The Real Russia. Today. A censorship crisis at a leading business newspaper, Chinese influence on post-Putin Russia, and a ‘Game of Thrones’ apology

Monday, May 20, 2019

This day in history: 30 years ago, on May 20, 1989, Soviet Air Force Captain Aleksandr Zuyev piloted his Mikoyan MiG-29 to Turkey and defected to the United States. After resettling in San Diego, Zuyev died in a plane crash outside Bellingham, Washington, in June 2001.

• Kommersant: Two top Russian journalists are forced to quit, and an entire department follows
• ↑ A statement by Kommersant’s employees following the mass resignation of their colleagues
• ↑ Hang in there, friends: Meduza responds to censorship scandal at Kommersant
• As the Russian reality show ‘Dom-2’ celebrates its 15th anniversary, fans explain why they can’t live without it
• Opinion: Economist Dmitry Travin says post-Putin Russia will fall prey to Chinese influence, unless there’s a major crisis in Beijing
• Opinion: Columnist Oleg Kashin thinks the FSB’s special status could make anti-corruption policing into more than hypocrisy
• Protest art group Voina’s leader arrested in Germany
• Russian streaming service apologizes to frustrated fans after delaying ‘Game of Thrones’ finale by 90 minutes
• Embattled Yekaterinburg cathedral sponsors plan to remove wall from contested park ‘in the name of peace’
• As youth activists in multiple Russian cities plan to join global climate strike, Moscow leader struggles to obtain permit

The crisis at Kommersant 📰

All for two and two for all

On May 20, two top journalists at the Russian newspaper Kommersant announced their resignation. Special correspondent Ivan Safronov and editor Maxim Ivanov left the newspaper at the request of the company’s owner, Alisher Usmanov, after they published an article claiming that Russia’s Federation Council chairperson Valentina Matvienko might leave her post. Eleven other journalists, including Kommersant’s entire politics department, soon quit their jobs as well to protest the owner’s intervention.

Read Meduza‘s report: “Two top Russian journalists are forced to quit, and an entire department follows”

‘This is an open attempt to repress free speech in Russia’

The staff of Kommersant, a major Russian newspaper, has posted a public statement to the publication’s readers after two of its journalists were forced to resign this morning and the entire politics department followed suit in protest. At the time of this publication, more than 120 Kommersant employees had signed on to the statement.

Read it in English: “A statement by Kommersant’s employees following the mass resignation of their colleagues”

Our editorial

Meduza’s team includes several former Kommersant staff, but today’s events weigh on our entire newsroom. Russian journalism is losing professionals at an alarming rate, and reporters who quit aren’t leaving for another cool publication, but in most cases to find work in related areas, which is often nowhere. The whole industry is suffering, but today’s sadness belongs to a single department of a particular newspaper. We know that Kommersant is a family, and this family is now in trouble. Hang in there, friends.

Read Meduza‘s editorial: “Hang in there, friends”

‘I would do anything for that show’ 📺

On May 11, 2004, Dom-2 (House-2) released its first episode on the Russian TV channel TNT. Hosted by celebrities like Ksenia Sobchak, Ksenia Borodina, and Olga Buzova over the years, the reality show features contestants dating while building a new house. Despite being accused of “making a negative impact on the younger generation” as early as 2005, Dom-2 remains one of Russia’s most highly rated shows to this day. Meduza asked its regular viewers why.

Read Meduza‘s report: “As the Russian reality show ‘Dom-2’ celebrates its 15th anniversary, fans explain why they can’t live without it”

Opinion and analysis

🕊️ Travin: Hopes for Russia’s post-Putin future rely on a China in crisis

In an op-ed for Republic, economist Dmitry Travin says Russia’s post-Putin development depends greatly on China’s strength. Travin argues that Russia is only capable of acting as a spoiler in geopolitics today, with its influence limited to meddling in the handful of failed states who lean on the Kremlin for survival. Moscow itself has leaned increasingly on Beijing, thanks to its falling out with the West. When the Putin regime finally ends, whether by sudden collapse or the ravages of Father Time, Russia’s corrupt, avaricious elite will be especially susceptible to Chinese influence, Travin says.

To maintain some level of peace, Travin believes Russian elites will welcome a form of “democratization” after Vladimir Putin, but it will most likely resemble the flawed democracies in Ukraine or Hungary, which will further weaken the Russian state, creating more opportunities for groups advocating preferential treatment for China.

Travin, by the way, doesn’t expect China to annex all Russian lands east of the Urals. Outright land grabs, he says, are too troublesome nowadays, and they’re not necessary to obtain what Beijing wants most from Russia: a steady supply of natural resources.

In other words, Travin says Russia is at risk of succumbing to the influence of a stronger eastern neighbor. But what if that neighbor wasn’t so strong? He also believes a major crisis awaits China, whether it’s a trade war with the United States or the internal regime troubles that haunt the ostensibly socialist state. If this crisis strikes China before Putin goes, Beijing could be too weak and distracted to meddle as much in Russia.

There are risks in this scenario, too, Travin says. Instability in China could prompt a wave of “patriotic hysteria” intended to rally people to the regime (not unlike the surge that hit Russia in 2014). Even under these circumstances, a war with Russia would be unlikely, he says, but Moscow’s fixation with its problems in the West could leave the Kremlin ill prepared for instability in the east. Travin even compares the danger to the mistake Joseph Stalin made when he believed Nazi Germany would turn west and spare the USSR.

👮 Kashin: The FSB’s ‘special status’ could be a path to destruction

In an op-ed for Republic, columnist Oleg Kashin looks at the recent arrest of Federal Security Service colonel Kirill Cherkalin on bribery charges, arguing that the rapid expansion of the FSB’s influence has triggered infighting. Kashin says the FSB is turning to the same administrative tools to purge its own ranks as it uses to grow outward as an agency.

He starts by comparing Cherkalin to former Interior Ministry Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko, who was arrested 2.5 years ago on similar charges. (Kashin speculates that Zakharchenko’s apparently modest lifestyle means he was probably managing a common criminal fund, not masterminding his own enterprise.) Cherkalin’s case stands out, however, because the FSB alone has managed to police itself, achieving “special status” in Russia’s power vertical.

Kashin says the FSB has also been Russia’s only law-enforcement agency to convert bribery scandals into political influence, growing stronger with each new case. This isn’t typical among the siloviki, he says, arguing that bureaucratic infighting in Russia is built on precedents, where every major arrest is both a blow to specific individuals and groups, and simultaneously reveals vulnerabilities in entire agencies. Kashin offers the following examples: the arrests of governors hurt all governors, the “Young Shakro” case hurt the Investigative Committee, and the case against Denis Sugrobov (the former economic crimes unit director who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for organizing a crime syndicate) was a blow to the Interior Ministry and led to the creation of the National Guard.

The result of the FSB’s crackdown on bribery and other forms of corruption, Kashin says, has led to more FSB authority — not less corruption. This reproduces Russia’s “traditional hypocrisy,” he says, where anti-corruption efforts are a cover story for fights within and between police agencies. In the article’s final paragraph, however, Kashin warns that a cover story can take on a life of its own, and Russia’s anti-corruption rhetoric might put the state on a path to destroying itself.

News briefs

• 👮 The performance art group Voina announced on Twitter that the group’s leader, Oleg Vorotnikov, has been arrested in Germany. The group also posted a message on its website saying that Vorotnikov is in urgent need of an attorney in Berlin. Read the story here.
• 📺 The streaming service Amediateka, which holds exclusive distribution rights for the wildly popular television series Game of Thrones in Russia, apologized to its subscribers for a 90-minute delay in the broadcast of the show’s final season on the morning of May 20. Read the story here.
• 🚧 Alexander Andreyev, the director of Yekaterinburg’s St. Catherine’s Foundation, announced that a wall erected around the planned construction site of a new cathedral in the city will soon be taken down. For several days last week, protesters occupied the site in hopes of preserving the green space already present there. Read the story here.
• 🌡️ Arshak Makichyan, a Moscow student who has been picketing weekly to push for action on the global climate crisis, wrote on Twitter that he had been denied a permit to join an international climate strike on May 24. Read the story here.