presse (16 September 2001; accessed via BBC Monitoring). 29 Interview with the US television channel ABC (5 November 2001), www.kremlin.ru/ text/appears/2001/11/28692.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 30 According to the interviews with President Putin conducted by foreign journalists analysed for this chapter, journalists in the main continue to ask critical questions even after 11 September 2001. 31 ‘Putin für neue Sicherheitsstruktur’, Financial Times Deutschland (25 September 2001), p. 4. 32 ‘Blair to raise Chechnya human rights with Putin’, Reuters (18 June 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/Johnson/7229-11.cfm (last accessed 28 October 2005).. 33 ‘Moscow hopes for Washington’s consistent stance on Terrorism’, RIA Novosti (3 May 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7165.htm (last accessed 28 October 2005). 34 ‘Powell: Chechen rebel a threat to the US’, AP (8 August 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/ johnson/7282-11.cfm (last accessed 28 October 2005).

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35 ‘Russia welcomes US decision to put Chechen groups on terror list’, Interfax (1 March 2003; accessed via BBC Monitoring). 36 ‘Vladimir Rushailo: Sovbez – eto instrument v rukakh prezidenta’, Izvestiya (5 June 2002), p. 4. 37 Klaus-Helge Donath, a veteran Moscow correspondent for a variety of Germanlanguage dailies and the author of numerous articles about the Chechen conflict said in this respect that ‘Of course, Chechnya by now has lost its claim for sovereignty. Its leadership has proved that it is not capable of creating an independent state – or at least it would be a member of the ‘failed states’ from the outset. I agree with this. I even agree that the necessity for action on the part of the Russian leadership was definitely there, in order to stop the activities of the criminal Chechen regime. However, the question is by what means?’. Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (20 May 2003). 38 ‘“New Russia” Ailing; Stand Up Mr Bush’, Los Angeles Times (21 September 2003), p. 2. 39 U. Hallbach, ‘War on the Edge of Europe: the Chechen conflict in a new light?’, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) Comments (4 November 2002), www.swpberlin.org (last accessed 25 July 2005). 40 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Report on Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by the Russian Federation, Strasbourg (3 June 2005), p. 12 41 For an early example of ‘normalisation’ discourse see, for instance, Putin’s speech at the All-Russian Congress of Judges (27 November 2000), www.kremlin.ru/text/ appears/2000/11/28419.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 42 Planned troop withdrawals were announced by official Russian spokespeople for instance in February 2000 (‘Russia may withdraw some troops from Chechnya’, CNN, www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/02/04/russia.chechnya.01/); in March 2001 (‘Chechnya: Russia to withdraw some troops’, RFE/RL, www.rferl.org/nca/features/ 2001/03/13032001044855.asp), and in March 2003 (‘Russia to pull some troops from Chechnya’, AP, www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7087a.cfm). (All sites last accessed 28 October 2005.) 43 Press conference at summit meeting with heads of states of European Union member states (23 March 2001), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2001/03/28508.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 44 See, for instance, Putin’s interview with Figaro; presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembskii’s January 2001 assertion in Chechnya Weekly; FSB director Nikolai Patrushev’s statement in August 2003 that it is no longer appropriate to call the conflict in Chechnya an ‘anti-terrorist operation’, but an operation to maintain public order, in Felgenhauer, ‘Combatants or Criminals?. 45 Radio Ekho Moskvy (5 March 2003; accessed via BBC Monitoring). 46 V. Mukhin, ‘Moskva uvelichivaet voiskovuyu gruppirovku v Chechne’, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (9 June 2003), p. 1. 47 In March 2005, the defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, spoke of 80,000 servicemen stationed in Chechnya: V. Mukhin, ‘Voennaya gruppirovka v Chechne usilivaetsya’, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (16 March 2005), p. 1. 48 ‘The Army Speaks Out’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:24 (3 July 2003), www.jamestown.org/ publications_details.php?volume_id=13&&issue_id=579 (last accessed 28 October 2005). 49 S. Glasser, ‘Chechnya Duty Hardens Russian Police: officers often return disillusioned, angry and violent ‘like zombies’’, Washington Post (28 November 2003), p. 43.

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50 ‘On the Situation in Chechnya’, WPS Russian Military Analysis, 102:5 (September 2003), www.wps.ru/en/pp/military/2003/09/05.html (last accessed: 28 October 2005). 51 A. Raskin, ‘Kontr-admiral militsii’, Vremia novostei (30 July 2003), p. 1. 52 ‘Who’s Really Running Russia’s Chechnya Operation?’, Transitions Online (31 July 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/Johnson/7273-15.cfm (last accessed 28 October 2005). See also S. Dyupin, ‘Navstrechu vyboram. FSB syveli za shtab’, Kommersant-daily (30 July 2003), p. 1. 53 Glasser, ‘Chechnya duty hardens Russian police’. 54 ‘Public statement concerning the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation’, Council of Europe/European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, CPT/Inf (10 July 2003), 33. 55 See, for example, coverage of Human Rights Watch, www.hrw.org/europe/russia.php; Amnesty International, www.amnesty.org/russia/; Moscow Helsinki Group, www.mhg.ru; Memorial, www.memo.ru. 56 ‘Zachistki goes bureaucratic’, Chechnya Weekly, 3:10 (1 April 2002), www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=12&&issue_id=520 (last accessed 28 October 2005). 57 See Hallbach, ‘War on the Edge of Europe’, p. 5; and G. Roche, ‘Krieg und Normalisierung in Tschetschenien’, Le Monde Diplomatique (Germany), 7077 (13 June 2003), www.monde-diplomatique.de/pm/2003/06/13.mondeText.artikel, a0021.idx,7 (last accessed 28 October 2005). 58 ‘Bindig Persists’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:11 (3 April 2003), p. 5. 59 J. Bransten, ‘Russia: string of bombings belie Kremlin’s hopes of Chechnya’s normalisation’, RFE/RL Weekday Magazine, 6 August 2003, www.rferl.org/features/2003/08/ 06082003162712.asp (last accessed 28 October 2005). ‘Factbox: suicide attacks in Chechnya since 1999’, Reuters (1 August 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/72742.cfm (last accessed 28 October 2005). 60 Both during the first and Chechen war, reported casualty figures have been extremely conflicting. Official figures are often contradictory and ambiguous. For an account of this see, for instance, ‘Casualty figures’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:5 (20 February 2003), p. 2. Even according to official figures, about a hundred soldiers a month lost their lives in 2002. Estimates by human rights organisations like, for example, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, are higher. In accordance with weekly reports on federal forces having sustained deadly injury, most analysts continued to use the estimate of a hundred dead Russian soldiers a month throughout 2003. See, for instance, A. Nivat, ‘A War Russia Loses by Winning’, New York Times (5 August 2003), www.cdi.org/ russia/johnson/7277.htm (last accessed 28 October 2005). 61 Introductory statement at the government meeting (24 March 2003), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2003/03/40992.shtml (last accessed 28 October 2005). 62 Meeting with representatives of the Chechen leadership (4 July 2003), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2003/07/48298.shtml (last accessed 28 October 2005). 63 Ibid. 64 ‘Chechens Find Conflict They Fled Has Followed’, Los Angeles Times (2 September 2003). 65 www.russiavotes.org. 66 ‘Constitution For Chechnya May Divide Instead of Rule: planned referendum on new legal framework in troubled republic has drawn mixed response’, Financial Times (28 January 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7037-12.cfm (last accessed 28 October 2005). 67 ‘UK to Hear Chechen Extradition Case’, Guardian (31 January 2003), www.guardian. co.uk/international/story/0,3604,886020,00.html (last accessed 28 October 2005).

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68 ‘Russian Federation – Chechen Republic. Referendum of 23 March 2003. Joint Assessment Mission. Preliminary Statement’, http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/ 2003/03/1448_en.pdf (last accessed 25 July 2005). 69 ‘Lord Judd Calls for Postponing Referendum’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:2 (31 January 2003), www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=13&issue_id= 549&article_id=3912 (last accessed 28 October 2005). 70 ‘Chechen Refugees in the Dark about Constitutional Reform’, AFP (23 January 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7031-9.cfm (last accessed 28 October 2005). 71 ‘Conciliatory Gestures’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:7 (6 March 2003), p. 6. 72 Z. Svetova, ‘Sergei Kovalev: Bez ustoichivogo peremiriya referendum v Chechne ne vozmozhen’ Novye izvestiya (7 February 2003), p. 1. Memorial publication, ‘O provedenii referenduma v Chechenskoi Respublike’ (27 February 2003), www.memo. ru/hr/hotpoints/caucas1/index.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). 73 ‘Russia: Moscow sets date for Chechen referendum, but its legitimacy under question’, RFE/RL Weekday Magazine (15 January 2003), www.rferl.org/features/2003/01/ 15012003181429.asp (last accessed 28 October 2005). 74 Representatives of Human Rights Watch and Memorial, and correspondents of the Chicago Tribune, Guardian, New York Times, Le Figaro and the Russian Prima News Agency are quoted in ‘Referendum Results’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:10 (27 March 2003), p. 2. 75 S. Kovalev, ‘Zachishchennye vybory’, Novye izvestiya (27 August 2003), p. 1. 76 Ibid. 77 A. Zaitsev, ‘Borba s antireitingom: protiv Akhmada Kadyrova gotovy golosovat slishkom mnogo Chechentsev’, Izvestiya (22 July 2003), p. 3. 78 ‘Chechnya’s Troubled Elections’, Christian Science Monitor (17 September 2003), www.csmonitorservices.com/csmonitor/display.jhtml;jsessionid=ZZ44EDCHTHSBVKGL4L2SFEQ?_requestid=61847 (last accessed 28 October 2005). 79 ‘Khasbulatov Drops Out of Race’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:31 (21 August 2003), p. 3. 80 See, for example, ‘Election Withdrawals Continue to Puzzle’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:34 (26 September 2003), p. 3. 81 ‘Rights Groups Denounce Elections’, Chechnya Weekly, 4:33 (12 September 2003), p. 5. 82 Reuters report from 22 July 2004 quoted in L. Uzzell, ‘Saidullaev removed from Chechnya’s Presidential Race’, Chechnya Weekly, 5:30 (28 July 2004), p. 1. 83 See, for example, C.J. Chivers, ‘As Expected, General Wins Chechen Vote’, New York Times (31 August 2004), www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/international/europe/ 31chechnya.html?ex=1251691200&en=08987ce05739312b&ei=5090&partner=rssu serland# (last accessed 28 October 2005). 84 ‘Chechens Find Conflict They Fled Has Followed’, Los Angeles Times. 85 ‘Ingushetia: UNHCR protests treatment of Chechen IDPs’, UNHCR Briefing Notes (15 August 2003). 86 Meeting with members of the Presidential Commission for Human Rights (10 December 2002), www.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2002/12/40972.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 87 ‘Russian Federation: Ingushetia must remain safe haven for displaced Chechens’, Amnesty International Press Release, AI Index: EUR 46/071/2003 (Public) News Service No: 197 (22 August 2003). 88 ‘Spreading Despair: Russian abuses in Ingushetia’, Human Rights Watch Report, 15:8 (D), (September 2003), p. 4. For the UN High Commissioner for Refugees report see: ‘Ingushetia: UNHCR protests treatment of Chechen IDPs’, UNHCR Briefing Notes.

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89 L. Uzzell, ‘Last Tent Camp for Refugees in Ingushetia Closed Down’, Chechnya Weekly, 5:23 (9 June 2004), p. 1. 90 Ibid. 91 L. Uzzell, ‘Ingushetia: last camp closes, but many Refugees remain’, Chechnya Weekly, 5:24 (16 June 2004), p. 1. 92 Open Letter to Prime Minister Blair on 1 October 2002, http://hrw.org/press/ 2002/10/blair-ltr1001.htm, and 19 June 2003, http://hrw.org/press/2003/06/ russia061903-ltr.htm. Open Letter to President Bush on 10 November 2001, www.hrw.org/press/2001/11/bush-putin-ltr.htm, and 17 May 2002, www.hrw.org/ press/2002/05/bushputinlet052102.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). 93 Open Letter to Chancellor Schröder on 9 February 2003. www.gfbv.de/archiv/ feb03/tschet_demo_3.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). 94 Personal interview with authors, Moscow (30 May 2003). 95 ‘Vladimir Putin vystupil po voprosam gosudarstvennogo upravleniya i ukrepleniya sistemy bezopasnosti strany’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (14 September 2004), p. 1. 96 Ibid. 97 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Honouring of Obligations, pp. 33, 42, and 56. 98 Roche, ‘Krieg und Normalisierung in Tschetschenien’.

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4 The media

Fears about the deterioration of press freedom in Russia during the presidency of Vladimir Putin have been widely discussed since his election in March 2000. In May 2003 Putin was included in a list of ‘Predators of Press Freedom’ issued by the Paris-based organisation Reporters Without Borders. In its 2003 annual Press Freedom Survey the international organisation Freedom House for the first time downgraded its evaluation of the Russian media from being ‘partly free’ to being ‘not free’.1 Concerns with regards to adverse developments of press freedom under Putin have been voiced particularly about the closure of independent broadcast and print media outlets in recent years, resulting in an increasing monopolisation by the state of information disseminated through the media. By 2005 not a single national television channel was free from state control. Especially in view of the fact that national television remains the number one source of information for Russian citizens,2 critics have cautioned that a ‘cowed media’ might be intended by the Kremlin as a tool to ‘bolster its authoritarian control over the country’.3 This chapter discusses developments in the sphere of mass media and information under the Putin leadership through the framework of securitisation advocated as an additional conceptualisation of Russian domestic politics by the authors of this volume. Indeed, in monitoring the degree of securitisation apparent in official discourse on a range of domestic political issues, the sphere of media and information emerges as an area in which such a securitising discourse seems clearly apparent.4 The chapter assesses the possible securitisation of the media in contemporary Russia in two main parts. First, it evaluates instances that can be interpreted as attempts at pushing an issue into the security realm by seeking legitimacy, through the discourse of existential threat to a referent object, for the adoption of emergency measures intended to avert this threat. Such instances have been apparent particularly in attempts of the authorities to

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effect changes to legislation framing the activities of the country’s mass media outlets. The first part of the chapter studies the success of securitising moves, which were attempted by legally restricting media coverage of terrorist activities and of electoral campaigns. We conclude that attempts at securitising the media sphere through the tightening of legislation cannot be considered to have been successful. Second, having assessed ‘visible’ attempts at securitising the mass media through the advocating of a more stringent legal regulation of their activities, the latter part of the chapter engages with possible instances in which aspects of the media were taken out of the political realm altogether and appear to have been dealt with ‘in secret’. These instances are developments in the media sphere in which the involvement of the Russian security forces (particularly the FSB) has been alleged, such as the obstruction of the work of Russian and foreign journalists, the closure of commercially owned media outlets and the increasing monopolisation of the media sphere in the hands of the authorities. Moreover, such instances appear to manifest themselves also in the observed secrecy that has surrounded some policy decisions taken in the sphere of media and information. As it is obviously difficult to study instances in which issues appear to have been dealt with outside the framework of ‘normal’ political bargaining, the second part of the chapter contrasts the discourse of critics alleging an involvement of the security forces in dealing with the mass media with official statements by the authorities and representatives of the security forces on related issues. In this section we will conclude that ‘behind the scenes’ involvement of security forces in the handling and regulation of the media sphere seems to have made a considerable contribution to the securitisation of the media sphere and to the perception that media freedom in contemporary Russia is deteriorating. Securitising the legal framework: the media and terrorism

Media coverage of terrorist activities and anti-terrorist operations is, unsurprisingly, at the forefront of official concerns which have led to attempts at tightening Russian media legislation. This ‘threat’ predictably has been framed in a considerably more securitised discourse than the discourse on the media and elections which we consider later in this chapter. The referent object of this threat is Russian national security in the widest sense. In official discourse, a threat has been portrayed as emanating from inadvertent or intentional propaganda and support of terrorist activities in the Russian (and foreign) mass media. This threat has been discussed in connection with the military operations in Chechnya, the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September

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2001, and the hostage crises in a Moscow theatre in October 2002 and a school in Beslan in September 2004. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 reinforced the Russian authorities’ perception that during such attacks and anti-terrorist operations the mass media could pose a major threat to the country’s security, and that measures had to be taken. In the wake of the attacks, amendments to the Laws On the Mass Media and On the Fight Against Terrorism, were introduced to the State Duma for discussion by deputy Nikolai Kovalev of the Otechestvo faction, a former director of the FSB (1994–98) and the author of the amendments. According to Kovalev, these amendments, which outlawed the abuse of the mass media for the propagation and justification of terrorism and extremism, were necessary in order to guarantee protection for everybody, including those professionally engaged in the struggle against terrorism. Events showed that international terrorism is able to utilise the information sphere to a high degree. Terrorism has been heroised. We don’t know yet, how the reporting of the American tragedy will affect the psychological state of society: it is possible that many consequences will develop only in five or ten years.5

The amendments were passed in the first reading on 20 December 2001 and in the second reading on 16 October 2002, and generated little publicity at the time. Then, only days after the second reading, the Moscow theatre crisis unravelled, resulting in the deaths of 120 hostages. In rapid succession, the amendments were passed in their third reading by the State Duma on 1 November 2002, and approved by the Federation Council on 13 November 2002. Only then did the amendments come under serious public scrutiny, and were widely, but mistakenly, interpreted as a knee-jerk reaction to the theatre hostage crisis. For example, the BBC stated that the ‘draft law had been rushed through both houses of the Russian parliament, following the Moscow theatre siege’,6 and the Moscow Times claimed that ‘spurred to action by the hostage crisis, the State Duma on Friday approved a broad array of anti-terrorism legislation – from far-reaching restrictions on media coverage to secret burials for slain terrorists’.7 The amendments were to give the Russian government wide-ranging powers to prevent media coverage of anti-terrorist operations, including the military operations in Chechnya, even after operations have ended. The adoption of the measures was interpreted by Russian and foreign media representatives and human rights activists as an unwarranted attempt at securitisation in the sphere of information. Later in November, President Putin, following appeals issued by several Russian and foreign pressure groups, vetoed the amendments.

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Many observers were surprised by this veto and Putin’s reasons for his decision were widely discussed. It is true, however, that already after the first reading of the amendments in December 2001, President Putin had expressed reservations about the absence of a legal definition of ‘extremism’, the propagation and justification of which the amendments sought to ban in addition to terrorism.8 Such a provision was provided in July 2002 with the adoption of the Law On Combating Extremist Activity. The latter law decreed the amendment of the Law On the Mass Media, explicitly prohibiting the abuse of media freedom for the realisation of extremist activities, and providing for measures by which media outlets can be shut down for violating the new law on extremism. Although the adoption of the Law On Combating Extremist Activity generated a considerable amount of controversy due to the vague definition of extremism (see also Chapter 5), its impact on the mass media went largely unnoticed. According to Mikhail Fedotov, Russian minister of the press from 1992–93 and author of the active media law, this impact was ‘very serious’ and potentially much more draconian than the amendments vetoed by Putin in November 2002.9 Putin’s veto did not put an end to efforts to securitise media activity in emergency situations and during anti-terrorist operations. As a condition of the veto, the president and media representatives agreed on the formation of a conciliatory commission to draft a journalistic code of practice during anti-terrorist operations and emergency situations, based on the rejected amendments. In the vanguard of the calls for both Putin’s veto and for the creation of the conciliatory commission was the Russian Industrial Committee – a lobby group of media executives and owners of predominantly state-owned media outlets that was formed in the summer of 2002. At the initial meeting of the conciliatory commission on 10 December 2002 in the State Duma, representatives of the Industrial Committee, law-enforcement agencies and both parliamentary chambers were brought together. The aim of the meeting was to draw up an antiterrorist convention that would provide, according to Konstantin Ernst, the general director of the public television channel ORT and chairman of the Industrial Committee, ‘a code of rules and moral codex for journalists taking on the responsibility before society to report anti-terrorist operations’.10 On 8 April 2003, an Anti-Terrorist Convention of the Mass Media drawn up by the conciliatory commission was signed by the Industrial Committee. The convention addresses eight points, stipulating the ‘voluntary rules of conduct’ for the mass media during emergency situations and anti-terrorist operations.11 To a degree, the Anti-Terrorist Convention can be interpreted as an agreement to self-censorship by the Russian media community and as a case of successful securitisation. The convention was only drawn up and

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signed as a result of the securitising discourse displayed by the Putin regime regarding the media and terrorism that preceded it; for example, Boris Gryzlov talked about ‘intentional attempts to destabilize the situation in the country’ and stated that all journalists ‘should pay special attention to the fact that they must serve our society, and our society needs security’.12 The catalyst for the adoption of the Anti-Terrorist Convention was the hostage crisis in Moscow in 2002. This was despite the fact that the hostage crisis was not caused by media coverage, no hostages died as a result of the mass media’s conduct, and their liberation was not hindered by journalists. According to a Moscow-based correspondent of a German newspaper, ‘the [Russian] media acted very responsibly in this situation, which should not be taken for granted … I had the impression that they handled it well’.13 Accusations by the Russian authorities against some media outlets that they had compromised the anti-terrorist operation by showing troop movements before the theatre was stormed turned out to be untrue.14 In the language of securitisation, an existential threat was argued and gained enough resonance to enable the implementation of a step that would not have been taken if the discourse had not been strongly securitised. However, the significance of the Anti-Terrorist Convention should not be overestimated: it constitutes a guide for conduct, but does not have the force of law. Similar guides for conduct, or editorial guidelines, with regard to broadcasting challenging events have been adopted also by media outlets in countries where media freedom is generally assured. The BBC, for instance, announced in June 2005 that sensitive news events would be broadcast with a time delay in order to enable editors to exclude any material deemed ‘too disturbing’.15 Discussions concerning the restricting of media reporting of terrorist attacks have been revived periodically in the State Duma in connection with a number of terrorist attacks in 2004. Two proposals for amendments, since put forward by individual deputies, however, were doomed from the outset, as they were opposed by a majority of parliamentarians and by the director of the Federal Agency for the Press and Mass Communication, Mikhail Seslavinskii, who described them as an ‘unnecessary restriction on the freedom of the press’.16 Whilst attempts at securitising media coverage of terrorist activities and anti-terrorist operations through the implementation of restrictive legislation can be deemed unsuccessful, the official handling of journalistic activities in Chechnya is a special case that deserves separate attention. The framing of journalistic activities as a potential security threat at the time of terrorist attacks and anti-terrorist operations featured in official Russian discourse from the outset of the second military campaign in Chechnya. Coverage of Russian military operations

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in Chechnya by foreign and independent Russian media outlets has been repeatedly criticised by the Russian authorities for inadvertently or intentionally supporting Chechen terrorists by giving them a voice. Media coverage, too, has been held responsible for military setbacks. Aleksandr Zdanovich, spokesman for the FSB, for instance, claimed that ‘most western [news] agencies, including Reuters, basically depend on Chechen freelancers for their information. Most of them are under pressure from the fighters’.17 Russian journalists working for commercially owned media outlets were accused of similar bias. The case of the journalist Andrei Babitskii is notorious in this respect. Under opaque circumstances, Babitskii was arrested by the Russian authorities in 2000 and handed over to Chechen fighters in exchange for Russian prisoners of war. Subsequently, President Putin called Babitskii a ‘traitor’, accusing him of ‘working directly for the enemy’. According to Putin, ‘what Babitskii did is much more dangerous than firing a machine gun’.18 Yevgenii Pakhmonov, deputy presidential representative of Sakha Republic, wrote in a volume on information security that ‘terrorist groups, as a rule, are using journalists or their information in their own interest, without consent. However, this does not take responsibility off those responsible for the publication that resulted in human loss or destruction.’19 In order to avert this perceived threat a strict system of accreditation for journalists wishing to cover military activity in the Chechen republic was put into place in October 1999.20 To this day, official accreditation is required for journalists covering the conflict. Accredited journalists are able to receive only officially sanctioned information and their movement in the republic is strictly monitored.21 In journalist circles, trips to Chechnya organised under the accreditation scheme are known as ‘Yastrzhembskii tours’, in reference to the presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembskii, who was put in charge of an especially created post for the ‘coordination of the informational-analytical work of federal executive bodies taking part in the counter-terrorist operations in the North-Caucasus region of the Russian Federation, and cooperation with the mass media’ in January 2000.22 Restrictions on press freedom in the Chechen republic have been criticised in Russia and abroad as an undue attempt at securitisation that unduly limits access to information for journalists and the public at large. Two legal aspects in particular qualify the imposition of an accreditation system in Chechnya as a securitising move, as they were implemented under the violation of legal norms. The first aspect concerns the creation of an accreditation system covering an entire republic of the Russian Federation. According to article 48 of the Law On the Mass Media, from December 1991, journalists can be accredited only for work in ‘state organs, organisations, institutions, public associations’. According to

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Fedor Kravchenko, a legal expert for the Moscow bureau of the international organisation in support of open media worldwide, Internews, ‘Russian media law does not make provisions to allow accreditation for a whole region. There could be accreditation for the government or parliament of Chechnya, but not for Chechnya as a whole. This is illegal.’23 Second, concerns have been voiced about the classification of the military operations in the Chechen republic as an anti-terrorist operation, with reference to which the special regime of media activities on the territory was implemented. Whilst article 15 of the Law On the Fight Against Terrorism, allows limitations of media freedom for the duration of anti-terrorist operations, article 3 of the law defines zones in which anti-terrorist operations are carried out as ‘areas of land or water, a means of transport, a building, construction, premise and the territory or area of water belonging to it, within the boundaries of which a specific operation is carried out’.24 In accordance with the law, the designation of an entire federal region as zone in which an anti-terrorism operation is conducted is thus impossible. Kravchenko pointed out that the application of the anti-terrorism law to Chechnya clearly constitutes a legal violation: ‘From the point of view of Russian criminal law, terrorism is absolutely different from separatism or the formation of armed groups. This cannot be called terrorism from the point of view of the Russian criminal court. Of course a different law must be applied here, like the law on emergency situations.’25 There is a tendency among pro-Kremlin representatives of the Russian political elite to justify restrictions on media freedom in Chechnya by drawing international comparisons. Pavel Kovalenko, a Duma deputy from the pro-Kremlin faction United Russia, told the authors in 2003 that ‘yes, Chechnya is a closed information space. The mass media have particular regulations for working on this issue. It is absolutely normal and necessary. Let’s compare this to the war in Iraq. The rules were the same there.’26 However, the comparison does not stand due to the fact that the military operations in Chechnya are classified as an anti-terrorist operation, and not as a war or an emergency situation, during which restrictions of media freedom would indeed be legal. As discussed in detail in chapter 3, the end of the active military phase of operations in Chechnya was officially declared in 2000. Ever since, President Putin himself has repeatedly pointed out that no war is taking place in Chechnya. Commenting on the conflicting official discourse that speaks, on the one hand, of life in Chechnya as returning to normal and justifies, on the other hand, restrictions on journalistic activity in the republic by drawing international comparisons, Aleksei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy, deliberated: ‘Just let me tell you that Russia is not at war. Putin says that we are not at war. It is a police

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operation that requires the involvement of troops, so why should access be restricted?’27 Although much attention has been paid to actual and possible changes to Russia’s legal framework regulating the activities of the mass media, a securitisation of the media sphere through the adoption of restrictive laws cannot be considered to have been successful and acceptance of securitising discourse by the targeted audiences was not achieved. As discussed above, such legislation has been officially advocated and was adopted in several instances. However, as was the case for the restrictions of media coverage of electoral campaigns and terrorist acts, the counter discourse by opponents of the amendments was sufficiently strong for the laws to be retracted through a Constitutional Court ruling and a presidential veto. Throughout Putin’s first years in office, the possibility of adopting an entirely new media law in exchange for the law from 1991 has often been discussed and fears were expressed that a new law was likely to be considerably more restrictive than its predecessor. In conjunction with Putin’s veto of the amendments to the media law in October 2002, Konstantin Ernst, chairman of the Industrial Committee, suggested the adoption of a new law on the media. The first version of the new law drafted by the committee was published on 21 January 2003, and evoked criticism from the International Federation of Journalists as a ‘statement of failure regarding press freedom in Russia’.26 On 16 April 2003, the Industrial Committee submitted a final draft of its law to the government. The imminent adoption of the draft at the time was considered highly likely.29 However, the draft was never passed to the Duma for consideration and the adoption of a new Law On the Mass Media has become increasingly improbable. In April 2005 the minister for culture and mass communication, Aleksandr Sokolov, came out firmly against the adoption of a new law, advocating instead amendments to the existing law if the need arises.30 Restrictions on media freedom in the Chechen republic since January 2000, however, must be classified as a successful securitisation on behalf of the Putin leadership. Framing the military operation in the republic as an anti-terrorist operation, the Russian authorities implemented the emergency measure of journalist accreditation in apparent contravention of Russian law. The media and elections

In October 2003 the Russian Constitutional Court ruled that a number of measures in the electoral law concerning media coverage of elections were unconstitutional. President Putin accepted this ruling, and the measures were withdrawn. This case which we explore here serves to demonstrate

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again, as with Putin’s vetoing of the amendments concerning the media and coverage of terrorist activities discussed above, how securitising moves in the sphere of the media have been made by certain actors but have not convinced a particular audience and have therefore not resulted in a completed securitisation. On 4 July 2003, President Putin signed a package of amendments to the electoral law, which included amendments to the law on the media from 1991 and were aimed at strictly regulating media conduct during electoral campaigns. At the heart of the amendments was the introduction of measures by which courts could fine or suspend media outlets found guilty of violating the Law On the Basic Guarantees of Citizens’ Electoral Rights and Rights to Participate in Referenda. The latter law had been signed by President Putin on 12 June 2002 and included articles outlawing covert ‘electioneering’ (predvybornaya agitatsiya) in broadcast and print-media outlets in favour of, or against, specific candidates, political parties, or electoral blocs.31 Paragraph 2 of article 48 of this law defined the following activities as acts of ‘electioneering’: • •

• •

•

•

•

Appeals to vote for or against a candidate (list of candidates). Expressing preference for a specific candidate, electoral association, electoral bloc, and in particular instructing the voter for what candidate, list of candidates, electoral association, or electoral bloc to vote. Describing possible consequences of the election or failure to elect a specific candidate (list of candidates). Distributing information that clearly focuses on either positive or negative comments on specific candidates, electoral associations, or electoral blocs. Distributing information about the activities of a candidate which is not linked to his professional activities and the fulfilment of his official duties. Activities that encourage the creation of either a positive or negative disposition of voters towards a candidate, or the electoral association or electoral bloc, of which this candidate is a member; towards the electoral association, electoral bloc that nominated the candidate, candidates or list of candidates. Any other activities that are aimed at encouraging voters to vote for a candidate, a list of candidates, or against them, against all candidates, against all lists of candidates.

Electioneering in the mass media as defined in the above paragraph was only deemed legal if it was clearly marked by the journalist as having been paid for by the election fund of a specific candidate or electoral group, or

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if it made up a part of the free airtime or column space in state-owned media outlets assigned to each entity registered to participate in an electoral campaign. Whilst the Law On the Basic Guarantees of Citizens’ Electoral Rights containing these articles was adopted in 2002, the amendments to the mass media law adopted in June 2003 were needed in order to enact these provisions by prescribing measures for the punishment of media outlets for the violation of the 2002 law. These measures stipulated a court appeal submitted by the Russian Ministry of the Press, Broadcasting, and Mass Communications in order to evoke the suspension of the license of a media outlet pending the time of the electoral campaign or for up to three months, following two complaints against a media outlet to the Central Electoral Commission about violations of the ban on covert electioneering. The main official protagonist of the amendments was Aleksandr Veshnyakov, head of the Central Electoral Commission. He was supported by the pro-Kremlin party United Russia’s Duma faction, which declared that it had no objections to the law before the first reading took place.32 The amendments, which were submitted to the Duma for consideration by the presidential administration and the Central Electoral Commission in early 2003, were framed in securitising language. Addressing the State Duma in March 2003 during the first reading of these amendments, Veshnyakov referred explicitly to the Law On Combating Extremist Activity of 2002, which had itself brought a wide range of issues into the sphere of security (for a detailed analysis of this law, see Chapter 5). He told the Duma that ‘with the aim of heightening the effectiveness of measures aimed at fighting extremism, it is suggested to establish criminal responsibility for the conduct of electoral campaigning’.33 In a speech to a conference on the media and elections in the same month, Veshnyakov talked of the amendments as ‘a reaction to the information war that took place in the federal electoral campaign in 1999 … to protect the mass media from being abused for dirty technologies, discrediting not only elections in Russia, but also you, dear mass media’.34 Another member of the Central Electoral Commission, Sergei Bolshakov, deemed the amendments necessary, ‘in order to protect the right of citizens to act of their free will at elections’.35 The process of adopting the amendments was riddled with controversy from the outset. Opponents of the amendments, who could be found among politicians in the State Duma, journalists working for commercially owned media outlets, and human rights activists, themselves evaluated the amendments as a crude attempt at securitisation from the side of the authorities. Venediktov of radio Ekho Moskvy remarked before the adoption of the amendments: ‘They have started to speak about elections and the necessity to limit press freedom because of

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the [upcoming] elections. They speak about elections as if they were natural calamities.’36 In a similar vein, Grigorii Yavlinskii, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, pointed to the adoption by the executive of rights which, in his view, should belong to the judiciary, arguing that ‘This amendment endows the executive branch with the functions of the court, which should be the only place able to decide whether the law has been violated’.37 Viktor Loshak, the editor-in-chief of Moskovskie novosti, classified the adoption of the amendments as a securitising move and unconstitutional act which exceeded, in his view, the rules of ‘normal’ democratic practice by placing too much power in the hands of the state: I believe that these amendments are extremely dangerous, not only for the media, but also for the state of democracy in our society. In practice these amendments can lead to the closure of press, TV and radio companies that are not controlled by the authorities … The amendments deprive voters of access to objective information about candidates, electoral blocs, or violations by state officials in the preparation and conduct of the elections. On the whole, this is a blow to the Constitution that guarantees freedom of information for Russian citizens.38

According to Veshnyakov, however, the new rules laid out in the amendments were aimed at ensuring the objectivity of campaign reporting. In his view, they did not infringe on press freedom, but, on the contrary, protected it.39 Opponents of the amendments were concerned that they would render analytical reports virtually impossible, because of the very wide definition of covert electioneering. One commentator pointed out, for example, that ‘mentioning the family or hobby of a candidate could mean a fine’.40 Elena Afanaseva, a journalist for the journal, Politburo, cautioned that, ‘if a journalist writes, for example, that a candidate killed an old woman – I mean, committed a crime – this will be perceived as negative agitation. And he will be prosecuted by the law. But it is impossible not to write about this fact, because it is the obligation of a journalist to tell the truth.’41 It is no coincidence that criticism of the amendments was voiced mainly by representatives of commercially owned media outlets and by political actors independent of, or in opposition to the Putin regime. The latter feared that they could not count on extensive or advantageous coverage of their campaign in the state-owned media, and feared losing a significant platform from which to publicise their ideas. Critics of the amendments agreed that the aim of achieving an objective electoral campaign, which was cited by official proponents as the rationale of the amendments, was riddled with double standards. Sergei Mitrokhin, then

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deputy chairman of the Yabloko faction, evaluated the amendments as hypocritical: ‘Why are we playing dumb? Will anybody suspend the activities of the ORT network? The penalties will be applied against independent media outlets, which might say something against the powers that be.’42 Having been signed into law in July 2003, the controversial amendments were in force for a number of regional elections taking place in the autumn before the December’s Duma election. The critics’ concerns appeared to have been justified when in October warnings issued to commercial media outlets, including to the well-known dailies, Nezavisimaya gazeta and Kommersant-daily, started to come in thick and fast. Warnings were issued for ‘abuses’ such as the coverage of a candidate’s campaign without mentioning his competitors, or for the reporting of a politician’s activities that were not explicitly linked to the fulfilment of his official duties.43 In September four appeals against the amendments were submitted to the Constitutional Court. One appeal was signed by a hundred Duma deputies representing all factions and deputy groups in the parliament bar the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia.44 Three appeals were submitted by journalists. Amidst strong opposition against the new legal provisions and their effects, Veshnyakov continued to defend the amendments and even evaluated the court appeals as evidence for the fact that the amendments were having the desired effect. He expressed his surprise that the Constitutional Court had agreed to consider the appeals already in October.45 In early October 2003 official Russian discourse on the amendments started to send out conflicting messages. The then press minister Mikhail Lesin publicly expressed concern about the effects of the amendments, stating that the mass media were no longer able to fulfil their mission of informing readers and viewers about electoral campaigns.46 In a statement that was surprising, given the continuous support for the amendments by United Russia, the party’s leader, Sergei Shoigu, stated that with regard to the appeal against the amendments to the Constitutional Court he was firmly ‘on the side of the journalists’.47 At the end of October the Court ruled the amendments unconstitutional and a violation of press freedom. A few days later, President Putin announced his satisfaction with the ruling, asserting that in his opinion this outcome was an ‘optimal decision letting parties and deputies show their worth and people learn objective information from mass media whose activities will not be limited’.48 A strong attempt had been made to securitise the issue of media coverage of the elections. However, it failed because the securitising moves had not sufficiently convinced the key audiences. Parliament had accepted the amendments, but the leader of the main party, United Russia, subsequently spoke out against them, as did the press minister and, of course,

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many of the media themselves. The Constitutional Court’s job was not to judge the discourse but rather the constitutionality of the amendments, and so it may well be that irrespective of the securitising discourse the judges would have ruled against the amendments in any case. However, the constitutional case is not absolutely clear cut, in that there exists both a constitutional ban on campaigning which incites social strife or the proclaiming of social superiority (article 29) and a constitutional provision for the emergency suspension of certain rights in order to protect the constitutional system (article 56), either of which could have been cited as a justification for the amendments had the case for them as a vital security issue been sufficiently convincing. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility too that signals coming from the executive, including the president, played some role in influencing the court’s decision. The media and the security forces

In the second part of the chapter we engage with instances in which sections of the Russian media and information sphere are apparently securitised by being taken out of the realm of open political bargaining and dealt with ‘in secret’. Whilst the preceding part of the chapter found that a securitisation of media activities through the adoption of restrictive legislation has been successful only to a limited extent, the following sections indicate that a securitisation of media regulation has nonetheless been apparent in other ways, which have led to the often-discussed observation that media freedom has become more limited under the leadership of President Putin. Two aspects will be considered below. These are the perceived secrecy of policy-making in the media sphere, often with involvement of the security services and the obstruction of the work of independent and foreign journalists in recent years. The section concludes by arguing that these developments are best evaluated if the way the role of the mass media is perceived in Russia is understood. Secrecy of policy making in the media sphere

A degree of influence by law-enforcement agencies or the military on the regulation of media activities during military operations or emergency situations is not unheard of in any state. However, the involvement of the Russian security forces in the making of policy regarding the activities of the mass media appears to be more widely and generally defined. Secrecy in the drafting of media legislation with the participation of force structure representatives has been reported by a number of observers in

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several instances. One such instance was the drawing up of the AntiTerrorist Convention as a set of self-regulatory guidelines for journalists discussed above. In order to prepare this document, leaders of the Russian power structures in December 2002 held a joint meeting with the Industrial Committee and with parliamentarians in order to draw up the self-regulatory code of conduct for journalists. The commission met in a session closed to journalists, which was explained by the presence of the leaders of Russian force ministries – FSB head Nikolai Patrushev, interior minister Boris Gryzlov, defence minister Sergei Ivanov, FPS head Konstantin Totskii, and SVR head Sergei Lebedev. According to a member of the Industrial Committee, ‘we were simply obliged to close the first meeting to the press, so the power ministers will feel as comfortable as possible’.49 Whilst the participation of law-enforcement agencies in the drawing up of a journalistic code of conduct itself indicates a measure going beyond ‘normal politics’, the secret nature of their organisations necessitated the meeting being conducted in a session closed to journalists, whose professional activity was the main subject of the discussion. Concerns about secrecy in regulating the sphere of media and information were also voiced with regards to the adoption of the abovementioned amendments to the Law On the Mass Media, seeking to regulate media conduct during electoral campaigns. Some critics from the outset objected to the introduction of the amendments to the Duma by the Central Electoral Commission and the presidential administration, because it had been drafted, in their view, ‘behind the back’ of the journalist community. This was despite Putin’s promise, made at the time of his veto of amendments restricting media coverage of terrorist activities in November 2002, not to bypass the media community in any future drafting and adoption of media legislation. Journalists received the text of the amendments only four days before the first reading.50 An early example of the influence of law-enforcement agencies and the security forces on the making of media-related policy, and of the secrecy resulting from their participation, was the drafting of a document called the Information Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation signed by Putin in September 2000.51 The adoption of the doctrine was met with controversy, and some critics at the time described it as ‘the ideological programme of the new authorities [Putin regime]’.52 Whilst the significance of the Information Security Doctrine clearly should not be overemphasised, because it constitutes a mere set of ideas and principles and does not have the force of law, the fact of its adoption and the overall outlook of its content can serve as a useful indicator of attitudes and priorities of the Russian leadership regarding the mass media. The doctrine was drafted by the Russian Security Council, which brings together, among others, the leaders of all Russian force structures. In

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addition to addressing information issues falling into the traditional military and security spheres, the doctrine addresses issues such as political campaigning in the mass media, media ownership and even the moral content of the media. Including the regulation of these aspects of media activity in a security-related document indicates the prioritisation of the media and information sphere by the Putin leadership as a potential threat to national security. The doctrine was drafted by power structure representatives under strict secrecy, and without consultation with the media community. Opponents of the doctrine criticised the fact that it had been adopted behind the back of the journalist community, and that it came as a complete surprise to journalists, who saw themselves as the main target of the doctrine.53 Obstruction of the activities of commercial and foreign media

When speaking about a deterioration of press freedom under the leadership of President Putin, most observers have in mind the intentional obstruction, often with involvement of the security forces, of the activities of the Russian commercially owned and particularly opposition media, and also of foreign correspondents. As discussed in the sections below, in recent years the Russian authorities have been accused of obstructing media outlets in a variety of ways, ranging from the forced closure of independent newspapers and television stations to the drugging of journalists to stop them from doing their job. Over the past years, reports of raids on commercially owned newspapers and editorial offices involving the FSB and other Russian lawenforcement agencies have been accumulating. To cite but a few examples, in February 2003 journalists at the Novye izvestiya paper showed up for work only to be turned away by security guards. It was alleged that the newspaper was temporarily closed following an article criticising what it saw as a ‘Putin cult’ arising in Russia.54 Computers of the sensationalist tabloid Versiya were seized by the FSB in connection with its coverage of both the sinking of the Kursk submarine in summer 2000 and of the aftermath of the theatre hostage crisis in Moscow in October 2002.55 In the former case, snapshots of the disaster published by the weekly were declared ‘top-secret’, and in the latter case, computers reportedly were seized even before the offending article questioning the law-enforcement agencies’ way of dealing with the crisis reached the press. Although Versiya is of a sensationalist nature and is, not unlike its British counterparts like the Sun or the News of the World, not averse to the publication of questionable facts and speculation, such drastic measures by the security forces regarding the content of a tabloid newspaper indicates the decree to which the information sphere in Russia

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is treated as an important matter of security. Accusations of a darker kind were made against the Russian security forces for drugging journalists known to be critical of the regime in order to stop them from filing reports from the site of the hostage situation in the Beslan school in September 2004.56 The Russian leadership has also been suspected of obstructing journalistic activities through the involvement of law enforcement in the closure of commercial media outlets, predominantly of entities displaying a critical attitude towards the Kremlin’s policies. This issue has been discussed widely and particularly in connection with the hostile takeover of Vladimir Gusinskii’s television station NTV, following a search of the headquarters of his media empire Media-Most in 2000. Although the demise of Media-Most and the takeover of NTV by state-owned gas company Gazprom were the result of the non-payment by Media-Most of a loan from the state-controlled Vneshekonombank, many analysts saw NTV’s critical coverage of the Chechen war as the underlying reason for the takeover. This suspicion was aroused also because the state television channel ORT had an outstanding debt of one hundred million dollars to the same bank, but was neither required to repay, nor forced into a hostile takeover.57 The journalist collective of NTV under the leadership of Yevgenii Kiselev proceeded to broadcast their programmes on channel TV-6, the major shareholder of which was Boris Berezovskii, a famous oligarch and Kremlin insider of the Yeltsin era. Again, and for financial reasons, this channel was forced off the air in January 2002, and Kiselev’s journalist collective moved on to a channel called TVS, which was closed for non-payment of debts in June 2003. Finally, TVS was replaced by a state-owned sports channel. Although the closure of these television channels and of a range of commercially owned print-media outlets58 were officially portrayed as the result of financial struggles ‘normal’ in any democratic state, many Russian and Western observers suspected the involvement of the Russian leadership for political reasons. Laura Belin, a long-serving analyst of Russian media affairs, wrote after the closure of TVS in June 2003: Different forms of legal and financial pressure helped bring about the management changes at NTV in April 2001, the shutdown of TV-6 in January 2002, and this week’s action against TVS, but the underlying political dynamic has remained the same. The Media Ministry’s sometimes brazen interference in the internal affairs of private broadcasters has sent a clear message: journalists who lack the trust of the Kremlin and the government will not be allowed to broadcast news on national television.59

Observers have detailed a similar worsening of working conditions for foreign correspondents in Putin’s Russia. Journalists reportedly have had

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footage shot in Chechnya confiscated and secretly erased by the FSB.60 Others were refused entry into Russia on arrival,61 or were refused visas altogether.62 Reports of visa refusal to foreign journalists, but also academics and NGO workers – justified by the FSB by alleging their involvement in the work of foreign intelligence services – have been steadily increasing.63 In October 2002, an official complaint was filed to the German public television station ARD by Russian diplomats, criticising its coverage of the theatre hostage crisis in Moscow.64 Klaus-Helge Donath, a correspondent for the German daily Die Tageszeitung, who has been based in Moscow since 1990, was the first foreign correspondent in post-Soviet Russia to be summoned to court in November 2002.65 The reason for this was the publication of an article, in which he described examples of what he saw as a growing cult of personality around President Putin.66 One of the examples cited was a poem about the president, written by a student from the provincial city of Chelyabinsk, who subsequently sued Donath. According to the indictment, Donath abused media freedom to insult the Russian president and the patriotic feelings of a Russian citizen. The student demanded the payment of compensation, plus the revocation of Donath’s accreditation and the closure of the Moscow bureau of Die Tageszeitung. According to Donath: We found out later that people from the Duma – members of United Russia – were behind the case … The whole case was a high-profile affair and very morally constructed. I think that I was a test case, and they picked me because they thought that nothing much would happen if their attempt went wrong, because I am not working for the New York Times or a publication like that.67

Due to diplomatic intervention the court hearing was first delayed and later dropped completely. What do these developments mean for the discussion of securitising moves in the media sphere? It is, of course, impossible to make a binding judgement on the correctness of all details involved in the selection of cases presented above. However, the closure or takeover by the state of many formerly independent media outlets since Putin’s rise to political power is indisputable, as is the fact that there is a growing certainty amongst the media community in Russia that press freedom has been steadily declining. The predominant interpretation of this trend amongst observers has been to see a stifled media as an integral part of a general backwards move towards authoritarianism under the Putin leadership. Viewed in conjunction with official securitising discourse on the media a more widely facetted explanation of these developments emerges. The previously mentioned Information Security Doctrine, as well as relevant statements by a range of officials, is an important point of reference for

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understanding the rationale of media policies pursued by the current Russian leadership. The Putin administration’s media policies are best evaluated in consideration of how the role of the mass media in Russia is officially perceived. A study of official Russian discourse suggests that media conduct is perceived as a matter of national security not only in emergency situations, such as war and terrorist attacks, but also under circumstances in which the role of the media in most democratic states is not contested. This can be explained in part by the broad understanding of information security in Russia. Timothy Thomas argues that the Russian concept of information security includes the threat of the possibly adverse impact of information on society, termed the ‘information-psychological process’, whilst the Western understanding of information security is more limited, focusing mainly on issues such as ‘electronic warfare, defensive and offensive mechanisms and the digitalisation of the force/information dominance’.68 This broad understanding of information security is also at the heart of the Information Security Doctrine signed by Putin in 2000. This document discusses ‘hard’ security issues, such as information warfare, alongside threats arising from media coverage of electoral campaigns, from media ownership, and even from the moral content of the media. The discursive securitisation of the media in the doctrine and also in official statements has been justified by describing Russian society as transitional and thus as especially susceptible to manipulation by information disseminated in the mass media. According to the Information Security Doctrine, ‘The present-day political and socio-economic conditions in the country tend to exacerbate the contradictions between the needs of society to expand free exchange of information and the need to preserve certain regulated restrictions on its dissemination’. Responding to critical remarks about the Information Security Doctrine by a Russian journalist in July 2001, Putin argued: ‘All states pay attention to this issue [information security]. Russia must pay special attention to it due to the instability of its political system. It is very easy to influence people through the media here, because people have very little experience to guide them.’69 In a meeting with media representatives and journalist organisations in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in Moscow in October 2002 Putin asserted: ‘The issue we are discussing here is very important, and particularly for our country. Everything here is only in the making.’70 Official spokespeople have singled out critically the ‘negativity’ of Russian news coverage and media content, which in their view can have a dangerous averse effect on mass consciousness and pose a threat both to Russia’s internal and spiritual security (this concept is discussed in more detail in Chapter 5). Oleg Nechiporenko, a former SVR officer and

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general director of the National Antiterrorist Fund, expressed this threat as follows: ‘Today the mass media are over-saturated with information about terrorism and violence. People are simply psychologically overwhelmed. The will and possibility to resist are paralysed. Fear is leading us to a state of collapse.’71 The speaker of the Russian Federation Council, Oleg Mironov, similarly disapproved of the Russian mass media’s emphasis on ‘emergencies, murders, natural disasters’. In his opinion this is detrimental to Russia’s development: ‘Russia is recovering. We all should be gathering strength.’72 Boris Gryzlov asserted, when he was Russian interior minister, that ‘today television has a huge influence on people and their views. That is why it is unacceptable to make TV programming in such a way that evening shows are dominated by series, films and programmes showing blood and romanticising the criminal world.’73 The proposed antidote against the threat posed to internal and spiritual security through a potential adverse influence of the media was to counter the ‘monopolisation’ of the mass media singled out as an important problem in the Information Security Doctrine. In a section on spiritual security the doctrine specifies: ‘the greatest danger in the sphere of spiritual life is posed by the following threats to the information security of the Russian Federation: distortion of the system of mass media information […] through the monopolisation of the mass media.’ In order to counter this threat the following solution is suggested: In the sphere of internal politics the most important objectives of ensuring the information security of the Russian Federation are … to create a system counteracting the monopolisation by domestic and foreign structures of components of information infrastructure, including the market of information services and the mass media.

Crucially in this respect, the ‘monopolisation’ of the mass media is represented to be emanating from commercially owned and independent media outlets and can be countered only by strengthening the state-owned mass media. The Information Security Doctrine expresses the necessity to ‘strengthen the state mass media in order to expand its potential to provide Russian and foreign citizens with authentic information in a timely manner’ and to develop ‘methods to make the participation of the state in the shaping of the information policy of state-owned television and radio broadcast organisations and other state-owned mass media more effective’. Anatolii Streltsov, deputy head of the directorate for questions of information security of the Russian Security Council, later explained: ‘The Russian state does not really have the possibility to influence the mass media market. However, the problem of reaching everybody to tell about its policies and aims truthfully and

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comprehensibly is of utmost importance. This does not only concern the creation of the necessary image of the authorities within the country, but also abroad.’74 The need to strengthen the state-owned media in Russia is often pointed out as an important counteraction to the perceived threat to Russian internal and spiritual security emanating from potentially manipulative or misrepresented information spread in the commercially owned press. Whilst in itself this fact is not sufficient evidence to conclude that this has led the Russian authorities intentionally to obstruct the activities of independent media outlets, it can at least explain what is at best their obvious indifference to the fate of the independent mass media in the country. As Streltsov asserted, ‘the state cannot only worry about the fate of journalists, but has to worry about the fate of society as well’.75 The perceived need to counter threats linked to the monopolisation of the Russian mass media by strengthening state-owned media outlets indisputably has decreased the diversity of Russia’s media landscape in recent years. As the author of the Russian media law, Mikhail Fedotov, pointed out: ‘Of course it is necessary to counteract the monopolisation of the mass communication sphere. But we should not forget that the main monopoly in this respect is the state.’76 Official securitising discourse on the media and information in Russia can also shed light on why the working conditions of foreign correspondents in the country have reportedly deteriorated. Foreign influence on the Russian information sphere equally has been portrayed as an existential threat to Russian spiritual security and national security in the Information Security Doctrine and official discourse on a more general level. This threat, which the doctrine summarises as ‘strengthening the dependence of the spiritual, economic and political spheres of Russian social life on foreign information structures’, has two components. First, an excess of foreign media outlets contributing to the distribution of information within the Russian Federation is portrayed as a threat to Russian spiritual security.77 With reference to this threat, Yevgenii Pakhmonov, deputy presidential representative of Sakha Republic, wrote in his contribution to a conference on information security, organised by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2001: ‘Some [Russian] mass media outlets have foreign share holders, exerting an active influence on the ideology of the respective media structure.’78 Second, the abuse of mass-media outlets operating in Russia by foreign secret services is portrayed as an urgent component of external threat to Russian national and spiritual security in the widest sense. Especially in connection with the military operations in Chechnya, FSB spokesmen and other official figures have been building a discourse of existential threat around what they perceived as the abuse of the mass-

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media by foreign states and their secret services. Foreign correspondents have been accused by FSB spokesmen of acting on the orders of their country’s secret services in several instances.79 This threat is also addressed in the Information Security Doctrine, charging foreign secret services with the abuse of mass-media outlets operating on Russian territory in order ‘to damage the defence capability of the country and the security of the state and to disseminate information’ and to carry out ‘sabotage activities … through information and psychological methods’. The perception of the activities of foreign journalists as a potential threat to national and spiritual security and treatment of the issue as a security issue indicates why the working conditions of foreign correspondents in the country have become more difficult in recent years.

This chapter assessed policies in the sphere of media and information in contemporary Russia within the framework of securitisation. Having discussed official securitising discourse and a range of attempted securitising moves we can conclude that the mass media in Russia are viewed by the authorities as a potential security issue threatening the development of democracy, national and spiritual security in the country. The accompanying treatment of the mass media as a security threat has led to the securitisation of the media sphere with varying rates of success in different areas, which in turn has caused the increasingly justified feeling amongst the media community in Russia that press freedom under Putin is on the decline. The first part of the chapter studied attempts at securitising the media by advocating and adopting restrictive legislation for the regulation of journalistic activities during electoral campaigns and terrorist activities/anti-terrorist operations. Although in both instances officials made a case in favour of the laws in securitised language prior to their adoption, the electoral amendments were ruled unconstitutional whilst the terrorism amendments were vetoed by Putin after their adoption by the parliament. In the language of securitisation it can be concluded that the Russian authorities failed sufficiently to convince the audience of their discourse of the necessity of these laws, and the counter discourse of opponents of the amendments was sufficiently strong and convincing to cause an official retraction of the restrictive provisions. Whilst these developments should be welcomed as an encouraging sign of opposition and judicial review in Russia, the second part of the chapter concluded on a less optimistic note. Due to the official perception of the mass media as a potentially powerful security threat the regulation of the media sphere outside the framework of ‘normal’ political bargaining, and the increasing influence of the security forces on this sphere, seems to have contributed

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considerably to the obstruction of the work of domestic and foreign journalists in Russia. One particular concern shared by journalists and political observers alike is that the repeated attempts at adopting restrictive media legislation and the impression of an increasing influence of the Russian force structures on the media sphere can lead, or have already led, to an undue degree of self-censorship amongst the Russian journalistic community afraid of career loss and the risk of causing the closure of media outlets. A tangible reason for such a fear is also the growing number of criminal investigations against journalists or editorial offices for defaming or insulting an official. According to Oleg Panfilov, during Yeltsin’s presidency the number of such criminal court cases against journalists averaged three a year. In 2002 alone, his Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations registered twenty-seven such cases.80 Laura Belin cautioned that ‘though it is hard to measure the chilling effect a criminal investigation has on news reporting, it reminds journalists that they are being watched closely, even when the journalists under investigation are never formally charged or prosecuted’.81 Notes 1 RFE/RL Newsline (5 May 2003); Freedom House Press Freedom Surveys available on www.freedomhouse.org. In the 2004 and 2005 Press Freedom Surveys Russia remained in the ‘not free’ category. 2 I. Zassoursky, Media and Power in Post-Soviet Russia (New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 196. 3 R. Coalson, ‘Now That the Media are Under Control, Let’s Use Them’, RFE/RL Political Weekly, 5:2 (12 January 2005), www.rferl.org/reports/rpw/2005/01/2120105.asp (last accessed 28 October 2005). 4 See also G. Simons, ‘Russian Crisis Management Communication and Media Management Under Putin’, Uppsala University Department of East European Studies Working Papers 85 (January 2005). 5 I. Musakhanov, ‘Zakon o belykh pyatnakh’, Rossiiskie vesti (16 January 2002), p. 3. 6 J. Rowland, ‘Russian Relief as Media Gag Withdrawn’ (26 November 2002), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2514711.stm (last accessed 28 October 2005). 7 N. Yefimova, ‘Duma Votes to Limit News Coverage’, Moscow Times (4 November 2002), p. 1. 8 D.Kamyshev, ‘Deputaty reshili zachistit pressu’, Kommersant-daily (21 December 2001), p. 1. 9 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (22 May 2003). 10 ‘Chetvertaya Vlast poznakomilas s vlastyu’, (10 December 2002), www.gazeta.ru/ parliament/articles/10156.shtml (last accessed: 28 October 2005). 11 The text of the Anti-Terrorist Convention was published in Gazeta (9 April 2003) and Izvestiya (21 April 2003). 12 N. Rostova, ‘Partiya vlasti skupaet mass media optom’ (29 November 2002, www.gazeta.ru/2002/11/29/partiavlasti.shtml (last accessed: 28 October 2005) 13 Klaus-Helge Donath, personal interview with the authors, Moscow (20 May 2003).

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14 The television channel NTV was accused of having shown troop movements on live transmission shortly before the building was stormed. This episode was also criticised by President Putin personally at a meeting with the media community at which he announced his veto of the amendments to the law on the mass media on 25 November 2002; ‘Vstupitelnoe slovo prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii V.V. Putina na vstreche s predstavitelami SMI i zhurnalistskikh organizatsii’ (25 November 2002), www.kremlin.ru. However, NTV broadcast recorded fragments of the storm only after the operation was over; ‘The Press and Terrorism: review and analysis of journalist activity during the hostage taking in Moscow 23–26 October’ (in Russian). Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations (December 2002), www.cjes.ru/bulletin/?bulletin_ id=35 (last accessed 27 June 2005). 15 ‘BBC delay on sensitive live news’, BBC News (22 June 2005). 16 RFE/RL Newsline (22 April 2004), www.rferl.org/newsline/2004/04/1-rus/rus220404.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005) 17 I. Traynor ‘No News is Good News’, Guardian (17 December 1999), www.guardian. co.uk/print/0,3858,3942571-103681,00.htm (last accessed 30 October 2005). 18 V. Putin, First Person: an astonishingly frank portrait by Russia’s president (London: Hutchison, 2000), pp. 171 and 173. 19 A.A. Mukhin and E.Yu. Pakhmonov, ‘Sredstva massovoi informatsii kak instrument v borbe s terrorizmom’ in A.A. Mukhin (ed.), Informatsionnaya bezopasnost i vneshnyaya politika Rossii v XXI veke (Moscow: ZAO Edaspak, 2001), p. 105. 20 The system of accreditation for journalists covering the operations in Chechnya was introduced on 1 October 1999 with Government Resolution No. 1538-R. ‘Legal Analysis of the Accreditation of Mass Media Representatives in Chechnya’, Internews (March 2000). Published at http://internews.ru/law/comment/accreditation.html (last accessed 26 June 2005). 21 According to the international organisation Human Rights Watch, the acquisition of accreditation for Chechnya is a complicated process, as a result of which many international journalists and Russian journalists working for independently owned media outlets have not been awarded accreditation. ‘Arrest of Journalist, Blanket Media Restrictions on Chechnya Condemned’, Human Rights Watch (February 2000). www.hrw.org/press/2000/02/chech0201.htm (last accessed 26 June 2005). 22 This position was created by presidential decree No. 82 on 20 January 2000, entitled ‘Legal Analysis of the Accreditation of Mass Media Representatives in Chechnya’. 23 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (3 June 2003). 24 The federal law of the Russian Federation on the struggle against terrorism was signed by President Boris Yeltsin on 25 July 1998. The text of the law is available on the website of the Federal Security Service at www.fsb.ru/under/terror.html#II (last accessed 27 June 2005). 25 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (3 June 2003). 26 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (14 May 2003). 27 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (13 May 2003). 28 International Federation of Journalists press release (10 February 2003, via BBC Monitoring). 29 This was asserted to the authors in personal interviews with the legal expert Fedor Kravchenko and the author of the present law, Mikhail Fedotov, Moscow (3 June 2003 and 22 May 2003). 30 ‘Culture Minister Wants to Keep Media Law’, RFE/RL Newsline (29 April 2005), www.rferl.org/newsline/2005/04/290405.asp?po=y (last accessed 30 October 2005). 31 For the text of the law see Rossiiskaya gazeta, www.rg.ru/oficial/doc/federal_zak/67fz.shtm (last accessed 25 June 2005).

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32 M. Sokolovskaia, ‘Duma to Silence Mass Media before Elections’ (24 March 2003), www.gazeta.ru/2003/03/24/Dumatosilenc.shtml (last accessed 30 October 2005). 33 Gosudartvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii (Moscow: Izdanie gosudarstvennoi dumy, Vecherneye zasedanie, 21 March 2003), www.akdi.ru/gd/PLEN_Z/2003/03/s2103_v.htm (last accessed 25 June 2005). 34 Stenogram of the Conference ‘The Mass Media on the Eve of the Elections’, Moscow, 17–18 March 2003. www.internews.ru/conference/mediaelections/1.html (last accessed 27 June 2005). 35 V. Khamraev, ‘Rychag protiv SMI’, Politbyuro (9 June 2003), p. 61. 36 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (15 May 2003). 37 N. Abdullaev, ‘Duma Eyes Election Violations’, Moscow Times (24 March 2003), p. 5 38 M. Ozerova, ‘Nesvoboda slova. Strashnyi son zhurnalistov’, Moskovskii komsomolets (28 March 2003), p. 3. 39 V. Zygankov ‘Veshnyakov zanyalsya predvybornym likbezom. Glava TsIK poobeshchal razoblachat oligarchov, finansiruyushchikh partii podpolno’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (20 June 2003), p. 4. 40 K. Katanian, ‘Vremya politiki. Udar po svobode vranya’, Vremya MN (18 March 2003), p. 4. 41 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (12 May 2003). 42 A. Redichkin, O. Redichkina, ‘Osobyi Rezhim dlya SMI’, Gazeta (16 June 2003). 43 See, for example, V. Kovalev, ‘Dunderhead Dictatorship of Election Laws’, Moscow Times (18 September 2003); N. Paton Walsh, ‘Russian Media Warned Under Strict New Law’, Guardian (2 October 2003); RFE/RL Newsline (1 and 8 October 2003). 44 Twenty-eight signatories from SPS, twenty-seven KPRF, nine Agrarians, six each of Yabloko and People’s Deputy, five from Zhirinovskii’s LDPR, and some independent deputies. Source: F. Mereu, ‘100 Deputies Challenge Media Restrictions’, Moscow Times (23 September 2003). 45 ‘Zhaloby na novoe vybornoe zakonodatelstvo proplacheny, schitaet Aleksandr Veshnyakov’, Rosbalt, 30 September 2003, www.rosbalt.ru/2003/09/30/121412.html (last accessed 26 June 2005). 46 Yu. Chernega, ‘“Vlast” peredumali upotreblyat’, Kommersant-daily (3 October 2003), p. 4. 47 A. Zakatnova, ‘Spasatelei brosili na byurokratiyu’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (17 October 2003), p. 3. 48 ‘President Putin Welcomes Constitutional Court Decision’, RFE/RL Newsline (4 November 2003), www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/11/1-RUS/rus-041103.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). 49 Ibid. 50 Sokolovskaya, ‘Duma to Silence Mass Media Before Elections’. 51 Doctrine available on the Security Council Website. www.scrf.gov.ru/documents/ decree/2000_pr-1895.shtml (last accessed 27 June 2005). Excerpts used in this chapter are the authors’ own translation. 52 O. Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations, in F. Mereu, ‘More Media Headaches Forecast After “Bad Year”’, The Russia Journal (13 January 2001), p. 4. 53 See, for example, S. Ofitova, ‘Zhurnalistam teper zanimaetsya Sovbez. Ni v Minpechati, ni v Dume ne videli podpisannoi Prezidentom Doktriny Informbezopasnosti’, Segodnya (13 September 2000), p. 3; M. Ozerova, ‘Doktrina s ugrozoi’, Moskovskii komsomolets (20 September 2000), p. 3. 54 B. Aris, ‘Newspaper Shut for Lampoon of Putin’, The Electronic Telegraph (22 February 2003), www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/22/

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wput22.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/02/22/ixworld.html&secureRefresh=true&_requesti d=181044 (last accessed 30 October 2005). F. Mereu, ‘We’re Going to Lose Press Freedom Here’, The Russia Journal (9 December 2000), p. 8; ‘The Return of Censorship?’, The Russia Journal (10–16 November 2002), p. 3. The events surrounding the Versiya tabloid is only one of several examples cited in these articles. C. Cozens, ‘Second Journalist “Drugged” by Russians’, Guardian (10 September 2004), www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1301652,00.html (last accessed 30 October 2005). L. Belin, ‘Political Bias and Self-Censorship in the Russian Media’, in A. Brown (ed.) Contemporary Russian Politics: a reader (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 335. Print-media outlets that have closed or were taken over since 2001 are Segodnya (closed), Itogi (takeover), Novye izvestiya (closed), Nezavisimaya gazeta (takeover), Obshchaya Gazeta (closed). L. Belin, ‘TVS: another failed experiment in private television’, RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly (26 June 2003), www.rferl.org/reports/rpw/2003/06/25-260603.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). RFE/RL Newsline (22 November 2002), www.rferl.org/newsline/2002/11/1-RUS/rus221102.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). ‘New Wariness in Russia Toward Help From West’, New York Times (16 January 2003), www.cdi.org/russia/Johnson/7020-1.cfm (last accessed 30 October 2005). According to Oleg Panfilov, the head of the Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations (www.cjes.ru) twnety journalists were refused Russian visas in autumn 2002. ‘Russian Journalist Union Chief Warns New ‘Iron Curtain’ Descending on Media’, Interfax (14 November 2002; via BBC Monitoring). See, ‘New Wariness in Russia Toward Help From West’; ‘In Russia, Echoes of the Old KGB’, US News & World Report (30 July 2001), www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/ 5358.html, last accessed 30 October 2005); N. Yefimova, ‘Foreigners Wonder Who Will Be Next’, Moscow Times (13 January 2003), p. 1. The refusal of re-entry visas to thirty Peace Corps Volunteers posted in Russia in December 2002 was much criticised. FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev justified this decision by asserting that ‘Some of them were gathering information about the political and socio-economic situation in Russian regions, about governing bodies and elections’. ‘Russian Security Chief Recounts Counterintelligence Successes of 2002’, Interfax (15 December 2002), www.cdi.org/ russia/Johnson/6601.htm (last accessed 30 October 2005). ‘Russian Security Chief Recounts Counterintelligence Successes of 2002’. B. Schumatzky, ‘Kritik? Unerwunscht!’, Die Tageszeitung (9 November 2002), p. 4. The offending article was ‘Kim II Putin lasst sich feiern’, Die Tageszeitung (7 May 2001), p. 4. Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (20 May 2003). T.L. Thomas, ‘Dialectical Versus Empirical Thinking: ten key elements of the Russian understanding of information operations’, FMSO Special Study, 98-21 (September 1998), 9. For discussions of the ‘information-psychological’ aspect of information security in Russian academic work, see E.M. Andreev, ‘Informatsionnaya bezopasnost i deiatelnosti SMI’, in G. Osipov (ed.) Reformirovanie Rossii: Ot mifov k realnosti (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for Socio-Political Research 2001); L.L. Efimova, ‘Ratifikatsiya i sobliudenie Rossiei mezhdunarodnykh pravovykh aktov v oblasti elektronnykh SMI kak mera, sposobstvuyushchaya obespecheniyu informatsionnoi bezopasnosti’, in A.A. Mukhin (ed.) Informatsionnaya bezopasnost i vneshnyaya politika Rossii v XXI Veke (Moscow: ZAO Edaspak, 2001). Russia TV (18 July 2001; via BBC Monitoring).

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70 ‘Vystupitelnoe slovo Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii V. V. Putina na vstreche s predstavitelami SMI i zhurnalistskikh organisatsii’, www.kremlin.ru (25 November 2002). 71 ‘Terror – eto krov, stradaniya i ochen bolshie dengi’, Parlamentskaya gazeta (6 July 2002), p. 1. 72 ITAR-TASS (14 April 2003; via BBC Monitoring). 73 Interfax (14 March 2003; via BBC Monitoring). 74 B. Tarasov, ‘Vlast i pressa nuzhny drug drugu – Schitaet zamestitel nachalnika upravleniya problem informatsionnoi bezopasnosti SB Rossii Anatolii Streltsov’, Vek (1 February 2002), p. 3. 75 Ibid. 76 R. Gorevoi, ‘Vlast i pressa. God informatsionnoi bezopasnosti’, Novaya gazeta (10 September 2001), p. 6. 77 According to the Doctrine, ‘the greatest danger in the sphere of spiritual life is posed by the following threats to the information security of the Russian Federation: … uncontrolled expansion of the foreign media sector in the domestic information space’. 78 Mukhin and Pakhmonov ‘Sredstva massovoi informatsii’, p. 104. 79 Traynor, ‘No News is Good News for the Russian Military’. See also T.L. Thomas, Manipulating Mass Consciousness: Russian and Chechen ‘information war’ tactics in the 2nd Chechen-Russian conflict, US Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/chechiw.htm (last accessed 28 June 2005). The same accusation was made against US Peace Corps volunteers, whose activities in Russia were discontinued from the Russian side in January 2003. Then, the director of the FSB Nikolai Patrushev accused Peace Corps volunteers of illicitly ‘collecting information on the sociopolitical and economic situation in Russia’, A. Labi, ‘A Diplomat for the Corps’, Time Europe (13 January 2003), www.time.com/time/ nation/article/0,8599,404237,00.html (last accessed 30 October 2005). 80 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (30 May 2003). 81 L. Belin, ‘2002: a quietly bad year for the Russian media’, RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly (11 January 2003), www.rferl.org/reports/rpw/2003/01/2-110103.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005).

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According to Aleksandr Gurov, a current member and former chairman, the Duma Committee for Security ‘considers the concept of national security in the widest sense. In today’s Russia we have to go beyond protecting only the state’s interests … We think that the state can only flourish and be strong if every citizen is protected from crime, and sometimes from those in power themselves. Only then can a developed civil society exist. The security of the individual and of society is the basis for a state’s security.’1 This conceptualisation of the security aspects of civil society brings out a number of key points which have been evident in the wider process of securitisation in Russian in recent years. First, the insistence that the concept of national security be interpreted ‘in the widest sense’. This is by no means a phenomenon peculiar to Russia, and for a number of years – particularly since the end of the Cold War – both academic literature on security and the discourse and decisions of policy-makers have increasingly drawn in issues of ‘soft’ security, in addition to the more traditional, military-based ‘hard’ security matters focused on territorial defence. As we discuss in more detail throughout this chapter, this widening of the definition of security has been embraced fully by Russian policy-makers seeking to securitise a whole range of domestic policy areas. At the forefront of such moves in the immediate post-Soviet years was the Security Council, an institution whose existence – unlike most bodies connected with the presidential administration – is set out in the Russian Constitution (article 83). The presidential decree of June 1992 which established the Security Council gave it the responsibility of preparing an annual report to act as a basic programme for the executive, including the government, ‘on questions of domestic, foreign and military policy’. This wide remit has been used at different times to justify Security Council engagement with a range of issues, including health, scientific affairs, regional policy, social questions,

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‘spiritual security’, migration, and a long list of economic questions (see Chapter 7). Second, the clear primacy of the state in the security hierarchy, even when applied to concepts of the individual and civil society. In this view, a developed civil society can only come about if there is a strong state, and the security of the individual and of society need to be in place to ensure the security of the state. Of course, Gurov’s comments cited above, and the circular argument contained therein, must be taken neither as a carefully worked out treatise nor a clear statement of government policy. Nonetheless, their privileging of the state and state security in relation to the question of civil society is illustrative of the way in which civil society in Russia has increasingly been placed under some form of state overview in recent years, justified by the discourse of security. Third, and related, the notion that civil society as a whole would welcome some form of state assistance in its formation and development. This is far from self-evident. One of the freedoms of the early postcommunist period was the removal of the Soviet system whereby almost all public organisations were state-owned, party-controlled, or, most usually, both. The essence of civil society is independence from the state, and there is a tension between that independence and the idea that the state can help to build civil society. The state might provide an appropriate legal framework for a flourishing civil society, and it is essential that there be interaction between the state and civil society. However, the Russian state has arguably gone beyond that since the freedoms of the early 1990s. According to Lyudmilla Alekseeva, the chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, ‘what Putin is doing … this is not law-enforcement, it is bureaucracy enforcement’.2 This desire for civil society to be bureaucratically controlled by the state, within the state tent rather than outside it, has echoes of the Soviet notion that organisations not officially part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union should nonetheless serve as ‘transmission belts’ communicating the views of the centre to the public at large. In November 2001 a Kremlin-sponsored ‘Civic Forum’ was held in Moscow, attended by 5,000 representatives from amongst the 350,000 NGOs existing in Russia. President Putin, addressing the Forum, noted that ‘civil society cannot be formed at the initiative of government officials’ and called for an increased dialogue between the government and NGOs.3 The response from the NGOs themselves was mixed; many were very positive towards the event and the message coming from the federal authorities about cooperation with them, others saw the Forum as an unwelcome attempt by the state to oversee the development of civil society. Despite intimations to the contrary from the government, no second Civic Forum has yet been held.

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In this chapter our concern is not to enter the debate about whether ‘soft’ security issues – such as crime, drugs, export policy, mobilisation readiness and so on – are stretching the concept of security beyond that which most analytical frameworks will bear. Instead, as throughout this book, our aim is to study securitisation in contemporary Russia as a specific feature of domestic policy-making. What we are interested in is the use of the securitisation discourse to convince key audiences – policymakers, legislators, and the general public – that particular policy areas are legitimate security concerns and therefore require special attention, oversight, and control. Beginning with the religion law of 1997, and progressing through laws on social organisations, political parties, extremists, migration, foreigners, the media, and political demonstrations, the Russian state has tightened up its control of civil society in recent years. In most of these cases there are sufficient regulations for the state to move with a clear legal basis against groups or individuals which might be considered in some sense a threat. In particular the minutiae of registration regulations and the ill-defined catch-all nature of some provisions – for example, the law on extremism’s ban on ‘the propaganda of exclusiveness, superiority or inferiority’ – mean that for groups making up civil society, transgressions of the law, witting or not, are relatively straightforward to allege or identify. The suspicion then is that the transgression of a minor point of law represents the means by which an organisation is attacked, rather than the reason for that attack. So, for example, when the party Liberal Russia first attempted to register under the Law on Political Parties introduced in 2001, their registration was refused ostensibly on the grounds that the aims of the party were not in accordance with the law. A party spokesman claimed, however, that the particular aims with which the Ministry of Justice had difficulty were taken almost verbatim from the registration documents of the party closest to the Kremlin, United Russia, which of course had had no problem registering. According to the former leader of Liberal Russia, Sergei Yushenkov – who was murdered in 2003 – the two unofficial explanations received from the Ministry of Justice for these initial difficulties in registering were that Liberal Russia represented a strident opposition and that it was funded by the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovskii, by now a sworn enemy of the Putin regime.4 Similar examples of the apparent application of the detail in various registration laws to organisations not approved of by the state can be found in the sphere of both religious groups and NGOs, and we have already noted in Chapter 3 the case of Malik Saidullaev, who was denied registration as a candidate in the Chechen presidential election of 2004 because the Chechen election committee decreed that his registration document

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should have stated his place of birth not as Chechnya but as its Soviet-era name, the Chechen-Ingush Republic. A final common feature to note with regard to securitising moves made in relation to Russian civil society, before we consider particular cases in more detail, is the notion held within the FSB, and by President Putin himself, that particular groups which make up civil society serve as a front for international espionage and attempts from abroad to undermine the Russian state and way of life. Consequently there exists a particular suspicion of such groups which have international connections. Whilst Putin was the head of the FSB and secretary of the Security Council in July 1999, shortly before he became prime minister, he gave an interview in which he declared that ‘foreign security services, under diplomatic cover, very actively use in their work various ecological and social organisations, commercial firms, and charitable foundations. This is why these structures … will always be under our fixed attention. The interests of the state demand this from us.’5 Similar sentiments were being heard six years later from Putin’s appointee as head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev. Appearing before the State Duma in May 2005 – during the weekly ‘government hour’ when members of the executive take questions from the legislature – Patrushev complained about the problem of the activities of foreign NGOs damaging the security of the country and the inadequacy of the legal base for dealing with them. He called on deputies to adopt legislation regulating the activities of foreign NGOs in Russia, in order to ‘increase the effectiveness of state oversight of their registration and activities’. Patrushev promised that a draft law along those lines would be prepared by the Ministry of Justice and the FSB and submitted to the Duma ‘in the near future’.6 Of course there is no doubt that international espionage continues, and it would be foolish to dismiss out of hand the accusations from Putin and Patrushev that foreign intelligence agencies have worked through NGOs and other organisations. However, one of the solutions being pursued in Russia involves legislation to tighten up control over the entire sector in terms of regulating their registration and activities. Spiritual security

Our first example of a securitisation discourse in a specific area of civil society in contemporary Russia is in relation to religion and, specifically, the religion law of 1997. This example is chosen for several reasons. First, it serves as a clear example of the process of securitising an issue which would not normally be considered a security matter. Second, the success of this securitisation is such that the issue of religion has remained a security issue in Russia from the mid-1990s to this day, with the religion

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law acting as a precursor for later legislative acts, such as the extremism law which we consider below. Third, the process of securitisation in different areas of civil society has been a developmental one. As in a number of chapters in this book, we argue that the dividing line between Yeltsin and Putin is not so stark as it is commonly perceived to be in regard to securitisation. Such phenomena as ‘spy-mania’, the appointment of former security service personnel into senior political positions, and the securitisation process in civil society all began shortly after Yeltsin’s presidential election victory in 1996. In the mid-1990s a new term began to appear in the discourse on religious freedom in Russia – ‘spiritual security’ (dukhovnaya bezopasnost). The first use of this term to be found in the Eastview database of Russian newspapers is from December 1996, in a letter from a group of academics on the topic of the ‘spiritual vacuum’ in Russia being filled by ‘primitive’ and ‘anti-scientific’ ideas.7 As Julie Elkner points out, the origins of the phrase can be traced to the March 1992 Russian federal law on security, whose adoption represented a pointed rejection of the old Soviet paradigm of security. At the time, an emphasis on the importance of ‘spiritual values’, which were mentioned in the first article of the law, was intended to flag a shift away from Soviet militant atheism and from state persecution of religious believers.8

However, the idea of spiritual values as an approach to liberalising security policy soon gave way to the contemporary usage of spiritual security as a construction to justify increased state oversight of religious activity in Russia. In terms of the securitisation framework employed in this book, the case of religion provides a clear example of the process of securitisation, in all of its stages, being employed in an area of civil society not traditionally associated with security matters. At the end of the Soviet era, following on from the officially embraced celebration of the millennium of Orthodoxy in Russia in 1988, the Soviet authorities, in line with Gorbachev’s increasing emphasis on individual freedoms, passed the USSR Law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations, which was signed by Mikhail Gorbachev on 1 October 1990.9 This all-union law was swiftly followed by a Russian law, the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) Law On Freedom of Faith, passed by the RSFSR Supreme Soviet on 25 October 1990.10 At the same time as the RSFSR law was passed, all official resolutions and regulations, be they at all-union or republic level, which contradicted the 25 October law were declared null and void. These laws therefore established religious freedom in Russia after decades of statesponsored atheism and persecution. They ushered in a period in which

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spiritual activity blossomed across a wide range of confessions and denominations. Partly due to people’s curiosity with regard to what had for so long been officially frowned upon, attendance at religious services increased. In 1991 only 2 per cent of Russian men and 7 per cent of women attended religious services once a month or more; by 1998 that figure had risen to 5 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.11 Such a revival in religious activity did not only benefit traditional Russian religious groups, in particular the Russian Orthodox Church, but also many other groups with origins in the West for which the curiosity factor was even higher. A more important cultural shift than is reflected in the actual rise in church attendance came in the visible presence of many different religious groupings. Some – such as the pentecostals, baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists – had long had a presence in Russia but had been relatively hidden by the repressive policies of the Soviet regime. Others, in particular evangelical groups from Europe, Korea, and the United States, were newcomers on the scene.12 The presence of numerous ‘new’ religions – many of which appeared to have significant financial backing, and the least welcome of which operated in ways which were culturally unacceptable to most Russians – began to make a public impact by the mid-1990s. The first use of the term ‘spiritual security’ mentioned above (from a letter published in Nezavisimaya gazeta in December 1996) provides a good example of the sort of concerns which began to be raised. The academic authors of this letter warned against the advertisements and claims of ‘several religious sects’, and stated that: We consider that the dissemination and propagandising of obscurantism in all its forms and manifestations represents a serious threat to the spiritual, moral and social values of our society and a danger to the physical and psychological health of the people.13

Already within this early use of the phrase ‘spiritual security’ the process of securitisation is apparent in the use of the term ‘security’ itself and in the elucidation of apparent threats to significant referent objects namely ‘society’ and ‘the people’. The securitisation of religious policy, however, also drew on wider and deeper alleged threats than those which simply faced people who engaged with the activities of religious ‘sects’. These threats centred on the place of the Russian Orthodox Church as a symbol of ‘Russian-ness’. In 1990s Russia in particular much was made by politicians across the political spectrum of the centrality of Russian Orthodoxy as a unifying factor in Russian society.14 Opinion polls showed that more than half of Russia’s population, that is well over 70 million people, identified themselves as Orthodox in the mid-1990s.15 This level of self-identification with the ‘national church’ did not translate

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for most self-identified believers into religious practice in the sense of church attendance, let alone familiarity with the basics of Orthodox belief, religious festivals, and so on. It centred instead on identifying oneself as Russian. With the removal of Soviet ideology and its accompanying belief system, there was widespread discussion of the need for a ‘national idea’ in Russia. President Boris Yeltsin established a commission of experts to come up with a workable formula for the same, of which little was subsequently heard. And yet the notion continued to lie at the heart of much political rhetoric; so much so that when Vladimir Putin issued his ‘Russia at the Turn of the Millennium’ statement, on taking over as acting president from Yeltsin on 31 December 1999, he laid great stress on the notion of ‘the Russian idea’ and emphasised that ensuring the unity of Russian society is a ‘spiritual and moral problem’. At the heart of Putin’s definition of the Russian idea lies the concept of ‘traditional Russian values’, including patriotism.16 In the mid-1990s although no one could apparently define the Russian idea, the behaviour of key political actors across the ideological spectrum reflected the notion that Russian Orthodoxy was central to it. During the election campaigns of 1995 and 1996, for the Duma and the presidency respectively, Russian Orthodoxy played a part in the campaign strategies of many leading candidates. In December 1995, for example, representatives from seventeen parties attended a conference hosted by the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Aleksii II at the Danilovskii Monastery. Those present included the communist leader – and subsequent ‘runner up’ in the presidential election six months later – Gennadii Zyuganov, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) which had topped the party list ballot in the 1993 parliamentary election, and the then prime minister and leader of the pro-government NDR (Our Home Is Russia) party, Viktor Chernomyrdin. The opportunity to be seen with the head of the church represented the chance to appeal by association to a large electorate. This strategy of the use of religion in campaigning became even more marked in the 1996 presidential election. Often engagement with the church came in the form of symbolism. In a campaign where scarcely a candidate departed from overt adherence to some form of Russian national-patriotism, and pride in the traditions of the great Russian nation, then almost the ideal photo-opportunity – except in ethnically non-Russian areas – was of the candidate with an Orthodox priest. Both of the second-round candidates, Boris Yeltsin and Gennadii Zyuganov, went frequently to be seen at church during the campaign. Both talked favourably of the influence of the Orthodox Church in

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Russia, and denounced the persecution of the church during the Soviet era. Both promised religious freedom at the same time as proposing to act against religious groups from the West. The ideological message being sent out by candidates’ eagerness to be seen with priests was broadly, one of support for Russia, its traditions, and its uniqueness. Such a stance stood well alongside a national mood which was less pro-Western than that of the immediate post-Soviet period of the early 1990s. Democratisation and marketisation had failed to deliver the prosperity perhaps naively expected in the early years of the decade, and many saw traditional Russian culture as under threat from an allegedly shallower, more materialistic, and more individualistic Western society. This translated in the area of religion, to a fear that ‘Western’ creeds were proving more attractive than the supposedly deeper spirituality of Orthodoxy, and feeding on the spiritual naivety of a Russian population which had for decades been denied the teachings of the Orthodox Church. These concerns could and did fill in the background to a range of different political stances. The reformers, amongst whom Boris Yeltsin counted himself, sought to make their declared commitment to liberal democracy and a market economy more attractive by emphasising too their commitment to a Russia-first stance, showing that their preference for reformist policies did not equate with kowtowing to all the demands of the West.17 The symbolism of Russian Orthodoxy helped to demonstrate this. For the opposition forces, headed by the communist Zyuganov, the nationalist elements of Orthodoxy came to the fore. He attacked the Yeltsin regime for allowing the influx of all things Western, and spoke in emotive terms of the cultural genocide of the Russian people. Such concerns about the nature of the Western influence on Russia were shared by the Orthodox hierarchy, who also employed the discourse of securitisation in relation to the influence of the West in general, and ‘Western sects’ in particular. Patriarch Aleksii II, has warned, for example, that ‘we must recognise that a well-planned bloodless war is being waged against our people … this situation compels us, the clergy, monastics, and all true children of the Russian Orthodox Church, to fight for the salvation of our nation and our country’.18 The referent object of ‘the nation’ and ‘the country’ are central to the discourse of spiritual security, as is the portrayal of the spiritual arena as a war. The religion law of 1997

We have established then that – to use the language of Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde as outlined in Chapter 119 – a ‘securitising move’ has been made by a number of key actors in relation to religion in Russia since the mid-

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1990s. However, for a successful securitisation to have been completed, it is not enough for a securitising move to be made. A successful securitisation requires that the audience for this move be sufficiently convinced by the discourse to accept the securitisation of an issue. The successful securitisation of religious policy in Russia occurred most demonstrably in 1997, when the securitising discourse was overwhelmingly backed by the Russian parliament in the passing of the Law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations. This law brought in state controls on religious bodies, by means of registration requirements. It also – in line with a number of measures outlined in this book which securitise issues by taking them out of ‘normal’ politics and pushing them into the security realm20 – sails very close to undermining the provisions of the Russian Constitution. We noted above the liberal Law On Freedom of Faith passed by the parliament of the RSFSR on October 1990. This then became the law in force in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Fairly shortly after the Soviet collapse there were attempts to pass a law in Russia limiting the newly instituted freedom of ‘non-traditional’ religious groups. The Supreme Soviet even passed such a law in 1993, shortly before its forcible dissolution by President Yeltsin in September 1993. This Supreme Soviet was the Russian parliament remaining from the Soviet era, and its dominant conservative element engaged in a power struggle with the president in 1992 and 1993. Nonetheless, limitations on religious activities in post-Soviet Russia began to be enacted at a regional level. From 1994 onwards local laws were passed restricting in various ways the activities of different religious groups. By 1997 over a quarter of Russia’s eighty-nine regions had passed some form of local law on religion. These laws tended to have certain common elements which later became part of the national law of October 1997. They regularly made a distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘nontraditional’ religions. Those commonly named as traditional were Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, and – less commonly but still named – Judaism. Russian Orthodoxy is unique in this list as it alone is not a religion in itself, but rather a denomination within the Christian religion. A second common feature of the local laws on religion was the requirement for religious groups to register. In this way local authorities could monitor the activities of groups and deny registration to those of which they did not approve. Many local laws also sought to prohibit specific activities, such as healing or active attempts to attract new members, despite – or quite possibly without knowing – the fact that in Russian Orthodoxy both healing and evangelism are a part of both doctrine and practice. In addition to these legal provisions, a number of regional authorities used administrative means to restrict the activities of

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unwanted religious groups. This would often involve a refusal to allow them to hire public buildings for meetings. By 1996, the proliferation of local laws on religion led to attempts in the State Duma to pass a national law on religion. The first reading of the religion law was passed in July of that year. After much debate in the committee stage the bill was finally passed in its later stages in June 1997, only to be rejected by President Yeltsin under pressure from Western governments, particularly that of the United States, who objected to its content. All of the features of the local laws noted above found their way into the law rejected by Yeltsin in July 1997, and he sent the bill back to parliament asking that it be redrafted. The revised version of the Law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations was passed by parliament in September and accepted by the president on 1 October 1997. The revised version was scarcely more liberal than its predecessor, indeed some commentators thought it to be even harsher. According to Lawrence Uzzell the law represented ‘the first systematic rollback of fundamental freedoms since the collapse of the USSR’. The discourse of securitisation was evident throughout the process of passing the 1997 law. Just before the voting on the second and third readings in June 1997, Patriarch Aleksii II told the Russian television station, NTV, that ‘today’s proselytism, by foreign sects and missionaries ... in Russia, is something of an eastward expansion and you may perhaps draw parallels with NATO’s expansion to the East’.22 In the parliamentary debates themselves reference was made to the threats to Russia’s very identity. As the Communist deputy Yurii Belov put it: There is really one underlying reason to fight for this law, namely, the attack of various types of sects, including totalitarian sects, aimed particularly against the Russian Orthodox Church. And we communists, atheist by conviction, nonetheless will defend the Orthodox church, because at the root of Russian culture, lies Orthodox culture. It is our national culture. This is the heart of the matter.23

In securitisation terms, clearly the key audience, the parliament, was convinced by such a discourse. The final vote, in September 1997, saw 357 deputies voting for the law, and only six voting against.24 What is more, opinion polls showed majority support for the bill amongst the general population, a factor which had no doubt been considered by President Yeltsin when, having initially rejected the bill, he sent it back to parliament for consideration and signed it when it was once again passed. As Duma deputy and former Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov remarked during the September debate on the law, ‘We remember how negative the people’s reaction was a couple of months back, when we discovered that the president had not signed this law’.25

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There are elements of the 1997 religion law which are exactly in line with the constitution, as the law explicitly repeats some of the rights guaranteed by the constitution word for word. There are other elements of the law, however, which appear to contradict both the constitution and earlier articles of the law. The most obvious example being the contradiction of the constitutional provision article 14/2, repeated in article 4/1 of the 1997 law, which states that ‘religious associations are separated from the state and are equal before the law’. Article 6/2 of the Law On Religious Associations, however, demonstrates the somewhat Orwellian nature of such equality, as some religious associations are more equal than others. It states that ‘religious associations may be formed as religious groups and religious organisations’. This apparently directly contradicts the earlier statement and constitutional provision that religious associations are equal before the law, as the distinction between ‘groups’ and ‘organisations’ is the pivot on which the 1997 law turns and the basis for allegations that religious freedom has been seriously curtailed. The majority of the text of the law is devoted to the differing rights granted to religious groups and religious organisations. In short, registered religious organisations have a legal identity which is essential for much of such organisations’ activity. It enables them to have bank accounts, own buildings, conduct charity work, have international links, produce literature, and employ people. Without registration, religious groups cannot do any of these things. Much of the discourse surrounding the introduction of the 1997 religion law in Russia, as we have seen, involved positing ‘non-traditional’ faiths as a threat to Russian society and national identity. There was therefore within this discourse an implicit privileging of the Russian Orthodox Church, alongside an acknowledgement that other faiths – notably Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism – had a long-standing presence in Russia and did not pose such a threat as they were largely focused on their own communities or in specific areas, particularly the national republics (Russia has five Islamic and one Buddhist republic). However, the law as eventually accepted and interpreted did not substantively back up this privileging of Orthodoxy and other traditional faiths. The nearest it came to doing so was in its preamble, which reads: The Federative Assembly of the Russian Federation, affirming the right of each person to freedom of conscience and freedom of creed, as well as to equality before the law irrespective of attitudes to religion and convictions; basing itself on the fact that the Russian Federation is a secular state; recognizing the special role of Orthodoxy in the history of Russia and in the establishment and development of its spirituality and culture; respecting Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and other religions, constituting an integral part of the historical heritage of the peoples of Russia; considering it

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important to cooperate in the achievement of mutual understanding, toleration, and respect in matters of freedom of conscience and freedom of religious profession; adopts the present federal law.

Two points arise. First, the preamble of the law has no binding force and identifies no particular legal privileges, although it might serve to reinforce official and popular hierarchies of religious belief. Second, in its list of religions to be respected it includes Christianity, mentioned separately from the more precise preceding phrase regarding one specific Christian denomination, namely Russian Orthodoxy. The preamble therefore implicitly includes those Christian denominations often cited in the discourse as a threat to Russia (for example, Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists) on the same basis as Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. Beyond this preamble, the text of the law itself applies to all religious associations. The only privileging comes in the requirement that in order to register, associations must show evidence of having existed on Russian territory for fifteen years or become part of a religious association which has done so. This requirement was clearly more easily met by established and hierarchical associations, rather than newer ones which valued their independence and were either reluctant to join or unlikely to be accepted by older associations. The effect of the 1997 religion law

The Law On Religious Associations passed in 1997 has been explored at some length here in order to establish and illuminate the pattern of a successful securitisation in the sphere of civil society. There is a clear discourse with existential threats identified to vital referent objects, and the acceptance by a key audience that special actions need to be taken. These actions involve the enactment of laws to strengthen state oversight which arguably infringe upon existing rights and constitutional statements. However, there remains one further common factor linking the religion law and other similar laws discussed below, namely that its effect has not been so detrimental to civil society as many feared at the time of its promulgation. What we see is the establishment of a legal procedure by which the state can – and sometimes does – control the actions of particular groups in civil society, but which nonetheless enables most groups most of the time to continue their activities. It is akin to snatchsquad control of a crowd, where on occasion the police will target particular individuals perceived as trouble-makers and single them out, removing them from the crowd both to be rid of them and also to serve as a warning to the rest of the crowd. As the religious freedom NGO Forum 18 stated in its submission to the US Commission on Security and

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Cooperation in Europe in April 2005, in relation to religious groups which reject official state oversight, ‘they are able to function unimpeded because they are inconspicuous’.26 The argument that things are not as bad as they could have been should not be taken to imply that all is well with regards to religious freedom in Russia. A detailed consideration of those cases where the state appears to have persecuted particular religious groupings is beyond the analytical scope of this chapter and in any case requires a far lengthier analysis than can be provided here. Suffice it to say that the following examples illustrate the sort of discriminatory activities which continue to occur in Russia, frequently at the instigation of regional authorities, and with occasional FSB involvement: thirty-nine out of forty-seven Muslim communities in Stavropol region have been denied registration by the authorities;27 a Baptist church south of Moscow suffered a police raid on its youth meetings and ‘a new level of religious persecution – the physical destruction of a church building’ in 2004, although by mid-2005 they had been able to rebuild their premises and conduct youth meetings without harassment;28 reports of FSB oversight of religious activities have increased since 2002, a Bible school reported ‘constant FSB checks’, and leaders of Russia’s largest Old Believer denomination report being summoned to visit their respective local FSB headquarters ahead of the election of the denomination’s new head, to be advised on which candidate to choose – the candidate anointed by the FSB was not selected;29 the Catholic church experienced a series of visa problems for its priests in the period 2002–04, but the situation improved again after that period.30 Despite these examples, it is nonetheless the case that the difficulties for religious freedom predicted with the introduction of the 1997 law did not materialise to the extent many critics expected. Indeed, there are grounds for arguing that the registration procedure required under the 1997 law for religious associations to enjoy legal personage, with its accompanying rights, has strengthened many religious groups, albeit at the cost of placing them within the tent of the state registration regime.31 In some ways the 1997 law fulfils the function of providing legal recognition and status protected by the state, and in this way, the longer term future of religious civil society might be enhanced. Two points in particular are worth noting. First, as elaborated above, the 1997 law was drafted in such a way as to make it difficult for small independent religious groups to register, and so they responded by the use of an option in the legislation which made registration of religious associations easier if it was done through a registered centralized religious organization. In this way, the diverse and dispersed nascent civil society that many religious associations formed became more coherent,

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identifiable, and able to work as one, against or around the demands of the state. Second, the law has, since its introduction, been used by religious organisations to resist attacks from the state, usually in the form of regional authorities. The cause célèbre with regard to such attacks is probably that of the Moscow City authorities’ attempt to close down the Salvation Army, partly on the laughable grounds that it was a militarised organisation. In 2002 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation issued a ruling on the complaint of the Salvation Army that had been submitted in the name of the organization by the lawyers Ryakhovskii and Pchelintsev of the Institute of Religion and Law. The court ruled that provisions of the 1997 Law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations had been applied improperly with regard to the Salvation Army. This is not the only case where moves against religious groups have been thwarted largely due to the efforts of lawyers using the protection offered by the 1997 religion law. The US State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights for Russia in 2003 noted that: While isolated difficulties with registration continued to appear in different regions around the country, human rights lawyers and representatives of religious minorities reported that such difficulties related to the 1997 law decreased during the year. Local courts have upheld the right of nontraditional groups to register or reregister in a number of cases.32

The Law on Combating Extremist Activity

The use of registration procedures on the part of the Russian state to contain and manage civil society has been established as a common strategy in recent years, continuing Soviet-era practice where registration with the authorities was a familiar requirement in many areas of life, including religion. Alongside the registration of religious associations from 1997 onwards, a process of the re-registration of all ‘public associations’ was required by 1 July 1999, under the terms of the 1995 Law On Public Associations.33 Although only introduced in 1995, this law has been superseded by at least two other important pieces of legislation since then, as well as sharing common elements with the 1997 law on religion. When it was drawn up, the Law On Public Associations included in its remit the registration of political parties. In 2001 the enactment of a Law on Political Parties placed parties under a different registration regime from that used for public associations. In 2002 the parliament passed a Law On Combating Extremist Activity, giving the authorities power to act against organisations which could be identified as extremist. It is useful to consider these laws of 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2002 as a developmental process. Not only do laws by necessity have to relate to

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existing legislation with which they interact, but politically too there exists a traceable logic of continuity from the Yeltsin to the Putin eras with regard to the security-driven desire for the state to exert more control over civil society. Whatever the flaws of the legislation in question – and these are analysed in some detail below – the Russian state is far from unique in having wrestled with the question of how to identify and define forces in society whose views and intentions stray sufficiently far beyond the pale of ‘normal’ politics for their exclusion from such processes to be deemed beneficial. In the mid-1990s the discourse of security was not to do with terrorism and international espionage, as it is a decade later, but rather to do with the holding back of the forces of fascism in Russia. In 1993 the far-right LDPR had won almost a quarter of the popular vote in Russia’s first post-Soviet general election. The LDPR is no longer recognised as a serious threat but rather as a constant presence in parliament which generally garners around 15 per cent of the seats and displays a maverick attitude ameliorated by a general willingness to vote with the government. Nonetheless, in the immediate aftermath of the 1993 elections, not only was the future direction of the LDPR unclear, but a number of other far-right groups began to emerge, seeking to draw on the powerful combination of Russian nationalism, anti-Westernism, disillusioned youth, and economic collapse. In July 1998 President Yeltsin publicly berated the then minister for justice, Pavel Krasheninnikov, over the fact that the Justice Ministry ‘is registering public associations, political parties, and organizations upholding extremist views’.34 The difficulty was, however, as Krasheninnikov pointed out, that a precise legal definition of extremism did not exist. The Russian Federation has a constitutional ban on organisations which foment religious, social, or racial hatred (article 13), but in legal terms this was deemed insufficient and so at the end of 1997 the president established an expert council under the Commission for Countering Political Extremism to explore the matter. The work of this Commission allowed political actors to further securitise the concept of ‘extremism’ by tying it to specific threats to identified referent objects. At a conference organised by the Commission in 1998, the then head of the FSB, Nikolai Kovalev, argued that ‘extremists’ were linked to organised crime and gave cover to criminal groups.35 Vladimir Putin too, as early as 1998 when he was still head of the FSB, identified extremism as an existential threat to the territory of Russia, asserting that, ‘the fight against political and nationalist extremism, the preservation of the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation represent one of the FSB priority tasks’.36 By the time the Law On Combating Extremist Activity was drawn up and passed in the summer of 2002, the nature of the threats being

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expressed within the discourse of its proponents had changed radically. The second Chechen War, and its accompanying terrorism, was well established, the after-effects of the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 were still reverberating around the world, and the Russian state was stronger under President Putin than it had been under an ailing Yeltsin four or five years earlier. An initial draft of a law on opposing extremism was submitted to parliament in June 1999 amidst increasing concern about the rise of skinhead attacks on ethnic minorities in Moscow. It was backed up by a Security Council declaration that the law was urgently needed. By the autumn of that year, however, far-right extremism had been joined on the agenda by Islamic extremism, in the wake of the incursion into Dagestan by Chechen rebels and the bombing of apartment buildings in Moscow and elsewhere (see Chapter 3). These two factors – Islamic, or sometimes ‘religious’, extremism, and far-right violence – became the constant threats raised in the securitising discourse surrounding the need for a law on extremism which would allow the state to take special measures against groups meeting its definition of ‘extreme’. Which threat was raised at which time fluctuated largely in the wake of events. For example, in the early autumn of 2001, Islamic extremism, understandably after the global impact of the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September, featured most regularly in the securitising discourse around the need for a Law On Combating Extremist Activity. In November 2001, however, a racist riot by far-right thugs in southern Moscow, which left three people dead, brought fascist extremism back onto Putin’s agenda. At times, these elements were brought together. For example, when President Putin spoke in June 2001 on the sixtieth anniversary of the German invasion of Russia during the Second World War, he employed the concept of extremism in a discourse which brought together fascism, religious extremism, and an existential threat to the state in the form of large-scale war: Large-scale wars do not break out by themselves. They are sparked by local ones, and, therefore, one of the main tasks of the contemporary world’s politics is to unite in the struggle against threats which now actually exist. It can be said without exaggeration that they are, above all, international terrorism, nationalist and religious extremism. Even if they are professed under new slogans, they are the same old Nazi ideas.37

In discourse theory terms, ‘extremism’ is an empty signifier which functions as the unifying notion articulating a series of different ideas and concepts. We have seen how it brings together the two separate issues of Islamic extremism and fascist thuggery: the former has a clear international context, helping to define Russia’s foreign policy and representing

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a high-order immediate threat to the security of the Russian people; the latter is a relatively small-scale, domestic issue which represents only a potential long-term threat to the regime. These are different issues with differing solutions, but they are brought together under the term ‘extremism’. Once that empty signifier is imbued with sufficient content, then other issues can be added to it and take on the threat implicit within it. A good example of this is the reported statement in September 2002 from Russia’s prosecutor general, Vladimir Ustinov, in which he managed to link football hooliganism and international terrorism within the concept of extremism. Following on from a summer which had seen ‘soccer riots’ in central Moscow, sparked by the Russian national team’s poor performance in the World Cup, Ustinov told President Putin that ‘extremism grows every day, this can be seen with the naked eye’ and, in relation to football hooligans, ‘today behind them are people who regulate this movement, and the next step will be terrorism’.38 Eventually the term ‘extremism’ begins to stand in the discourse as a synonym for its more precise components, and we see the words ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ being used on occasion interchangeably, for example, when nationalities minister, Vladimir Zorin, called the publication of a list of terrorist organisations in Russia an important step in combating extremism.39 If extremism means terrorism, then other components of the empty signifier ‘extremism’ come to share this connection with terrorism, as in the case of the football hooligans mentioned above. This lack of precision in the use of the term ‘extremism’ demonstrates, therefore, how the securitising discourse of existential threat was developed. It then became a successful securitisation by convincing its key audience, the parliament, to adopt the Law On Combating Extremist Activity in June and July 2002. Lack of terminological precision was not only, however, an element of the securitising discourse in this case, it also arose as a major issue within the text of the law itself. Article 1 of the law defines extremism as: the planning, organisation, preparation for or execution of actions aimed at the forcible change of the constitutional order or violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation; the undermining of the security or the assumption of the governing powers of the Russian Federation; the creation of illegal armed formations; terrorist activity; the incitement of racial, ethnic or religious discord or social discord in connection with violence or calls for violence; humiliation of national dignity; the organisation of mass unrest, hooliganism or acts of vandalism motivated by ideological, political, racial, ethnic or religious hatred or hatred towards a particular social group; the propaganda of exclusivity, superiority or inferiority of citizens on account of their attitude towards religion, social status, race, nationality, religion, or language.40

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The empty signifier ‘extremism’ had clearly been filled. Many opponents of the law saw this definition as far too wide-ranging and imprecise, lumping together such clear security issues as the violation of Russia’s territorial integrity with vaguer ‘crimes’ such as the humiliation of national dignity and the propaganda of exclusivity. Alongside the new law the parliament accepted corresponding amendments to existing laws, including an amendment to the 1997 religion law which made ‘the carrying out of extremist activity’ grounds for banning religious organisations. Given that ‘extremist activity’ includes those less than clear cut elements noted above, then the extremism law provides considerable leeway for the state to allege a crime should it wish to move against any particular organisation. However, the law did undoubtedly deal with one legal lacuna; before the extremism law the state could legally ban for certain specified reasons the activities of registered public or religious associations, but they had no power to do the same in relation to unregistered groups. The Law On Combating Extremist Activity amended this and included unregistered groups within its remit. Although the parliament voted in favour of the law on extremism, there was strong opposition to it, not least from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), which objected to the vague nature of the terminology used and argued that the state could use it arbitrarily. As one communist deputy put it, Today, any bureaucrat sitting in any seat of the bureaucratic machine can make a decision on certain cases – this person is an extremist, and this person is not – and how does he come to such conclusions? On the basis of working in the bureaucratic machine or as it is very common now, on the basis of the direct order of those in power. We are against this law. We believe that every article of this law should be precisely defined. And it should be clear for every citizen of the Russian Federation. Otherwise, we are becoming dependent on some unknown bureaucrats who have power today, but tomorrow nobody knows who they are.41

The effect of the Law On Combating Extremist Activity can be compared with that of the 1997 religion law in several ways. First, it has not been used in quite so dramatic or widespread a way as its opponents feared it might be. For example, there were fears expressed that political demonstrations could be stopped on the grounds that they were extreme, in the sense of fermenting social discord. Nonetheless, in early 2005 a series of demonstrations took place across the country in protest at the monetisation of social benefits, and similarly, the number of strikes in Russia has risen markedly in 2004–05 without the extremism law’s strictures on social unrest being invoked.42 Second, the law remains as a tool of ‘snatch-squad’ control of society. Although it has not been used for widespread authoritarian purposes,

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there still remain a number of examples of the law being used by the authorities. Extremist Islamic groups were, as we saw in our discussion of the discourse surrounding the law’s introduction, an identified target of the Law On Combating Extremist Activity. Sheikh Nafigulla Ashirov of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Asian Russia has claimed that since its adoption, ‘the law is very frequently used by officials as a convenient instrument for exerting pressure on Muslims’.43 For example, in the city of Omsk in September 2004, one Muslim was charged under the law for handing out booklets which allegedly contained ‘open propaganda about the inferiority of citizens due to their religious affiliation’ because they maintained that Islam was superior to other religious systems.44 The case of religious groups preaching the superiority of their belief system, which the doctrine and tradition of most religions encourage them to do, is one area where the law’s prohibition of ‘the propaganda of exclusivity, superiority or inferiority of citizens on account of their attitude towards religion’ (Law On Combating Extremist Activity, article 1) may prove particularly tricky to implement. The Russian Orthodox Church was reportedly not very keen on the law being passed.45 Third, Russia is not alone in having great difficulty in legislating in such areas as extremism, ‘hate crimes’, and so on. In the United Kingdom in 2005 controversy arose as the government sought to introduce a law against the incitement of religious hatred, with opponents fearing that it would be extremely difficult for legislators to arrive at a definition sufficiently precise to distinguish between fair comment – be it robust public debate or jocular remarks – on the subject of religion, and incitement of religious hatred. Fourth, the adoption in Russia of the extremism law served to send a message to the law enforcement bodies that the state was giving them the tools to act where they saw fit, since the definition of extremism is sufficiently broad and vague to facilitate allegations of extremism against almost any group which meets with the disapproval of regional or federal authorities. Fifth, even though the law may not have been used as widely as feared, the fact is that it remains on the statute book and can be used as and when the authorities see fit. It provides a permanent legal means by which a relatively wide range of activities can be labelled ‘extremist’ and taken out of ‘normal’ procedures. The final point to make in relation to the law is that for all the accusations that it might prove to be overzealous in terms of both application and content, it has singularly failed in the main avowed aims of its instigators in that far-right groups continue to flourish in Russia, and Islamic terrorism has increased in Russia since 2002. We have dealt with the latter phenomenon in Chapter 3’s analysis of such events as the Moscow theatre siege and the Beslan tragedy. In relation to far-right groups, figures released in January 2005 by the Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism

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showed an increase in the number of violent anti-Semitic incidents in Russia from four in 2003 to fifty-five in 2004, easily the biggest rise in any country and placing Russia behind only first placed France and then Britain in a global ranking. Skinhead attacks have increased not only in number, but in ferocity. Attacks on ethnic minorities are increasingly violent, often resulting in death by beating or stabbing, and increasingly indiscriminate in respect of the sex or age of their victims. According to the US State Department’s annual report on human rights in Russia for 2004, the number of underground nationalist extremist organizations appears to be growing, skinhead groups are proliferating, and the rise of extremist youth organisations is ‘troubling’.46 Aleksandr Dzasokhov, the President of North Ossetia, wrote an article in early 2005 noting the rise in xenophobia of recent months and claiming, three years after the introduction of the extremism law, that Russia is at a dangerous historical turning point in this regard.47 Other legislation on civil society

We have analysed in some depth the process by which particular aspects of civil society have been affected by successful securitisations in the areas of spirituality and extremism. Once a securitising discourse has gained credibility around an issue then this facilitates, as in the case of extremism explored above, the addition of further elements by association with the securitised concept. This securitisation by association has been an element in a number of other areas of legislation relating to civil society. In June 2004 a Law On Gatherings, Meetings, Demonstrations, Processions, and Picketing was adopted by the parliament. In its initial stages this law had contained a provision which would ban any such event where ‘the purpose and form would go against commonly accepted moral norms’. That vague formulation was reminiscent of similarly imprecise phrases in the Law On Combating Extremist Activity and also tapped into notions present in the discourse around spiritual security. However, by the time the demonstrations bill became law, this phrase had been removed on the insistence of President Putin, who declared that ‘there should be no unhealthy restrictions on demonstrations or marches’.48 Nonetheless, in the final version of the law a number of barriers to effective demonstrations are in place, including the requirement that ten days notice be given of any such event, with an hour-by-hour timetable detailing who would be responsible for each stage. No public gatherings can be held after 11 p.m. – making the sort of demonstrations witnessed in Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004 illegal in Russia – and the authorities are also given the right under the law to suggest with good

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reason a change to the location or time of the demonstration within three days of receiving notification of the planned event49 (not within three days of the event itself as claimed by the Council of Europe’s report on Russia of June 2005).50 As with the other examples of legislation analysed in this chapter, security played a part in the discourse surrounding the introduction of this law. Vladimir Slivyak, a leader of an environmentalist NGO and opponent of the law, complained that ‘every country that wants to crack down on democracy uses security as an excuse’.51 However, the discourse on security did not quite specify an existential threat to a vital referent object – such as the state or the nation – but was rather on a lower level, with the law and its sponsors repeatedly referring to ensuring the security and safety of those involved in rallies, demonstrations, and so on. One final legislative initiative in regard to securitisation and civil society requires brief elucidation here. We have already mentioned above the Law on Political Parties of 2001. This is of a piece to some extent with the Law On Religious Associations and the Law On Public Associations (which governed political parties until the 2001 law), in that it requires state registration of parties, and details relatively complex procedures and requirements in order to ensure registration. Such procedures then facilitate state oversight and give the state the power to refuse registration for alleged discrepancies in registration documents. We have noted already the cases of Liberal Russia and of Malik Saidullaev, denied the right to register for allegedly spurious reasons relating to their registration documents. A detailed consideration of the party law lies outside the scope and intention of this chapter.52 The law ensures that parties participating in Russia’s elections have a sufficiently large and widespread membership to have at least some chance of gaining representation as a result of the elections. It also aims to consolidate Russia’s party system – by legal fiat rather than evolutionary development – so that the traditionally large number of parties contesting parliamentary elections, many of which are formed and disappear with equal rapidity, is reduced from the twenty to forty range down to something more akin to the numbers of serious parties participating in most Western democratic systems. To register for the 2007 parliamentary elections, which will be the first to be held in Russia under a purely party list system, parties must have 50,000 registered members – amended up from 10,000 by the Duma in 2004. Although much of the discourse surrounding the introduction of this law in 2001, and the amendments to it 2004, was in terms of the benefits claimed for it in relation to the strengthening of Russia’s party system and democracy, elements of a security discourse have also played an important role in relation to party and electoral developments.

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President Putin emphasised in 2001 his support for mass parties and stability in the party system. The law also requires the membership of parties to be spread across more than half of Russia’s regions and bans parties based on religion or ethnicity. These themes of stability and national unity are familiar from securitising discourses employed elsewhere, and although they are not in themselves sufficient to argue that the issue of party formation per se has been entirely securitised, the context of stability and unity remains central to official discourse regarding elections. In September 2004, shortly after the Beslan tragedy, Putin announced that he would submit a bill to parliament to ensure that its next elections be held entirely under the party list system, rather than the system in place up until that time, whereby half of the Duma’s 450 deputies are elected by party list and half from single mandate constituencies. The president clearly securitised this area of policy, arguing that: we are obliged to support the initiative of citizens and their desire to fight terror by practical actions, we must together find mechanisms which hold the state together. One such mechanism, ensuring real dialogue and cooperation between society and the authorities in the fight against terror must be to create national parties. In the interests of strengthening the political system of the country I consider it necessary to introduce a proportional system of elections to the State Duma.53

This post-Beslan speech by Putin is the clearest example yet of the securitisation of electoral policy, though it is securitisation more by assertion than by carefully crafted argument. Putin makes a connection between fighting terror and introducing a party list-only election for the State Duma, but this connection is not intrinsically obvious nor carefully explained. Notes 1 Interview with A. Gurov, ‘Natsionalnaya bezopasnost i pravo cheloveka’, Vestnik prav cheloveka, 1 (2001), www.duma.gov.ru/csecure/arc3/public/21.html (last accessed 25 July 2005). 2 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (26 May 2003). 3 A. Zolotov, ‘Civic Activists Storm the Kremlin’, Moscow Times (22 November 2001), p. 1. 4 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (29 October 2002). 5 ‘Vladimir Putin: Gosudarstvennyi perevorot Rossii ne grozit’, Komsomolskaya pravda (8 July 1999, accessed via EastView database). 6 Gosudartvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii (Moscow: Izdanie gosudarstvennoi dumy, Vecherneye zasedanie, 12 May 2005), www.akdi.ru/gd/PLEN_Z/2005/05/1205.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). 7 Letter from N. Laverov, V. Kudryavtsev, V. Ginsburg, S. Kapitsa, V. Sadovnichii, A. Vengerov, Nezavisimaya gazeta (15 December 1996; accessed via EastView database). An earlier use of the term, but with different connotations promoting spiritual security

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8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31

32

33

as an alternative to traditional security methods and a way of contributing to national security without excessive recourse to the force structures, can be found in Rudolf Yanovskii, ‘Dukhovno-nravstvennaya bezopasnost Rossii’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 12 (1995), 39–47. J. Elkner, ‘Spiritual Security in Putin’s Russia’, History and Policy (January 2005), www.historyandpolicy.org/archive/policy-paper-26.html (last accessed 25 July 2005). Pravda (9 October 1990). Sovetskaya rossiya (10 November 1990). B.V. Dubin, ‘Pravoslavie v sotsialnom kontekste’, Ekonomicheskie i sotsialnye peremeny: monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniya, 6 (November–December 1996), pp. 15–19. V. Feodorov, ‘Religious Freedom in Russia Today’, The Ecumenical Review, 50:4 (October 1998), 457. Letter from Laverov et al., Nezavisimaya gazeta. E. Chinyaeva, ‘The Search for the “Russian Idea”’, Transitions, 4:1 (1997). Dubin, ‘Pravoslavie v sotsial’nom kontekste’, pp. 15–19. V. Putin, ‘Russia at the Turn of the Millennium’, in V. Putin, First Person: an astonishingly frank self-portrait by Russia’s president (London: Hutchinson, 2000), pp. 214–15. (‘Russia at the Turn of the Millennium’ first appeared on 31 December 1999 on the website of the government of the Russian Federation.) P. Truscott, Russia First: breaking with the West (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997). Yu. Konstantinov, ‘Novyi kurs tserkovnoi politiki po-prezhnemu protivorechiv i polovinchat. Prichastie bez ochishcheniya’, Sovetskaya rossiya (8 February 2001), p. 5 B. Buzan, O. Wæver, and J. de Wilde, Security: a new framework for analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998). Ibid., p. 27 L.A. Uzzell, ‘A Show Of Bad Faith’, Washington Post (2 November 1997). Reuters, 24 June 1997. Gosudartvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii (Moscow: Izdanie gosudarstvennoi dumy, 19 September 1997), www.akdi.ru/gd/PLEN_Z/1997/s19-09_u.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). Ibid. Ibid. G. Fagan, ‘Unregistered Religious Groups’, Forum 18 News (14 April 2005), www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=543 (last accessed 31 October 2005). Ibid. L.A. Uzzell, ‘The “Initsyativniki” are Probably Russia’s Most Harshly Persecuted Protestants’, International Religious Freedom Watch (17 May 2005), www.internationalreligiousfreedomwatch.org/archives/2005-05-17.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). G. Fagan, ‘Religious Freedom Survey’, Forum 18 News (14 February 2005), www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=509 (last accessed: 25 July 2005). Ibid. For a more developed analysis of this argument, see E. Bacon, ‘Religion’, in A.B.Evans, L.A. Henry, and L. McIntosh Sundstrom (eds), Russian Civil Society: a critical Assessment (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006). US Department of State, Russia Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2003 (25 February 2004), www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27861pf.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). Federal Law on Public Associations, signed by President Yeltsin on 19 May 1995, article 52, www.duma.gov.ru/obschestvo/pages/documents/zakons/obobhestv.html (last accessed 25 July 2005).

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34 Svetlana Mikhailova, ‘Boris Yeltsin is Unhappy with Justice Ministry’s Liberalism’, Moscow News (16 July 1998; accessed via EastView database). 35 E. Ivanova, ‘Russia-Conference-Extremism’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (31 March 1998; accessed via EastView database). 36 V. Putin, ‘FSB ne mechenaya karta, chtoby yeyu kozyryat v politicheskikh intrigakh’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (18 November 1998; accessed via EastView database). 37 Based on ‘Putin-Address. Nazi aggression-dreadful evidence of heinous crimes-Putin’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (22 June 2001), with additional material to correct translation errors in the ITAR-TASS report, from: S. Khazov, ‘Moskva otmetila 60-letnyuyu godovshchinu nachala voiny’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (22 June 2001), p. 2. 38 M. Petrov, ‘Putin Asks For a Summary on Fight Against Extremism in Russia’, ITARTASS Weekly News (18 September 2002; accessed via EastView database). 39 S. Latyshev, ‘Russia Takes New Step in Fight Against Extremism, Minister Says’, ITARTASS Weekly News (5 April 2003; accessed via EastView database). 40 Translation of the law from: G. Fagan, ‘Russia: new law outlaws religious extremism’, Keston News Service (3 July 2002). 41 Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (anonymised), personal interview with the authors, Moscow (24 October 2002). 42 ‘This law enables them to declare any person who is just protesting his poverty, for example, a person goes out onto the street and demands that his salary should be raised to a Western standard or just to four dollars an hour, will be declared an extremist. Because he is creating social problems.’ Ibid. 43 G. Fagan, ‘Russia: Increasing Crackdown on Muslim “extremist” books’, Forum 18 News, 14 September 2004, www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=increasing+ crackdown+on+muslim&religion=all&country=all&results=10 (last accessed 7 November 2005). 44 Fagan, ‘Religious Freedom Survey’. 45 Aleksandr Verkhovskii, director of the Panorama Centre, personal interview with the authors, Moscow (22 October 2002). 46 US Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2004: Russia (28 February 2005). 47 A. Dzasokhov, ‘Rossiiskii natsionalnyi proekt’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (19 January 2005), p. 11. 48 A. Matveeva, and A. Litvinov, ‘Ne dolzhno byt nikakikh nezdorovykh ogranichenii’, Gazeta (13 April 2004), p. 1. 49 ‘Ofitsyalnye materialy. Federalnyi zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 19 iyunya 2004 g. N.54-FZ O sobraniyakh, mitingakh, demonstratsiyakh, shestviyakh i piketirovaniyakh’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (23 June 2004), p. 15 (article 12/1). 50 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Report on Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by the Russian Federation, Strasbourg (3 June 2005), p. 79. 51 C. McGregor, ‘Duma Bill Sharply Restricts Rallies’, Moscow Times (1 April 2004), p. 1. 52 For a detailed analysis of the arguments for and against this law, see E. Bacon, ‘State and Civil Society: Russia’s Law On Political Parties’, in C. Ross (ed.), Russian Politics Under Putin (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2004). 53 Speech to an expanded session of the government with the participation of the heads of Russia’s regions (13 September 2004), www.president.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2004/ 09/76651.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005).

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6 Migration

This chapter assesses migration policies carried out in Russia in recent years within the framework of the securitisation approach used throughout this book. We argue that according to this framework some areas of migration policy have been successfully securitised. This conclusion is reached through the study of three factors: first, official securitising discourse on migration; second, changes made to the institutional framework regulating migration; and third, a number of important developments in the sphere of migration legislation in contemporary Russia. Each of these three sections engages too in the debate concerning the extent to which the treatment of issues related to migration in contemporary Russia can be described as an attempt at normalising the migration process when seen in comparative context, rather than as a process of securitisation. Normalisation here means the transformation of the country’s institutional and legislative frameworks regulating the migration process in order to make procedures in this sphere both more transparent and more effective. Official discourse: migration as an existential threat

Official discourse on migration in contemporary Russia presents itself in a highly securitised manner. A major focus of this discourse has been the portrayal of illegal migrant labour as an existential threat to the national economy.1 More specifically, according to this discourse three specific aspects of illegal migrant labour are posing a threat to Russia’s economy. These factors are tax evasion, capital flight from Russia, and an increase in official unemployment figures. In 2001, Viktor Ivanov – then deputy head of the presidential administration and chairman of the Inter-Departmental Working Group for Migration Legislation – unambiguously proclaimed that, ‘the economic consequences of unregulated

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migration today are simply catastrophic’.2 The head of the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS), Andrei Chernenko, similarly described the regulation of labour migration as a measure essential for protecting a state’s national and economic security.3 He specified: ‘Last year 300,000 [migrant workers] were registered. However, some experts confidently multiply this figure by ten. According to these experts the market of illegal labour in the country costs the federal and local budgets up to eight billion dollars a year. A considerable part of this money is taken out of Russia’.4 These concerns were shared by Nikolai Medvedev, a member of the Federation Council, who argued the following: Throughout the 1990s Russia lacked thought-out policies in the area of citizenship and migration. This gave rise to a mass of problems. We don’t even know the true scale of illegal migration in our country! According to different estimates, numbers range from one or one and a half million people to ten or eleven million. It goes without saying that this milieu is fraught with potential social conflict and criminal tendencies. First of all, however, it causes colossal damage to our economy.5

Speaking about the impact of illegal migrant labour on unemployment figures, President Vladimir Putin pointed to migration as one of the most serious problems facing the far east of Russia, where an influx of foreign workers, primarily Chinese, has been deemed responsible for pushing locals out of the labour market. Putin unequivocally asserted that the right to work must be guaranteed first of all to all Russian citizens.6 This sentiment was echoed by FMS head Chernenko: ‘The domestic market requires a regulation of the flow of labour migrants. It is often the case that by inviting workers from abroad we create unemployment in our own country.’7 Economic problems arising from illegal migrant labour have been portrayed in official Russian discourse as a central threat in the sphere of migration. Another strand of Russian securitising discourse relating to migration exposes an explicit correlation of migration with crime in a broader context. Within this discourse crime committed both by legal and illegal migrants is often said to pose a threat to referent objects going beyond the national economy, such as national security, national identity and the nation state. A good example of this discourse is a statement by FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev made in an address to the lower house of parliament in May 2005: ‘There is a real danger that channels of illegal migration will be abused for trafficking members of terrorist organisations, smuggled goods, weapons and drugs onto Russian territory.’8 Official discourse has displayed a clear division of migrants into two groups, which could be termed ‘desirables’ and ‘undesirables’. ‘Desirables’ in this context are ethnic Russians living on the territory of the

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former Soviet republics. Migrants belonging to this group have been portrayed as compatriots, whose migration into Russia is seen as desirable in terms of their potential to contribute to the country’s economy and improve the demographic situation, especially in rural areas and Russia’s far eastern regions.9 In popular and population-rich Moscow, city officials reportedly have been seeking ways to improve the demographic situation in the capital with ‘quality immigrants’.10 Ethnic Russian migrants from former Soviet republics in one instance were described by President Putin as ‘a godsend’.11 In contrast to the group of ethnic Russians living in the ‘near abroad’, other groups of migrants are discursively portrayed as ‘undesirables’ and securitised not only as a threat to the national economy, but as being predominantly responsible for a large proportion of crime committed in contemporary Russia. Ethnic groups, which have been singled out in this way, are African migrants, Roma,12 Central Asians, and Caucasians. African immigrants and Roma in particular have been singled out as being implicated in criminal activities other than merely in illegal labour. In June 2002, for instance, an MVD officer reported a rise of 6 per cent in ‘foreign crime’, singling out African immigrants as being ‘especially aggressive’.13 Roma in the St Petersburg and Moscow regions in 2002 have been targeted twice by police operations (Operation Tabor), which investigated criminal activities within this specific group,14 reportedly as a measure against the involvement of ‘ethnic criminal groups’ in the trafficking and distribution of drugs.15 The police operations against Roma evoked sharp condemnation by Russian and international organisations speaking out for the traveller community. They particularly criticised the Russian authorities for linking crime to a specific nationality, calling this a clear case of racism.16 Central Asian and Caucasian citizens have been similarly portrayed as forming ‘ethnic criminal groups’ which are implicated in drug trafficking.17 The ITAR-TASS news agency reported, for instance, in 2002 that ‘most of drug-trafficking-related crimes are committed by ethnically homogenous criminal communities. The number of such groups operating in Russia’s 80 [sic] regions is estimated at 4000. Most of these groups consist of Tadjik, Azeri and Ukrainian citizens and also of Gypsies.’18 The division of migrants into ‘desirables’ and ‘undesirables’ has also found expression in the securitisation of another, though less explicitly pronounced, threat apparent in official discourse on migration-related matters. The referent object of this particular danger is Russian national identity and/or the nation state, which is perceived to be threatened by a surplus of migrants in specific regions of the country. To this effect, Chernenko remarked:

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What we have here is not just a piece of territory that has to be populated for the solution of this or the other technical problem. This is a country after all – Russia. And we are its multinational people – a melting-pot, but nevertheless united. We have a uniquely intertwined and diverse, but nonetheless common culture. This is a civilisation. However, have we not reached the critical point where in some regions the number [of migrants] is exceeding dangerous quantities? […] [Misbalances] occur when the respective numbers of migrants and locals are leading, or already have led, one way of life to prevail over another, other mentalities over another, even affecting the common language.19

What Chernenko implied in this statement was that the immigration of ethnically diverse groups poses a threat to Russian national identity by overpowering the latter with new and foreign influences. He also alluded to the perception of a threat to the Russian nation state, as he implicitly portrayed the surplus of migrants in specific regions of Russia as encompassing the potential to create ethnic conflict between migrant groups and the local population. Furthermore, Chernenko’s statement appears to disregard the question of a demographic crisis in Russia (see below), as if depopulation is a ‘technical problem’ which pales alongside issues such as a common culture and language. In a similar vein in 2002 a candidate for the governorship of Krasnoiarsk Krai, German Sterligov, used the portrayal of a ‘Chinese threat’ in his pre-election campaign. Reportedly Sterligov asserted that, ‘Siberia risks becoming Chinese’, and that, ‘the growth of the Chinese population numbering in the billions will lead to the extinction of native residents’.20 There is some evidence that this discourse finds sympathetic listeners amongst the audience to which it is addressed. A journalist writing for the popular daily Nezavisimaya gazeta, which tends to be known as a rather liberally oriented and often critical publication, remarked in early 2002: ‘How is illegal migration dangerous? … It creates an interethnic community, whose members cannot and do not want to integrate with Russian society, but dictate to it their own values and attitudes.’21 As we discuss in more detail below, changes to the institutional and legislative frameworks regulating migration in contemporary Russia have been officially justified by the need to regulate or ‘normalise’ the migration process in contemporary Russia. However, the idea of a normalisation of migration policies in contemporary Russia clashes with official discourse that appears to be openly condoning the discrimination of specific ethnic groups. The director general of the Russian Centre for Ethnologic and Regional Research, Emil Pain, condemned the authorities’ discursive creation of a notion of coherent ethnic criminal groups consisting, for example, of Roma, Central Asians, and Caucasians, calling

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this a ‘typical image prevalent in both mass consciousness and in the heads of official Russian figures’. According to Pain, however, the existence of such groups is ‘based neither on the analysis of court practice or crime statistics, nor on any other convincing evidence’.22 Specialists of the Moscow Migration Research Programme run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) similarly criticised the portrayal by some officials and elements in the Russian media of discrimination against specific ethnic groups as acceptable. A list of ‘Experts’ Fundamental Concerns about Migration Policies Pursued in Russia’, which was compiled by the participants of this programme, singled out the following worrying trends:23 •

•

Crime by non-Russian ethnic groups in Russia is insignificant and decreasing, but the demonisation of this factor in the mass media and by politicians is increasing. Non-Russian migrants are portrayed as a main threat to the country’s national security and to specific regions.

The association of specific ethnic groups with crime certainly cannot be called an exclusively Russian phenomenon. However, the official promulgation of this discursive practice appears to be a by-product of the wider securitisation of migration in contemporary Russia. In comparison, for example, the German Interior Ministry has explicitly cautioned against the potential danger of misrepresenting a correlation of migration with crime. In a publication elaborating policy on foreign nationals in Germany the Ministry pointed out that, ‘false, tendentious and discriminatory statements according to which foreigners are generally more prone to criminal activities than Germans must be counteracted by a differentiated collection of data and analysis of the underlying number of crimes committed by foreigners. [It is important] to avoid making flat statements on this issue.’24 Another problematic feature in official Russian discourse on migration is the sometimes indiscriminate use of the term ‘illegal migrant’, which has led to the irregular citation of facts and figures by official spokesmen. Whilst it is understandably difficult to quantify the number of illegal migrants, which in Russia has been estimated to stand anywhere between 1.5 million and 15 million,25 officially cited estimates have differed considerably and often appear to be used in order to emphasise migration as an urgent matter of security. For instance, in 2002 the then interior minister Boris Gryzlov spoke of an estimate of ‘up to 1 million foreign citizens, who have failed to legalise their stay here on Russian territory’.26 The chief of the Moscow interior directorate’s migration department, Anatolii Baturkin, claimed that about 1 million illegal workers stay in Moscow alone.27 In the same year, the deputy chief of the Law and

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Legal Acts Observance Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office, Valerii Formichev, asserted, ‘there are 700 000 to 1.5 million foreign citizens in Russia, whose visas have expired and who are in effect illegal migrants’.28 In December 2002 the Russian Minister for Ethnic Policy, Vladimir Zorin, spoke of ‘at least 3 million illegal migrants in Russia’.29 Although the necessity for clear and transparent migration policies is as comprehensible in Russia as it is in any other state, official Russian discourse used to advocate the implementation of such policies has been clearly of a securitising nature, focusing predominantly on illegal immigrants, illegal migrant labour and crime committed by migrants. In depicting migrants as a threat to the national economy, national identity, and to the nation state, activities like Operation Tabor can more easily be justified. Demographic crisis

There is one further aspect related to migration policy in Russia which needs setting out before we consider the details of policy initiatives and institutional arrangements, and that is the demographic crisis which Russia is facing in the early decades of the twenty-first century. In 2002 Russia carried out its first national census since the Soviet collapse (the previous Soviet census took place in 1989). The results of the 2002 census reveal something of a demographic time-bomb. Russia’s population of 145 million, making it the seventh most populous country in the world, is declining due to low birth rates and low life expectancy. The Russian official government statistical agency’s predictions for the population in 2050 have an optimistic variant (123 million) and a pessimistic variant (71 million). Although many developed countries have a birth rate below the replacement rate necessary to maintain the population level, in Russia the birth rate is well below that in most developed countries and is one of the lowest in the world. In 1992, for the first time in peacetime, Russia’s population officially declined, the number of deaths exceeding the number of births plus the number of immigrants. By the end of the decade, births had fallen to 1.2 million, while deaths had increased to 2.1 million. In addition Russia also has the highest rate of abortions in the world, with roughly two abortions for every birth. Furthermore, the decline in birth rate has been accompanied by women having children earlier, in contrast to the pattern in developed countries, with the peak age at the turn of the century being twenty to twenty-four. The number of children being born in Russia has been and will continue to be inadequate to prevent population decline. As well as declining birth rates, life expectancy in Russia remains low in terms of international comparison.

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In 2002, life expectancy was seventy-two for women and fifty-nine for men, the lowest life expectancy for males in any developed country. Factor in one of the fastest growing AIDS epidemics in the world, as well as high rates of tuberculosis, alcoholism, and smoking, and it is clear that there is a demographic crisis unfolding in Russia. Lower levels of population then in turn affect the whole population’s well-being, particularly as they contribute to a changing age-structure. In 2002 61 per cent of Russia’s population were of working age and 21 per cent were older. In the coming decades, however, the proportion of pensioners will increase up to, according to some estimates, 40 per cent of the population by 2050. Consequently, an ever-smaller proportion of the population will have to provide for an ever-growing pensioner sector. Again, this is not a problem unique to Russia, but the existence of widespread poverty within Russia will exacerbate future pensions problems, as private pension fund contributions are virtually unknown for most of the Russian population. In addition, the combination of population decline and changing age-structure means fewer people in the labour market and able to contribute to economic growth and – seen as particularly important in terms of Russia’s security given the continuing existence of military conscription and a trained reserve – fewer people to staff the armed forces. In terms of migration policy then, it might seem obvious that allowing an increase in immigration might provide a relatively straightforward solution to population decline. However, as is apparent throughout this chapter, political pressures, often couched in securitising terms with regard to the dangers of immigration, make such an option difficult politically. There are conflicting discourses at play, which were evident in President Putin’s address to the Russian parliament in April 2005. He stated that: an increase in our population should be accompanied by a carefully planned immigration policy. It is in our interest to receive a flow of legal and qualified workers. But there are still a lot of companies in Russia making use of the advantages of illegal immigration … They are also a potential danger from the point of view of breaking the law … We cannot afford to postpone tackling these problems. We need to act simultaneously to create conditions that will encourage people to have children, lower the mortality rate and bring order to immigration. I am sure that our society is up to these tasks and that we will gradually stabilise the size of the Russian population.30

Although Putin noted the demographic crisis as an urgent issue, he did not securitise it in the sense of portraying it as an emergency which demands special action. Indeed, his certainty that the population will be gradually stabilised could be seen as showing a lack of willingness to grant the issue

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the priorities which many observers think it demands. In fact, his comments implicitly subsume the urgent need to tackle depopulation within the dominant securitising discourse, explored in this chapter, which posits immigration as a threat. The institutional framework: ‘militarising’ the migration service?

The main governmental institution in charge of implementing migration policy in contemporary Russia is the FMS. This service underwent a farreaching reorganisation in late 2001, coinciding in time with much of the above-quoted official securitising discourse. This reorganisation of the FMS, which involved its subordination to the MVD, can be interpreted as an example of a successful securitisation of migration policies and of the migration service as an institution in particular. As a result of the FMS’s reorganisation, the emphasis of migration policies and of the Service’s work shifted from helping towards controlling migrants or, expressed in the words of Lidiya Grafova, chairwoman of the Russian Forum for Migration Organisations, from ‘welcoming to fighting migrants’.31 Whilst migration specialists already had noted an increase of the FMS’s control functions under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin,32 the changes implemented in 2001 further strengthened and institutionalised the emphasis on its security and controlling aspects. The FMS was first created in 1992 as an independent state structure with territorial sub-units in each of Russia’s eighty-nine regions. Spring 2000 marked the beginning of a wide-ranging reorganisation and the Service was incorporated into the newly created Ministry for Federation Affairs, Nationality, and Migration Policy. In October 2001 this Ministry was dissolved and its responsibilities and component parts, including the FMS, were subordinated to other ministries. The FMS was transferred to the authority of the MVD, one of Russia’s ‘power ministries’. A presidential decree signed in May 2004 restructured the system of executive power in contemporary Russia and confirmed the FMS’s status as a federal service under the auspices of the MVD. The Migration Service’s transfer to the MVD in 2001 was implemented by presidential decree. Reportedly the dissolution of the Ministry for Federation Affairs, Nationality, and Migration Policy and the FMS’s transferral came as a complete surprise to its employees. The aims of and necessity for these institutional changes were not publicly discussed prior to the transferral and no explanations were issued by the decision-takers once the decree had been signed. As the decision of the transferral to the MVD was made ‘above politics’ and implemented by presidential decree, the changes themselves were not accompanied or justified by official securitising discourse.

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This having been said, assertions made by authoritative figures within the MVD after the move indicated that one aim of the FMS’s transferral to the MVD was to push the institutional framework of regulating migration into the security realm. At a meeting of refugee organisations with MVD representatives at the Civic Forum held in Moscow in November 2001 (see also Chapter 5) deputy interior minister, ColonelGeneral Vladimir Vasilev, gave the following explanation for the move of the FMS to the MVD: I think the president started from the assumption that a ‘uniformed’ ministry is more dirigible and more responsible. And it is, of course, important that our minister [Gryzlov] is enjoying Putin’s trust to a great degree. Why don’t people understand that the situation concerning migration is so serious that it is simply impossible to delay decisions any further?33

Statements made by Andrei Chernenko, who was appointed to head the FMS and elevated to the position of deputy interior minister in February 2002, further indicated that the securitisation of the Service was at least in part the intention of its reorganisation.34 Being aware of criticism that had been voiced about the FMS’ transferral to the MVD, Chernenko officially stated that the move did not signify the militarisation of the Migration Service.35 However, many assertions he made in a series of interviews with Russian journalists after his appointment tell a different story. Although the FMS under the MVD continued to be in charge of all aspects of migration, a number of Chernenko’s statements implied that the emphasis of its activities was to be on illegal migration and illegal migrant labour. In short, Chernenko’s discourse predominantly dealt with security issues arising from migration and barely touched on the need to provide for and support immigrants and refugees entering Russia on a legal basis.36 In a press conference, for example, Chernenko explained his Service’s fundamental task in the following words: ‘our task is to ensure national security in the interests of the native population.’37 In an interview with Rossiiskaya gazeta, Chernenko described migrants as ‘an army consisting of many thousand people’, who are ‘easily abused in the shadow economy and in the criminal sphere’.38 With reference to Chernenko’s own descriptions of the newly restructured Migration Service’s activities the newspaper Vremya MN concluded that, ‘the FMS does not conceal that the basic task it set itself is the legalisation of guestworkers’.39 The following excerpt provides a good synopsis of Chernenko’s statements following his appointment in 2002: I think I am not wrong to say that a considerable proportion of the shadow economy and grey economy, especially in the area of private construction and agriculture, is due to an absolutely uncontrollable mass of migrants, who do not have any social protection, not even medical insurance. The state is

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obliged to provide them with protection and social rights but, on the other hand, it also has to protect itself and its citizens from penetration by criminal elements. Unfortunately, in the past decade a lot of people with a criminal past and predetermined criminal future have come to Russia. We are trying to stop this process.40

Interestingly, another line of argument pursued by Chernenko portrayed the transferral of the FMS to the MVD as contributing to the normalisation rather than securitisation of migration in contemporary Russia. In one interview he asserted, for example: Russia is following in the footsteps of the majority of developed countries, where similar governmental institutions have been included in the Interior Ministries. This is the case for the so-called ‘old democracies’ like England and Germany, but also for younger European states, such as Finland … Even where they [migration services] are subordinate to the Justice Ministries or departments or are a separate structure, their activities in this sense or other involve not only humanitarian aspects, but also elements of lawenforcement.41

Whilst there is much truth in this, Chernenko’s comparison of the Russian MVD and its Migration Service to analogous institutions in states such as England and Germany has to be seen in context. It is incorrect, for example, as one journalist summed up Chernenko’s statement, that ‘in some Western states (for example in Germany) migration is regulated by the police’.42 The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. This is a civilian institution in charge of dealing with all matters related to migration. The German Interior Ministry is not a power ministry that can be likened to its Russian counterpart. It is civilian-led, whilst the Russian MVD, including its Migration Service since 2001, has been traditionally led by military figures.43 According to Chernenko, 130 MVD officers are serving among the 3000 employees of the FMS. Officers also account for 10 per cent of the 300 employees of the Service’s central apparat.44 In addition to the discursive evidence indicating a shifting emphasis of the FMS’s work from helping to controlling migrants, the perception of such a shift became more tangible when the Law On the Status of Foreign Citizens was implemented. This law came into force on 1 November 2002, and prescribed the issuing of migration cards to all foreign citizens entering Russia. One half of the card remains with the visitor, whereas the other half is retained by the FMS until the day of departure. This mechanism serves to provide the FMS with a database of migrants staying in Russia illegally after their visa has expired. Chernenko lauded this system as a ‘complete control of the migration flow’.45 Similar cards were introduced in Ukraine in the summer of 2002, where they replaced the

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previous system of registration. In Russia, however, the system of registration remains firmly in place. As a result, the introduction of migration cards in Russia did not streamline migration regulations, but added an extra layer of bureaucracy, control, and possible corruption. According to Aleksandr Chekalin, head of the FMS from April 2003 until June 2004, problems occurred concerning the availability of migration cards at airports and stations, resulting in the lucrative trade in blanks of the nominally free migration cards.46 Commenting on the introduction of migration cards in Russia, migration expert Galina Vitkovskaya remarked that those in power have started to perceive the question of migration as a political priority – but they see it only as a threat. If they perceived migration as inevitable […] problems would start to solve themselves. They would start looking at the system of registration and accommodation, etc. But nobody is even thinking about these questions. All they think about is how to protect Russia and its cities from the influx of migrants. All policies in this area develop into only one direction: to strengthen control. Moreover, this is often done in silly ways – as we can see by the example of the migration cards.47

The transferral in 2001 of the Migration Service to the MVD was met with considerable controversy and criticism on the part of the political opposition, a number of Russian media outlets, and human rights groups concerned with migration-related matters. In the language of Buzan et al., the transferral of the FMS to the MVD was interpreted by these parts of the audience as an unwarranted securitising move in the sphere of migration. The main argument against the move of the FMS to the MVD questioned the MVD’s aptitude as a force structure led predominantly by law-enforcement personnel to deal with the humanitarian dimensions of the migration process.48 A journalist writing for Moskovskii komsomolets summed up this concern, ‘handing over migration policy issues to the MVD is like creating an animal protection society in a meat factory’.49 Shortly after the move, the then speaker of the lower house of parliament, Gennadii Seleznev, cautioned that the transfer of the migration service to the MVD was likely to lead to the deterioration of conditions for forced migrants.50 Apprehensions concerning the subordination of the FMS to MVD jurisdiction were also voiced with regard to the potential impact of the latter institution’s secretive operational style. In a 2001 expert poll conducted on the transferral of the FMS to the MVD, Vilya Gelbras, Professor at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University, remarked: The point is that [MVD] officers believe it totally unnecessary that certain things be known, while they need some information for themselves, for

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internal use only, rather than for the purpose of analysis and formation of an effective policy in the migration sphere. There may be an increase in the number of unfounded political and administrative decisions.51

In addition to the negative impact of the MVD’s secrecy on analysis and research in the area of migration pointed out by Gelbras, Vitkovskaya expressed concern about its potential consequences for the work of nongovernmental organisations: ‘One more worrying aspect is connected with the fact that the [MVD] is a very closed organisation. It is difficult to imagine what shape its co-operation with civil society and non-governmental organisations will take, because such co-operation necessitates a considerable degree of transparency.’52 In a round-table discussion of experts on Russian immigration policy, which took place a year after the transferral of the FMS to the MVD, the initial worries expressed by Gelbras and Vitkovskaya in 2001 were confirmed. The above-mentioned list of ‘Experts’ Fundamental Concerns about Migration Policies pursued in Russia’ concluded in 2002: • •

Migration policies are moving more and more into the direction of ‘police-type methods of control’ [v kontrolno-silovuyu storonu]. Migration policies are becoming less and less transparent. This concerns particularly the cancellation of a Federal migration programme, whose articles used to define the basic political course [concerning migration].53

The Legislative Framework: securitisation or normalisation?

In addition to institutional changes in the sphere of migration two major legislative acts in this sphere were amended and signed in the first half of 2002. First, a new version of the Law On Citizenship of the Russian Federation was passed by the State Duma in its third reading in April 2002. Having been signed by the president in May 2002 it became law in July 2002, replacing its 1991 predecessor of the same name. Second, the State Duma adopted the new Law On the Status of Foreign Citizens in the Russian Federation. The first reading of this law had already taken place in 1999, and the law was approved in a second and third reading in May and June 2002 respectively. The law was signed by President Putin in July and became active in November 2002, replacing a Soviet law of the same name from 1981. The emphasis of the discussion in this chapter is on the Law On Citizenship, as the official discourse and circumstances surrounding its adoption were important for the securitisation of migration policies in contemporary Russia. The Law On the Status of Foreign Citizens was a part of the securitisation process to a lesser degree.

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The basic aim of the new citizenship law was to set out the conditions and regulations for obtaining Russian citizenship, and the rights and duties this entails.54 The law’s crucial innovations, in comparison with its predecessor from 1991, were to restrict concessions made to former Soviet citizens in the old law and to put them more (but not completely) on a par with any foreign national wishing to acquire Russian citizenship. The need for new legislation in the area of migration was officially advocated as an urgent matter of security. The then head of the Interdepartmental Working Group on the Improvement of Migration Policies and deputy head of the presidential administration, Viktor Ivanov, advocated a ‘large-scale reform’ of migration legislation in Russia.55 The Laws On Citizenship and On the Status of Foreign Citizens were to be at the heart of this reform. According to Ivanov, ‘the politics of outward openness and the freedom of people to move have to be corrected in view of the demands of protecting the country from international crime and, first of all, from international terrorism’.56 With regard to the Law On Citizenship in particular he asserted the disorderly presence of vast numbers of migrants can seriously worsen the situation in the country, because Russian society does not have the means to integrate them … We must clarify the conditions of immigration in view of the interests of national security and of the country’s socio-economic possibilities.57

Oleg Kutafin, rector of the Moscow State Law Academy and head of the Working Group of the Commission on Questions of Citizenship under the President of the Russian Federation, was one of the authors of the citizenship law. He explained the necessity for the law by noting that, ‘maybe by having opened our doors widely to former Soviet citizens (and not only to them), we paid too little attention to the protection of our own citizens and our own interests’.58 In line with the official discourse on migration a threat to the national economy and the issue of ‘migrant crime’ were portrayed as rendering the Law On Citizenship vitally important. Writing on the Law On Citizenship in the official parliamentary newspaper, Parlamentskaya gazeta, Federation Council member Nikolai Medvedev asserted The definition of citizenship as an institution is important especially in Russia, which has lived through a difficult historical cataclysm with the break-up of the Soviet Union. It is indispensable for strengthening the state, bringing the economy in order, and managing the fight on crime […]. There is an endless list of examples showing a direct link between uncontrolled migration and the shadow economy and tax crime […]. Order has to be created without a doubt. The procedures laid out in the new law on citizenship and in other legal acts (such as, for example, the Law On the Status of

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Foreign Citizens now considered by the State Duma) are supposed to do just that.59

The Law On the Status of Foreign Citizens was also advocated in securitising language. Again, official discourse emphasised the threat to the national economy caused by illegal migrant labour and the destabilising effects of migrants engaged in crime. A journalist of the Russian government newspaper, Rossiiskaya gazeta, for instance, wrote: The Law On the Status of Foreign Citizens is necessary especially because of the transparency of Russia’s borders with former Soviet republics. The flood of refugees and forced migrants from these countries has led to the fact that there are more than 5 million illegal foreigners in Russia today, worsening the socio-economic and criminal situation, and negatively influence the economic and political stability of the country.60

FMS head Chernenko advocated the adoption of the law by asserting that, ‘today every tenth migrant comes to Russia not to work, but to pursue criminal activities or prostitution [.…]. But the worst thing is that every day 15 thousand people are crossing our borders to earn money during the day, and in the evening they take this money back with them.’61 The Russian interior minister Boris Gryzlov advocated the law in similar terms: After all it is no secret that in some rural areas the rate of alcohol abuse among the native population rises in springtime. The locals are driven out of the job market by our guests from the South, because they cost employers so much less. Cheap migrant labour is lowering the professional level of our own personnel. We have to learn to walk a fine line in order not to devalue ourselves. This law is certain to do that.62

Seen within the securitisation framework, at first sight the case that a successful securitisation of the migration issue occurred seems straightforward. A securitising discourse was applied by proponents of the law, arguing that migration represented a potential threat to the referent object of Russian society, in terms of terrorism, crime, and socio-economic problems. The key audience, the parliament, accepted these arguments and passed the legislation. However, acceptance by the parliamentary audience was never overwhelming and proved to be short-lived. The Law On Citizenship of the Russian Federation was passed in the third reading with 252 votes in favour, 152 against and two abstentions.63 More than a third of all deputies therefore voted against the bill and the majority in favour soon disappeared as sustained protest over the content of the law ensued after its adoption. Such protest was not easily overcome by the authorities.

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For months after the law came into force in July 2002 the critics’ voices persisted in campaigning for the adoption of amendments particularly with regard to the restrictions the law imposed on the rights of former Soviet citizens to acquire Russian citizenship. In April 2003 the State Duma issued an appeal to President Putin asking for authorisation of the drafting of amendments to this effect.64 A month later, Putin responded to this appeal in his annual address to the Federal Assembly, where he agreed that some aspects of the law were flawed. When this statement was not followed by the provision of a revised version of the law, parliamentarians issued a renewed appeal to Putin on the opening day of the autumn session in September 2003.65 At the end of the month amendments to the Law On Citizenship of the Russian Federation were submitted to the Duma, which considerably simplified the acquisition of Russian citizenship for former citizens of the Soviet Union.66 Having been fast-tracked through three readings in the Duma, the amendments were approved of by the Federation Council and signed by the president in early October 2003. The amendments to the citizenship law proposed by Putin in September 2003 were greeted positively by the parliamentarians who had demanded the changes, and also in the media. The journal Ekspert, for example, commented on the introduction of the amendments that, ‘this is the first time the president asked for a law to be changed, which he had signed himself … From this we could conclude that our authorities are still able to admit to their own mistakes’.67 What in particular had so angered the critics of the law that they were able to mount a sustained campaign eventually resulting in the president acquiescing to demands that amendments be introduced? Their chief complaint centred on the restrictions that the law introduced on former Soviet citizens wishing to acquire Russian citizenship, and their negative response to these measures led to a counter-securitising discourse against what they perceived as the unwarranted securitisation of migration legislation and the introduction of police-state measures in the law. Criticism about the content of the law was voiced by non-governmental organisations dealing with migration-related issues and some parts of the political opposition. These were namely the Russian Forum for Migration Organisations and its chairwoman Lidiya Grafova;68 the State Duma factions of the KPRF, the liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces (SPS), the Agrarian deputy group; and some members of the Regions of Russia deputy group. In the main, critics decried the citizenship law as a crude attempt at securitising migration policies. Such critics, for example, described the law as ‘treacherous’69 and ‘oppressive’,70 and likened it to introducing methods of a ‘police state’,71 or of a ‘closed society’.72 As noted above, concerns about the Law On Citizenship of the Russian Federation were voiced particularly with regards to the restrictive

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treatment, in comparison with the 1991 law, of ethnic Russians living in the former Soviet republics. Grafova interpreted the law as follows: when the State Duma passed the cynical draft Law On Citizenship in the second reading, it became absolutely obvious that the games with human rights and an open society are over. Our country is drawing an ‘iron curtain’ before compatriots, who consider Russia their homeland. Practically all the possibilities for acquiring Russian citizenship are taken from them.73

Statements to this effect by liberally renowned and Western-oriented Yabloko politician, Grigorii Yavlinskii, and KPRF deputy, Anatolii Chekhaev, were of a similar nature. Whilst Yavlinskii asserted that, ‘the repressive Law On Citizenship … turns all ethnic Russians living in CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries into foreigners’,74 Chekhaev pleaded with the assembled parliamentarians before the third reading of the law: ‘we received sacks full of letters from our compatriots, and today there are 28 million of them. Everybody voting here today has to understand that he is sealing the fate of each of these 28 million people at the push of a button.’75 The country’s demographic crisis was another argument against the adoption of the new Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation. In the eyes of critics, by forcing the adoption of the law, the Russian authorities betrayed the country’s national interest and security they are claiming to protect. In an article about the citizenship law entitled ‘Dangerous Security’, Grafova cautioned that ‘turning Russia into a country with closed doors in the name of national security it is in fact undermining security. Everybody knows that Russia’s population is ageing and dying’.76 State Duma deputy Oleg Smolin of the Agrarian deputy group put forward the following argument against the law: ‘This country is suffering from a demographic catastrophe. According to a prognosis made by the State Duma Committee for Statistics there will be only 100 million Russians left in twenty years, in 50 years roughly 75 million and in 70 years 50–55 million.’77 In very similar terms Yavlinskii argued: ‘Isn’t it obvious that by rejecting migrants Russia, which loses 700,000 people a year will soon be unable to maintain its sovereignty in Siberia and in the Far East? This is why not migrants, but the prevention of migration is the real threat to the security of Russia.’78 It is a little ironic that in this rare case of the citizenship law where a counter-securitising discourse eventually won the day in parliament and the president supported amendments to soften the impact of the law, the question of whether the content of the original law was indeed a securitisation, in the sense of adopting measures outside of normal politics, is not particularly clear cut. The original Law On Citizenship of the Russian Federation, which came into force in July 2002, put former Soviet citizens

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more legally on a par with foreigners from the ‘far abroad’. However, proponents of the Law On Citizenship represented such a step as furthering the normalisation of the migration process in contemporary Russia. They stated its rationale as a long overdue update of its 1991 predecessor, which had been adopted in November 1991, shortly before the final break-up of the Soviet Union, under very different circumstances. Kutafin, one of the authors of the law, asserted that ten years had lapsed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and ‘everybody who wanted benefits or advantages [in acquiring Russian citizenship] should have claimed them long ago’.79 The deputy chief of the Laws and Legal Acts Observance Department at the Prosecutor General’s Office, Valerii Formichev, also advocated the law as a normalising measure: ‘The law [on citizenship from 1991] has produced the desired effect. Ten years was a long enough period for most citizens of CIS countries to have made up their mind.’80 Kutafin’s and Formichev’s justifications for the law can be likened to similar moves made to regulate, for example, the immigration of Commonwealth citizens into the United Kingdom after the Second World War. The British Nationality Act from 1948 confirmed the right of citizens of the Commonwealth to settle without any restriction in the United Kingdom. In 1962, the Commonwealth Immigration Act introduced additional legislation limiting their right to settle in the United Kingdom. Further restrictions followed in the 1965 and 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Acts. In 1971, Commonwealth and alien immigration legislation were finally merged under a common Immigration Act. In view of this comparison, restrictions imposed by the Russian Law On Citizenship on the right of former Soviet citizens to acquire Russian citizenship do not constitute a securitising move. Rather, their interpretation of it as such a move appears to be the result partly of the original discourse used by some of its proponents, and partly of the critics’ political priorities concerning the relationship of Russia with the former Soviet republics. In contrast to the law on citizenship, the law on the status of foreign citizens had been equally presented in a strongly securitised discourse and was drafted by the same authors as the citizenship law. The law on foreign citizens, however, did not cause controversy and was adopted by the State Duma with 240 votes in favour and 34 votes against. However, opponents of the law did not only criticise its content. Allegations were made about the violation of parliamentary procedure in the course of its original adoption by the State Duma. Specifically, it was contended that amendments to the law approved in the second reading were removed from the draft presented to the deputies at the third

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reading. Reportedly, additional articles had been included without consulting the Duma Committee for State Building, which was in charge of presenting this particular law to the State Duma. According to the stenogram recording the Duma session of the law’s third reading, Boris Nadezhdin, a deputy of the SPS faction and a member of the Committee for State Building, told the assembled parliamentarians you have been handed a letter written and signed by members of the Committee for State Building. One paragraph in the letter is especially important: the draft text you received for the third reading has not been considered by the Committee and has been arbitrarily amended with substantive additions.81

Ultimately, Nadezhdin demanded the return of the draft law to the stage of the second reading. According to the stenogram he was vocally supported in this demand by fellow State Building Committee member Boris Pastukhov, by Yabloko deputy Sergei Mitrokhin and KPRF deputies Tatiana Pleteneva and Anatolii Chekhaev.82 Accusations of violating parliamentary procedure during the adoption of the Law On Citizenship were made against the presidential administration, its proponents in the Committee for State Building, and the legislative administration of the State Duma Apparat. The latter body was ultimately responsible for declaring legal the changes made to the draft before the third reading.83 Originally, however, the project of a new citizenship law was conceived in the presidential administration, where it was drafted by a special working group created by the Commission on Questions of Citizenship under the President of the Russian Federation, headed by the rector of the Moscow State Law Academy, Oleg Kutafin.84 The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs asserted that it had taken ‘an active part in the elaboration’ of the law,85 as did the Interdepartmental Working Group on Improving Migration Legislation led by the deputy head of the presidential administration, Viktor Ivanov.86 Critics of the law accused particularly the presidential administration of forcing its favoured variant through the State Duma without revealing a willingness to compromise,87 and of exploiting its ability to influence the direction of the majority of votes in the State Duma.88 In spite of the allegations made, the law on citizenship was, as we have seen, passed in the third reading with 252 votes for and 152 against.89 In consideration of the violations of parliamentary procedure during the third reading of the law, Nadezhdin’s account of how it was finally passed sounds plausible: There was an intensive debate during the second reading [of the Law On Citizenship] and we discussed many hundreds of proposals. During this discussion the Duma voted for proposals that were very controversial. As a

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result, the third reading presented real problems regarding the proposals that would be adopted in the end. The sensible motion was brought forward to return the draft to the second reading and to let the State Duma vote for both variants. But the Presidential Administration decided to have it its own way. They made a choice in favour of one variant, which was presented for the third reading without discussion. And the parliament adopted this bill without discussion … If you have the majority in parliament, at any stage of the legislative process you can say ‘we have spoken enough about parliamentary procedure ... let’s vote!’90

In assessing the securitisation of migration policies in Russia the violations of parliamentary procedure during the adoption of the citizenship law constitute a compelling argument that a securitisation occurred. The draft law was introduced to the State Duma by the presidential administration at a time when official discourse started increasingly to represent issues related to migration as an existential threat to the national economy, national identity, and the nation state. As mentioned above, the law, too, was advocated in a strongly securitised language. In consideration of the violations of parliamentary procedure during the third reading of the law, its adoption cannot be seen simply as an expression of the endorsement by the parliament of official discourse concerning the necessity of adopting this law. Due to the politically controversial content of the Law On Citizenship different variants of the law were debated. In violation of parliamentary procedure, however, the variant advocated by the presidential administration was introduced for a third reading and was adopted, despite the protest of four State Duma factions and deputy groups against apparent violations of parliamentary procedure. The official argument in favour of the law was the necessity to create an up-to-date and comprehensive legal basis for migration processes, and a new Law On Citizenship of the Russian Federation was portrayed as a vital element of this legislative normalisation. On the eve of the ensuing legislative activities in the area of migration in December 2001, President Putin pointed out the weak regulation of the migration sphere, calling for the establishment of ‘normal immigration legislation’.91 When the law was signed Putin expressed his hope that it would ‘form a basis, on which policies in the sphere [of migration] will be built’.92 Viktor Ivanov, the head of the Interdepartmental Working Group on Improving Migration Legislation similarly remarked after the adoption of the law that, ‘at the centre of attention of our working group were the Laws On Citizenship and On the Status of Foreign Citizens ... In order to correct the incomplete state of legislation in the sphere of migration, more than a dozen federal laws and hundreds of legal acts need to be worked out. Generally speaking, we need to establish the “rules of the immigration movement”.’93

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Considering the violations of parliamentary procedure during the adoption of the Law On Citizenship, however, the authorities’ normalisation argument here has to be seen in context. Using the model advocated by Buzan et al., the process of adopting the citizenship law occurred outside the boundaries of ‘normal politics’, because violations of parliamentary procedures were apparently accepted by both the presidential administration and the factions and deputy groups voting in favour of the law.

This chapter has analysed the securitisation of migration policies in contemporary Russia by studying official discourse and institutional and legislative changes in this sphere. The study of official discourse promoted by the Putin regime as the securitising actor indicates a tendency to portray the subject of migration in a strongly securitised language by representing a range of issues as a threat to the Russian economy, to national identity and to the nation state. Whilst the treatment of migration as a security issue is by no means unique to Russia,94 official discourse tends towards institutionalising the discrimination of specific ethnic groups, and even of migrants as a whole. Aleksandr Verkhovskii, a political analyst of the Russian Panorama Centre, cautioned that ‘previously the idea that migration is a threat to national security belonged only to the radical opposition, today it has become an official doctrine’.95 Some developments regarding the institutional and legislative frameworks of the migration process in contemporary Russia, which occurred within the context of this official securitising discourse, can be described as successful securitising moves on the part of the Putin regime. The transferral of the Federal Migration Service to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2001 was decided without public discussion and was dealt with ‘above politics’. Statements made after the move by the head of the migration service and by other relevant actors indicated that the decision was aimed, at least in part, at pushing the issue of migration further into the security realm and at strengthening the law-enforcement element of the institution dealing with migrants. Critics of the transferral of the FMS to the MVD repeatedly cautioned that the increasing emphasis of the Service’s law-enforcement element inevitably would occur at the expense of its function to support and help migrants. The introduction of the Laws On Citizenship of the Russian Federation and On the Status of Foreign Citizens in the Russian Federation was at the heart of the changes made to the legislative framework of migration policies in contemporary Russia. Both laws were drafted and initiated by the presidential administration, and their adoption was officially advocated in a strongly securitised language. Despite considerable

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opposition in the State Duma to the draft sponsored by the administration, the law on citizenship was adopted under the violation of parliamentary procedure. In accordance with Buzan et al this constitutes a successful securitising move, because in the course of the law’s adoption, the breaking of otherwise binding rules was apparently accepted by the presidential administration and the Duma factions favouring the law. The process of securitising migration in contemporary Russia has to be seen within the wider framework of policy-making under the Putin regime. Whilst the treatment of migration serves as a pertinent example of securitisation, issues in other policy areas have been portrayed in official discourse and dealt with in a similar way. Citing the transferral of the FMS to the MVD in October 2001 as an example, Verkhovskii remarked, I don’t think the purpose [of the transferral] was to create limitations specifically in the sphere of migration. The move was in line with Putin’s broader reform efforts: decreasing the number of ministries and subordinating everything to ‘people with epaulets’ on a general level. The idea is that they will create better order this way. And this has had some negative effects.96

Notes 1 Illegal migrant labour here means non-tax paying labour by either illegal migrants or legal migrants without a work permit. 2 A. Kamakin, ‘Problema. Tikhoe vtorzhenie’, Itogi (27 August 2002), pp. 16–19. 3 V. Denisov, ‘Nadezhnyi zaslon “nelegalam” obespechit novaya migratsionnaya politika’, Krasnaya zvezda (5 April 2002), p. 4. 4 I. Nevinnaya, ‘Delovoi zavtrak. Andrei Chernenko: V etoi sluzhbe vse nemnozhko kamikadze’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (14 June 2002), p. 6 5 N. Medvedev, ‘Vy zdes ne chuzhie’, Parlamentskaya gazeta (2 July 2002), p. 5 6 RFE/RL Newsline (23 August 2002), www.rferl.org/newsline/2002/08/230802.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). 7 ‘“Militarizatsiya” migratsionnoi sluzhbe ne grozit’ (3 April 2002), www.strana.ru/ stories/01/10/24/1852/126673.html (last accessed 30 October 2005). 8 Duma stenogram, Gosudartvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii (Moscow: Izdanie gosudarstvennoi dumy, Vecherneye zasedanie, 12 May 2005), www.akdi.ru/gd/ PLEN_Z/2005/05/12-05.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005). 9 The issue of ethnic Russians distributed across the former Soviet space (CIS countries) has been a significant issue of domestic Russian politics since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. The degree to which this group should be encouraged to integrate into the newly independent states they are now inhabiting on the one hand, or to return to Russia on the other hand, has been causing conflict between political actors in postSoviet Russia, such as the executive, the legislature, and specific ministries. One discursive analysis revealed that linguistically, the concepts of ‘ethnic Russians’ and ‘Russian speakers’ tend to be used interchangeably. Similarly, the term ‘compatriots’ is undifferentiated. See H. Pilkington, Migration, Displacement and Identity in Post-Soviet Russia (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 26

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10 RFE/RL Newsline (15 July 2002), www.rferl.org/newsline/2002/07/150702.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). 11 ‘Rossii neobkhodimo imet normalnoe immigratsionnoe zakonodatelstvo’ (24 December 2001), www.strana.ru/stories/01/10/24/1852/97236.html (last accessed 30 October 2005). 12 Official Russian discourse and media discourse does not tend to distinguish between separate groups of travellers, portraying them all under the heading ‘zygane’ (gypsies). In order to avoid this linguistic term, this analysis refers to Roma, although their specific ethnic background is not always specified in the Russian sources used. 13 www.strana.ru (21 June 2002); M. Falaleev, ‘Kriminal. Litsa afrikanskoi natsionalnosti vse agressivnee…’, Komsomolskaya pravda (22 June 2002), p. 4. 14 V. Morozova, ‘Kriminal. Operatsiya “Tabor”’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedemosti (27 February 2002), p. 2; I. Belasheva,‘Vsekh ne vyzyganish. Militsionery zabirayut iz taborov postoronnykh detei’,Vremya novostei (31 July 2002), p. 3. 15 V. Morozova, ‘Operatsiya “Tabor” prodolzhaetsya’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedemosti (18 July 2002), p. 2. 16 N. Granina, ‘Tabor ukhodit iz SIZO. Tsygane zhumnoyu po izolyatoram kochuyut’, Izvestiya (17 July 2002), p. 1. 17 This having been said, the tendency implicitly or explicitly to associate criminal activity with certain ethnic groups is not unheard of in the West, either. In early October 2002, for instance, the United States Justice Department issued a directive to register all male visitors to the United States from selected Muslim countries, including the taking of photographs and fingerprints. Reportedly, the Arab-American community criticised this move for targeting people on the basis of their race and religion. BBC News Online (1 October 2002), http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2289374.stm (last accessed 18 July 2005). 18 ITAR-TASS (24 September 2002; accessed via BBC Monitoring). 19 I. Nevinnaya, ‘Andrei Chernenko: V etoi sluzhbe vse nemnozhko kamikadze’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (14 June 2002), p. 6. 20 RFE/RL Newsline (29 July 2002), www.rferl.org/newsline/2002/07/290702.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). 21 R. Ukolov, ‘Naselenie Rossii prirastaet nelegalami. Na 10 nashikh sootvetstvennikov prikhoditsya odin nezakonnyi immigrant’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (24 January 2002), p. 7. 22 E. Pain, ‘Problema. Druzhba narodov na pochve narkotikov’, Moskovskie novosti (16 April 2002), p. 8. 23 ‘Migratsionnaya politika Rossii: Etnicheskii Kontekst’, Otkrytyi Forum MOM Informatsionnaya Seriya, Moscow Migration Research Programme, 5 (August 2002), p. 22. 24 Policy and Law Concerning Foreigners in Germany (Berlin: The German Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2000), pp. 146–7. 25 RFE/RL Newsline (12 September 2003), www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/09/120903.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). 26 NTV Mir (15 November 2002; accessed via BBC Monitoring). 27 ITAR-TASS (11 December 2002; accessed via BBC Monitoring). 28 ITAR-TASS (18 November 2002; accessed via BBC Monitoring). 29 RFE/RL Political Weekly, 2:42 (11 December 2002), www.rferl.org/reports/rpw/2002/ 12/42-111202.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). 30 Vladimir Putin, Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, the Kremlin, Moscow (25 April 2005), www.president.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/04/25/2031_type70029 _87086.shtml (last accessed 18 July 2005).

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31 ‘Aleksandr Chekalin, glava Federalnoi migratsionnoi sluzhby: my zashchishchaem stranu ne ot migrantov, a ot priezzhikh prestupnikov’, Izvestiya (31 October 2003), p. 1. 32 Pilkington, Migration, Displacement and Identity, pp. 60–73. 33 L. Grafova, ‘Ekho Grazhdanskogo Foruma. Migratsiya obeshchaet stat zastupnitsei migratsii’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (28 November 2001), p. 1. 34 Chernenko was temporarily removed from his post as head of the FMS in April 2003. Until his reinstatement in the position in June 2004 he was appointed deputy to Valentina Matvienko first in her position as presidential plenipotentiary in the NorthWestern region and then as governor of St Petersburg. During the time of Chernenko’s fourteen-month absence, the FMS was headed by MVD General-Colonel Aleksandr Chekalin. 35 L. Ukho, ‘Migrantov vyvedut iz “teni”’, Vek (1 March 2002), p. 3. 36 Interviews with Chernenko published in Itogi (26 February 2002), p. 19; Rossiiskaya gazeta (28 February 2002), p. 1 (14 June 2002), p. 6; Vek (1 March 2002); www.strana.ru (3 April 2002), www.strana.ru/stories/01/10/24/1852/126673.html (last accessed 30 October 2005); Izvestiya (24 August 2002), p. 2. 37 O. Yablokova, ‘Migration Chief Says Security is His Priority’, Moscow Times (26 August 2002), p. 3. 38 I. Semenova, ‘Migratsiya. Eshche odna vnutrennee delo’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (27 February 2002), p. 6. 39 A. Urikhanyan, ‘Vremya sobytii. Zheleznyi zanaves dlya migrantov’, Vremya MN (24 August 2002), p. 2. 40 L. Ukho, ‘Migrantov vyvedut iz “teni”’,Vek (1 March 2002), p. 3. 41 I. Nevinnaya, ‘Delovoi zavtrak. Andrei Chernenko: V etoi sluzhbe vse nemnozhko kamikadze’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (14 June 2002), p. 6. Chernenko had made a similar statement in the same newspaper on 28 February 2002. 42 E. Korotkova, ‘Politika i ekonomika. Nasledstvo dlya MVD’, Moskovskii komsomolets (3 November 2001), pp. 1–2. 43 The civilian Boris Gryzlov, who served as interior minister from 2001–03, was a notable exception of the rule. 44 I. Nevinnaya, ‘Delovoi zavtrak. Andrei Chernenko: V etoi sluzhbe vse nemnozhko kamikadze’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (14 June 2002), p. 6. 45 Ibid. 46 ‘Aleksandr Chekalin, glava Federalnoi migratsionnoi sluzhby: my zashchishchaem stranu ne ot migrantov, a ot priezzhikh prestupnikov’, Izvestiya (31 October 2003), p. 1. 47 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (October 2002). 48 Yevgenii Krasinets, laboratory head at the Institute of Socio-economic Population Problems (Russian Academy of Sciences), quoted in ‘Expert blitz poll: Migration Policy under the MIA Jurisdiction: Possible Consequences’, IOM Open Forum Information Series, Moscow Migration Research Programme, 2 (September–October 2001), p. 11 49 E. Korotkova, ‘Politika i ekonomika. Nasledstvo dlya MVD’, Moskovskii komsomolets (3 November 2001), pp. 1–2. 50 RFE/RL Newsline (12 October 2001), www.rferl.org/newsline/2001/10/121001.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). 51 ‘Expert blitz poll’, p. 11. 52 Ibid. 53 ‘Migratsionnaya politika Rossii’, p. 22. 54 For text of law see www.akdi.ru/PRAVO/news/pr_grajd.htm (last accessed 20 July 2005).

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55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

Kamakin, ‘Problema’, pp. 16–19. Ibid. Ibid. N. Airapetova, ‘Grazhdanstvo Rossii dolzhno zashchichat i cheloveka, i gosudarstvo. Dlya effektivnosti novogo zakona sleduet produmat sistemu kontrolya, prolagaet razrabotchik dokumenta Oleg Kutafin’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (20 November 2001), p. 7. N. Medvedev, ‘Vy zdes ne chuzhie’, Parlamentskaya gazeta (2 July 2002), p. 5. I. Semenova, ‘Kommentarii. Kogda zhuzhoi stanovitsya svoim’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (31 July 2002), p. 10. E. Fomenko, ‘Pravoporyadok. Migratsionnaya sluzhba beret priezzhikh pod kontrol’, Kommersant-daily (24 August 2002), p. 4. ‘Kompetentno. Inostrantsy poluchili svoi zakon’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (31 October 2002), p. 1. The same line of reasoning was also used by Chernenko in an interview with Izvestiya: ‘Every spring there is an ‘agricultural unemployment’. Guests from the south come and work for 50 dollars a month and the local population, having nothing to do, all to a man become drunkards from the 8–10 grade onwards. Our Russians become drunkards …’, V. Voloshina, ‘“Za pravo rabotat” v Rossii inostrantsy budut dorogo platit’, Izvestiya (24 August 2002), p. 2. Duma stenogram, Gosudarstvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii, 163:611, Part I (19 April 2002), p. 31. ITAR-TASS (11 April 2003; accessed via BBC Monitoring). RFE/RL Newsline (10 September 2003), www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/09/100903.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). RFE/RL Newsline (25 September 2003), www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/09/250903.asp (last accessed 30 October 2005). N. Arkhangelskaya, ‘Migratsiya: zapadnyi dreif’, Ekspert (20 October 2003), p. 70. Lidiya Grafova wrote and was interviewed on this issue numerously. See, for example, Literaturnaya gazeta (27 February 2002), p. 1 (17 April 2002), p. 1; Novye izvestiya (20 June 2002), p. 1. A. Kolesnichenko, ‘Analiz. “Grazhdanskaya” voina v Dume’, Argumenty i fakty (27 February 2002), p. 11. L. Grafova, ‘Tochka zreniya. Grigorii Yavlinskii: Nashemu gosudarstvu lyudi ne nuzhny’, Novaya gazeta (29 July 2002), p. 3. L. Grafova, ‘Aktualno. Opasnaya “bezopasnost”’, Literaturnaya gazeta, 27 February 2002, p. 1. V. Yakov, ‘Grazhdanin Kremlya’, Novye izvestiya (27 April 2002), p. 1. Grafova, ‘Aktualno’, p. 1. Grafova, ‘Tochka zreniya’, p. 3. L. Grafova, ‘Zloba dnya. Nelegaly ili spasitely?’, Literaturnaya gazeta (17 April 2002), p. 1. Grafova, ‘Aktualno’, p. 1. Gosudarstvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii (April), p. 27. Grafova, ‘Tochka zreniya’, p. 3. Airapetova, ‘Grazhdanstvo Rossii dolzhno zashchichat i cheloveka’, p. 7. ITAR-TASS (18 November 2002; accessed via BBC Monitoring). Gosudarstvennaya Duma stenogramma zasedanii (April), p. 25. Ibid, pp. 21–31. Ibid, p. 21. Airapetova, ‘Grazhdanstvo Rossii dolzhno zashchichat i cheloveka’, p. 7. ITAR-TASS (25 December 2001; accessed via BBC Monitoring).

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86 L. Grafova, ‘Osobyi sluchai. Mesto na kladbishche vmesto vida na zhitelstvo’, Literaturnaya gazeta (22 May 2002), p. 1; Kamakin, ‘Problema’, pp. 16–19. 87 Grafova, ‘Aktualno’, p. 1. 88 The factions of United Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and the deputy groups People’s Deputy and Regions of Russia tend to be perceived as forming an unofficial pro-Kremlin voting bloc. Taken as a whole, these groups consist of 250 deputies. This exceeds the simple majority of 226 votes needed to pass a law. 89 Gosudarstvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii (April), p. 31. 90 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (15 October 2002). 91 www.strana.ru (24 December 2001). 92 www.strana.ru (3 June 2002). 93 Kamakin, ‘Problema’, pp. 16–19. 94 Buzan et al. extensively write about migration as a major security issue in the societal sector on an international level. B. Buzan, O. Wæver, and J. de Wilde, Security: a new framework for analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998). 95 Personal interview with the authors, Moscow (22 October 2002). 96 Ibid.

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7 The economy

In considering the economy from the point of view of securitisation the underlying dilemma which is present throughout this book shifts a little. In most chapters, because of the issues with which we are dealing, the background theme is the trade-off between democracy and authoritarianism. Although because of the focus of our analysis we have not often put it in quite these terms, what we are assessing on one level is the balance between practices associated with the Soviet Union, and those associated with a more democratic post-Soviet mindset. In the economic sphere then, the trade-off underlying the question of securitisation is between state control and a more liberal market approach. The timescale shifts a little too, in that economic policy and the structure of the economy cannot be changed so swiftly as can policy in many of the policy areas considered in other chapters. For these reasons, this chapter takes a longer view in contextualising the securitisation debate in relation to the economy, although its focus remains the central question, is the economic policy of contemporary Russia being securitised? In the USSR concerns about security in relation to the economy were institutionalised. With the partial exception of the final years under Gorbachev, it was accepted as normal that security considerations exerted a strong influence on economic policy and on the public presentation of the economy, in terms of statistics, to both Soviet citizens and the outside world. This was most evident in the military sphere: all matters relating to the economics of defence – the military budget, the defence industry, the extraordinary system of mobilisation preparation, and arms transfers – were shrouded in almost total secrecy, decisions being taken by a very small elite not subject to any form of democratic control. Here ‘extraordinary means’, to use the term employed by Buzan et al. (also, characteristically, a central motif of the Soviet system), became normal.1 But in many other respects economic life was institutionally ‘securitised’, in the

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sense meant by Buzan, the referent object of security being the Soviet party-state.2 Examples are legion, including the urge to minimise dependence on foreign trade, a strong aversion to foreign capital, and a deeprooted suspicion of private ownership. This security regime was enforced not only by the KGB, but by the CPSU, which also sought to justify it on ideological grounds. With the demise of the communist system in Russia, did this institutionalised regime of economic security die as well? Or has the urge to ‘securitise’ economic life lived on, given new life by the accession to power of a president with a security background? The security dimension of the Russian economy: the early years

Any state has legitimate concerns in relation to the security of the economy. Law-enforcement and security agencies seek to combat such phenomena as the criminalisation of economic life and illegal capital flows, while government economic agencies seek to ensure economic stability and conditions guarding against serious economic disruption or collapse. Concerns about economic security may also extend to particular spheres, for example, food security, energy security and transport security. In this respect Russia, with a functioning market economy, is no exception. However, it is another matter when attempts are made to extend security concerns to economic policy-making in general, to elevate ‘economic security’ to a central guiding principle of government and grounds for resort to extraordinary measures, justified in the name of the survival of the state. In terms of the framework of analysis of Buzan and his colleagues, this would constitute the ‘securitisation’ of the economy. With the end of communist rule and the planned economy in Russia at the end of 1991, the institutionalised regime of economic security, already weakened by the Gorbachev reforms, effectively collapsed. The CPSU had been central to the economic security regime, aided by the state planning committee Gosplan and other economic agencies, and the KGB. When Gaidar and his team embarked on radical economic transformation, the fragmented and demoralised ex-KGB effectively withdrew from economic life and appears to have had little if any influence on economic policy. However, aspects of the security regime were retained in the military sphere, including the retention of the Soviet system of mobilisation preparedness and the maintenance of state control over arms transfers, although for the latter it was some time before a dependable new institutional framework was developed. In April 1992 a new actor emerged, the Security Council, but with no mention initially of any role in relation to the economy, although its first secretary, Yurii Skokov, had an industrial background. However, it appears to have become more involved in economic issues when Oleg

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Lobov became secretary in September 1993. He appointed an economist, Aleksandr Troshin, as one of his deputies, and according to one account, whereas Skokov had staffed the Council with security personnel, his successor, Yevgenii Shaposhnikov had favoured the military, while Lobov had a preference for economists. Under Lobov, the Security Council began to play a role in the economy, in particular participating in the investigation of the causes of ‘Black Tuesday’, the sudden sharp fall in the exchange rate of October 1994. A number of interdepartmental commissions of the Security Council were created, one for ‘economic security’, an official legitimation of the term which began to enter public discourse with increasing frequency from about 1994. In the period 1994–96, with the economy in decline and passions roused by a highly controversial process of mass privatisation, there were a number of attempts to ‘securitise’ the economy. In this respect, Black Tuesday appears to have been a significant turning point. In late 1994 it was revealed that Aleksandr Korzhakov, head of Yeltsin’s security staff, had attempted to interfere in government economic policy-making in the name of security, directing a letter to the prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, alleging that the former economy minister, Aleksandr Shokhin, had opened up the materials sector of the economy to foreign companies, thereby endangering the security of the country by increasing its dependence on foreign capital.3 At about the same time, Vladimir Polevanov, appointed successor to Anatolii Chubais as head of the privatisation agency Goskomimushchestvo, allegedly on the initiative of Korzhakov, threatened renationalisation of privatised property, charging that national security had been undermined by allowing strategic companies to fall into foreign hands.4 In his attempt to change government policy, Polevanov drew on evidence supplied to him by the Federal Counter-intelligence Service (FSK) and the MVD.5 However, Polevanov’s term in office proved to be brief: Yeltsin dismissed him in late February 1995. Until his eventual dismissal in the summer of 1996, Korzhakov was undoubtedly a significant figure in attempts to ‘securitise’ the economy, preparing the ground for the most serious move of the entire postcommunist period, that of the economist, and now politician, Sergei Glazev. In April 1996 Yeltsin signed a decree (ukaz) on the ‘basic principles’ of a State Strategy of Economic Security for the Russian Federation.6 It has been suggested that this was a tactical move in the pre-electoral period designed to capture some of the slogans of rival candidates, Aleksandr Lebed and Gennadii Zyuganov.7 This is plausible and, if so, it can be speculated that Korzhakov may have played a role. Unfortunately, the authorship of this extraordinary decree has not been revealed. Russia is presented as being confronted by a broad range of threats relating to a

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widening differentiation of property and incomes, a distorted structure of the economy, uneven regional social and economic development, and the criminalisation of the economy and society. It called for the development of ‘threshold indicators’ for the assessment of economic security, with a regular monitoring of actual indicators in relation to threshold levels so that appropriate action could be taken to ward off threats to economic security. It was Glazev who rose to the challenge. Sergei Glazev, the youngest ever doctor of economics in the USSR, was a minister in the Gaidar and Chernomyrdin governments, but resigned in protest at Yeltsin’s brutal dissolution of the Congress of Peoples’ Deputies in September 2003. While a member of Gaidar’s liberal economic team, Glazev was more of a gosudarstvennik (supporter of a strong state), and over time this orientation, combined with a strong Russian patriotism, became increasingly evident, culminating in his alignment to the Communist Party, although he has never actually become a member. After leaving the government, Glazev became an outspoken critic of its economic policy and architect of a series of alternative economic programmes. Initially his critique made no explicit reference to threats to the country’s economic security, but in 1996, the year of the presidential elections, this theme came to the forefront and served as a springboard to office.8 In July 1996 Aleksandr Lebed was appointed secretary of the Security Council and almost immediately signalled that economic security was to be a central concern: he warned that a financial crisis was looming and that soon, ‘the economic security of the country will approximate to zero’.9 In August Lebed appointed Glazev his deputy and head of the Directorate of Economic Security. In this position, Glazev strived to develop a new approach to economic security which he clearly believed would put it on a more scientific basis: in accordance with the April decree, he argued that government economic policy had to be measured against an elaborate set of ‘threshold indicators’ covering all aspects of economic life. These included such measures as the share of investment in gross domestic product (GDP), the share of machine building in industrial output, external debt as a share of GDP, the share of imports in domestic consumption, and income differentials. In each case, Glazev declared a certain level be a ‘threshold’, but without any attempt to justify the levels chosen.10 He then compared the actual levels of Russia in 1996 with the thresholds and found that the Russian economy was in grave danger. In a classic securitising move which elaborated a clear existential threat to key referent objects, it was argued in almost apocalyptic terms that the very survival of the Russian state, and people, was at stake.11 What was required, in his view, was a fundamental change of economic policy, with a shift from liberalism to state intervention, otherwise the very existence of the state was under threat.

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There is little doubt that Glazev wanted above all to change Russia’s economic policy and resorted to ‘securitisation’ as the means to this end. However, in doing so he provoked opposition from the outset. Soon after his appointment he declared that, ‘all the government’s decisions affecting the sphere of economic security should undergo expertise in the Security Council’.12 It soon became apparent that Glazev was making a bid to become the principal architect of government economic policy. Lebed, clearly speaking for Glazev, subjected the 1997 draft federal budget to sharp criticism and urged major changes in the interests of economic security.13 Concern began to mount that Lebed and Glazev were becoming too powerful. Segodnya observed that under the new leadership of the Security Council the term ‘economic security’ had begun to diffuse rapidly to all areas of the everyday lives of Russian citizens. It may have been worries on this score that led Yeltsin to call for a meeting in January 1997 of the government, Security Council, and his own administration to discuss economic security, but shortly after this call he took action: Lebed was dismissed. Glazev’s securitising move had not convinced his most immediate audience, namely, the rest of the executive. In Buzan’s terms, this initiative of Glazev represented an unambiguous move to ‘securitise’ the economy. However, it was short lived and its practical impact was limited. With Lebed’s dismissal as Security Council secretary in mid-October 1996, Glazev lost his patron and remained in post for only a brief period under the new secretary, Ivan Rybkin. Through bureaucratic inertia, for a while Glazev’s legacy lived on. In December 1996 the government adopted a curious decree calling on various government departments to develop threshold indicators of the type advocated by Glazev.14 But there is no evidence that this decree was ever enacted. Yeltsin’s January conference did take place but with little drama. Shortly before it convened, Andrei Illarionov (at the time director of the Institute of Economic Analysis, later Putin’s economic advisor) wrote that the principal issue for the economic security of the country was the rate of economic growth. From this perspective, he concluded that the main threat to Russia came from the state itself, or rather ‘the present state’.15 Later, in 1998, Glazev’s threshold indicators were subject to a devastating critique by Illarionov, who made his position clear from his first sentence, ‘In world economic science the concept of economic security is not employed’.16 Since this demolition exercise, threshold indicators of economic security have almost disappeared from the scene, but still surface occasionally. Thus Vyacheslav Senchagov, former chair person of the Soviet State Committee for Prices and a member of the Scientific Council of the Security Council, returned to them in an article published in 2001.17 Glazev himself does not appear to have made any effort to revive them. It is notable that when he stood as

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a candidate for the presidency in early 2004 economic security hardly figured at all in his campaign. While the Glazev episode was the most serious attempt to ‘securitise’ the economy, at various times ‘economic security’ has been invoked in particular policy debates, usually to justify positions counter to liberal market solutions. Examples are many. Rem Vyakhirev, the former head of Gazprom, was adept at playing the economic security card in order to counter reform initiatives: in 1997 he even obtained a Yeltsin decree restricting foreign ownership of shares explicitly in the name of Russia’s economic security.18 Earlier, in 1995, there were attacks on the activities in Russia of the billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, with the FSK to the fore. It was argued that the support of Soros for Russian science constituted a threat to the country’s economic security.19 The scientific community rallied in support of Soros and the issue soon died down. It has been argued that food imports undermine the country’s economic security: in 1999 Sergei Stepashin, as prime minister, declared that, ‘the importation of food products from abroad suppresses our agriculture, that has glorified our country for decades, puts us into bondage and consequently undermines Russia’s economic security’.20 More recently, economic security has been invoked to counter large-scale imports of foreign-built cars, to ban exports of non-ferrous scrap metals and to justify a Baltic pipeline project.21 Non-state actors have also sought to ‘securitise’ issues in order to influence government policy, for example, in 1998 Kuzbass miners tried to persuade the government that the closures of coal mines was a threat to Russia’s economic security.22 The decline of ‘economic security’

From 1997 the prominence of economic security concerns in Russia began to wane. The bold ‘securitisation’ bid of Lebed and Glazev appears to have alerted government circles to the potential dangers of excessive security concern in relation to the economy and the beginnings of economic recovery in 1997 may also have served to reduce fears of economic collapse. There were advocates of economic security, for example Anatolii Kulikov, head of the MVD, but in a more restricted sense. For Kulikov and others the principal threat was the criminalisation of the economy, at times presented in lurid terms.23 Glazev was replaced as deputy Security Council secretary for the economy by Aleksandr Ageenkov, formerly head of foreign exchange control at the Central Bank of Russia, who, while still voicing concern at security threats, did so in more moderate terms and did not seek to ‘securitise’ the entire economy. The same approach was adopted by his successor, Mikhail Fradkov, who went on to become head of the Federal Tax Police Service (FSNP) and in

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2004 was appointed prime minister, after serving for a while as Russia’s representative at the European Union. Fradkov, speaking at parliamentary hearings in February 2001 on legal provision for economic security, echoed Illarionov when he concluded that economic growth was the best means of achieving economic security.24 Fradkov was succeeded by Vyacheslav Soltaganov, previously deputy head of the Tax Police.25 By 2003 the principal security concerns of the Security Council in relation to the economy had become matters of legitimate concern to any state, such as illegal capital flows, tax evasion, and the criminal penetration of business. Since March 2004, when the former foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, became secretary of the Security Council, there has been no deputy secretary with evident economic responsibilities, except perhaps Yurii Zubakov, a career diplomat, who is a member of the Interdepartmental Commission for Economic Integration.26 Now the Security Council does not appear to have much interest in economic matters and the sole member of the Council with an economic brief, apart from premier Fradkov, is Aleksei Kudrin, minister of finance. Putin reportedly meets with two distinct groups of close advisers on a weekly basis – with the leaders of the forces structures on Saturdays, and separately with selected cabinet members on Mondays to discuss economic matters. According to Olga Kryshtanovskaya of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, ‘the Putin-ite “politburo” has two wings – one economic, the other based on the force structures’; reportedly Prime Minister Fradkov and Defence Minister Ivanov attend both Saturday and Monday meetings.27 Another agency with an interest in economic security issues is the FSB; again it is criminal activity that appears to be the focus of its concern. A number of the directors of the FSB have had an economic security background, for example, Nikolai Kovalev, at one time deputy director for economic affairs, and the current director, Nikolai Patrushev, who worked for a time in the presidential administration, and then returned to the FSB as head of its economic security department. When Vladimir Putin was appointed FSB director in July 1998, Sergei Kirienko, the then prime minister, introduced him with a declaration that economic security, ‘is our main, most important, task’. He noted Putin’s suitability for the post, not only because of his security background, but also because of his work in the Main Control Agency of the presidential administration, which had given him ‘knowledge and experience in combating economic crimes’.28 In 1999 Patrushev was succeeded as head of the economic security department by Viktor Ivanov, who in January 2000 became deputy head of Putin’s presidential administration.29 During Putin’s first term as president the FSB’s department for economic security

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was headed by a deputy director of the service, General Yurii Zaostrovtsev, a controversial figure with a background in business and finance and believed to have been close to Putin.30 In March 2004 Zaostrovtsev transferred to Vneshekonombank as a first deputy director and was replaced as head of the FSB’s economic security department (now called a ‘service’) by a career counter-intelligence official from St Petersburg, Aleksandr Bortnikov.31 With Putin’s accession to power, given his security background, a reactivation of economic security concerns, or possibly more general ‘securitisation’ of the economy, might have been expected. However, this did not occur; on the contrary, interest in the issue diminished during his first three years in office. Two factors probably explain this diminution of concern about economic security. First, the economy steadily recovered from its acute decline over the period 1991–96, and then from the serious financial crisis of autumn 1998. With recovery, many of the concerns that so exercised Glazev and others diminished. If Glazev’s threshold indicators had been compared with actual levels achieved by 2002, it is likely that most would have been in the zone of safety. Second, the key members of Putin’s economic team – notably German Gref, Aleksei Kudrin and Putin’s own economic advisor, Andrei Illarionov – were liberals with regard to the market economy and as such opposed to state intervention in the economy in the name of economic security. Putin’s firm backing for this economic policy was probably decisive in keeping in check any urge to ‘securitise’ on the part of the ‘power’ ministries, which he also supported. However, it took some time before this became evident and there were openly voiced fears that ‘securitisation’ would be attempted. In August 2001 the Interdepartmental Commission of the Security Council for Economic Security, renamed by decree of Putin in September 2000 the Interdepartmental Commission for Security in the Sphere of the Economy, established a working group to elaborate a new state strategy for economic security, the term of the 1996 strategy having expired. This prompted some alarmist comment in the press to the effect that Putin’s true colours were now to be revealed, a document would appear marking a retreat from economic liberalism in the pursuit of security.32 In the event, no new strategy emerged. However, in July 2002 the Security Council returned to the issue, discussing a draft ‘Conception of Economic Security’. Significantly, the report, prepared jointly by the Ministry of Economic Development and the Security Council, was introduced by German Gref. He made it clear that he did not like the term economic security, but preferred discussion in terms of ‘the economic aspects of securing national security’, suggesting that Gref may have had a role in the renaming of the Security Council commission. The reports of this meeting suggest that it was long and stormy. Gref appears to have taken

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exception to some of the positions introduced into the draft Conception by the Security Council, now led by Vladimir Rushailo. The key to security, in Gref’s view, was growth of the economy, with a rate of growth of GDP of 4–5 per cent a year over the next eight years. It is reported that some of the ideas aired at the meeting were reminiscent of Soviet-era thinking about economic security. Rushailo voiced doubts about World Trade Organisation (WTO) accession and appeared to argue that the Security Council should have a say in the issue. The meeting appears to have disturbed Putin, who called for a redrafting of the Conception by the Ministry of the Economy and the Security Council.33 But in reality Minekon appears to have come out on top, leaving Gref as the principal author of the new Conception. However, perhaps reflecting Gref’s lack of enthusiasm for the project, a revised version of the Conception on Economic Security had still not appeared by the spring of 2005. A frequently noted feature of the Putin presidency has been the appointment to leading posts in government, the presidential apparatus and public life more generally of personnel with a background in the security services and the military. According to the analysis of Olga Kryshtanovskaya, as discussed in Chapter 2, 11 per cent of the government of 1993 under Yeltsin had military and security backgrounds, but 33 per cent of the government under Putin in 2002, including many deputy ministers who formerly served in the FSB and retained the status of ‘acting reserve officer’ , requiring them to report to the FSB as well as their own ministry or government department.34 This raises the interesting question of whether under Putin the appointment of military and security personnel has been a feature of the economic agencies of the Russian state, or whether they have been an exception to the general rule. Analysis undertaken by the author of the backgrounds of leading personnel of thirteen important economic agencies gave the results as of July 2003, shown in Table 7.1. It should be noted that for one agency known to have many personnel with security backgrounds, the State Customs Committee, biographical data were not obtainable. In some cases, the personnel with military backgrounds were responsible for the agencies’ work relating to the defence industry. This evidence suggests that under Putin, in accordance with the general commitment to economic liberalism, there has not been any marked trend towards the staffing of government economic agencies with former military and security personnel, the only possible exception being Gref’s Ministry of Economic Development.35 During the early years of Putin’s presidency the very term ‘economic security’ fell out of fashion. It is not only Gref and Illarionov who regarded it as suspect. Premier Mikhail Kasyanov’s economic adviser, Mikhail Delyagin, who wrote his doctoral thesis on problems of

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Table 7.1 Leading personnel of Russian government economic agencies with military and security services backgrounds, July 2003 Economic agency Ministry of Economic Development & Trade Ministry of Transport Ministry of Industry and Science Ministry of Property Ministry of Atomic Energy Ministry of Finance Central Bank of Russia Ministry of Taxes Ministry for Anti-Monopoly Policy Ministry of Agriculture Ministry of Power Ministry of Natural Resources State Statistical Committee All economic agencies

No. posts1

No. M/S2

18 14 13 10 8 13 8 12 7 8 13 15 6

4 3 2 2 1 03 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

145

12

1. Total number of ministers and deputy ministers, or equivalents. 2. Number of ministers and deputy ministers with military and security backgrounds. 3. Biographies of two deputy ministers missing from website (possibly because of security service backgrounds). Source: compiled from the Internet websites of the relevant agencies, and http://2003.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2003/50n (last accessed 15 July 2003).

economic security, observed scathingly that, ‘The concept of “economic security” does not exist in science … Our people bring into economics the terminology of the special services of the 1980s, programming us for security’. In Delyagin’s view, the central issue was the competitiveness of the economy.36 When infrequent articles on economic security now appeared, they tended to be more professional than they were in the earlier period, and were better informed by discussion and practice in the West.37 At least for a while, the urge to ‘securitise’ the economy all but disappeared. However, developments in 2003 represented a partial reversal of this trend. A revival of concern?

In March 2003 Putin announced a reorganisation of the power ministries. The FSB absorbed the Federal Border Guard Service (FPS) and part of the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), a move which in effect restored much of the former KGB, but

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without its external intelligence role.38 A new State Committee for the Control of the Circulation of Narcotic Means and Psychotropic Substances (Gosnarkokontrol), with an authorised staff of 40,000, was created from the main institutions and personnel of the FSNP, and the functions of the latter were transferred to the MVD, enhancing its role in economic security. Within the MVD a Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crimes was created, headed by the former first deputy of the FSNP, general-lieutenant Sergei Verevkin-Rakhalskii, with deputy minister status. From the beginning of 2004 this new service was to have had an authorised staff of 32,000 personnel.39 As part of this transfer, reflecting the wider brief of the new service, the Academy of the Tax Police was renamed the Academy of Economic Security of the MVD, with an establishment of 2380 staff.40 There was speculation at the time that the FSB would lose its security role in relation to business, with a transfer of the functions of its Department of Economic Security to the MVD, but this did not happen.41 These changes meant that there were now two rival security structures with extensive powers in relation to economic security and it is perhaps not surprising that in the course of 2003 this issue once again moved up the policy agenda. As if to underline this point, in late 2004 the MVD renamed its federal service for countering economic and tax crimes as the Department of Economic Security.42 An early indication of this renewed interest in economic security came in March when it was revealed that in the previous month the first deputy secretary of the Security Council, Vladislav Sherstyuk, had sent a letter to the prime minister claiming that a number of leading metallurgical companies were threatening the economic security of the country by acting in a cartel-like manner, with alleged confidential discussion of a simultaneous 25 to 30 per cent price hike for products sold on the domestic market. The companies concerned denied the charge.43 Later in March there was a development of broader significance: a session of the Security Council’s Interdepartmental Commission on Security in the Sphere of the Economy was devoted to the consequences of WTO accession. Russia applied to join the WTO in 1993, but under Yeltsin progress was very limited with an evident lack of commitment on the Russian side. From the outset, Putin made it clear that accession was to be a highpriority goal. By its very nature this is an issue that could very easily have provoked opposition on the grounds that the country’s economic security was threatened by the opening of markets to foreign business, the lowering of tariff protection and increased foreign investment likely to follow accession. What is striking is the infrequency of resort to economic security arguments when opponents of early accession have presented their case. Putin’s backing for WTO accession has been so firm, that the

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case against it is very rarely advanced. Occasionally, reference has been made to security when discussing specific sectors of the economy, for example, the aviation and motor industries.44 Even Sergei Glazev, an articulate advocate of delayed accession, has made no reference to economic security concerns. The communist leader Gennadii Zyuganov has also been mild on the security dimension of WTO membership, seeing a potential threat to economic security only in relation to the premature opening up of financial markets.45 Until 2003 the Security Council appears to have had no public say on the issue, notwithstanding Rushailo’s statement of concern at the July 2002 meeting and the fact that since the end of 2000 the Security Council has been represented on the Government Commission for Questions of the WTO. While the overall assessment by the Interdepartmental Commission in March 2003 appears to have been positive, concern was expressed that acceptance of some of the terms being posed by WTO members could have serious consequences for a significant range of goods produced by manufacturing industry and agriculture, and lead to the non-competitiveness of Russian companies in financial services and telecommunications. The Commission concluded that it was necessary to elaborate and realise a set of measures for the protection of key sectors of the economy and also for the support of exports in order to minimise the possible negative impact of WTO accession on the country’s economic security, especially in relation to the regions. It is not clear that this Security Council initiative has had any impact on the Russian negotiating stance in Geneva, but it may serve to limit the extent to which concessions can be made in order to secure eventual entry.46 Another indication of revival of interest in the issue was the convening of a two-day conference in Moscow, ‘Economic Security of Russia: Strategy of Interaction of State and Business’, organised by the Russian Academy of Business and Entrepreneurship, an organisation working closely with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), with the backing of the Security Council. The keynote speech was given by Vyacheslav Soltaganov, then deputy secretary of Council. In Soltaganov’s view the level of development of the Russian economy still did not answer to requirements of security. The main thing that could protect the economy was the doubling of GDP, plus domestic and foreign investment.47 The general director of the Academy, Oleg Gorbulin, declared that business was now ready to consider questions of a strategy of economic security.48 The outcome of the conference was to be a report with recommendations to the government, the Security Council and sectoral ministries, to be prepared by an expert group of the RSPP. At the time of writing, there is no evidence that it ever appeared.49

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In spring and summer of 2003 there were more cases of reported economic security concerns in relation to particular sectors of the economy. For example, in July a meeting was held in Irkutsk oblast on economic security in the timber industry, with participation of the FSB, including the head of its directorate for counter-intelligence in relation to branches of industry, Anatoli Groshev.50 Also in July, it is claimed that the apparatus of the Security Council sent a report to the government on threats to economic security arising from the creation of the company ‘Russian Railways’, which has replaced the rail ministry as the operator of the system.51 In what appears to have been a bid for a greater say in a significant area of economic policy, in early July 2003, speaking at a meeting of regional FSB leaders, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the security service, declared that the FSB should oversee questions connected with the privatisation of industrial enterprises, in particular those of the defence industry. As a Ministry of Property representative explained, this was a curious demand given that the FSB already had powers to participate in the privatisation of defence-sector companies, having a number of its own personnel seconded to the property ministry for this purpose.52 Patrushev’s initiative was backed strongly by the head of the Accounting Chamber, Sergei Stepashin, himself a former FSB chief. It is known that the FSB plays a leading role in establishing the criteria according to which the list of enterprises considered of strategic importance for the country is drawn up. This list includes not only companies producing goods for the defence and security of the state, but also ‘for the protection of the morals, health, rights and legal interests of Russian citizens’.53 This initiative of Patrushev suggests that he was seeking to broaden the competence of the FSB in relation to property relations more generally. This trend in the early summer of 2003 for economic security concerns to become more prominent was to be a prelude to what can be considered the most serious incidence of apparent ‘securitisation’ in relation to the economy since the events of 1996, namely the Yukos affair. Just as electoral considerations loomed large in 1996, it is probably not coincidental that this affair developed in the run up to another round of elections, to the State Duma in December and for the presidency in March 2004. The Yukos affair

On 19 June 2003 Aleksei Pichugin, head of the department of internal economic security of the Yukos oil company, was arrested and charged with murder. This was followed on 2 July 2003 by the arrest of Platon Lebedev, chair of the board of directors of the Menatep group, the parent company of the Yukos oil corporation headed by Mikhail Khodorkovskii,

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who was charged with embezzlement relating to the privatisation in 1994 of the Apatit fertiliser enterprise. The following day the Procuracy called in for questioning Khodorkovskii and his former deputy Leonid Nevzlin. From the outset, it was clear that the FSB was actively involved in the campaign against the company. So began an affair which rapidly gathered momentum with further arrests, including in October Khodorkovskii himself, and charges of very substantial tax avoidance. Yukos is the largest and one of the most successful private businesses in Russia and its president, Khodorkovskii, was rated as the wealthiest person in the country, ranking twnety-sixth in the 2003 Forbes magazine list of the richest people in the world, with an estimated wealth of $8 billion. From the outset of the affair, Khodorkovskii made clear his belief that the initiative for this action against his business empire was taken by a group within the presidential administration. In public discussion this group was immediately identified as the so-called St Petersburg siloviki, the former security services personnel who worked with Putin in St Petersburg and were appointed by him to leading posts in his administration. The leading personnel identified were Igor Sechin, deputy leader of the administration and head of Putin’s secretariat, and Viktor Ivanov, deputy leader responsible for personnel and, as noted, a former head of the FSB’s economic security department.54 Also identified with this group were Nikolai Patrushev, director of the FSB, Vladimir Ustinov, the general procurator, and Yurii Zaostrovtsev, Ivanov’s successor at the FSB. The affair quickly raised fears that a review of earlier privatisation deals was in prospect, the market value of Yukos fell sharply, as did the Russian Trading System (RTS) stock market index. Nervousness in the business community was accentuated by Putin’s silence on the affair, and also by signs of division in the government. German Gref, clearly concerned that the affair could damage economic prospects, called on the law enforcers to bring the case to a swift conclusion.55 At the end of July, a senior official of the presidential administration, later identified as its head, Aleksandr Voloshin, sought to calm the fears of investors by claiming that Putin was anxious to limit the affair and find a compromise solution. He also denied that it had anything to do with divisions within the presidential circle between siloviki and the old elite with origins in the Yeltsin period, the so-called Yeltsin ‘Family’.56 However, the strength of claims that a security interest was at the root of the attack on Russia’s most powerful ‘oligarch’ and his company renders it essential to consider interpretations advanced to explain the affair in order to illuminate the question of the extent to which it constituted an attempt to ‘securitise’ economic life. One argument often advanced to explain the Yukos affair has been the alleged involvement of Khodorkovskii in funding opposition political

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parties, in particular SPS and Yabloko.57 It has been suggested that this political involvement constituted an infringement of an informal agreement reached, it is claimed, between Putin and the leading ‘oligarchs’ when he first came to power, an agreement to the effect that they would be left free to engage in business provided that they kept out of politics. While it is plausible that some in presidential circles resented Khodorkovskii’s political role, especially in a pre-election period, it is difficult to see how this alone would explain such determined action against the country’s most prominent business person and his company, widely regarded as one of the most transparent and effectively managed firms in Russia, with potentially serious damage to business confidence and economic prospects. It has also been argued that the affair was undertaken as a form of populist politics in the full knowledge that the ‘oligarchs’ are unpopular and widely regarded as having obtained their assets by illegitimate means. This sentiment was to some extent confirmed by opinion polls: according to a ROMIR poll in mid-July, the public had an overwhelmingly negative opinion of large-scale business and 77 per cent favoured a review of the results of privatisation, while in a VTsIOM poll a few days later 18 per cent of those asked considered the arrest of Yukos leaders as a pre-election action to gain cheap popularity in the eyes of electors.58 Many political observers in Russia interpreted the Yukos affair in similar terms to Khodorkovskii, as above all arising from a conflict between rival ‘clans’ in the Kremlin. Some argued that this was a struggle for dominant influence during Putin’s second term, or even for dominance at the time of the 2008 presidential elections when Putin finally leaves office.59 The conflict was between the Yeltsin ‘Family’ (leading figures of which are usually considered to include Kasyanov and Voloshin) and the above-mentioned Piterskie siloviki, with Igor Sechin and Viktor Ivanov to the fore. From this perspective, Khodorkovskii and most other prominent ‘oligarchs’ who gained their primary assets during the Yeltsin years fell in the Family camp. Almost the sole business person of prominence named as backing the siloviki was Sergei Bogdanchikov, head of the state-owned oil company Rosneft. There were indeed suggestions that the affair originated in the well-known rivalry between the two leading oil companies, Yukos and Rosneft.60 In the view of some commentators, this rivalry between ‘clans’ has an economic dimension which explains the campaign against Yukos: the basic division of private property took place under Yeltsin and the Family were beneficiaries, directly or indirectly; but top officials, frequently of a security background, appointed by Putin, do not have access to resources in the same way and the attack on Khodorkovskii was thus interpreted as an attempt to initiate a redistribution of property to the siloviki.61 Some Russian observers interpreted these developments

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as posing a grave danger to the country’s future, preparing the ground for authoritarian rule, in some cases drawing ominous parallels with the 1930s.62 If correct, interpretations along these lines would indeed suggest that the Yukos affair heralded a decisive ‘securitisation’ in the sphere of Russian economic policy. There is a securitising discourse present from the authorities in regard to many aspects of the case,63 but no real need to convince any significant audience as what we have in the Yukos case is an example of securitisation in the form of taking an issue out of ‘normal’ policy-making and dealing with it in secret. Although of course the trial of Khodorkovskii and Lebedev received great publicity, the extent and nature of the political decision-making behind it remain under a veil of secrecy; a fact which has led to much speculation about the motivation behind the affair. In considering the motivation of the Russian authorities in harassing Yukos and Khodorkovskii, resulting in the eventual sentencing of Khodorkovskii and Lebedev to nine years in a penal colony, the issue of taxation cannot be discounted. There is little doubt that they were anxious to reduce tax avoidance by the country’s leading oil companies and sought to make an example of Yukos to improve compliance by other firms. The chair of the Accounting Chamber, Sergei Stepashin, speaking in November 2003, observed that resort to tax avoidance schemes, even if legal, by companies such as Sibneft (another major oil firm), ‘threatens the economic security of Russia’.64 In the author’s view, many Russian commentators have been inclined to over-dramatise the Yukos affair. However, in more limited terms a threat of partial ‘securitisation’ was raised by the campaign. Most convincing are those interpretations that focus on the potential relationship between the state and Yukos following the announcement in late April 2003 that a merger had been agreed between Yukos and Sibneft: the combined strength of the two companies would have made Yukos-Sibneft one the largest private oil firms in the world.65 In August this proposed merger gained the approval of the Ministry for Anti-Monopoly Policy. The leading specialist on property relations of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, Aleksandr Radygin, is surely correct in arguing that forces within the state, perhaps including Putin himself, felt threatened by the fact that Russia’s most powerful private business, in a strategically important sector of the economy, appeared to be on the verge of becoming a fully independent economic institution over which the state would have very limited levers of control or influence. In recent years Yukos led the way in making its ownership structures transparent and limiting the extent to which the company needed to resort to ‘administrative resources’ (i.e. links, largely covert, with federal and regional officials) in conducting its business. Worse, the united Yukos-Sibneft

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might have followed the path of the TNK company (with its 50/50 link with British Petroleum) and formed an alliance with a leading US oil major, further restricting the influence of the Russian state.66 This interpretation by Radygin has since been echoed by other authoritative commentators.67 There is little doubt that Putin favours an enhanced state role in relation to the energy sector. This is a topic he addressed in a paper published under his name in 1999 in the journal of the St Petersburg State Mining Institute. It was here that in 1997 Putin obtained the degree of Candidate of Science for a thesis on the strategic planning of the minerals sector of the North-West region economy. From the abstract of the thesis, it is clear that it was narrowly focused and technocratic.68 The 1999 article was much broader in scope and reflected concerns voiced on a number of occasions by the Institute’s rector, Vladimir Litvinenko.69 Whether Putin actually wrote the article is not relevant here, as clearly he approved the basic thrust of the argument presented. It is argued that the natural resource base of the country will be vital in securing Russia’s economic development and international standing. For the effective exploitation of this resource base, an active state policy and overall state regulation will be essential, with the pursuit of a coherent state strategy for the energy sector. He favoured state support for large, vertically integrated corporations in the oil and gas industry, able to compete on an equal basis with the large transnational companies of the West. However, private capital, including foreign, would also be welcome. It is notable that the case for a larger role for the state was advanced with hardly any explicit reference to security considerations, although Putin did observe that, ‘Even in developed countries the market mechanism does not provide for developing strategies of natural resource use, environmental protection or stable economic security’.70 It is perhaps not surprising that Putin’s stance on natural resources in general, and the energy sector in particular, is very close to that argued by his supervisor Litvinenko. He also favours a more substantial role for the state, including state ownership of the country’s pipeline system, and believes that without state control and regulation it will be difficult to develop Russia into a strong economic power. A close reading of Litvinenko’s publications and presentations over a number of years has yielded only one explicit reference to security.71 During Putin’s second term practical measures have been adopted to put these principles into practice. The state has taken over the core production unit of Yukos, Yuganskneftegaz, and the creation of a powerful, state-controlled, integrated gas and oil corporation is well advanced.72 Leading members of the presidential administration now occupy key positions on the boards of the country’s principal state-

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controlled companies of the energy sector. This is not a new development, but the process of appointing such officials to the boards of major companies, not only in the energy sector, has become noticeably more active since Putin’s re-election in 2004. As of spring 2005, the leader of the presidential administration, Dmitrii Medvedev, chaired the board of Gazprom, deputy leaders Igor Sechin and Vladislav Surkov chaired the boards of Rosneft and Transnefteprodukt (oil pipeline company) respectively, and Arkadii Dvorkovich, head of the administration’s expert administration, was a member of the board of the Transneft pipeline company.73 These developments can be interpreted as a partial ‘securitisation’ of a strategic sector of the economy, but it is clear that security considerations are not the sole factor in a drive to enhance of state control over the country’s mineral wealth. Perhaps reflecting high-level concerns arising from the role of the siloviki, it may be significant that in January 2005, speaking at a meeting of the collegium of the FSB, the prime minister, Mikhail Fradkov, urged members of the security service not to create barriers for the development of the economy.74 The ‘securitisation’ of the military economy

As noted in the introduction, the military economy of the USSR was almost totally ‘securitised’ and its activities shrouded in secrecy so impenetrable that even members of the Politburo had extremely tightly controlled access to information. The KGB enforced secrecy throughout the military economy with a degree of thoroughness probably without precedent in any other economy of modern times. Given the evolving situation with respect to the Russian economy in general, it is worth considering briefly how the position has changed in relation to the economics of the military sector.75 There are several relevant dimensions to the military economy, in particular the defence budget, the defence industry and arms exports. In the case of Russia, there is another vital aspect: the USSR possessed an extraordinarily elaborate and extensive system of measures designed to prepare for the mobilisation of the economy in the event of war or national emergency; this mobilisation system was subject to almost total secrecy. Since the end of the USSR the military economic sphere has undergone partial de-securitisation, but in an uneven manner with occasional backward steps. A major obstacle to greater transparency and to meaningful involvement by elected politicians and society at large has been the very limited civilian expertise in Russia on military economic issues, a legacy of the Soviet system in which such expertise was an almost total monopoly of the military and security systems. In relation to the Russian defence budget, the limited openness with

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respect to the broad categories of spending achieved under Gorbachev was maintained during the period 1992–98, but even for members of parliament details were sparse or non-existent. For the 1998 and subsequent defence budgets, even aggregate spending on weapons procurement and military research and development became classified information. However, thanks to pressure by the leadership of the defence committee of the State Duma, deputies, especially those with appropriate security clearance, have been able to obtain more detailed information and this trend has continued under Putin, with somewhat more open publication. In comparison with Soviet times, the activities of the defence industry have become more open, but secrecy remains strict by international standards. Information on arms exports remains limited, but in this area notable advances have been made by a new, independent, civilian, research unit, the Centre for Analysis of Strategy and Technology (CAST). In one sphere, Soviet-era ‘securitisation’ remains virtually without change: the system of mobilisation preparation is still almost totally secret and not subject to any open discussion by parliament or society more broadly, although in the words of Andrei Neshchadin of the Expert Institute of the RSPP, for Russian industry the question of maintaining mobilisation capacities is the sorest point of relations between business and the state.76 However, notwithstanding this progress there is still a vast gap between the level of transparency of military-economic matters in Russia and in developed Western countries. Parliamentary control remains weak, public knowledge and concern limited, and independent civilian expertise, while growing, is hampered by excessive secrecy and the distrust of the military and security forces. The rise and fall of ‘economic security’

As chronicled, the discourse of economic security in Russia has ebbed and flowed since the end of the communist system. This can also be shown by an elementary content analysis exercise. First, three major economic journals – Voprosy ekonomiki, Ekonomist (in Soviet times, Planovoe khozyaistvo) and Rossiiskii ekonomicheskii zhurnal – were surveyed to establish the number of articles in each year, 1992–2004, on the theme of economic security. In almost all cases they had ‘economic security’ in their title, or were published under the rubric of ‘economic security’. The results are as shown in Figure 7.1. It can be seen that there was an upsurge of interest in the theme during the years 1994–96, but then a falling off to a stable one or two articles a year. The peak of 1994 is somewhat artificial: the leading journal, Voprosy ekonomiki, devoted almost an entire issue (number 12) to economic security, introduced by a prominent economist of the

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Figure 7.1 Number of articles on ‘economic security’ in three major economic journals, 1992–2004.

Gorbachev years, Leonid Abalkin.77 However, many of these articles were narrowly focused – foreign trade security, transport security, and so on – and their authors were not seeking to ‘securitise’ economic policy-making more generally. Taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the Eastview Universal Database of Russian Central Newspapers, a count was made of the number of articles containing reference to ‘economic security’ for each quarter of every year from 1992 to the end of March 2005. As the number of publications included in the database has increased over time and there is no means of determining the total number of articles, an estimate of the changing share of articles making reference to ‘economic security’ was obtained by dividing the number of such articles in each year by the number containing a reference to the word Rossiya (Russia), taken as a proxy for the total number of articles. Taking the percentage share in 1992 as 100, the resulting trend is shown in Figure 7.2. This confirms the striking upsurge of concern in 1996 and the subsequent gradual but uneven decline to a low point in early 2003. However, from the summer of 2003 the number of newspaper articles containing references to ‘economic security’ began to increase once again, and this process accelerated sharply with the onset of the Yukos affair in July, reaching a high point in the first quarter of 2005, when the share of articles making reference to ‘economic security’ almost reached the level of late 1998, after the financial crisis of August of that year. However, analysis of the content of these articles from the second quarter of 2003 to the first quarter of 2005 confirms that a large proportion related directly or indirectly to the Yukos affair, in particular the trial of Aleksandr Pichugin of the Yukos company’s department for internal economic security. Analysis of articles referring to economic security

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Figure 7.2 Index of share of newspaper articles referring to ‘economic security’, 1992–2005 (1992 = 100). Note: Index calculated by dividing number of articles in Russian national newspapers referring to ‘economic security’* by number of articles including the word Rossiya (as a proxy for the total number of articles), and taking the 1992 share as 100. *results of a search of the EastView Database of Russian Central Newspapers for ‘ekonomicheskaya bezopasnost’ and ‘ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti’.

without mention of Yukos reveals a different picture, as shown in Figure 7.3. Without Yukos, concern with economic security show a modest increase, but there is no evidence of any marked turn towards a policy of ‘securitisation’ of the economy. The quantitative evidence thus supports the case argued in this chapter. On the whole, the ‘securitisation’ of the Russian economy has been more an issue of rhetoric than reality. However, as the Yukos affair has demonstrated, notwithstanding a general policy commitment to a relatively liberal market economic order, the economy of Russia is still vulnerable to ‘securitisation’ initiatives. However, developments over the past two years suggest that such initiatives relate to specific sectors of the economy perceived to be vital to the country’s national security and longer-term economic development, not to the economy as whole, the management of which remains predominantly liberal. Under Putin the Russian economy has not been ‘securitised’ and in the author’s judgement this is unlikely to change to any significant degree during the remainder of Putin’s term of office. This judgement broadly coincides with the view expressed in April 2005 by economic minister, German Gref: ‘Mr Putin has, in my view, absolutely sound and liberal economic views. I think it would be difficult to change the direction of economic policy while he is still in power.’78

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Figure 7.3 Index of share of newspaper articles referring to ‘economic security’, minus articles also referring to ‘Yukos’ 1992–2005 (1992 = 100). Source: as Figure 7.2 (for 2nd quarter 2003 to 1st quarter 2005 subtracting articles containing reference to ‘ekonomicheskaya bezopasnost’ and ‘ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti’ + ‘yukos’).

Notes 1 B. Buzan, O. Wæver, and J. de Wilde, Security: a new framework for analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), p. 26. 2 In adopting the term ‘securitisation’, Buzan and his colleagues unfortunately failed to recognise that in economics the word already has a well-established meaning, that is the conversion of inflexible assets, such as bank loans, into securities. For this reason, inverted commas are employed in this chapter on the economy. 3 Izvestiya (22 and 20 December 1994). 4 Moskovskii komsomolets (1 February 1995), p. 3; Segodnya (30 December 1994), p. 1. 5 Kommersant (31 January 1995), pp. 10–11. Rabochaya tribuna (24 February 1995). 6 Sobranie zakonodatelstva Rosssiiskoi Federatsii, 18 (1996), art. 2117. 7 Natalya Gorodetskaya, ‘Ostanovka na puti k kapitalisticheskomy budushchemu’, Segodnya (15 January 1997; accessed via EastView database). The timing of this decree is indeed curious as the ‘basic principles’ were drawn up in accordance with a government order adopted in March 1994. A draft was ready by January 1995 and approved by the Security Council, but it then took more than a year for Yeltsin to approve it. Ugrozy ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti, Academy of FSB RF, www.poluchi5.ru/0141382.html (2000). 8 For one of Glazev’s first public statements of his new concern, his article, ‘Klyuchevye aspekty ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti’, Ekonomika i zhizn’ (Moskovskii vypusk), 33 (August 1996), 4–5. 9 ‘Korotko’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (11 July 1996; accessed via EastView database). 10 See S. Glazev, ‘Osnova obespecheniya ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti strany – alternativnyi reformatsionnyi kurs’, Rossiiskii ekonomicheskii zhurnal, 1 (1997), 3–19 and 2 (1997), 3–18.

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11 This case is argued most eloquently in his book, S. Glazev, Genotsid. Rossiya i novyi mirovoi poryadok. Strategiya ekonomicheskogo rosta na poroge XXI veka (Moscow: Terra, 1997). 12 BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), SU/2697 B/2&3 (22 August 1996). 13 Elmar Mutazaev ‘Diagnoz’, Segodnya (31 August 1996; accessed via EastView database). 14 Sobranie zakonodatelstva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 2 (1997), art. 240. 15 A. Illarionov, ‘Ekonomicheskaya bezopasnost i natsionalnye interesy’, Izvestiya (22 January 1997; accessed via EastView database). 16 A. Illarionov, ‘Kriterii ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti’, Voprosy ekonomiki, 10 (1998), 35–58. 17 V. Senchagov, ‘Ekonomicheskaya bezopasnost kak osnova obespecheniya natsionalnoi bezopasnosti Rossii’, Voprosy ekonomiki, 8 (2001), 64–79. See also V. Senchagov’s articles on economic security in Voprosy ekonomiki, 1 (1995), and 6 (1996). 18 Yu. Neveshin, ‘Ukaz prezidenta opredelyaet budushchee “Gazproma”’, Izvestiya (30 May 1997; accessed via EastView database). 19 Nezavisimaya gazeta (10 and 20 January 1995); Segodnya (18 January 1995); SanktPeterburgskie vedomosti (1 March 1995). 20 ‘Russia-Premier-Import’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (7 August 1999; accessed via EastView database). 21 www.sarbc.ru (2 November 2001), http://news.sarbc.ru/25/11/2001/ (last accessed 7 November 2005); Robert Serebrennikov, ‘Russia-Duma-Metals’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (22 November 2000) and Denis Pinchuk and Ivan Ivanov ‘Russia-PremierProject’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (12 September 2000). 22 Grigori Shalakin, ‘Russia-Coal-Commission’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (5 January 1998). 23 On Kulikov’s assessment of economic criminalisation, see, for example, S. Kiselev, ‘Kulikov glyadel daleko, vot i bzletel vysoko’, Izvestiya (6 February 1997; accessed via EastView database), and ‘Pod “kriminalnym kontrolem” – 40 tysyach predpriyatii Rossii’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti (3 July 1997; accessed via EastView database). 24 V. Sysoyev ‘Vremya sobytii. Deputaty vstanut na strazhu ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti’, Vremya MN (10 February 2001), p. 2. 25 When Fradkov was appointed first deputy secretary of the Security Council, it was observed that he was not a liberal, but a professional, who ‘will defend the domestic market without breaching official liberal postulates’. (‘Naiden zazhitnik ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti Rossii’, Kommersant-daily (1 June 2000; accessed via EastView database). On Soltaganov, see http://news.sarbc.ru/25/3/2003/ (25 March 2003; last accessed 7 November 2005). 26 ‘Kadry’, Kommersant-daily (28 October 2004), p. 2. 27 E. Korop, ‘Proshy slova. Olga Kryshtanovskaya: “Samyi neveroyatnyi stsenarii 2008 goda – vsenarodnye vybory”’, Profil (21 March 2005), pp. 32–4. 28 Yelena Kornysheva and Olga Semyonova, ‘Russia-Premier-FSB’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (27 July 1998; accessed via EastView database). 29 www.kremlin.ru/state_subj/27809.shtml (last accessed 7 April 2005). 30 On the controversy surrounding Zaostrovtsev, see R. Shleinov, ‘Obstoyatelstvo. Obshchestvo v bezopasnosti’, Novaya gazeta (23 July 2001; accessed via EastView database), and A. Porfirev, ‘Bankir nevidimogo fronta’, Segodnya (26 April 2000; accessed via EastView database), (the allegations concern shady commercial deals in the furniture business). 31 www.agentura.ru/dossier/russia/people/bortnikov (last accessed 7 November 2005).

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32 See A. Nadzharov, ‘Polnyi nazad?’, Novye izvestiya (9 August 2001), p. 1. It was rumoured that members of the working group included Glazev and Zaostrovtsev, with Aleksei Ulyukaev as the sole ‘white raven’. 33 A. Savitskii, ‘Agenty ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti. V Rossii obnaruzhen novyi vrag – sobstvennaya ekonomika, s kotoroi budut borot’sya chleny Sovbeza’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (10 July 2002), p. 1; E. Yevstigneyeva, ‘Rushailo pomozhet Grefu’, Vedomosti (10 July 2002; accessed via EastView database); V. Ladnyi, ‘V vekhakh. Prezident khochet nauchit Rossiyu rozhat’, Komsomolskaya pravda (10 July 2002), p. 2; V. Kuznetsova, ‘VTO smushchaet silovikov. No resheniye o chlenstvo v etoi organizatsii ostaetsya v sile’, Vremya novostei (10 July 2002), p. 2. 34 Anatolii Kostyukov, ‘Vlast tsveta khaki’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (19 August 2003), p. 1; Olga Kryshtanovskaya ,‘Kommentarii. Kadry: Lyudi Putina’, Vedomosti (30 June 2003; accessed via EastView database). 35 The major reorganisation of the government undertaken in 2004 has made it difficult to analyse the situation as of the beginning of 2005; the number of deputy ministers/ heads has been reduced sharply and there are inadequate data to analyse the backgrounds of department heads. 36 L. Kizilova, ‘Deformirovannost depopulyatsii. Razgovor v Dume ob ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti “v terminologii spetssluzhb 80-kh godov”’, Izvestiya (10 February 2001), p. 2. 37 See, for example, S. Afontsev, ‘Natsionalnaya ekonomicheskaya bezopasnost: na puti k teoreticheskomu konsensusu’, Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 10 (2002), 30–9. 38 Sobranie zakonodatelstva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 12 (2003) arts 1099 and 1101. Some functions of FAPSI were transferred to the SVR and a new Service of Special Communications and Information attached to the Federal Border Guard Service. For discussion of this reorganisation see Chapter 2, and also E. Bacon and B. Renz, ‘Return of the KGB? Restructuring security in Russia’, The World Today, 59:5 (May 2003), 26–7. 39 Sobranie zakonodatelstva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 21 (2003), art. 1992. 40 Ibid. 41 See, for example, E. Kiseleva, ‘Govoryat chto. U chekistov otbirayut biznes’, Kommersant-Dengi (24 March 2003), p. 20. This rumour surfaced again in early 2005: Yu. Spirin, ‘FSB mozhet otstaetsya bez ekonomiki’, Izvestiya (9 February 2005), p. 1. 42 A. Nikolskii and A. Nikolaeva, ‘Vlast/Dengi. MVD podpravili strukturu’, Vedomosti (15 November 2004; accessed via EastView database). However, it is still led by the same person, Sergei Meshcheryakov. 43 www.strana.ru (13 March 2003). 44 See, for example, I. Trofimov, ‘Mnenie. Opasnaya igra. Vstupleniye Rossii v VTO mozhet polnostyu unichtozhit’ otechestvennuyu promyshlennost’, Komsomolskaya pravda (18 October 2001), p.5. 45 ‘Na chuzhikh usloviyakh’, Zavtra (5 April 2002), p. 2. 46 www.scrf.gov.ru/News/2003/03/PS.htm (5 June 2003; last accessed 7 November 2005). 47 www.scrf.ru/News/2003/06/10.htm (last accessed 12 June 2003). 48 E. Obukhova ‘Povzroslevshii biznes vzyalsya za bezopasnost. Ekonomika Rossii ne gotova vstretitsya s ugrozami’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (20 June 2003), p. 2. 49 L. Meshchaninova, ‘Vremya finansov i biznesa. Vzyatki – gadki’, Vremya MN (20 June 2003), p. 4. 50 S. Kez, ‘FSB navedet v taige poryadok. V Irkutskoi oblasti proshlo soveshanie po ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti lesopromyshlennogo kompleksa Rossii’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (21 July 2003), p.3.

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51 ‘Privatizatsiya zheleznykh dorog – ugroza bezopasnosti Rossii’ www.stringernews.ru/Publication.mhtml?PubID=2187&Menu=&Part=37, (22 July 2003; last accessed 7 November 2005). 52 ‘Putin v kremle provodit soveshchanie s silovikami’ www.gazeta.ru/cgi-bin/newsarc.cgi (7 July 2003; last accessed 7 November 2005) 53 Mikahail Khodarenok, ‘Rushailo formiruyet spisok #1’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (30 April 2003), p. 2. Given the FSB’s concerns, it is perhaps surprising that it has not sought a greater presence on the boards of directors of companies considered sensitive from a security point of view. A review of legislation over the period 1998–2005 reveals only three such cases – the airline ‘Aeroflot’ and two sea transport companies: ‘Sovremennyi kommercheskii flot’ (the head of the department of economic security) and ‘Novorossiiskoe morskoe parokhodstvo’ (the head of the ‘T’ (transport) directorate of the FSB’s department of economic security). There is no security service representation on the boards of the main energy companies, Gazprom, UES, Rosneft, Transneft, and so on (Sobranie zakonodatelstva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1998 to no. 6, 2005). 54 See ‘Yukos Flouts Raid, Vows Huge Payout’, Moscow Times (7 August 2003). 55 Catherine Belton, ‘Khodorkovsky Sees Totalitarian Threat’, Moscow Times (22 July 2003), p. 1. 56 A. Voronina, ‘Putin ishchet vykho’, Vedomosti (31 July 2003; accessed via EastView database). 57 See, for example, the argument of Andrei Fedorov of the Fund of Political Research and Consulting, ‘Khodorkovskii stal kumirom delovoi molodezhi’, Nezavisimaya gazeta (21 July 2003), p. 1. 58 ‘Kommentarii. Ot redaktsii: ikh ne lyubyat’, Vedomosti (18 July 2003; accessed via EastView database)’ and www.wciom.ru (24 July 2003; last accessed 12 December 2003). Note, however, that another 18 per cent considered the affair an episode in the struggle for power of various political clans. 59 See, for example, the views of Sergei Markov, director, Institute of Political Studies (Sergei Markov, ‘The Yukos Affair and Putin’s Second Term’, Moscow Times (29 July 2003), p. 12) and of Georgii Satarov, president of the ‘Indem’ foundation, (‘Politika. Biznes berut na ispug’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (18 July 2003), p. 3). 60 See, for example, A. Losev, ‘Obstoyatelstva. Priglashenie “Yukosa” na kazn’. V roli topora – Bogdanchikov’, Novaya gazeta (17 July 2003), pp. 2–3. Regardless of the truth of this claim, it should be noted that Rosneft later distanced itself from the campaign against Yukos (Tatyana Stanovaya, ‘Korporativnaya ekonomika Kremlya’ www.politcom.ru/2003/pvz192.php, 21 July 2003; last accessed 7 November 2005). 61 See, for example, the argument of Dmitrii Oreshkin of the group Mercator, www.ng.ru, 21 July 2003 and Novoe vremya, 30 (27 July 2003). 62 See, for example, Vladimir Ilyushenko chair of the ‘Moscow tribune’ political club of the intelligentsia (V. Ilyushenko, ‘Zagovor vlasti opasneye “zagovor oligarkhov”, Novaya gazeta (7 August 2003), pp. 2–3. Khodorkovskii also perceived a totalitarian threat (Belton, ‘Khodorkovskii Sees Totalitarian Threat’). 63 For example, Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly made it clear that he saw state control over the oil infrastructure for a long time to come as ‘essential’. Sergei Stepashin, head of the president’s audit chamber has said that tax avoidance threatens Russia’s economic security. 64 ‘Stepashin: Zakonodatelstvo pozvolyaet neftyanym kompaniyam uklonyatsya ot uplaty nalogov’, http://news.aif.ru/news.php?id=13281 (18 November 2003; last accessed 12 November 2005). 65 Almost immediately, economic security concerns were voiced, see, for example, N. Ivanov, ‘Vremya finansov i biznesa. “sdelki veka” poshli kosyakom’, Vremia MN (22

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66

67 68 69

70 71 72

73

74 75

76 77 78

April 2003), p. 4. In the words of journalist Nikolai Ivanov, ‘The anxiety of officials for the economic security of the country is understandable’. See www.iet.ru/trend/07-03: section of monthly report, July 2003, ‘Delo “Yukos”: popytka interpretatsii’. Ivanov (fn. 66) confirms that the authorities had serious concerns about the BP-TNK deal. Note that Khodorkovskii himself has interpreted the affair in not dissimilar terms (Andrew Jack, ‘Yukos Chief Says Planned Merger Set Off Judicial Campaign’, Financial Times (6 August 2003), p. 6). See, for example, A. Robinson, ‘The Yukos Affair’, Prospect (April 2005), pp. 36–40. The author has read an unofficial English translation of the abstract kindly provided by a private source. V. Putin, ‘Mineralno-syrevye resursy v strategii razvitiya rossiiskoi ekonomiki’ was published in Zapiski gornogo instituta (January 1999). The content of this has been reviewed by Martha Brill Olcott in her paper ‘Vladimir Putin and the Geopolitics of Oil’, The James Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University (October 2004). For an updated version in Russian, see M. Olkott, ‘Vladimir Putin i neftyanaya politika Rossii’, Moskovskii tsentr Karnegi, Rabochie materialy, 1 (2005). However, Olcott maintains that the article is a summary of Putin’s thesis, an interpretation the present author considers incorrect. Extracts from Putin’s dissertation were also published by Kommersant-daily (2 February 2005), p. 14. Olcott, ‘Vladimir Putin’, p. 20. G. Yastrebtsov, ‘Vladimir Litvinenko: Rossiya mogla by zhit bogache’, Trud (16 May 2003), p. 3. It should be noted that Russia is not unusual in creating such a state-controlled energy company: the same path has been taken by many other countries, including Norway and Russia’s neighbour Kazakhstan. Sobranie zakonodatelstva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 6 (2005), articles 477 and 478. In addition, Putin’s economic aide Igor Shuvalov was also a member of the Gazprom board, and Medvedev’s aide, Yevgenii Shkolov, a member of the board of Transneft. Putin’s foreign policy aide, Sergei Prikhodko, was a member of the board of the nuclear fuel corporation TVEL and his aide, I. Nagornyi, was on the board of the oil industry company for external operations, Zarubezhneft. T. Borisov, ‘Antiterror podorozhal’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (29 January 2005), p. 1. This issue is discussed in detail in the author’s chapter in S.L. Webber and J. Mathers (eds), Society-Military Relations in Russia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005). Andrei Neshchadin ‘Biznes i gosudarstvo’ http://www.opec.ru/analize_doc.asp?d_no= 41150 (7 August 2003; last accessed 12 November 2005). L. Abalkin, ‘Ekonomicheskaya bezopasnost Rossii: ugrozy i ikh otrazhenie’, Voprosy ekonomiki, 12 (1994), pp. 4–13. Cited in Neil Buckley, ‘Market Reformers and Former Spies’, Financial Times (5 April 2005), Special Report: FT Russia, p.1.

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8 Conclusion

Throughout this book we have analysed a number of different aspects of Russia today through the prism of security. Using the securitisation approach developed in the sphere of international relations1 we have considered contemporary Russian domestic policies in relation to Chechen separatism, the media, terrorism, religion, political parties, nationalism, migration, and the economy. Although there are of course connections between these policy areas – some more so than others – each chapter can be read on its own as an overview of policy development in its designated field, with an emphasis on the role that security concerns have played in the creation and implementation of policy. In this concluding chapter, we bring together these mezo-level analyses into a macro-level assessment of contemporary Russia. In essence, the question we are asking is, how accurate is it to portray Russia under Vladimir Putin as a country where policy-making is dominated by security? It is a common criticism by liberal observers of the Putin regime in Russia and abroad that, to put it in its starkest terms, ‘the security service has come to power’.2 The elements are there for such a case to be made, but too rarely is an holistic, analytically rigorous assessment of this case assayed. It is certainly true that a good proportion of public officials, both elected and appointed, have a background as siloviki, and that a number of such figures are in high positions, indeed in the very highest position, in Russian political life. But analysts must be careful not to draw conclusions beyond what the evidence will bear. We should, as is argued in Chapter 2, be wary of judging policy stances and directions simply on the basis of the background of key actors. Certainly hypotheses can be constructed from such developments, but they then require testing. Can the siloviki be imbued with a common mindset and common political goals? How do they differ in terms of previous roles, ranks, and service records? Are they a united group loyal to an identifiable leader? If

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background is so influential, then how it is that non-siloviki in the Russian administration can be indistinguishable from siloviki in terms of policy preferences? Above all the question to ask in order to draw conclusions beyond the make-up of the Russian elite and into the area of actual policy is not so much ‘who are they?’, but ‘what are they doing?’. It is this issue of what is actually happening in key areas of domestic policy on which this book’s chapters concentrate, assessing the strength and effectiveness of any securitising impulse. The picture that emerges is a mixed one, as might be expected from multi-faceted analyses covering a range of issues. Such nuanced findings – elaborated further in this concluding chapter – are appropriate. It would be inaccurate and unhelpful to conclude that Russia is authoritarian, or that Russia is democratic, or indeed to start one’s analysis from either assumption. Russia is somewhere in between; different areas of policy reflect different priorities. Where there are trends they are rarely linear but instead are subject to ebbs and flows, advances and retreats; as events impinge, priorities change, personnel move, and the interconnecting factors which cause one policy area to influence another all come into play. In this chapter we draw together some of the themes and commonalities that have emerged from our preceding assessments, detailing inter alia recurring elements in the discourse of securitisation, continuities from the Yeltsin to the Putin era, cases where securitising moves have failed to become fully fledged securitisations, and the context within which securitising moves in Russia today are best considered. Elements of the securitising discourse

The analysis in this book has focused on the question of discourse. If an issue is to be accepted as a security issue then there is a related discourse with a specific rhetorical construct by which a political actor claims the right to take an issue into the security sphere. Such a discourse introduces a sense of urgency and threat, identifying a particular issue as posing a grave danger to a key referent object, such as the state, national identity, or the economy. From investigating this process in relation to a range of different policy areas, it is possible to draw together the key concepts which are most commonly portrayed in Russian official discourse as under threat or as a threat in themselves. In other words, there are particular emphases which come up repeatedly when threats to the state, national identity or the economy are developed in the discourse. A straightforward example of this is the way in which state unity dominates discourse of threats to the state. In the case of Chechnya, the unity of the Russian state is at the root of the conflict, with the authorities determined that the Chechen Republic will remain a part of the Russian Federation.

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As was discussed in Chapter 3, the conflicting official discourses in relation to the Chechen conflict are those of securitisation and normalisation. This ‘normalising’ approach centres on the portrayal of Chechnya as becoming again just one of Russia’s eighty-nine regions in the unified Russian Federation. The securitising discourse likewise focuses on state unity. This was most evident in President Putin’s speech of 13 September 2004, after the Beslan tragedy, when the necessary response to the threat of terrorism was couched almost entirely in terms of a unified state. Before introducing the practical steps which his speech outlined, Putin’s overarching conclusion was that state unity is essential. As he put it, ‘I am certain that the unity of the country is the main condition for conquering terrorism. And without such unity this goal is impossible to attain. I would like to discuss the problem in more detail.’3 The ‘more detail’ referred to by the president make up his post-Beslan policy initiatives: the strengthening of the executive power vertical by the appointment of regional heads on the nomination of the president and the approval of regional legislatures, the introduction of a party-list only system of election to the State Duma, and the formation of a ‘public chamber’ for dialogue on civic initiatives – this latter suggestion being put in terms of working together with the country’s citizens, ‘together we must find mechanisms for unifying the state’.4 Of course, this emphasis on state unity did not simply arise in the official discourse post-Beslan, but has been present in presidential policies and speeches ever since Vladimir Putin became head of state. As was noted by the journalist and academic Yekaterina Zabrodina, in a survey of Putin’s first five annual addresses to the Russian parliament, 2000–05, ‘The idea of the “effective” and “strong” state, and the strengthening of the “executive vertical” runs like a red thread through all the speeches’.5 The post-Beslan speech of September 2004 demonstrates how what had initially been a straightforward policy line put in terms of good governance and economic success has now become a goal portrayed as essential for the security of the state. As well as the emphasis on the unified state, there are other motifs which feature repeatedly in Russia’s discourse of security. One such is the concept of national identity, national pride, and the ‘national idea’ which has been identified in earlier chapters within securitising moves in the areas of religion, extremism, and migration in particular. So, for example, when the religion law of 1997 was being debated in the Duma, communist deputy Yurii Belov urged his colleagues that ‘There is really one underlying reason to fight for this law … It is our national culture. This is the heart of the matter.’6 Similarly in relation to migration policy, despite the apparently urgent need for a solution to the depopulation process reaching potentially crisis levels in Russia, the head of the Federal Migration Service, Andrei Chernenko, sought to trump this threat to the

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nation by means of another greater threat, that facing Russian national identity. ‘What we have here is not just a piece of territory that has to be populated for the solution of this or the other technical problem. This is a country after all – Russia … This is a civilisation.’7 The notion of national identity and the struggle to defend it has even been enshrined in Russian law, with the law on extremism including in its definition of an extremist act, ‘the humiliation of national dignity’. A final motif which repeatedly arises in official securitising discourse within contemporary Russia is that of morality. The question of morality is bound up in the discourse within the concepts of the unity of the state and national identity discussed above. In his ‘Russia at the Turn of the Millennium’ statement on taking over as acting president from Boris Yeltsin on 31 December 1999, Vladimir Putin declared that ensuring the unity of Russian society is a ‘spiritual and moral problem’. The concept of morality has also, perhaps more logically, been a key signifier in the discourse surrounding controls on religious organisations, and widening out in the more nationalist discourse into the threat posed to Russian society from ‘the West’ from a moral perspective. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Aleksii II, has talked of ‘a mighty industry of seduction operating in western countries which is sending into Russia incredible quantities of pornographic materials and plans for so-called sex education, which advertise evil in all its forms and legalize blatantly the life style of Sodom and Gomorrah’. He argues that a market has been created in Russia for alcohol and drugs, and that what is occurring in Russia is an ‘unprecedented crisis’ leading to the ‘desolation of our society’ and requiring all good Russians ‘to fight for the salvation of our nation’.8 Morality too was an issue in the securitising moves noted in regard to the media (Chapter 4), when the Anti-Terrorist Convention of the Mass Media drew up a code of moral conduct for journalists when reporting on anti-terrorist operations.9 A similar angle had appeared also in the earlier versions of the June 2004 Law On Gatherings, Meetings, Demonstrations, Processions, and Picketing, which initially reserved the right for the authorities to ban demonstrations where ‘the purpose and form would go against commonly accepted moral norms’. This clause was withdrawn before the final version of the law was passed, reportedly on the insistence of President Putin.10 It is apparent then that a number of recurring themes are present in the securitising discourses which have appeared in Russia in recent years, and that it is not always straightforward to separate them as they become intertwined. When looking at these securitising moves outside of their immediate construct we can create an aggregated securitising construct where terrorism is related to state unity, which is related to morality, which is related to immigration, and so on. What may then occur is that

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these motifs begin to stand for one another, and it becomes enough to mention one of them for the others to be implicitly connected in the mind of the speaker or the listener. The Law On Combating Extremist Activity facilitated this process of securitisation by proxy, in that the term extremism, defined widely in the text of the law, itself became a securitised concept. Examples of this process were noted in Chapter 5, when the prosecutor general, Vladimir Ustinov, linked football hooliganism to terrorism, as both of these completely separate phenomena can be termed ‘extremism’. Ustinov asserted that ‘extremism grows every day, this can be seen with the naked eye’ and that behind football hooligans ‘are people who regulate this movement, and the next step will be terrorism’.11 Similarly, an example of slippage in the use of these connected discourses came in the statement from nationalities minister, Vladimir Zorin, that the publication of a list of terrorist organisations represented an important step in combating extremism.12 This may well have been the case, but the issue of note here is that ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ appear to be being used interchangeably; if terrorism is extremism, then might not extremism be terrorism? And given a wide definition of the latter then a range of other issues could be caught up in this construct, and it becomes easier for the connection to be made between, say, football hooliganism and terrorism, and for appropriately urgent or tough measures to be taken against the extremist threat. Continuity in securitisation

Contextualising the process of securitisation in the Putin era involves considering a number of factors, in particular, we ask here to what extent the criticisms often directed at the Putin administration relate to policies initiated or carried out during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency (1991–99). Later sections establish whether the context of events during the Putin years helps to explain securitising moves, and we also consider essential to the issue of context a consideration of securitising moves that failed. If our central question is how accurate it is to portray Russia under Vladimir Putin as a country where policy-making is dominated by security, then one element of this question which requires further elucidation is the extent to which the accession to the Russian presidency of Vladimir Putin in 2000 represents a clear dividing line. The answer is that 2000 does not represent so clear a departure in Russian policy, from the point of view of the securitisation of domestic affairs, as is often posited. Of course it is easy to understand why, certainly on the journalistic level, the accession to power of a former KGB colonel, in succession to Boris Yeltsin, the man who perhaps did more than most to finish off the Soviet Union, should represent an obvious point after which Russia could be

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said to be more security conscious and less democratic. Furthermore, as we noted above, the elements are there for this case to be made. As we have outlined in Chapter 4, for example, it is on Putin’s watch that media freedom has declined in Russia. Similarly, it is since 2000 that the Law On Combating Extremist Activity has been passed, that restrictions on demonstrations have come into force, and that the abolition of elections for regional leaders has been implemented and justified as a response to terrorism. Nonetheless, as we note below in emphasising the importance of basing criticism on solid fact, it is important that academic analysis does not simply adopt such a clear periodisation without an appropriate context. In relation to continuity from Yeltsin to Putin, the preceding chapters demonstrate that such continuity is far greater than is often perceived. In Chapter 2 we considered the question of recruitment into the upper echelons of power of men with a security service background, and concluded that Yeltsin’s last years in power saw a considerable influx of siloviki into high positions in Russia. Of particular note is the fact that Yeltin’s last three prime ministers were all men with a security service background, namely Yevgenii Primakov, Sergei Stepashin, and Vladimir Putin. According to members of Yeltin’s inner circle, from the middle of 1998 onwards the president began the search for a worthy successor, ‘from this moment onwards his attention was exclusively on people “of the service”’.13 According to his advisers, Yeltsin considered such men ‘reliable’, although it is less than clear whether this referred to a laudable rectitude in service or to the ailing president’s desire to ensure that once he had left office he would be immune from prosecution. It was during Yeltsin’s second term in office too that the majority of the cases which have come to make up the phenomenon known as ‘spymania’ were instigated (see Chapter 2). Of the sixteen such cases raised by human rights groups and the Council of Europe, six were launched in the period 1996–98, five more by the end of 2000, and all the rest bar one by the end of 2002. Without being able to comment on the detailed allegations and evidence of each case, it is clear from the conviction rate (six defendants were completely acquitted, two were given suspended sentences; the average conviction rate in Russian courts is around 98 per cent) that there was a surge in unwarranted prosecutions for espionage in Russia during the late 1990s, and that the number of such cases has notably diminished during the Putin presidency. Of the laws which we have considered in terms of securitising moves, again it is the case that a number of these were introduced during the Yeltsin presidency. The law on religion of 1997 is a clear example of a securitising discourse applied to an area of life not usually construed in these terms. The procedure of state management by registration of organ-

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isations was certainly no innovation, having been used in the Soviet era, and in the second half of the 1990s not only did religious organisations have to complete complex registration procedures, but so too did all nongovernmental organisations, including political parties. The final ‘registration law’ of note which we have considered here is the Law on Political Parties of 2001. This law was personally pushed by Vladimir Putin, for whom it was reportedly ‘the most significant event in the political arena for the past year’.14 Even this law, however, was not something dreamt up by the Putin administration. As early as 1997, President Yeltsin had stated that the absence of a law on political parties was undermining the democratic rights of citizens,15 and in 1999 the chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, Aleksandr Veshnyakov, had spoken of the urgent need for such a law in order to keep track of electoral finances.17 Similarly, with regard to one of the most criticised laws of the Putin era, the Law On Combating Extremist Activity of 2002, an initial draft of a law on opposing extremism was submitted to parliament in June 1999 amidst increasing concern about the rise of skinhead attacks on ethnic minorities in Moscow. Likewise, the Law on the Status of Foreign Citizens in the Russian Federation had its first reading in 1999. The motivation behind these laws was of course mixed, but it should be borne in mind that several of them were introduced specifically in order to deal with the legal anomaly whereby laws which were passed in Russia whilst it was still a part of the Soviet Union, rather than an independent state in its own right, remained in force. Thus the religion law replaced a law of 1990, the Law on Citizenship replaced a law of 1991, and the Law on the Status of Foreign Citizens replaced a law from 1981. In the sphere of the economy, Chapter 7 demonstrates that the peak period for securitising moves came in 1996, as a factor in the political struggle between the Security Council under Aleksandr Lebed and Sergei Glazev and the government under Viktor Chernomyrdin and Boris Nemtsov. Clearly therefore, in a number of areas of policy, it is unwise to make a clear bifurcation between the Yeltsin and the Putin eras. There remains a good deal of continuity between the two in many areas of domestic policy. Security: a legitimate concern

We have a talked a great deal in the preceding chapters about securitising moves and securitisations. These are neutral concepts and the process of securitising an issue should not, in the abstract, be taken as either a negative or a positive development. The difficulty with the debate over ‘who is Mr Putin?’ is, as we noted in Chapter 1, that it is largely polarised. In studying contemporary Russian politics within the framework of

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securitisation it is not our aim to conclude with an overarching metanarrative of ‘Putin’s project’. Indeed we are of the opinion that such an attempt would not be useful as it would necessarily oversimplify and thus distort rather than explain complex political processes. The chapters in this book have assessed the degree to which specific areas of domestic Russian politics can be seen to have undergone a process of successful securitisation. In doing so we have deliberately not engaged in a normative study of whether securitisation in individual policy areas has been ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’. We follow Buzan et al., from which the approach taken here was developed, in their assertion that a subjective judgment of the ‘correctness’ of a securitisation is fraught with difficulties as the threat perception of individual actors is determined by history and circumstances. Buzan et al. point out the importance of the realisation that ‘what seems an adequate measure to one polity seems paranoid to another’.17 Nonetheless, although this caveat applies to most individual securitisations, it is essential to emphasise here that security itself is of course a legitimate concern for any state. This being the case, it follows that the possibility must be allowed that security is a factor behind securitising moves, rather than, as is often assumed in the Russian case, it being a cover for a backwards move towards a more authoritarian style of leadership. To interpret motives is always difficult, and even more so when attempted without paying sufficient attention to the cultural, historical, and political context. Many governments in recent years have increasingly acknowledged that individual freedoms previously taken for granted might have to be reassessed and possibly adjusted in view of the tangible threat emanating from international terrorism. Numerous restrictive security measures, such as the tightening of terrorist legislation in the United Kingdom and the creation of a new ‘power ministry’ – the department for Homeland Security – in the United States, were implemented by Western governments in reaction to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. A broad debate amongst the academic, journalistic, and policy-making community is in full flow considering the question of how to reconcile the need for increased security with civil liberties.18 In many instances observers have questioned whether governments have not too readily extended the scope of restrictive legislation advocated and adopted as necessary to avert terrorist threats to other spheres not immediately related to the containment of terrorism.19 Besides the effects of 11 September 2001 on the threat perceptions of many governments across the globe, Russia’s reactions to the attacks were amplified by a number of terrorist acts committed on its own soil, particularly since 1999, with devastating consequences. In Chapter 3 we detailed: the apartment bombings in which 300 citizens were killed at

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night in September 1999; the theatre siege of October 2002 in central Moscow, resulting in the deaths of 120 hostages; suicide bombs at a Moscow rock festival and outside a hotel in the centre of the capital in 2003 which killed over twenty people; a bomb attack on a train in southern Russia in December 2003 resulting in over forty fatalities; a suicide bomber on a Moscow metro train in February 2004 who likewise killed over forty people; a female suicide bomber at a Moscow metro station in August 2004 who killed at least ten people and injured around fifty more detonating a bomb packed with nuts and bolts; and two domestic passenger aircrafts blown up in flight also in August 2004, killing all eighty-nine people on board. Following on from these events came the hostage tragedy in a Beslan school in September 2004, the impact of which was so elemental that it was termed by some analysts ‘Russia’s September 11’.20 Given the repeated occurrence and severity of these events the fact that they have influenced domestic policy considerations and brought about an increase in the discourse of security is scarcely cause for surprise. Of course there is a legitimate debate to be had, as is the case with the international responses outlined above to 11 September 2001, over how to balance liberty against security, and whether issues are being securitised appropriately. Furthermore, in the Russian case, as we have pointed out, by no means all of the securitising moves discussed have been to do with terrorism and Chechnya (indeed, the authors began using the securitisation framework in reference to Russia before the events of 11 September 2001). Many of the securitising moves made in Russia have been more to do with perceived threats from ‘the West’ or from within Russia itself concerning national identity, the economy, and the unity of the state, than with terrorism. Inevitably, given the events of 1999–2005, terrorism has moved dramatically up the threat perception agenda in Russia as it has the world over. Furthermore, as we noted in our discussion of discourses and securitisation by proxy above, the threat posed by terrorism has merged with other pre-existing threat perceptions to create an aggregated securitising construct. In terms of context then, there are similarities with the situation in the West post-11 September 2001, however, as would be expected, the specific Russian context of pre-existing and overlapping securitising moves makes a direct comparison more difficult. If the Russian context in terms of contemporary events differs in some respects from that in ‘the West’, then the historical context is still more distinct. To evaluate securitising moves and heightened threat perceptions in Russia without an awareness of the legacy of the Soviet regime is to risk missing a cultural factor at work within, particularly, the Russian elite and – to a lesser extent, as the younger generation have a decreasing cultural memory of the Soviet era – the people as a whole. The Soviet

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regime treated many issues not traditionally associated with the security sphere as questions of security and, in the words of Buzan et al, ‘securitise[d] everything from nuclear missiles and opposing armies to miniskirts and pop music’.21 We have argued strongly, in Chapter 2, against the view that the behaviour of individual politicians can be predicted simply because they were at some point employed in one of the Russian force structures. The existence of a silovik mindset in politics is difficult to prove and empirically weak as an analytical tool, since the generational and career backgrounds of siloviki differ so markedly and the same policies across the political spectrum are pursued by siloviki and nonsiloviki alike. Nonetheless, there are stronger grounds, backed up by opinion polls which differentiate according to age, for arguing that generational attitudes can be more satisfactorily generalised. From this perspective, the dominance of the political elite by a generation used to the pervasive Soviet discourse of security may, though it is not rigorously proven enough to act as a clear causal factor, offer useful contextual and cultural insight into the continuation of such discourses in Russia today. Precision in criticism

One motivation for seeking an additional approach to the study of Russian politics was, as set out in Chapter 1, the desire for an in-depth engagement with the apparent dualism of democratic and authoritarian policy decisions taken by the Putin leadership. We are interested particularly in finding a way of avoiding the democratic/undemocratic bifurcation which seems to require that Russia is either advancing to or retreating from democracy. There are many other questions to be asked of Russian politics, and far from all policy directions pursued by the Russian administration are decided on according to whether they will advance the country along a democratic trajectory or not. Investigating the phenomenon of securitisation across broad areas of Russian domestic policy represents an alternative analytical framework particularly appropriate at the lower level of distinct policy areas rather than the aggregated level of the direction of the state. Of course the question of democratic direction remains a legitimate one, whether it cuts across the declared aims of the Putin administration or not. However, within the framework of an overarching normative transition approach, policy decisions taken by Putin are sometimes too easily dismissed as a part and parcel of what is taken to be a general backwards trend towards a more authoritarian style of leadership even if the implications of these decisions are by no means certain. Such criticism can itself then feed into policy formation, particularly when it forms a part of the international dialogue. For example, the Council of Europe

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report on Russia of June 2005, whilst containing much valid criticism based on solid research, criticised the decision announced by Vladimir Putin in September 2004 to move from a mixed electoral system for the Russian Duma to a fully proportional system, with a 7 per cent threshold for representation. In a stark sentence, with no explanation, the Council concluded that, ‘In such conditions the prospect of any meaningful and viable opposition to the pro-presidential parties in the parliament will be seriously undermined’.22 Given that fully proportional systems are the norm for most democratic states, the grounds for such a conclusion remain a mystery. Furthermore, had Russia’s 2003 elections been held under the system in place for 2007, then the only party which would have fewer seats than they have in mid-2005 would be the pro-presidential party United Russia, whose parliamentary ranks are swelled by a large number of ‘independent’ deputies who would no longer exist under a purely party-list system. The main point to draw from this example is that there needs to be precision in criticism, and that such precision is aided by detail and contextual understanding. It is no intention of the current work to defend wholesale the policies pursued by President Putin. Equally, however, we advocate – and this is hardly revolutionary – accuracy and rigour in critical evaluations. The securitisation approach can usefully facilitate the circumvention of oversimplified or telelogical catch-all explanations describing the political process in contemporary Russia. In assessing the success or failure of securitising moves in individual policy areas, the approach facilitates a complex account of the apparent ‘hardening’ of the Russian regime under its current leadership explaining the process by which an issue is securitised. By this means the key actors are identified, their arguments scrutinised, and the strength of their support by given ‘audiences’ assessed. So for example, the question of who is securitising an issue becomes pertinent. It is not always the president or ‘the regime’, as we noted in, for example, the case of the law on religion (Chapter 5), various moves to securitise the economy (Chapter 7), and the securitising moves made in relation to the media reporting of terrorism (Chapter 4). A strength of the securitising approach is that it analyses both failed and successful securitising moves. Understandably perhaps, critical approaches to policy developments in Russia tend to concentrate on successful securitisations. However, the fact that other securitising moves have failed also represents an important finding, as it reveals countervailing tendencies within the Russian polity. Unsuccessful securitising moves discussed in the preceding chapters failed for a variety of reasons. First, a number of measures initially advocated in security terms were rejected by the president. In the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks

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on New York and Washington, Duma deputy Nikolai Kovalev introduced amendments to the media and terrorism laws (see Chapter 4) which would have given the government powers to stop media coverage of antiterrorist operations, including those in Chechnya. These amendments passed their first two readings with little publicity. Their third reading however came immediately after the Moscow theatre siege of October 2002, and was erroneously interpreted by many observers as a reaction to that. Following appeals from a number of groups opposed to these amendments, President Putin vetoed them. In a similar case, the president, following on from substantial disquiet expressed by deputies, required the Duma to amend the law on citizenship, passed in 2002, in order to simplify the acquisition of Russian citizenship for former citizens of the Soviet Union.23 In both these cases the counter-discourse voiced by opponents of these legislative acts evidently was sufficiently strong for the executive to reconsider the necessity of these measures. The audience that must be convinced for a securitising move to be successful had not accepted the securitising discourse. Aside from rejection by the president, the Russian court system has also played a role in restricting attempts to securitise specific areas of civil society. As discussed in Chapter 4, amendments to the Law On the Mass Media, which would have rendered analytical coverage of electoral campaigns virtually impossible, were ruled unconstitutional in response to several appeals to the court by opposition politicians and journalists. President Putin had agreed to a series of amendments to the electoral law and the media law which forbade media outlets explicitly to back a candidate in an election, to describe what might happen if a particular candidate was elected or not, to focus on negative or positive comments about candidates, and to report on aspects of a candidate’s life not linked to his or her professional activities and official duties. This swingeing set of regulations was swept away by the Constitutional Court, following appeals from Duma deputies and journalists, and the president declared himself satisfied with this outcome. Nor is it just the highest courts in the land which have rejected some securitising moves. As noted above, and in Chapter 2, a perhaps surprisingly high proportion of espionage cases brought by the FSB from 1996 onwards have resulted in acquittals. Again, it is by no means our intention here to claim that all is well with the Russian court system – there have been numerous cases where procedures appear to be flawed – nonetheless, it is certainly the case that in the examples noted above the courts have rejected securitisising moves emanating from other institutions of the state.

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Final comments

The securitisation framework set out and employed in this current work provides an approach to considering much of the content of Russian domestic politics in recent years, bringing disparate areas of policy within an holistic framework and elucidating some of the key concepts which are framing political debate in Russia. Furthermore, the concentration on the discourse employed by Russia’s political actors themselves means that we are analysing their politics largely in their terms according to their selfconceptualisations of key issues. The Putin regime has been widely portrayed as moving Russia back towards a more managed, less democratic system of government with authoritarian overtones. Without denying that this is the case in some areas, we have shown where moves in that direction appear to have failed and demonstrated the means by which such moves have been, and may continue to be, limited. In addition, where it does appear to be the case we have set out the process by which such moves have been enacted and the discourse used to justify them. Finally, the use of securitisation as a prism through which to see contemporary Russia places Russia within a comparable analytical framework in relation to other major states. Ever since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, the balance between security and freedoms has been a key question for many countries. Through the securitisation framework the possibilities for international comparison are clear, and it is to be hoped that the case studies in this volume contribute a little to future comparative research in this regard as Russia is placed within a context familiar internationally. Notes 1 B. Buzan, O. Wæver, and J. de Wilde, Security: a new framework for analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998). 2 I. Milshtein, ‘Spetsoperatsiya. Svoi chelovek na verkhu’, Novoye vremya (30 January 2005), pp. 17–19. 3 Putin’s speech at the enlarged government meeting with the government and heads of the regions, Moscow, House of the Russian Government (13 September 2004), www.president.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2004/09/13/0000_type82912type82913_7666 7.shtml (last accessed 25 July 2005). 4 Ibid. 5 E. Zabrodina, ‘Strategiya 2000 god: silnoe gosudarstvo. 2005 god: my – svobodnaya natsiya’, Politicheskii klass: Zhurnal politicheskoi mysli Rossii, 5 (31 May 2005), 33–9. 6 Gosudarstvennaya Duma: Stenogramma zasedanii (Moscow: Izdanie Gosudarstvennoi Dumy, 19 September 1997), www.akdi.ru/gd/PLEN_Z/1997/s19-09_u.htm (last accessed 25 July 2005).

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7 I. Nevinnaya, ‘Andrei Chernenko: V etoi sluzhbe vse nemnozhko kamikadze’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (14 June 2002), p. 6. 8 Yu. Konstantinov, ‘Prichastie bez ochishcheniya’, Sovetskaya Rossiya (8 February 2001), p. 5. 9 ‘Chetvertaya Vlast’, poznakomilas s vlastyu’, gazeta.ru (10 December 2002), www.gazeta.ru/parliament/articles/10156.shtml (last accessed 28 October 2005). 10 A. Matveeva and A. Litvinov, ‘Ne dolzhno byt’ nikakikh nezdorovykh ogranichenii’, Gazeta (13 April 2004), p. 1. 11 M. Petrov, ‘Putin Asks For a Summary on Fight Against Extremism in Russia’, ITARTASS Weekly News (18 September 2002; accessed via EastView database). 12 S. Latyshev, ‘Russia Takes New Step in Fight Against Extremism, Minister Says’, ITARTASS Weekly News (5 April 2003, accessed via EastView database). 13 Yu.M. Baturin, A.L. Ilin, V.F. Kadatskii, V.V. Kostikov, M.A. Krasnov, A.Ya. Livshits, K.V. Nikiforov, L.G. Pikhoya, G.A. Satarov (eds), Epokha Yeltsina: ocherki politicheskoi istorii (Moscow: Vagrius, 2001), p. 782. 14 Vladimir Putin at press conference in the Kremlin, Moscow (18 July 2001), reported at www.democracy.ru/english/library/laws/parties_fz95_eng/index.html (last accessed 12 November 2005). 15 ‘Yeltsin Call For Parliamentary Election Reforms’, ITAR-TASS Weekly News (19 December 1997; accessed via EastView database). 16 L. Alexandrova, ‘Veshnyakov Tells Officials to Keep Preferences to Themselves’, ITARTASS Weekly News (29 November 1999; accessed via EastView database). 17 Buzan et al., Security, p. 30. 18 See, for example, the Observer’s regularly updated website portal entitled ‘Liberty Watch’, providing information on issues such as terrorist legislation, Guantanamo Bay, ID cards and ongoing coverage of the ‘liberty vs. security’ debate. http://observer. guardian.co.uk/libertywatch (last accessed 25 July 2005). Numerous academic volumes have been published on the issue in the wake of ‘9/11’. See, for instance, D. Cohen and J. Wells (eds), American National Security and Civil Liberties in an Era of Terrorism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); M. Sidel, More Secure, Less Free? Antiterrorism policy and civil liberties after September 11 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004). 19 N. Cohen, ‘Bring Out your Dead: Government anti-terrorist proposals have less to do with 11 September than we are asked to believe’, Observer (2 December 2001), p. 31. 20 Harlan Ullman, ‘Putin Another Lenin?’, Washington Times (29 September 2004), p. A21. 21 Buzan et al., Security, p. 208. 22 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Report on Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by the Russian Federation, Strasbourg (3 June 2005), p. 15. 23 RFE/RL Newsline, 25 September 2003.

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Abalkin, Leonid 170 abortion 131 Abramovich, Roman 29 Academy of Economic Security 161 Academy of the Tax Police 161 Accounting Chamber 163, 166 accreditation 81–3, 97n.21 administrative resources 166 Afanaseva, Elena 86 Afghanistan 51 Ageenkov, Aleksandr 156 AIDS 132 Akulichev, Viktor 41 Alekseeva, Lyudmilla 103 Alkhanov, Alu 65 Amnesty International 66–7 Andropov, Yurii 8, 14, 24 Anti-Terrorist Convention of the Mass Media 79–80, 89 anti-terrorist operations 48–9, 50, 56, 59, 66–7, 78–80, 82, 96 ARD (German Broadcasting Company) 37 arms transfers 151–2, 168–9 Ashirov, Nafigulla 119 Aslakhanov, Aslambek 64 Babitskii, Andrei 81 Babkin, Anatolii 41, 47n.76 Baisaev, Usam 65 Bakharev, Konstantin 41, 47n.76 Balkans 54 Baltic pipeline project 156 Balzer, Harley 3 Basaev, Shamil 48, 56 Baturkin, Anatolii 130

Belov, Yurii 111, 179 Berezovskii, Boris 29, 91, 104 Beria, Lavrentii 14, 24 Beslan xiii, xiv, 4, 56–7, 68, 78, 91, 120, 123, 179, 185 Bindig, Rudolf 60 birth rate 131 ‘Black Tuesday’ 153 Blair, Tony 50, 52, 55, 67 Bogdanchikov, Sergei 165 Bolzhakov, Sergei 85 Bordyuzha, Nikolai 27–8 Borodin, Pavel 29 Bortnikov, Aleksandr 158 Breslauer, George 32 Brezhnev, Leonid 8, 24 British Nationality Act 142 British Petroleum 167 Budennovsk 28 Buinaksk 48 Burutin, Aleksandr 35 Bush, George W. 4, 56, 67 Buzan, Barry 10–12, 23, 109, 136, 145–6, 151–2, 155, 184, 186 capital flight 126 Carothers, Thomas 9 census 131 Central Bank of Russia 156, 160 Central Electoral Commission 85, 89 Centre for Analysis of Strategy and Technology 169 Centre for Ethnologic and Regional Research 129 Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations 67

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Chechen Central Electoral Committee 64 Chechen-Ingush republic 65 Chechnya xvi, 14, 117 casualty figures 73n.60 constitution 58, 61–3, 67 economy 52–3 elections 61–5, 67 first war (1994–96) 28, 48, 50 human rights abuses 53–4, 56–7, 59–60, 66–8 international criticism of 49, 53–8, 62–8 media freedom in 80–3 normalisation 49–50, 58–69, 179 referendum 58, 61–3, 67 refugees 49, 58, 61–3, 65–6, 67 Chekaev, Anatolii 141, 143 Chekalin, Aleksandr 136, 148n.34 Cherkesov, Viktor 33–4, 45n.47 Chernenko, Andrei 32, 44n.36, 127–9, 134, 139, 148n.34, 149n.62, 179 Chernomyrdin, Viktor 26, 29, 108, 153–4, 183 Chubais, Anatolii 153 CIS see Commonwealth of Independent States citizenship 127, 137–45 Civic Forum 134 civil society xvi, 4, 68, 102–25 Clinton, Bill 23, 48, 55 CNN 51, 53 Commission on Questions of Citizenship under the President 138, 143 Committee for State Security (KGB) xv, 3, 24–8, 38–9, 152, 160, 168 Commonwealth Immigration Act 142 Commonwealth of Independent States 141–2, 146n.9 Communist Party of the Russian Federation 119, 140–1, 143, 154 Communist Party of the Soviet Union 5, 24, 31, 103, 152 Conception of Economic Security 158–9 Congress of Peoples’ Deputies 154 conscription 132 Constitution 86, 88, 102 Constitutional Court 26, 83, 87–8, 188 Corriere della Sera 54 Council of Europe 40–2, 57, 60, 62–3, 68, 122, 182, 186–7 coup of August 1991 25

CPRF see Communist Party of the Russian Federation CPSU see Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPT see European Committee for the Prevention of Torture crime statistics 130 Dagestan 48, 51 Danilov, Valentin 41–2, 47n.76 defence budget 168–9 defence industry 151, 159, 163, 168–9 Delyagin, Mikhail 159–60 demographic crisis 129, 131–3, 141 demographic situation 15, 128 de Wilde, Jaap 10, 23, 109 Directorate of Economic Security 154 Donath, Klaus-Helge 72n.37, 92 drugs 15, 39, 51, 127–8 Duma xiv, 38, 64, 142–6, 169 apparat 143 Committee for State Building 143 media legislation 78–80, 83–9 migration legislation 137–46 religion 111 Dvorkovich, Arkadii 168 Dyachenko, Tatyana 29 Dzasokhov, Aleksandr 121 Dzhabrailov, Khusein 64 economic policy 151–2, 154–5, 163 economic security xvi, 127, 152–65, 169–72 elections 3–5, 84–8, 96 energy sector 152, 167–8 Epperson, Robert 30 Ernst, Konstantin 79, 83 espionage 40–1 ETA 57 ethnic conflict 129 Europe 52–4, 57 European Committee for the Prevention of Torture 60 European Court of Human Rights 42 European Union 53, 58, 157 Fadeev, Nikolai 35 ‘Family, The’ 29, 32, 36, 164–5 FAPSI see Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information

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Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information 28, 38–9, 160 Federal Agency for the Press and Mass Communication 80 Federal Border Guard Service 28, 38–9, 89, 160 Federal Counterintelligence Service 28, 153, 156 Federal Migration Service 32, 127, 133–7, 139, 145–6, 148n.34 Federal Security Service 13, 58–9, 127, 168, 188 economy 157–8, 161, 163–4, 175n.53 Investigations Department 41 media 77, 88–96 in politics 34–6, 159 reorganisation 38–40 ‘spy-mania’ xv, 40–2 Federal Service for the Control of the Drugs Trade 33, 39, 161 Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crimes 161 Federal Tax Police Service 38–40, 156, 161 Federation Council 78, 94, 127, 138, 140 Fedotov, Mikhail 79, 95 Figaro 51 FMS see Federal Migration Service food security 152 football hooliganism xvi, 118, 181 force structures see power ministries Foreign Intelligence Service 26–7, 40, 89, 93 foreign investment 161–2 foreign trade 152, 170 Formichev, Valerii 131, 142 Forum for Migration Organisations 133, 140 FPS see Federal Border Guard Service Fradkov, Mikhail 33, 38, 156–7, 168, 172n.25 France 121 Freedom House 4, 76 FSB see Federal Security Service FSK see Federal Counterintelligence Service FSN see Federal Service for the Control of the Drugs Trade FSNP see Federal Tax Police Service

Gaidar, Yegor 152, 154 Gazprom 91, 156, 168, 175n.53 GDP 154, 159, 162 Gendeliev, Eduard 26 General Prosecutor 131, 142 General Staff 35 Geneva 162 German Democratic Republic 31 GFS see State Courier Service Glazev, Sergei 153–6, 158, 162, 183 Gorbachev, Mikhail 6, 25, 106, 151–2, 169, 170 Gorbulin, Oleg 162 Gosplan 152 Grafova, Lidiya 133, 140–1 Great Britain see United Kingdom Gref, German 158–9, 164, 171 Groshev, Anatolii 163 Grozny 56 Gryzlov, Boris 36, 38, 40, 49, 80, 89, 94, 130, 134, 139, 148n.43 Gurov, Aleksandr 102–3 Gusinskii, Vladimir 91 Hallbach, Uwe 57 health policy 15, 102 human rights organisations 41, 55, 59–60, 63–7, 136 Human Rights Watch 66–7, 97n.21 Illarionov, Andrei 155, 157–9 illegal labour 126–7 Industrial Committee 79, 83, 89 information security 15, 81, 93–4, 100n.68 Information Security Doctrine 15, 89–90, 92–6 information warfare 92 Ingushetia 63, 65–6 Institute of Economic Analysis 155 Institute for the Economy in Transition 166 Interdepartmental Commission for Economic Integration 157 Interdepartmental Working Group for Migration Legislation 126, 138, 143–4 international community 41, 52, 55, 68 International Federation of Journalists 83 international law 64

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International Organisation for Migration 130 international security 52–3, 67 Internews 82 IOM see International Organisation for Migration Iraq 54–6, 82 Irish Republican Army 57 Irkutsk 163 Islamic Conference 64 ITAR-TASS 27 Itogi 4 Ivanov, Sergei 33, 36, 38, 89, 157 Ivanov, Viktor 33, 35, 126, 138, 143–4, 157, 164–5 Judd (Lord), Frank 62–3 judicial review 96 judiciary 2, 26, 86 Kadyrov, Akhmad 62, 64–5 Kaibyshev, Oskar 41–2 Kalyadin, Viktor 41, 47n.76 Kasyanov, Mikhail 33, 159, 165 Kazantsev, Viktor 32, 34, 45n.47 KGB see Committee for State Security Khadimov, Movsur 65 Khakamada, Irina 31 Khasbulatov, Ruslan 64 Khodorkovskii, Mikhail 15, 163–6 Khrushchev, Nikita 8 Khvorostov, Yurii 41, 47n.76 Kirienko, Sergei 27, 34, 157 Kiselev, Yevgenii 91 Klebanov, Ilya 45n.47 Kobaladze, Yurii 27 Korzhakov, Aleksandr 153 Kovalchuk, Valerii 41, 47n.76 Kovalenko, Pavel 82 Kovalev, Nikolai 78, 116, 157, 187 Kovalev, Sergei 63–4 KPRF see Communist Party of the Russian Federation Krasheninnikov, Pavel 116 Kravchenko, Fedor 82 Kryshtanovskaya, Olga 14, 30, 34, 157, 159 Kryuchkov, Vladimir 25, 31 Kudrin, Aleksei 157–8 Kulikov, Anatolii 156 Kursk submarine 90

Kutafin, Oleg 138, 142–3 Law on the Basic Guarantees of Citizens’ Electoral Rights 84–5 Law on Citizenship 137–46 Law on Combating Extremist Activity 15, 79, 85, 115–21, 180–3 Law on Emergency Situations 82 Law on the Fight against Terrorism 82, 97n.24 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations 110–15, 122 Law on Gatherings, Meetings, Demonstrations 121, 180 Law on Mass Media 79, 81, 83–4, 89, 187 Law on Political Parties 15, 104, 115, 122, 183 Law on Public Associations 115, 122 Law on the Status of Foreign Citizens 135, 137–9, 142, 144–6 League of Arab States 64 Lebed, Aleksandr 26, 29, 153–6, 183 Lebedev, Platon 163, 166 Lebedev, Sergei 89 Lefortovo 42 Leningrad 33 Lesin, Mikhail 87 Levitin, Igor 36 Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 150n.88 life expectancy 131–2 Litvinenko, Vladimir 167 Lobov, Oleg 152–3 London xiv Loshak, Viktor 86 Makarov, Vladimir 28, 44n.22 Makaryan, Robert 27 Maltsev, Yurii 59 Matvienko, Valentina 44n.36, 148n.34 MChS see Ministry for Emergency Situations media 2, 177, 180, 188 Chechnya 80–3, 91–2, 95 election coverage 77, 83–9, 93 foreign correspondents in Russia 91–7 freedom 76–7, 79, 81–3, 86–8, 90, 96, 182 legislation 76–80, 81–3, 84–90, 96 monopolisation 94–5

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security forces 77, 79, 88–96 state-owned 94–5 terrorism 77–83, 187–8 Media-Most 91 Medvedev, Dmitrii 33, 168 Medvedev, Nikolai 127, 138 Memorial 63, 65 Menatep 163 migration xvi, 15, 66, 103, 177, 179 crime 127–31, 134–5, 138–9, 147n.17 economic aspects 126–7, 131, 134–5, 138–9, 144 legislation 104, 126, 135–45 numbers 130–1 military 11, 15, 151, 168–9 Military Industrial Complex 35 Ministry of Agriculture 160 Ministry for Anti-Monopoly Policy 160, 166 Ministry of Atomic Energy 160 Ministry of Defence 58–9 Ministry of the Economy 159 Ministry of Economic Development and Trade 158–60 Ministry for Emergency Situations 36 Ministry for Federation Affairs, Nationality, and Migration Policy 133 Ministry of Finance 160 Ministry of Foreign Affairs 95, 143 Ministry of Industry and Science 160 Ministry of Internal Affairs 15, 22, 26–7, 38, 40, 49, 58–9, 128, 133–7, 145–6, 153, 156, 161 Ministry of Natural Resources 160 Ministry of Power 160 Ministry of the Press, Broadcasting and Mass Communication 85 Ministry of Property 160, 163 Ministry of Security 26 Ministry of Security and Internal Affairs 25 Ministry of Taxes 160 Ministry of Transport 160 Mironov, Oleg 94 Mitrokhin, Sergei 86, 143 Moiseev, Valentin 41–2, 47n.76 Moscow 3–6, 37, 40, 42, 48, 56–8, 78, 80, 82, 90, 92–3, 103, 115, 117–18, 120, 128, 130, 134, 136, 138, 162, 183, 185, 188

Moscow Helsinki Group 64, 103 Moscow Migration Research Programme 130 Moscow theatre siege 56–7, 78, 80, 90, 93, 120, 185, 188 Moskovskii komsomolets 4, 136 muslims 52, 57, 114, 120, 147n.17 MVD see Ministry of Internal Affairs Nadezhdin, Boris 143 National Antiterrorist Fund 94 national identity xvi, 126, 129 national security 153, 158, 171 NATO 54 natural resources 167 NDR see Our Home Is Russia Nechiporenko, Oleg 93 Nemtsov, Boris 62, 183 Neshchadin, Andrei 169 Nevzlin, Leonid 164 New York xiv, 17, 55, 78, 184, 187, 189 Nezavisimaya gazeta 59, 87, 107, 129 NGOs see non-governmental organisations Nikitin, Aleksandr 41, 47n.76 NKVD see People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs non-governmental organisations 10, 53, 92, 103–5, 140 North Caucasus 48, 50, 54, 81 Northern Ireland 57 North Ossetia xiii, 57, 121 NTV 91, 98n.14 Nurgaliev, Rashid 35–6 O’Donnell, Guillermo 9 oligarchs 9, 164–5 Operation Tabor 128, 131 Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe 62 ORT 79, 87, 91 Osipov, Vladimir 28, 35, 44n.22 Ostanin, Valerii 34 Otechestvo 78 Our Home is Russia 26 Pain, Emil 129 Pakhmonov, Yevgenii 81, 95 Panfilov, Oleg 67, 97 Panorama Centre 145 parliament see Duma

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Pasko, Grigorii 41–2, 47n.76 Pastukhov, Boris 143 Patrushev, Nikolai 40, 44n.22, 49, 55, 89, 100n.63, 101n.79, 105, 127, 157, 163–4 Pavlov, Valentin 25 Pavlovskii, Gleb 36 Peace Corps 100n.63, 101n.79 People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs 24 Petelin, Gennadii 26 Petrov, Nikolai 34 Pichugin, Aleksei 163, 170 Pleteneva, Tatiana 143 Polevanov, Vladimir 153 political parties see Law on Political Parties Powell, Colin 56 power ministries 22, 38–9, 88–9, 97, 133 definition of 43n.1 media 88–97, 133 presidential administration 28, 35, 89, 126, 138, 143–5, 157, 164, 167–8 presidential human rights commission 65 press freedom see media, freedom Primakov, Yevgenii 14, 26–9, 44n.22 privatisation 153, 163–5 Procuracy 164 prostitution 139 public opinion on Chechen presidential elections 64 on Chechnya 62, 68–9, 71n.21 on Putin 22 on siloviki 22 Putin, Vladimir 16, 18 background 14, 105, 116 administration 22, 34–5 force structures 22, 27, 37–40 policies xiv, xv, 1–5, 7–10, 13, 103, 105, 108, 116–17, 123, 157–9, 167, 175n.63, 177, 179–83, 187–9 siloviki 29–37 Rapota, Grigorii 27 Reddaway, Peter 35 refugees 49, 58, 61–3, 65–7, 134, 139 regions xiv, 3, 9, 102 religion xvi, 15, 51, 103–6, 110–15, 120 Reporters without Borders 76 Roche, Gwen 69 Roma 128–9, 147n.12

Rosefielde, Stephen 6 Rosneft 165, 168, 175n.53 Rosvooruzhenie 27 RSPP see Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs RTR 26 Rushailo, Vladimir 38, 56, 158, 162 Russian Academy of Business and Entrepreneurship 162 Russian Committee for the Defence of Scientists 41 Russian Orthodox Church 15, 107–9, 120, 180 Russian Trading System 164 Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs 162, 169 Rutskoi, Aleksandr 26 Rybkin, Ivan 155 Ryzhkov, Nikolai 111 Saidullaev, Malik 64–5, 104, 122 Sakwa, Richard 10, 36 Schröder, Gerhard 55, 67 Sechin, Igor 45n.53, 164–5, 168 securitisation 1–4, 10–13, 16–19 Security Council 26, 29, 33, 35–6, 38, 56, 89, 94, 102–3, 152–3, 155–9, 161–3 Segodnya 4, 155 self-censorship 79, 97 Senchagov, Vyacheslav 155 separatism 52, 82 September 11, 2001 (‘9/11’) xiv, 17, 54–8, 67, 77–8, 117, 184–7, 189 Seslavinskii, Mikhail 80 Severstaltrans 36 Shaposhnikov, Yevgenii 153 Shchurov, Vladimir 41, 47n.76 Sherstyuk, Vladislav 161 Shoigu, Sergei 36, 87 Shokhin, Aleksandr 153 Shurygin, Vladislav 31 Sibneft 166–7 siloviki 14, 164–5, 168, 177–8 before Putin 24–9 definition of xv, 22 perceptions of 27, 30–1, 40–1, 186 Putin 29–37 securitisation 23 Skokov, Yurii 152 Slivyak, Vladimir 122 Sobchak, Anatolii 31, 33, 35, 45n.47

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Soifer, Vladimir 41, 47n.76 Sokolov, Aleksandr 83 Soltaganov, Vyacheslav 157, 162 Soros, George 156 South Korea 41 Soviet State Committee for Prices 155 Soviet Union 7, 24–5, 138, 142, 146n.9, 151, 168 Spain 57 spiritual security 93–6 SPS see Union of Right Forces ‘spy-mania’ 23, 40–2 Stalin, Josef 24 State Courier Service 32 State Customs Committee 159 State Duma see Duma State Statistical Committee 160 Stepashin, Sergei 14, 27–8, 39, 43n.22, 156, 163, 166, 175n.63 Sterledev, Konstantin 41, 47n.76 Sterligov, German 129 St Petersburg 3, 33, 35, 40, 128, 158, 164, 167 Streltsov, Anatolii 94 Surkov, Vladislav 168 Sutyagin, Igor 41–2, 47n.76 Svanidze, Nikolai 26 SVR see Foreign Intelligence Service tax evasion 126, 157, 166 Tax Police see Federal Tax Police Service terrorism xiii, xiv, 2, 15, 17, 39, 48–58, 68, 77–83, 89, 94, 96, 116–18, 120, 123, 127, 138–9, 177, 179–82, 185, 187–9 Totskii, Konstantin 89 transition theory 3, 7–10, 16–17, 186 Transneft 168, 175n.53 Transnefteprodukt 168 transport security 152, 170 treason trials 40–2 Trepashkin, Mikhail 41, 47n.76 Troshev, Gennadii 35 Troshin, Aleksandr 153 Ukraine 121, 135 unemployment 126 United Nations 62 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 65–6 Union of Right Forces 62, 140, 143, 165

United Kingdom 17, 37, 55, 57, 120, 142, 184 United Russia 82, 85, 87, 92, 150n.88, 187 United States 3, 17, 23, 37, 55–6, 77, 117, 184 Ustinov, Vladimir 118, 164, 181 Vasilev, Vladimir 134 Venediktov, Aleksei 82, 85 Verevkin-Rakhalskii, Sergei 161 Verkhovskii, Aleksandr 145–6 Veshnyakov, Aleksandr 85–7, 183 Vitkovskaya, Galina 136–7 Vneshekonombank 91, 158 Volgodonsk 48 Voloshin, Aleksandr 29, 33, 164–5 Vyakhirev, Rem 156 Wæver, Ole 10, 23, 109 Wagnusson, Charlotte 12 war on terror 17, 49, 55, 67 Washington xiv, 17, 55, 78, 184, 187, 189 Washington Post 59, White, Stephen 30 World Trade Organisation 159, 161–2 Yabloko 34, 86–7, 140–1, 143, 165 Yakovlev, Vladimir 45n.47 Yanaev, Gennadii 25 Yastrzhembskii, Sergei 81 Yavlinskii, Grigorii 31, 86, 141 Yazov, Dmitrii 25 Yeltsin xv, 16, 41, 108–9, 133, 153–6, 159, 161, 164–5, 178, 180–2 force structures 23–6, 39 policies 1, 3–5, 8–9, 13 siloviki 14, 26–9, 37 Yuganskneftegaz 167 Yugoslavia 54 Yukos 163–8, 170–2 Yushenkov, Sergei 59, 104 Zabrodina, Yekaterina 179 zachistki 60, 67 Zaostrovtsev, Yurii 158, 164 Zdanovich, Aleksandr 81 Zhirinovsky, Vladimir 108 Zorin, Vladimir 118, 131, 181 Zubakov, Yurii 27, 157 Zyuganov, Gennadii 108, 153, 162

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