You can't understand the rise of Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine without going back to August 1999, when "Boris Yeltsin pulled the trigger" and appointed him prime minister and, five months later, president Anna Bosch, ex-correspondent of TVE in Moscow (1998-2000), starts with this idea in her book El año que légó Putin (Catarata), in which she portrays a frustrated society, which associates the arrival of the longed-for freedom with the waste that brought the end of the USSR.
When Putin, a former secret agent, comes to power, a wave of attacks begins.
In September 1999 there are a series of attacks that the Kremlin attributes to Chechen terrorists, but most analysts at least cast doubt on them or, if not, directly support conspiracy theories pointing to the secret services. Putin had the excuse to launch the second war in Chechnya, which he used as an image campaign from the first hours of his presidency.
Did Putin think he could do with Ukraine what he has done in Chechnya?
In Mariupol, Putin has done the same as in Grozny: raze it to rebuild it later. Putin's first trip to Ukraine was to tour the new blocks of buildings being built in Mariupol. But Ukraine in 2022 is not Chechnya in 2000. The first surprise for Putin was that (Volodymyr) Zelensky did not flee. Ukrainians began to value their president, who they saw as a mere actor. Putin not only did not remove Zelensky from the middle, he strengthened him and turned him into a real leader.
How does Putin manage to placate opposition to the war?
If you ask a Ukrainian, Pole, Latvian, Estonian or Lithuanian, that is, citizens of countries that have been under the Russian orbit, they will tell you that it is because the Russians are complicit. Because they share Putin's idea of an imperial Russia.
Russia has just sentenced the opposition Vladimir Karà-Murzà to 25 years in prison. A message to dissent?
Karà-Murzà and his group of dissidents say that the Russians must stand up. That only they can end the condemnation of the vertical power that persecutes them, be it the Tsar, the Soviet Union or Putin. What's going on? Most Russians only receive disinformation from the Kremlin because the major mass media are mere mouthpieces of power. And then there is a third part who are afraid and cowardly. It is also necessary to reflect that from here in Spain, as citizens of a country where the dictator died in his bed, it is difficult to demand an act of courage from the Russians.
What emotions did living in Russia evoke for you?
Fear and the feeling of insecurity. Once inside, anything can happen to you. And what's more, the consequences don't follow your Western logic. For many years, when you were arrested, you couldn't leave the country. When the punishment is not going out, the system already tells you everything.
And then there is what you call the "corruption trap".
Russia has a legal system that the state knows you can't work with. The same rules force you to transgress them in your day to day life and the State turns a blind eye until it has something against you. There are no corrupt characters, the system itself is corrupt. Everything goes with small infractions and bribes.
You claim that you witnessed the power's disregard for people's lives.
Life in Russia is worth nothing, it is worth as much as you have power. (Aleksei) Navalni will die one of these days in prison. They say he is poisoned. As a correspondent in London, I had to live the death of dissidents who died strangely poisoned by radioactivity. They are mere cannon fodder. The concept of citizen does not exist. Russians grow up with the certainty that confronting power is hitting a wall.
Is there a regime of suspicion?
It is a country where you easily fall into conspiracy theories. The official version they give you doesn't suit you. It leads you to paranoia and conspiracy. Now, for example, I've been told that friends of mine are police informants. Who do I trust? I have friends who are paranoid about their relationships. When we talk on the phone they talk to me in code. They reproduce fear and paranoia, as in the worst times of the USSR, before Gorbachev, when anyone could betray you or invent a reason to do so.
