Putin typically starts his workday in the early afternoon (he is late to bed and late to rise) with a trio of leather-bound briefing files: the FSB’s report on domestic affairs, the SVR’s on developments around the world and the FSO’s on what is going on within the Russian elite. In other words, his first and main introduction to each day comes from his spooks. Furthermore, there is a vicious cycle of escalating claims and conspiracy theories, as the various services compete for the boss’s attention with ever-more-lurid allegations. When Putin claims that the West is trying to undermine him, that Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis or that a secret ‘deep state’ conspiracy dominates Washington, is he just posturing, or is he in fact repeating eye-catching nonsense from intelligence briefings that aim to enthral rather than educate him?
Putin is still a spook fanboy, without much fieldwork under his belt and with limited managerial experience in the services. But he likes, trusts and listens to them. At the same time, without meaning to, he is King Lear to his ambitious daughters, apportioning his kingdom based on how well they flatter him. So, of course, they do. While Putin certainly controls Russia’s intelligence agencies, how far do they control or at least influence him in return, through the picture of the world they paint?
Back in 2007, I was having a drink with a retired Russian spy, a colonel in the KGB who had chosen to leave the service in 1991. After a few years in what he always vaguely described as ‘corporate intelligence’ – obviously lucrative, as I doubt his government pension would have allowed him to buy that new BMW 7 Series every few years – he retired to read books about the Second World War, dote on his grandchildren, and periodically predict the war to end all wars. Putin had recently given a speech in Munich that had the colonel glowing with apocalyptic glee.
That speech was, in many ways, the start of a new and rather more dangerous chapter in global politics. When Putin had first come to power in 2000, he spoke the language of tough nationalism but was in practice strikingly pragmatic. He was no fan of Western democracy, but he did believe that Russia’s best future depended on developing some kind of positive working relationship with the West. The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the USA gave him a perfect opportunity to build rapport on an issue where there was genuine common interest: he was the first world leader to contact President George W. Bush to express sympathy after the attacks, and followed up with practical support and assistance that ranged from intelligence sharing to allowing Coalition forces deploying to Afghanistan to be supplied through Russia.
Putin’s notions of cooperation proved out of step with the West’s. He expected them to be similarly understanding of his brutal war against Chechen separatists, which he framed as a counter-terrorism operation, and was infuriated when he faced criticism for human rights violations (as his forces pounded cities and interned civilians). When seven Central European nations, including the three Baltic states that had once been part of the USSR, were allowed to join NATO in 2004, Putin regarded this as a direct breach of prior understandings (which NATO denied) and an eastward expansion of an anti-Russian military alliance. The irritants and misunderstandings accumulated, and they burst forth in his speech in Munich. He criticised the USA for trying to create a ‘unipolar’ world under its domination, accusing it of ‘an almost uncontained hyper use of force… that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts’.
This was strong stuff, a genuine cry of anger, frustration and embittered disillusion, which, of course, was music to the ears of my friend, the KGB colonel. ‘Mark my words,’ he chortled, pouring himself another glass of Armenian cognac, ‘within three years there will be war. There will be war.’ Why – because Putin wants to expand Russia’s borders? ‘Oh no,’ he replied, taken aback by my Western paranoia. ‘Because you will have invaded us.’ It is all too easy for us to focus on the undoubted aggression of Putin’s Russia without considering the deep insecurities in which it is rooted.
