4/15/15 AT 5:15 PM
Over the past several years, President Vladimir Putin
has consolidated power in Russia by marshaling an assertive nationalist
ideology, creating an alternative reality through total media dominance and
prosecuting a hybrid war in Ukraine.
Yet for a leader who speaks boldly, his preferred mode
of action is clandestine—a style shaped by his years in the USSR’s state
security service, the KGB.
Secrecy, however, is a problematic mode of behavior
for his propaganda-driven regime. And clandestinity is not the best way to
burnish an image of a strong, pitiless leader—a tough guy, ready to use force
to advance Russia’s influence in the world. Hanging with motorcycle gangs,
riding horses bare-chested and taking part in judo exhibitions simply won’t cut
it.
To deal with this discrepancy, Putin has developed a
highly articulated set of signals used in communicating with Russia’s public
and its elites, as well as the international community. This Putin code
was on display in several notable ways in Moscow in recent weeks.
On March 25, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, one of Russia’s few
independent news outlets, reported that the president had issued a decree honoring three Russian
military units for “heroism in combat.” The three units came from Ussuriysk,
north of Vladivostok in Russia’s East; from Ula Ude, in Russian Mongolia; and
from the Moscow region.
None of the units honored has officially been
acknowledged as having deployed in a combat zone in recent years. The decree
was a tacit signal of gratitude for soldiers who likely were deployed in action
clandestinely in eastern Ukraine.
Putin sent another powerful coded message to Russians
and the world on March 15 when he appeared as the central persona in a
behind-the-scenes documentary on Russian state TV Channel 1, titled “The Road
Home.” The film tells the true story of the occupation and annexation of Crimea
in February and March 2014.
In the documentary, Putin makes clear that he decided
to wrench Crimea from Ukraine without any consultation with Crimean leaders and
minus any discussion with Russia’s legislators. It makes a mockery of Putin’s
claim that the citizens of Crimea were driven to seek unification with Russia
because they feared a “nationalist” Ukrainian government that gained power
after the toppling of President Viktor Yanukovych.
And it should be remembered that Putin initially had
vehemently denied that his armed forces were involved at all in the military
operations that accompanied the Russian takeover.
Though Putin initially
distanced himself from the assassination of opposition leader Boris
Nemtsov, his later public signals hinted at a far different
reality. On March 9, a day after a group of Chechens were arrested for
killing Nemtsov, and after Chechnya’s ruthless leader Ramzan Kadyrov praised
the self-confessed killer Zaur Dadaev as a “Russian
patriot,” Putin honored Kadyrov with the “Order of Honor,” a
high state award.
On March 10, Russian media sent a further signal
indicating what had really happened in the Nemtsov case. It was revealed that
Dadaev had resigned his commission as a Russian Internal Ministry soldier a day
after he and his colleagues put four bullets into Nemtsov. In other words,
Netmsov’s killer was on the Russian government payroll as he planned and
executed his murder.
The tactic of people resigning their military
commissions to engage in clandestine acts—officially denied by the Kremlin—is
the way Russian soldiers, including Chechen fighters, are dispatched to the
front in eastern Ukraine. Russian experts suggest that such documents are pro
forma and are held in the event fighters are captured by Ukrainian forces, to
maintain the illusion of Russian noninvolvement in the conflict.
In December, Kadyrov, the highly honored Kremlin
satrap of Chechnya, hosted a rally of 15,000 of his special forces in the city
of Grozny, where he declared personal fealty to Putin. Kadyrov indicated the
willingness of his fighters to perform tasks that “can only be solved by
volunteers” and cannot be handled officially by the regular army and security
services. “[C]onsider us a volunteer special detachment of the supreme
commander, ready to defend Russia,” he declared.
The Kadyrovtsy (Kadyrov’s men), as they are known, are
proving their loyalty as something akin to Putin’s Praetorian guard by fighting
in Ukraine in large numbers. Now one from their rank has eliminated Putin’s
most prominent critic.
A second March 9 presidential
honor sent another signal, this time to the international community. A “Service
to the Motherland” award was conferred on Andrey Lugovoy, a former Russian
intelligence operative wanted in Britain for involvement in the plutonium poisoning of Aleksandr
Litvinenko.
A former security service officer who investigated and
documented Kremlin complicity in an alleged “terrorist” bombing, Litvinenko was
murdered in 2006 in London. While the Kremlin has denied complicity, it has
also prevented Lugovoy from facing the British justice system, despite
significant evidence of radioactive contamination in a hotel room he occupied
before the assassination. Now the award signals the esteem in which the agent is
held.
All these are object lessons in Putin’s modus
operandi. Their real message is this: I am working secretly with my security
services to advance Russian power. Sometimes I will need to dissemble in order
to achieve advance Russian aims. In the end, all will be revealed if you
carefully listen to what I tell you.
This is not a case of doublespeak. It is something
entirely new. It is a case of partial-speak: conveying crucial information over
the course of time in a way that at first dissimulates or makes dark hints, but
later makes clear to the initiated the full intent of Putin’s actions.
This partial-speak, this intimation of a Russian hand
(tempered by half-hearted denial), is dictated both by the needs of Putin’s
internal propaganda machine and his need to string along Western leaders. It is
also a sign of Putin’s aversion to risk and of his fear of setbacks or defeat.
By merely hinting at involvement until an operation is
successfully completed, Putin not only leaves the door open to retreat but also
allows him to sidestep blame in the event of failure. Moreover, it gives him
options to retreat in the face of difficulty.
For a multiplicity of reasons, the Putin code will be
with us as long as he is in power. It is time for us to master its meaning and
be attentive to its dark message.
Adrian Karatnycky is a senior
fellow with the Atlantic Council and
co-director of its Ukraine in Europe initiative.
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