Limonov vs. Putin Read online

  The next attack on Gusinsky and on the NTV Company happened in December 1997. The State antitrust committee opened a case against NTV about the violation of the antitrust legislation. The goal was to make NTV pay for the broadcasting of the television signal on commercial and not State tariffs, which were two-three times lower. Then NTV was saved by the presidential order of January 28th 1998 that gave NTV the status of an all-Russian television company. Then there was the scandal about the protest of patriarch Alexy II against the airing of Martin Scorsese’s The Passion of Christ on NTV. Bu these were minor problems.

  Large-scale confrontations with the Kremlin began in 1999 in the midst of the electoral campaign to the State Duma. The competition between the Kremlin who supported the Unity block, it has created, and Fatherland – All Russia, supported by Gusinsky, kept growing. Gusinsky has actively joined the informational war on Luzhkov’s side, competing with the ORT channel, which continued its attacks on Luzhkov and Primakov more harshly. The Russians did not yet forget the vicissitudes of this story, unprecedented by its rage, vividness and scandal. Here is how it looked like in short. Dorenko accused Luzhkov of taking part in the murder of the American Tate, shareholder of the Radisson-Slavyanskaya Hotel. Primakov was accused of taking part in an attempt on Georgia’s president Shevarnadze. Less large-scale accusations were news about Moscow’s Bank financing Luzhkov’s pedigree stallion in Germany at a cost of about $300-400 million. After Primakov has had an operation on his hip, Dorenko made it the subject of his program. He demonstrated a video made during the operation (naturally, not Primakov’s). ORT won in this confrontation between ORT and NTV. The fight between two political clans and two TV giants was added spice by the fact that the ORT owner who hired the TV killer Dorenko was Berezovsky. (There is some information that Korzhakov effectuated the first attack on Gusinsky’s people on Berezovsky’s demand). The scandalous confrontation of the two TV channels in 1999 with the participation of the brilliant (someone would say disgusting) TV killer Dorenko is a clear example of the scandalous freedom of speech. Its contrary is the infamous silence of today’s channels, their total submission to a single boss, their hiding of the truth.

  The Kremlin remembered Gusinsky’s position on the State Duma elections and started its vengeance. Even before the elections Vnesheconombank demanded Media-Most and NTV Plus to return two credits of $62,2 million. The Kremlin’s position was voiced by the former head of the president’s administration Voloshin who declared that Media-Most was receiving more State credits than the rest of the media and that it must pay. Evgeny Kisilev accused the head of administration of lying and in the Segodnya newspaper Vnesheconombank was called “a bureau that executes special orders from the president’s administration”. On December 14th 1999 a court order followed: it had to pay. Most-Bank was forced to agree and pay. At the same time Most-Bank was accused of not paying 650 million rubles to the State Customs Committee. Verifications of the Most-Bank and Media-Most documents followed one after another.

  After the elections the relations between the Kremlin and Media-Most did not improve. The Kremlin did not enjoy the fact that in February 2000 Gusinsky declared that NTV would not support Putin’s candidacy on the presidential elections of March 26th 2000. Neither did the Kremlin enjoy the informational policy of NTV about the covering of the Chechen campaign. The position of the Media-Most media was strikingly different from the official interpretation of the second Chechen war and for Gusinsky at the time it was the only possibility to give blow after blow to the Kremlin and to Vladimir Putin personally, whose rating depended largely from successes in the war in Chechnya.

  Gusinsky’s conflict with Putin’s group could not have finished in his favor. On June 13th 2000 Gusinsky was arrested and sent to the Butirka prison. The formal reason of the arrest was the case opened back in 1998 on charges of fraud. The NTV owner was accused of fraud and money laundering, supposedly two billion rubles. On the third day the Prosecutor General calmed the public with the following statement: “Vladimir Gusinsky’s cellmates are intellectuals. They both have a higher education degree.” The Prosecutor General also said that the case was opened for violations in the privatization of Russian video-11th channel. According to the Prosecutor General back in 1996 Gusinsky “joined a criminal conspiracy with the head of Russian video Rozhdestvensky. In result he received the rights to someone else’s property by way of fraud and breach of trust by a group of people who abused their functions.”

  This was the first arrest of the greatest businessman; the owner of the biggest TV channel, a media-magnate, and it caused a choc in the whole world. Suddenly two weeks later the Prosecutor General released Gusinsky and allowed him to go abroad. According to Gusinsky, when he was in prison he was forced to sign an agreement about selling Media-Most shares. As it is known the media-magnate left for Spain, but the Spanish police arrested him on December 12th 2000 on a new order of the RF Prosecutor General. Why such a radical turn: they released him and then asked to arrest him? Because Gusinsky refused to fulfill the agreement about the shares. In April 2001 the Spanish court refused to extradite Gusinsky on the RF demand, judging the reasons of the Russian investigators insufficient. Then the Prosecutor General brought new charges against Gusinsky and arrested Most finance director, Anton Titov. When in April 2001 I was sent to the Lefortovo prison Anton Titov was already there. He was charged with a conspiracy with Gusinsky to “steal over five billion rubles”. According to the investigation Titov worked out a scheme on transferring Gazprom credits abroad in 1998-99.

  On July 9th 2002 Gusinsky surrendered: he finally got rid of his media empire in Russia and was forced to surrender. We (me, the media, the public) do not know what became the last drop that forced him to sell his media holding. On July 2002 the holding Gazprom-Media acquired Gusinsky’s media assets. Gazprom received blocking shares of all the largest structures of Gusinsky’s former media empire. The cost of the deal was declared a commercial secret but everybody agrees that Gazprom paid far less than their real market cost. Gazprom’s head Alexey Miller declared that this “acquisition increases the investing attraction of Gazprom-Media assets and creates more favorable conditions for further negotiations with potential investors.” But since then none of these media was transferred to a private company. It is interesting that on December 24th 2002 Cheremushkinsky court of Moscow condemned Anton Titov to three years of prison but amnestied him and released him in the courtroom. Apparently his release was a condition Gusinsky fixed to sell the assets of his media empire. From the moment NTV was transferred to Gazprom few traces were left of its former greatness. A crisis of the NTV team followed: Evgeny Kisilev left with a large group of journalists. Part of the journalists stayed and continued to fulfill their informational work more or less decently. Although doubtlessly NTV changed its position about the war in Chechnya and the opposition was given far less coverage. But even such a channel did not satisfy the Kremlin for long. In the end of 2004 NTV was destroyed once and for all. One after another the programs Freedom of Speech and Namedni were closed down and the channel’s leadership was changed again. From now on NTV does not differ of the State channels Russia and ORT that have gotten into the Kremlin’s hands long ago.

  However the vindictive Kremlin (i.e. the vindictive president Putin) did not leave the former media-magnate Gusinsky alone. In August 2003 he was arrested again, now in Athens. On August 29th the Athenian court bailed him out and later decided like Madrid’s court: there are not enough grounds for an extradition.

  I can conclude the story about NTV by a reminder that Putin and his group did not fight against the TV oligarch but were destroying a multitude of opinions, views on our reality and this is freedom of speech. The State oligarch, Putin’s associate, Miller bought our freedom of speech for Putin. Now he owns it.

  2. How the Kremlin got ORT

  I have already mentioned the fight between the media empires of Gusinsky and Berezovsky on the eve of the parliamentary elections of 1999, the TV
killer Sergey Dorenko, the victory of ORT, and the fact that Berezovsky accumulated a media empire in his hands. Berezovsky started to accumulate it in 1993. It is in the end of 1993 that Berezovsky has created his advertising agency LogoVAZ-Press and the contacts with the former leader of the TV company A. Yakovlev helped him to organize his airtime. In April 1994 Berezovsky expressed his desire to initiate the creation of a “popular television”, obviously he was orienting himself on the initiative of his eternal enemy-friend Gusinsky who has registered NTV in July 1993. In November 1994 Berezovsky obtained the president’s order about the creation of ORT. With that he concentrated the direction of the financial side of the company in his hands.

  At this time Berezovsky became the holder of 8% of ORT from the name of the United Bank while LogoVAZ also had 8% of ORT. These 16% allowed him to become first deputy chairman of the ORT board of directors. In 1995 Berezovsky became chairman of the ORT directors board. Since he practically headed a group of businessmen who controlled about half of the ORT shares. (16% of shares were supposedly acquired for $320 thousand. After the death of Vladislav Listiev Berezovsky became the owner of 36% of the actions. Berezovsky’s business partner Boris Fedorov had 2% of the shares and Oleg Boyko 5%.)

  According to most political experts the entire project of the ORT creation was directed at the ideological provision of B. Yeltsin’s future presidential campaign, however Berezovsky also pursued a concrete business profit – after Listiev’s death he tried to seize the advertisement on ORT. He appointed his partner Sergey Lisovsky general director of ORT-advertisement and his other partner and friend Badri Patarkatzishvili chairman of the Board of directors.

  In October 1997 Xenia Ponomareva became the ORT general director. This appointment was the confirmation of Berezovsky’s solid positions on the channel, which Anatoly Chubais tried to “nationalize”. Berezovsky even managed to organize a meeting between Ponomareva and president Yeltsin. It was Berezovsky who proposed the new formula “ORT with the transfer of 51 percent shares to the State” and he acquired the rest share holding at a low price.

  Apart from ORT Berezovsky tried to acquire other channels as well. In 1995 he acquired 26% of shares of TV-6 Moscow. According to Berezovsky it was Edward Sagalaev who did all the work for him (“an absolutely professional man”), Berezovsky trusted him. Subsequently, when he lost ORT Berezovsky used TV-6 as a mean of his further promotion as the leader of a political movement. It is on TV-6 that Kisilev’s team went when they left NTV.

  Also Berezovsky had a certain influence on Nezavisimaya Gazeta. He supported NG financially from the name of United Bank. Together with his partner Oleg Boyko Berezovsky sponsored the Ogonek journal. Actually its editor-in-chief was the former head of Yeltsin’s administration V. Yumashev. In 1997 Berezovsky did not refute the information that he supported financially Igor Golembiovsk’s Izvestia. Then when I. Golembiovsk, O. Latzis and others who have left Izvestia have created Novye Izvestia Berezovsky became its principal sponsor. When the founder of Kommersant Vladimir Yakovlev decided to sell his publication Berezovsky acquired 15% of Kommersant’s shares. The company American Capital started to control 85% of the shares. Presently Berezovsky’s media holding has shrunk like shagreen leather and the rests were united into Logovaz News Corporation. In the present case we want to know how Berezovsky lost ORT. This is how it happened.

  Despite the fact that Berezovsky and his channel ORT occupied a pro-Putin position on the March 2000 presidential elections, the attempts to take away the channel from him began in summer 2000 and coincide with the attacks on Gusinsky. If Gusinsky was against Putin’s candidacy Berezovsky supported him. However it turned out that Putin does not have gratitude feelings. On September 4th BBC announced: “The famous Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky told that he intends to transfer his share holding of the ORT television company to journalists and other representatives of the artistic intelligentsia. Berezovsky said this in a letter to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin entitled: ‘About freedom of speech and ORT share’ and published by several media.”

  “ The president wants to direct ORT himself’ supposedly said some ‘high representative of the Kremlin’ to the businessman. According to Berezovsky he was presented with an ultimatum – either to give away ORT or to ‘follow Gusinsky’.

  According to him the cause of such a situation is Vladimir Putin’s discontent with ORT’s coverage of the Kursk crisis. Like Berezovsky said in his letter, the ultimatum he was presented with puts under question the existence of independent mass media in Russia. ‘If I accept the ultimatum there will be no more televised information in Russia, it will be replaced with televised propaganda’, the businessman writes. ‘Despite all the shortcomings and problems that Russia suffers there are some undisputable achievements and the most important of them is that millions of people ceased to fear the power and the power is forced to be accountable to the people in some way. This became possible first of all thanks to the mass media independent from the power. For the first time in decades people have found justice against the policeman, the bureaucrat and the boss.”

  Addressing president Putin Berezovsky writes: “ By putting the mass media under administrative control you will return fear into our life. We will be afraid of the house manager again.” He also proposed the government to follow his example so that the Public Russian television “corresponds to its name”: “Release ORT!”

  Russia’s government controls 51% of ORT shares. The businessman has 49%.

  The Kremlin’s press service refused to comment the information that Berezovsky gives away his shareholding. In June Boris Berezovsky left the State Duma and a little later he announced his plans to create a new political movement oppositional to the Kremlin.”

  It was supposed that Berezovsky’s shares would be transferred to the General Director of the company, Konstantin Ernst, the journalist Sergey Dorenko and the former ORT General Director Igor Shabdurasulov. Commenting this decision Shabdurasulov said on Echo of Moscow that the rest of ORT shares could be transferred not only to ORT employees and media controlled by Berezovsky but also to other persons: “This can be the most surprising figures from the journalistic community”.

  The speaker of Moscow’s Duma Platonov called Berezovsky’s decision “a small ruse”. But the Kremlin was not satisfied with such an ORT. Putin wanted to have everything. Further I give the floor to Badri Patarkatzishvili. I cite his interview in Kommersant on 07.04.01. I remind that Patarkatzishvili is Berezovsky’s business partner. Here is how the events unfolded according to Patarkatzishvili:

  “The power decided to pressure Berezovsky using pressure on his close people. And on December 7th 2000 the former deputy general director of Aeroflot and our common friend Nikolay Glushkov was arrested without any visible grounds. A bit later it became clear that they are not able to make Glushkov give false testimonies and the Aeroflot case started to crumble. The accusations Glushkov was charged with were rapidly changing. Why all this fuss if you have a consistent accusation?” The Kommersant journalist asks: “You have mentioned attempts to pressure Berezovsky. Why did they pressure him? What is their goal?”

  – Before and after Nikolay’s arrest they were pressuring Boris and me in order to “exchange” the closing of the Aeroflot case for ORT shares. And when Glushkov was arrested we agreed to this. We sold our ORT shares. Alexander Voloshin promised that they would release Glushkov. He lied.

  – To whom he promised that?

  – To me .

  – Personally , by phone ?

  – Through a person both Voloshin and I trust.

  Let us stop to comprehend this information. It turns out that the president and his people take close associates of businessmen in hostages (in Gusinsky’s case it was Anton Titov and in Berezovsky’s case it was Glushkov. Two other employees of Aeroflot were arrested with him), and like Chechen terrorists or gangsters demand a ransom for the kidnapped person. In this case they demand company shares. Moreover, as Patarkatzishvili
explains, the Kremlin made a mistake; in real fact Berezovsky was never linked to Aeroflot. Here is Patarkatzishvili’s explanation: “The Aeroflot case investigated since 1998 was cooked by a direct order of Primakov when he was prime minister and directed against Berezovsky. Dependently from Berezovsky’s relationship with the power it was closed and reopened again. When Berezovsky helped Putin on the elections the Prosecutor General closed down the case. When he went against Putin it reopened it. But since Berezovsky never worked in the Aeroflot it was impossible to tie him to this case, no matter how hard the Prosecutor General worked.

  – But I am associating Berezovsky with Aeroflot too, the journalist notices.

  – He didn’t work in Aeroflot – it’s clear. He didn’t work in Aeroflot – in other words he was never linked with any responsibilities, contracts or other actions that could be interpreted as his work with Aeroflot.

  – Then why this staunch association?

  – Because the power never controlled the ongoing processes and didn’t know who has Aeroflot shares; it always considered that we possess a significant share holding in Aeroflot. And wanted to strike a blow from this side.

  – But stroked Glushkov instead, the journalist says.

  The gangsters made a mistake. They did not kidnap the right guy. Glushkov was kept in Lefortovo. And for some time he was in the same cell as my comrade National-Bolshevik Sergey Axenov. So we know this story from the inside and can only confirm the truth of what Patarkatzishvili said in the interview. When he gave it in July 2001 there was already an international warrant on him given by the Prosecutor General. This is how Putin’s officers work.

  But whom did Patarkatzishvili meet?

  His answer: “Sergey Ivanov; he was still the secretary of the Security council back then.

  – Did the initiative come from you or from the power? The journalist demands.