Translated material
Measure of excess
Alexander Ryklin
In the fight against the rebellious information corporation, the authorities do not disdain anything: neither the lawless arrest of its head, nor petty dirty tricks and deceptions.
In the fight against the rebellious information corporation, the authorities do not disdain anything: neither the lawless arrest of its head, nor petty dirty tricks and deceptions.
(Photo: Max Novikov )
Targeted pressure on various structures of the Media-Most holding is carried out with one goal - to destroy the company. But the determination of the instigators of this campaign is shattered by the mediocrity of the performers.
Whether the president knew about Gusinsky’s impending arrest or not, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is different. There is no doubt that the thesis once voiced in the presidential office, “we must end the Bridge,” was approved and supported by Vladimir Putin. And he might not have been given any details of the plan. That is why the Voloshins, Ivanovs, Patrushevs and Ustinovs, filled with obsequious zeal. They worked hard last week. So much so that the president hiccupped throughout his entire tour of European capitals.
Capture of Vladimir
The idea of isolating the head of Media-Most from the media that are part of the holding has long and firmly taken hold of the Kremlin masses. Long before the raid on the holding’s head office and the court, which declared this act illegal. There is no doubt that the Kremlin also discussed the possibility of arresting Vladimir Gusinsky. (He turned a deaf ear to transparent hints that it was time for him to leave the country.) Another thing is at what point to implement this. It is unlikely, however, that the idea of imprisoning Gusinsky at the very time when the president is making his first official voyage to European capitals occurred to, say, Boris Berezovsky or Alexander Voloshin. It is easy to assume the following. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, who received very specific instructions to dig hard under the media tycoon, decided that his finest hour had come. A more opportune moment cannot wait, the prosecutor’s chief apparently reasoned, the president is gone, I’m not here. This is already an alibi. To call and consult with Voloshin means, at a minimum, to receive only half a laurel wreath. Otherwise, you see, the cunning courtier will completely push him into the background.
The fact that Gusinsky’s arrest was an improvisation was most clearly demonstrated during the first interrogation, which took place on June 14, when it became clear that the investigators themselves did not know what exactly they suspected Vladimir Gusinsky of. As a result, a confusing formulation was born, in which there is no indication of any specific crime committed by Vladimir Gusinsky at a specific moment. He was suspected of having almost continuously violated the law while carrying out commercial activities for two whole years - 1996 and 1997 (referring to the notorious story of the privatization of the St. Petersburg company "Russian Video").
And other circumstances of this arrest indicate that the decision was made hastily, at the last minute. Even the appointment of Gusinsky’s interrogation at the end of the working day, which was perceived as a sophisticated Jesuitical move (the lawyers had no time left to intervene), turned out to be not a home preparation, but a pure impromptu - it was Vladimir Alexandrovich himself who asked to postpone the interrogation from noon (so that the day would not split) at a later time. And the Prosecutor General's Office seized on this proposal: they say, how come such a happy thought did not occur to us, and they happily agreed. And investigator Nikolaev was most likely warned at the very last moment that he had the great honor of being the first to put a Russian oligarch in prison. How else can we explain the fact that it was decided which prison to take the suspect to by placing him in a “funnel”. The decree on detention states in black and white: “A copy of the decree should be sent for execution to the head of the pre-trial detention center of the FSB of the Russian Federation.” This means that initially Gusinsky was going to be taken to Lefortovo prison, and not to Butyrka at all. But they changed their minds.
The fiery nature of the operation against Gusinsky did not prevent the organizers from filling it as much as possible with all sorts of vile things. This is a direct deception - they called me in to ask about the cartridges for an award pistol discovered during the famous raid on May 11, but they imprisoned me for "Russian Video"; and petty dirty tricks - turning around a prison car, after which the suspect ended up in Butyrka instead of Lefortovo; and the absence of a stamp on lawyer Henry Reznik’s pass to the pre-trial detention center, which was why his first meeting with Vladimir Gusinsky was delayed; and a prohibition on copying the indictment, after which the lawyers had to almost completely rewrite the document by hand.
Sabotage in the rear
Some time ago, the Kremlin decided that it would be easier to deal with the President of the Russian Jewish Congress and Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, Vladimir Gusinsky, if he was deprived of the support of Jewish organizations both within the country and abroad. The first step on this path was the replacement of the chief Russian rabbi Adolf Shaevich, who was close to Gusinsky, with a 36-year-old native of Italy, Berl Lazar, who was close to the Kremlin, and who had recently received Russian citizenship. He was elected in Moscow at a congress of Jewish religious communities in Russia a few hours before Vladimir Gusinsky was taken into custody. However, already on June 14, the extraordinary presidium of the Russian Jewish Congress met in Moscow. In the Tolstoy Hall of the Radisson-Slavyanskaya Hotel, representatives of the majority of Russian Jewish communities discussed for two hours how to respond to the arrest of Vladimir Gusinsky and the unauthorized election of the chief rabbi of Russia. As a result, a statement was adopted, drawn up in rather harsh tones. It says, in particular: “We regard Gusinsky’s arrest as an act of gross violence, including against the independence of the Russian Jewish community. We consider this blatant fact in the modern history of “free” Russia to be a direct consequence of our disobedience to the authorities, who have tried, not for the first time, to using open pressure to turn the country's Jewish community into a puppet." In addition, the congress declared the election of Berl Lazar illegal and left Adolf Shaevich in this post.
In a word, the Kremlin’s cunning plan to use the split it had provoked among Jews in the fight against Vladimir Gusinsky failed miserably. Paradoxically, it was the arrest of Vladimir Gusinsky that accelerated this failure: seeing the persecution of the president of the Russian Jewish Congress as a threat to all Russian Jewry, the communities consolidated and rendered their verdict.
Special propaganda
In the midst of the efforts to prepare forceful actions against Media-Most and its head, the Kremlin did not forget about propaganda support. The campaign to discredit Most began a long time ago, and reached its climax last week.
Kremlin strategists have long decided: the more often the words “fraudster” and “swindler” appear next to the phrase “chairman of the board of directors of the Media-Most holding” Vladimir Gusinsky, the better. The Kremlin-controlled press and state television channels have long been discussing the topic of the financial troubles of the holding. At the same time, it is often hinted at (of course, carefully so as not to be dragged to court) about the dubious nature of the company’s activities. But never before last week had Russia's highest official, the president, joined this friendly chorus.
Last Wednesday, Vladimir Putin said that “judging by the press information, I want to emphasize this, he (meaning Gusinsky - “Itogi”) was able to attract 1 billion 300 million dollars into his business in the form of loans and almost nothing did not return. He took a lot of money under Gazprom guarantees. Where is Gazprom and where is the media magnate Gusinsky? Why Gazprom should deal with this issue is unclear to me. Where were the state representatives in Gazprom looking? It would be understandable if law enforcement agencies tried to sort out this issue. But this is the civil legal side of the matter... True, Gazprom has part of the NTV shares for these loans, which, however, do not solve anything. A few weeks ago, Gusinsky did not repay another loan in the amount of 200 million dollars, and once again, he took advantage of the built system of guarantees, Gazprom paid for it 200 million US dollars of non-repayable loan money." This statement has been heard by millions of people around the world. No doubt it made a strong impression on them. In reality, the president's statement contains complete distortions and fabrications.
The Media-Most holding never owed anyone “1 billion 300 million US dollars.” As for the accusations related to the relationship between Media-Most and Gazprom, they generally look wild. In fact, the president absolutely groundlessly interfered in the commercial activities of two large Russian companies. We naively thought that those times when in Russia the terms “credit” and “share” were certainly associated with criminal capitalist activity had sunk into oblivion. For the information of the President of the Russian Federation - in today's Russia it is in the order of things when one company buys shares of another company or lends to it. In addition, from the head of state, whose list of creditors includes almost half of the UN members, it is strange to hear accusations of excessive addiction to loans.
It is characteristic that Vladimir Putin prefaced this entire passage with a very significant reservation. Like, he got all this information from the press. The conclusion immediately suggests itself: the Russian President has no more reliable sources of information.
The fact that the presidential administration’s plan to destroy Media-Most is coming apart at the seams and Gusinsky was forced to be released on Friday evening does not mean that the Kremlin will come to its senses in the near future and will allow the holding’s journalists to quietly carry out their duties. There is no doubt that we will witness new attacks in the near future. This means new provocations and new portions of disinformation.