The Storm In Moscow Campaign Against Luzhkov

Unleashing a “Storm in Moscow”

Following upon the heels of Primakov’s dismissal, the Yeltsin Family launched
a series of sharp attacks on Mayor Luzhkov of Moscow, to which the mayor
responded with spirited counter-attacks. Duma faction leader Vladimir
Zhirinovskii, who had been known to float trial balloons for the Kremlin,
suggested in a letter to Yeltsin that he “liquidate the post of mayor of Moscow
and replace it with the post of a member of the federal government—the
minister for Moscow affairs.”83 On 4 June, when Luzhkov returned from
holiday, former Russian prime minister Sergei Kirienko, an ally of the Family,
announced his intention to stand for election as mayor of Moscow. Kirienko
said that his primary aim in so doing was to expose the myth of an
“economic miracle” in Moscow.
Luzhkov responded to these attacks by
accusing the Presidential Administration under Aleksandr Voloshin of seeking
a confrontation with him. Luzhkov declared that Yeltsin’s “administration and

80 Ibid., pp. 83-87.
Aleksandr Zhilin, “Opasnye igry v kremlevskikh zastenkakh,” Moskovskaya pravda, 25
August 1999.
Ibid. Mikhail Kas’yanov, another Family protégé, and not Aksenenko, became prime
minister.
Interfax, 19 May 1999.
Elena Dikun, “Kremlin Out to Get Moscow’s Mayor,” Prism, 16 July 1999.
his circle foster a growing desire to crush [me] and consider [me] a chief
enemy.”85
On 8 June, Luzhkov sought to offer Yeltsin an olive branch, proposing that “all
retiring presidents be given permanent membership in the Federation
Council.”86 It was pointed out at the time that, as a senator, Yeltsin would be
immune from criminal prosecution. Luzhkov then called directly for Yeltsin’s
resignation, stating, “If a man is sick he must have the bravery and courage
to make a decision [to step down].” He noted that the Russian Constitution
mandated that if a president is permanently unable to perform his duties
then he must step down.87
One Western commentator observed that Luzhkov’s offer manifestly did not
extend to the members of the Yeltsin Family: “Cut a deal with Luzhkov and
Primakov? This works for Yeltsin, and perhaps his daughter and image advisor
Tat’yana D’yachnko... But Luzhkov and Primakov have shown no inclination
to offer such sweet terms to Berezovsky and Voloshin.”88 In August of 1999,
a leading supporter of the Luzhkov-Primakov coalition, Georgii Boos, was
reported to have threatened Yeltsin with a “Romanian scenario”—Nicolae
Ceausescu had, of course, been executed together with his wife in a
courtyard in 1989 after losing power. This report, which appeared in the
Berezovsky-owned newspaper Nezavisimaya gazeta and was then repeated
over the Berezovsky-controlled ORT television channel, could have been a
largely invented one. Boos subsequently maintained that he had been
misquoted and told reporters that the Fatherland-All Russia coalition in fact
favored legislation guaranteeing Yeltsin’s security after he left office.89

Putin’s FSB Investigates Luzhkov’s Wife

In July, in a ratcheting up of the attack, the Kremlin turned its fire on
Luzhkov’s wife, businesswoman Elena Baturina, head of the firm “Inteko.”
The FSB, headed by close Family ally Vladimir Putin, served as the battering
ram for this attack. In an interview with NTV’s “Itogi” program, Luzhkov
claimed that he had become a target “not just for Berezovsky but also for the
Presidential Administration.” The FSB, he stressed, had now become directly
involved in the campaign against him. “Unfortunately,” Luzhkov lamented,
“the FSB now works for the Kremlin and not the country.”90
The FSB of Vladimir region, Luzhkov pointed out, had opened a case against
a large number of companies that were being charged with laundering money
and then transferring the cash to Switzerland. Baturina’s firm “Inteko” was
one of companies being investigated. Luzhkov claimed that his wife’s firm

85 Monitor, 7 June 1999.
Ibid.
Valentina Korchagina, “Moscow Renews Call for Yeltsin to Quit,” The Moscow Times, 12
June 1999.
Matt Bivens, “Can Kremlin Cope with New Bloc?” The Moscow Times, 6 August 1999.
See Brian Whitmore, “Scandals could make Yeltsin afraid to leave,” The Moscow Times,
1 September 1999.
“Itogi” program, NTV, 18 July 1999. English translation in JRL, no. 3399, 19 July 1999.
had never undertaken activities in Vladimir. He said in the afore-mentioned
NTV interview that he had documentary proof that the Vladimir FSB had
added the name of his wife’s firm to the list of those companies being
investigated on direct orders from the central FSB in Moscow, whose obvious
goal was to find something criminal in his wife’s business. “My wife’s
telephone and my children’s telephone as well [are being tapped],” Luzhkov
complained, adding, “I would not be surprised if they get at my children, the
youngest of whom are five and seven.”91
Luzhkov’s spirited and emotional counter-attack, which was publicized over
NTV, forced the Family and its point man Putin temporarily to back off. On 29
July, the official news agency ITAR-TASS reported: “A Russian Deputy
Prosecutor General said investigators had no claims to Elena Baturina...”92
In September 1999, Baturina told the newspaper Moskovskii komsomlets
that Nikolai Patrushev, the director of the FSB (and one of Putin’s right-hand
men), had invited her to come see him. She related what was said during
their conversation: “He tried to convince me that the case [against ‘Inteko’]
was not one ordered up from above, not political. I permitted myself not to
agree with him... Patrushev one more time offered to personally check
everything out and, if the information was not conformed, to offer me official
apologies in the name of the FSB.”93
In addition to seeking to destroy Luzhkov and his wife, the Family during the
spring and early summer of 1999 also attempted to crush two television
channels seen as being pro-Luzhkov: NTV and “TV-Center.” At a meeting of
D’yachenko, Voloshin, Putin, Gleb Pavlovskii and several others on 1 June, as
has been noted previously, the participants discussed possible punitive steps
to be taken against these two channels. The revoking of their licenses to
broadcast was one of the options discussed.94
The Family also appears to have sought to intimidate all perceived
opponents. There was a bomb threat at the offices of the Moscow Arbitration
Court. “A little earlier there were explosions near the offices of Iosif Kobzon
and Valerii Kazantsev, who are openly on the mayor’s side... Explosions and
gunfire are heard everyday in the capital.”95 An attempt was made to involve
the Justice Ministry, headed by Pavel Krasheninnikov, in the struggle against
the Family’s political opponents. On 29 June Yeltsin publicly tongue-lashed
Krasheninnikov “for the fact that he had not undertaken radical measures
against the Communist Party.”96 At the Second All-Russian Conference of the
FSB, held at the end of June, Yeltsin charged the assembled officers to
monitor the election process and instructed them not to admit into the Duma
“criminals and swindlers.”97 Presumably this order meant that they should

91 Monitor, 23 July 1999.
ITAR-TASS, 29 July 1999.
Elena Egorova, “Elena Baturina,” MK.ru, 21 September 1999.
Nikolai Ul’yanov, “To li sensatsiya, to li provokatsiya,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 2 June
1999.
Zhilin and Vanin in Novaya gazeta, 20 November 1999.
Guseinov, Ot Yeltsina k...?, p. 14.
Ibid., pp. 14-15.
find ways of disqualifying some of the Family’s opponents—a task that was
later fulfilled in certain cases.