Why did Koch confess?

Evgeniy Kiselev Last week there were several new twists in this months-long story.

And, perhaps, the most sensational event is the statement of Alfred Koch, the head of Gazprom-Media, who is seeking to establish control over NTV. A statement about what role the country's top political leadership plays in this whole story.

Alfred Koch Here I am very often asked the question: “What is the role of the Kremlin, what is the role of the Kremlin?” So I'd like to stop there. You know, frankly speaking, I’m already tired of this talk about the role of the Kremlin, and I have to pretend that, so to speak, the Kremlin doesn’t have any influence on this. It turns out.

It turns out as follows. So I had a conversation with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who told me: there are shares, debts, finances - it’s all, of course, so to speak, your prerogative. But don't touch the journalists. Don't touch management. This, he says, is already my prerogative.

Evgeniy Kiselev Do you understand what happened? All these weeks, months, while the conflict around NTV and Media-Most drags on, President Putin repeats: I have nothing to do with it, this is about a dispute between two economic entities.

Moreover, when the Minister of Information and Press puts his signature on the notorious sixth protocol to the July agreement between Media-Most and Gazprom, which became notorious under the name: “Freedom in exchange for shares” or “Freedom in exchange for property”, and this becomes known, then, on the instructions of the president, Prime Minister Kasyanov publicly reprimands Lesin, as a schoolboy who has committed a crime, at a government meeting for, again, in an unacceptable manner intervened in a dispute between two business entities.

And suddenly, the head of one of these same two entities openly declares that he is tired of repeating that the Kremlin has nothing to do with it, when in fact it has very much to do with it.

And then Koch - an official, public figure - states that the president, it turns out, invited him to his country residence, discussed with him in detail the situation during the negotiations on the fate of NTV, distributed roles, who was responsible for what, and this was on the 14th, that is, the day after the memorable meeting in the Kremlin of the president with the heads of the media, a meeting at which, unexpectedly for Vladimir Putin, many of the leaders of journalistic groups, and having nothing to do with “Media-Most” was told that in this whole story around NTV, “Media-Most” there is an obvious political background, that this needs to end, because the continuation of the persecution of the holding is beginning to damage the reputation of the Kremlin and the further, the more.

Nobody knows what exactly President Koch said on January 14th. What advice or instructions did you give regarding money, finance, stocks? But the fact remains a fact.

It was after this meeting that Gazprom-Media made an attempt to cut the Gordian knot of financial and legal problems that had accumulated over these months in relations between Media-Most and Gazprom, and with a frontal attack, giving up on the right, on the law, to take NTV under full control.

At the same conference, Alfred Koch announced that the controlling stake in our television company, it turns out, already belongs to Gazprom, although the Arbitration Court has not yet considered the case on its merits.

Although, according to lawyers, the bailiffs, by seizing the NTV shares around which there is a dispute, illegally deprived our shareholders of the right to vote on these shares.

Although, finally, the Arbitration Court was, apparently, simply not informed that NTV shareholders, from whom they are trying to take away the shares, are challenging Gazprom’s actions in the English courts in London and Gibraltar, and that these shares have already been blocked by decision of one of these courts.

But here’s another question: why did Albert Koch dare to do something that, by all rules of political decency, is considered, well, at least here in Russia, unacceptable.

Why did he essentially shift, publicly shift responsibility for what was happening to the president?

There are two versions.

First: Koch understands perfectly well that they want to make him, as they say, extreme, that he is forced to commit obvious violations of the law in order to quickly, as quickly as possible, solve the NTV problem, to take full control of the television company.

And Koch, perhaps, understands that later he can be handed over, as already happened once, when Alfred Reingoldovich was made the last one in the story of the privatization of Svyazinvest and was fired from the government.

Obviously, for one reason or another, Koch cannot refuse to follow instructions from above.

But the independent television company also does not want to act as an executor of a contracted political murder. Still, Koch values ​​his reputation, or at least the last remnants of his reputation.

The second version is very simple - Koch simply let it slip.