Winter is Coming (44 page)

-a $2.5 billion aid package that had been delayed.
Curt Tarnoff,
U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet Union 1991-2001: A History of Administration and Congressional Action,
CRS Report for Congress, updated January 15, 2002.

-against its enemies, both internal and external.
Robert O. Paxton,
The Anatomy of Fascism
(New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2004), Kindle edition, locations 4284-85.

CHAPTER
2
: THE LOST DECADE

-crisis since the end of World War II.
The US and the USSR both agreed on the creation of Israel in 1948 and were the first two countries to recognize it.

-consensus for the American role in the world.
Bush and Scowcroft,
A World Transformed
, Kindle edition, locations 11416-20.

-much bloodier than we thought
. David Halberstam,
War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals
(New York: Simon and Schuster,

2001), 29.

-yesterday America elected the leader of the world.
Garry Kasparov, “Moral Principles Must Underpin U.S. Leadership,”
Wall Street Journal,
November 4, 1992, A14.

-and advancing the cause of peace.
President Bill Clinton statement to the American people on Kosovo from the White House, March 24, 1999. Full text and video at http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/ speech-3932.

CHAPTER
3
: THE INVISIBLE WARS

though most are blessedly peaceful today.
The Wikipedia page “Disputed territories in Europe” is fascinating reading and excellent trivia.

what you would have to say to him about that?
President Bill Clinton’s news conference with President Boris Yeltsin of Russia in Moscow, May 10, 1995, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=5l336.

without even telling Yeltsin. Kommersant
newspaper, May 18, 1995. Referenced in John W. Parker,
Persian Dreams: Moscow and Tehran Since the Fall of the Shah
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2008), 116.

who promoted close political and economic ties with Iran.
Ibid. 117-188.

a more cooperative relationship in the future.
Tarnoff, “U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet Union 1991-2001: A History of Administration and Congressional Action,” CRS report for Congress, updated January 15, 2002.

manage the conflicts they themselves had provoked.
Steven Erlanger, “Five Years Later: Eastern Europe, Post-Communism—A Special Report; East Europe Watches the Bear, Warily,”
New York Times,
October 21,

1994.

territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.
Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, 1994, http://www.cfr.org/nonproliferation-arms-control-and-disarmament/budapest-memorandums -security-assurances-1994/p32484.

CHAPTER
4
: BORN IN BLOOD

I can stand death-lots of it—but you can’t.
Halberstam,
War in a Time of Peace
, 420.

I can’t help it. It is my character.
From the film
Confidential Report,
aka
Mr. Arkadin
(1955), written and directed by Orson Welles. Later written as Welles’s only novel.

we’ll wipe them out in their shithouses.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, September 24, 1999.

Russians believed the security forces were involved in the apartment bombings.
An April 2002 Levada opinion poll revealed that 43 percent of Russians thought this, while 38 percent excluded the possibility; http:// www.levada.ru/press/2002041600.html.

liabilities that are too heavy to overcome.
Garry Kasparov, “Russia’s Best Election Yet,”
Wall StreetJournal,
December 21, 1999.

the most destroyed city on Earth.
BBC News, “Scars remain amid Chechen revival,” March 3, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/pro grammes/from_our_own_correspondent/64l46o3.stm.

has fallen in the second Chechen war.
Anna Politkovskaya,
A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 29.

CHAPTER
5
: PRESIDENT FOR LIFE

the empire it served and protected: the USSR
. Masha Gessen,
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
(New York: Penguin, 2012), 132.

the ultimate international political performance artist
. Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy,
Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), Kindle edition, locations 322-27.

resign early and thrust him into the presidency early.
Recounted by Tatyana Yumasheva, Yeltin’s daughter and close advisor, on her website; also as reported in the
Telegraph
on January 23, 2010, http://www.tele-graph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/7063201/Boris-Yeltsins-daughter-attacks-Vladimir-Putin.html.

final historical triumph of the first president of Russia.
Garry Kasparov, “Yeltsin Offers New Hope for the New Year,”
Wall StreetJournal,
January 3, 2000.

followed the principles of free society.
George Soros, “Bitter Thoughts with Faith in Russia,”
Moskovsky Novosti,
February 2000.

very much alive and politically kicking.
Andrei Piontkovsky, “For Whom Putin Tolls?”
Russia Journal,
February 21-27, 2000.

Soviet music was both obvious and shocking.
Critics of American excep-tionalism like Putin should keep in mind the new Russian anthem lyrics also include “You are unique in the world, one of a kind”!

CHAPTER
6
: THE SEARCH FOR PUTIN'S SOUL

worried him most about Putin in the early days
. Through all of our arguments over the years, Steve’s insight and experience make him one of my favorite “sherpas” on how the American foreign policy establishment views Russia, and why. I recommend his articles and books highly, even the ones I disagree with.

how are we ever going to get this right?
Personal email from Steve Sestanovich to author, April 19, 2015.

infamous phrase of British prime minister Tony Blair.
Ian Traynor and Michael White, “Blair courts outrage with Putin visit,”
Guardian,
March 11, 2000, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/mar/ll/russia.ethicalforeignpolicy.

never done anything like that. It’s illegal!
Interview with President Bill Clinton on Echo of Moscow radio, June 4, 2000. Cited in Michael Wines, “Clinton in Moscow: The State of Democracy,”
New York Times
, June 4, 2000.

beatings, torture and, on occasion, rape.
Malcolm Hawkes, Human Rights Watch statement, March 11, 2000. Cited in the
Guardian,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2000/mar/n/russia.ethicalforeignpolicy.

the Cold War really is over.
Condoleezza Rice,
No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington
(New York: Crown, 2011), Kindle edition, locations 1450-54.

we will stand together.
George W. Bush,
Decision Points
(New York: Crown, 2010). Kindle edition, locations 3589 - 91.

developing under conditions of intolerable isolation.
Andrei Sakharov, “A Letter to the Congress of the United States, August 21, 1973,” published in
Sakharov Speaks
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 211. Alexei Navalny and I borrowed this technique when we called the Magnitsky Act an “anti-Putin and therefore very pro-Russian piece of American legislation.”

it was taken as a rank insult!
Anatoly Dobrynin,
In Confidence
(New York: Times Books, 1995), 163.

without which there can be no mutual trust
. Sakharov, “A Letter to the Congress of the United States, August 21, 1973.”

anti-Soviet deed, but a Trotskyist deed.
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin,
The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
(New York: Basic Books, 2000), 317.

the Soviets had to be confronted, not appeased
. Natan Sharansky and Ron Dermer,
The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 3.

at greater risk than ourselves, who dare to resist.
For some reason this remarkable historical document is difficult to find even in our era of total information. The first Google result for this quote is my own Twitter account! The speech can be found in full for download on the Jackson Foundation’s website, http://www.hmjackson.org/publications.

no INTERNAL AFFAIRS left on our crowded Earth!
Out of respect I preserve the capital letters Solzhenitsyn used for “internal affairs” in his Nobel lecture manuscript.

especially if your hands are tied.
Another infamous Rice statement was referring to strongman Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus as “the last remaining true dictatorship in the heart of Europe” in 2005. This has been remembered and repeated endlessly only as Lukashenko being “the last dictator in Europe.” Worst of all, she said it while in Moscow! Even if few were ready to call Putin a dictator in 2005, why flatter him so? In 2014, Lukashenko had some revenge by saying that since Putin invaded Ukraine nobody was calling him the last dictator of Europe anymore. He was right.

here with the specific purpose to end the war.
Quotes are from various Russian news reports; several are in English at this BBC report: “Hostage-takers ‘ready to die,’” October 25, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2Zhi/europe/2360735.stm.

rise of anti-Semitism last year.
Masha Kondrachuk and Stephen Ennis, “Jews reject Russia claims of Ukraine anti-Semitism,” BBC report, November 12, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-2999i777.

a fair trial, by Russian legal standards.
Quoted in a Russian report at Grani.ru in October 2003. Ambassador Vershbow also expressed concern about Russian justice being “applied selectively.”
and I wish you courage!
It’s available here, also with audio: http://www.rferl.org/content/Text_Of_Closing_Statement_By_Mikhail_ Khodorkovsky/2208523.html.

CHAPTER 7: OFF THE BOARD, INTO THE FIRE

to fight for those people and to fight for those things.
Garry Kasparov, “The Great Game,”
Wall Street Journal,
March 14, 2005.

orders to arrest you if you try to go.
J. F. O. McAllister; Paul Quinn-Judge; Yuri Zarakhovich, “The Talks that Failed,”
Time,
September 13, 2004.

I was going to Beslan to set up talks.
J. F. O. McAllister; “Communication Breakdown,”
Time,
September 12, 2004.

broke their silence to denounce it as a cover-up.
“Beslan School Siege Inquiry ‘a Cover-up,’”
Herald
(Scotland), February 10, 2007, http://www.heraldscotland.com/beslan-school-siege-inquiry-a-cover-up-1.829305.

hostages who could have been saved were burned alive.
David Satter,
Weekly Standard
12, no. 9, November 13, 2006.

we will all be to blame!
Gessen,
The Man Without a Face,
193-94.

Western-style values and universal values.
President George W. Bush, speaking to the pro-democracy organization Freedom House, March 29, 2006.

CHAPTER
8
: OPERATION MEDVEDEV

“intelligent” and “of another generation
.”
USA Today
Editorial board interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, December 11, 2007, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/rice-transcript.pdf.

“troubling” record on human rights.
All quotes are from the set of articles on Putin in the December 19, 2007,
Time
Person of the Year section. These included an interview in which Putin was asked why Russia’s elections weren’t more open and why I had been jailed. Putin’s amazing response: “Why did Mr. Kasparov, when arrested, speak out in English rather than Russian? When a politician works the crowd of other nations rather than the Russian nation, it tells you something.” Of course, I was addressing the many foreign reporters in English after already speaking in Russian.

is a potential danger to its own security. Time,
“Adolf Hitler: 1938 TIME man of the year,” January 2, 1939.

“gravely concerned” and “strongly condemn”
Quotes from statements of the Extraordinary European Council meetings on the situation in Georgia in August 2008.