ET

Thursday 10 May 2001

Tapes show cynicism at the heart of Putin's rule

By Marcus Warren in Moscow

THE sycophancy and cynicism of Russia's establishment under President Putin has been exposed in a leaked transcript of phone calls to and from the Kremlin's chief of staff.

At their most hilarious, the tapes reveal the lengths top officials will go to curry favour with Mr Putin's right hand man. In one case they gave him a 12-stone stuffed bear for his birthday. The tapes star Boris Yeltsin's daughter, highly-placed petitioners begging for an audience and the chief of staff himself, Alexander Voloshin.

The transcripts of hundreds of phone calls are widely acknowledged to be genuine. Mr Voloshin, a Lenin lookalike, is widely seen as one of the most powerful figures in the land, though he never speaks in public. But the Stringer monthly, which is publishing the tapes' contents, has now thrust him into the limelight.

As head of the presidential administration, he serves Mr Putin as he once did Boris Yeltsin by deftly manipulating Russian politics from behind the scenes. Many of the calls concern preparations for Mr Voloshin's 45th birthday, celebrated on March 3 in such style that his secretary orders a van to transport the flowers to his dacha.

The days beforehand are filled with anxious queries from banks, oil companies, the head of the energy giant Gazprom and the Ukrainian embassy asking how to congratulate him. The most extravagant gift is the bear, sent by a Siberian regional boss and so big that Mr Voloshin's office and the caller seem puzzled as to how to organise its delivery.

Mr Putin himself is mentioned only in passing - but with familiarity. Perhaps aping her boss, Mr Voloshin's secretary refers to the President sarcastically as "the great leader" and "the beloved one".

The transcript of several hundred phone calls was delivered to Stringer magazine, one of Moscow's leading alternative publications, on two computer discs through a mysterious middle man. The Kremlin has not commented on the transcript, which was published on the internet yesterday. But its authenticity was endorsed by some senior journalists.

Masha Slonim, a journalist who knows many of the characters involved, said: "You recognise the intonation and joke. We always knew they were cynical but I was shocked all the same." Another Kremlin journalist, Dmitry Pinsker, said: "This is the way they speak, the words and expressions they use. I know someone on the tape who admits having such a conversation."

The publication suggests that the era of "kompromat", compromising material aimed at destroying careers, may have returned. A speciality of the late Yeltsin years, the "kompromat" phenomenon went into decline with the election of Mr Putin as president.

However, the fact that someone could tap the outside phone line in the Kremlin chief of staff's private office and hand the recordings to a newspaper hints at a new escalation in intrigue.

In one call, Mr Voloshin, appointed by Boris Yeltsin, continues his former boss's feud with Mikhail Gorbachev by cutting wishes for "good health and wellbeing" from birthday greetings to the former Soviet leader. "Just 'success'," he tells his secretary, Irina.

A frequent caller to Mr Voloshin is Mr Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, who worked in the Kremlin when her father was president. She admits that her father's recent spell in hospital was much more serious than generally thought.

"Touch wood, he is recovering," she says before providing new details of his condition. "He's bursting to get back into action but he still can't because they didn't remove anything, nothing."

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2001