Читать книгу Putin’s People онлайн | страница 19

All the achievements of the Putin era so far – the economic growth, the increase in incomes, the riches of the billionaires that had turned Moscow into a gleaming metropolis where sleek foreign cars filled the streets and cosy cafés opened on street corners – boiled down to the sharp increase in the oil price during the Putin years, they agree. ‘In 2000 the oil price was $17 and we were happy,’ says Yumashev. ‘When you and I were in power it was $10, $6. The best time for me was when it hit $16 for two to three weeks. Now it’s $150, and the only thing they’re doing is building awful houses for themselves.’

‘The state is doing nothing with the money. They could have transformed the country’s infrastructure. But he thinks everything will be stolen if we build roads … Time is passing so quickly,’ says Pugachev.

‘Eight years have gone. In 2000 we gave the boss such a smoothly oiled machine. Everything worked. And what did we get?’ asks Yumashev.

‘We didn’t understand that he wasn’t going to drive things forward. I thought he was liberal, young,’ Pugachev replies.

‘For me it was principally important that he was young,’ says Yumashev.

‘You understand it turned out he was from a different species.’

‘Yes. They are different people,’ Yumashev agrees.

‘They are different, special people. This was something we didn’t understand. The person who understood this very well was Ustinov [the prosecutor general],’ says Pugachev. ‘He told me, “You understand, the guys from the security services, they are different. Even if you were to suck all their blood out and then put on a different head, they would still be different. They live in their own system. You will never be one of them. It is an absolutely different system.”’

The recording offers a unique window into the unguarded views of two men who had brought Putin to power, and their horror at the system they’d help create. This book is the story of that system – the rise to power of Putin’s KGB cohort, and how they mutated to enrich themselves in the new capitalism. It is the story of the hurried handover of power between Yeltsin and Putin, and of how it enabled the rise of a ‘deep state’ of KGB security men that had always lurked in the background during the Yeltsin years, but now emerged to monopolise power for at least twenty years – and eventually to endanger the West.