The Role Of Political Technologists Pavlovskii

One Yeltsin ally who took an exceedingly dim view of Berezovsky’s role as a
fountainhead of idea for the Yeltsin Family was Anatolii Chubais. Toward the
end of 1999, he commented in an interview: “I believe that in his ability to
generate ideas Berezovsky is No. 1 in the Russian state. There are about 7-
10 such persons [in Russia]. He generates ideas superbly. His weakness is
that he is incapable of evaluating [those ideas]. Many of his ideas are not
only unsuccessful but are monstrously dangerous [My italics] for the country
as a whole.”
More on the periphery than Berezovsky, but still squarely within the Family
orbit, were two influential Russian power ministers, Sergei Stepashin (head
of the MVD) and Vladimir Putin. As Pierre Lorrain has pointed out:
“Paradoxically, the arrival of Primakov in office [as prime minister] had the
effect of according a great political importance to Stepashin and Putin. As we
have known for a long time, the power ministers, responsible for the
structures of coercion, are dependent on the president and not on the head
of government. These two men remained in their posts preparing the return
of the Yeltsin team. During the entire winter of 1999, they had been on ‘the
front line,’ fighting Primakov’s wishes on who should be appointed to various
positions...”

Vladimir Putin—A Humble but Efficient Servant of the Yeltsin Family

If Berezovsky served as a fountainhead of at times useful ideas for the
Family, it was another infinitely less flamboyant individual who methodically
went about getting things done—even the most onerous tasks—on behalf of
the Russian president and his close entourage. In so doing, he manifested an
aptitude for intrigue and self-advancement that far exceeded that of the

49 See Mikhail Vinogradov, “Edinstvo protivopolozhnostei,” an addendum to: Mikhail
Vinogradov, Vladimir Rudakov, “Kto byli osnovateli dvizheniya ‘Edinstva,’ iz kotorogo
vyrosla partiya ‘Edinaya Rossiya’?” Profil’, 5 October 2009.
Tat’yana Yumasheva, “Berezovsky. Chast’ tret’ya, poslednyaya,” livejournal.com, 6
February 2010. URL: http://t-yumasheva.livejournal.com/13320.html#cutid1
51 “’My vyplevem!’ Beseda Vladislava Starkova s Anatoliem Chubaisom,” Argumenty i
fakty, no. 50, 1999.
Pierre Lorrain, La Mystérieuse ascension de Vladimir Poutine (Paris: Editions du Rocher,
2000), p. 406.
volatile, capricious and frequently unpredictable oligarch Berezovsky. Putin
had first come to Yeltsin’s attention in May of 1998 when he had been named
first deputy chief of the presidential staff for the regions. Appreciating Putin’s
concise, informative reports, Yeltsin chose to elevate him, two months later,
on 25 July 1998, to the post of director of the Russian secret police, the FSB.
Putin’s background in Russian intelligence and his unblinking loyalty to Yeltsin
and the Family were apparently factors behind this decision.
Not only was Putin a consistently loyal servant of the Russian president, but
he reportedly also performed any and all tasks required by Yeltsin’s daughter
Tat’yana. Taking issue with certain points made in one of D’yachenko-
Yumasheva’s blogs, journalist Evgeniya Al’bats riposted: “You [Tat’yana] are
offended by my account of a session of the Presidential Administration during
1998-1999, by my recalling the fact that Vladimir Putin did not express his
own opinion without first consulting with you?” “No, Tat’yana Borisovna,”
Al’bats continued, “That is not my invention—that is a direct quotation from a
deputy head of the administration of Boris Yeltsin.” Al’bats also took issue
with Tat’yana’s denial that she and other officials in the Presidential
Administration had habitually addressed Putin at this time as “Vova” (a
nickname appropriate for youths and teenagers but not adults). “Literally
everyone,” Al’bats noted, “called Vladimir Putin ‘Vova’—his colleagues in Piter
[Petersburg], the former employees of the directorate for control of the
Presidential Administration [where Putin had previously worked]... and even
his subordinates in the FSB.”
Speaking volumes in Putin’s favor, in D’yachenko-Yumasheva’s view, was the
fact that Evgenii Primakov during the time that he was prime minister openly
disliked the FSB director and sought his removal. As she wrote in a March
2010 blog: “Primakov very quickly came strongly to dislike the director of the
FSB, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.” She went on to recall that Primakov had
“unexpectedly asked that he [Putin] organize eavesdropping on the leader of
the ‘Yabloko’ party, Grigorii Yavlinskii. Vladimir Vladimirovich was strongly
surprised. And he said that it was inadmissible... To drag the FSB into
political shadowing [Putin said] would be incorrect, harmful, and, the main
thing, illegal.” At his next meeting with Yeltsin, D’yachenko-Yumasheva
wrote, Putin “reported his position to Papa, repeating that he considered it
inadmissible to eavesdrop on Yavlinskii. Papa heard him out, became
indignant, and said that Putin had been right.”
One needs of course to be
agnostic about whether or not this incident actually occurred and, if it did,
whether Putin embellished his account.
According to D’yachenko-Yumasheva, Yeltsin’s comment did not end the
conflict between Primakov and the FSB director: “But Evgenii Maksimovich
did not quiet down. A couple of months later he sharply placed before Papa
the question of removing Putin from the post of director of the FSB. The

53 Evgeniya Al’bats, “K 10-letiyu ukhoda v otstavku pervogo prezidenta Rossii Borisa
Yeltsina,” newtimes.ru, 18 January 2010. The appropriate nickname for an adult named
Vladimir is, of course, Volodya.
Tat’yana Yumasheva, “Kak Primakov pytalsya uvolit’ Putina,” livejournal.com, 15 March
2010. URL: http://t-yumasheva.livejournal.com/9015.html#cutid1
reason—the utter defeat of professional cadres in the FSB... Papa then
summoned Putin and received his explanations. It emerged that the picture
that the premier had painted little corresponded to reality.”55 If this account
is accurate, it suggests that Yeltsin was more than prepared to accept Putin’s
word over Primakov’s.
In these incidents, Putin’s cunning and his unusual gift for intrigue can be
seen at work. He was able, it appears, rather easily to outplay the
experienced state bureaucrat Primakov in a short but fierce struggle for the
president’s support.
In addition to performing useful strategic services for Yeltsin and for his
daughter Tat’yana, Putin also succeeded in skilfully buttering up Berezovsky
and other leading luminaries belonging to the Family. Thus at a time when
Berezovsky was being threatened with arrest for alleged criminal activities,
Putin unexpectedly showed up at the oligarch’s birthday party in an apparent
move to signal sympathy and support. During the course of an August 2009
interview, Evgeniya Al’bats asked the fugitive businessman: “Putin openly
demonstrated support for you when Primakov was seeking to hunt you
down? Is that true?”
Berezovsky responded without equivocation: “Yes, that is true. He came to
my place on my birthday, although I had not invited him, and in response to
my question why he had done that, taking into consideration my relations
with the premier [Primakov], he answered: ‘I did it on purpose.’” “There was
a moment,” Berezovsky recalled, “when Primakov wanted to remove him
[Putin] and put his own man in place as director of the FSB, and Putin
conducted himself very courageously.”
“Courageously,” Al’bats asked, “In what sense?” “In the sense,” Berezovsky
replied, “that he did not give into pressure from Primakov. Primakov
possessed enormous power [at the time], and he [Putin] entered
[intentionally] into a conflict with him.”
Of significant benefit to Berezovsky, Abramovich and their oligarch allies
were also several key restructurings that Putin had carried out once he had
been named director of the FSB. As Berezovsky’s persistent nemesis, the
journalist Aleksandr Khinshtein—a gifted investigative reporter albeit one
openly sympathetic to the Luzhkov-Primakov coalition—wrote in April of
1999: “Several days ago, at the order of the director of the FSB Vladimir
Putin, two vitally important structures were liquidated—the [FSB] Directorate
[Upravlenie] of Economic Counter-Intelligence (UEK) and the Directorate for
Counter-Intelligence Protection of Strategic Sites (UKROSO). Six new
directorates were created in their place.” “It was precisely UEK and
UKROSO,” Khinshtein pointed out, “that had carried out the operational
support of criminal cases (‘Aeroflot’, ‘Atoll’ etc.).” At the head of UEK and
UKROSO, Khinshtein observed, stood “chekisty of the old formation, persons

55 Ibid. Yumasheva responded to criticisms of this posting in a second blog: “Pro
Primakova i Putina. Nekotorye poyasneniya,” livejournal.com, 18 March 2010. URL:
http://t-yumasheva.livejournal.com/19418.html
56 Evgeniya Al’bats, “Bylo ponyatno: kogo ni posadi v kreslo prem’er-ministra—on i
pobedit,” newtimes.ru, 17 August 2009
not accustomed to vacillating with the course of the dollar. Both Aleksei
Pushkarenko (the head of UEK) and Igor’ Dedyukhin (the head of UKROSO)
have for along time irritated director Putin and his deputy and successor
[General] Nikolai Patrushev... They also understandably irritated Berezovsky,
D’yachenko, Voloshin and Yumashev.”57
In the same article, Khinshtein noted that analogous personnel changes had
recently been carried out in the MVD: “A week ago the head of the
Investigations Committee of the MVD Igor’ Kozhevnikov was removed from
his post. The reason was the same: the Investigations Committee was
conducting a majority of the explosive criminal cases. And already this week,
the commander of the [MVD] Internal Troops Pavel Maslov has resigned...
According to rumor, Maslov refused to elaborate a plan for the introduction of
Emergency Rule into the country...” In similar fashion, Khinshtein wrote, the
Deputy Procurator General for Investigations, Mikhail Katyshev, “has fallen
out of favor, something which is not surprising. A majority of the criminal
cases (against Berezovsky [etc.]...) had been opened by him.”
The principal goal of this essay, as has been noted, is to focus on the
charged period of time between 12 May 1999—when Evgenii Primakov was
abruptly fired as Russian prime minister by Yeltsin—and 9 August 1999, when
Primakov’s successor, Sergei Stepashin, was likewise cashiered by the
Russian president, to be replaced by Vladimir Putin. Before we pass on to a
close examination of this period, however, it is incumbent upon us briefly to
consider several other key developments, which, like General Bordyuzha’s
removal, occurred in March of 1999.