Yeltsin полностью

72 Sergei Kovalëv, “Ne zhelayu igrat’ v beznravstennyye igry” (I do not wish to play immoral games), Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 15, 1999.

73 Strobe Talbott, interview with the author (January 9, 2006).

74 “Confrontation over Pristina Airport,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/671495.stm.

75 By this time the affair had entered the sphere of theater of the absurd. The government claimed that Skuratov was being blackmailed by the prostitutes and this left him unable to serve.

76 This historical parallel is drawn in Yel’tsin, Marafon, 302. Yeltsin was most alarmed by a comment Primakov made in February emphasizing the need to free up cells in Russian prisons for persons who would soon be arrested for economic crimes. He thought it reflected Soviet-era stereotypes.

77 Ibid., 303.

78 The main indicator of favor was seen on the nightly television news on May 5. At a Kremlin meeting that day on preparations for the millennium celebrations, Yeltsin made a show of asking Stepashin to leave his seat at the table and take the chair between him and Patriarch Aleksii II.

79 Natal’ya Konstantinova, “Boris Yel’tsin poshël na politicheskoye obostreniye i otpravil Yevgeniya Primakova v otstavku” (Boris Yeltsin has gone for a sharpening of political tensions and sent Yevgenii Primakov into retirement), Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 13, 1999.

80 These maneuvers are analyzed in Aleksandr Sadchikov, “Partiinaya distsiplina ne vyderzhala ispytaniya impichmenta” (Party discipline failed the test of impeachment), Izvestiya, May 18, 1999; and Ivan Rodin, “Kak Boris Yel’tsin obygral Zyuganova i Yavlinskogo” (How Boris Yeltsin beat Zyuganov and Yavlinskii), Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 18, 1999.

81 Valentin Yumashev, first interview with the author (February 4, 2002). A number of press accounts described Aksënenko as a flunky of Berezovskii’s, but I never found any evidence that this was so. He was appointed minister in April 1997 at the initiative of Boris Nemtsov, who was as hostile to Berezovskii as any governmental leader in 1997–98.

82 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 315.

83 Yevgenii Yur’ev, “Duma odevayetsya v kamuflyazh” (The Duma is getting dressed in camouflage), Segodnya, May 13, 1999.

84 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 312, 315. Yeltsin mentioned in that account not revealing his plan to Putin. Tatyana Yumasheva (Dyachenko) told me explicitly in our third interview that her father did not ask her opinion on the selection of Putin.

85 Sergei Stepashin, interview with the author (June 14, 2001).

86 Fifth Yumashev interview.

87 A number of accounts of Yeltsin’s last months in power, citing no sources, mention Berezovskii as giving Putin a helping hand. But a journalist who spoke with Berezovskii in British exile in 2002 reports him as being a detractor of Putin even then: “Berezovsky said he first began to have his doubts about Putin in 1999, when the little-known FSB director was promoted by Yeltsin to prime minister.” John Daniszewski, “Former Russian Rainmaker Tries Role of Dissident,” Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2002.

88 Decree No. 1763, on provisions for retired presidents, was Putin’s second as acting president. It provided for retirement pay, security, healthcare, transportation, a state dacha, and other services for all former presidents; one article gave an ex-president lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution and administrative discipline. There was no mention of family members. It was dated December 31 and published on January 5, 2000. Drafts of some parts had been prepared earlier by lawyers in the Kremlin administration, the guards service, and elsewhere. “Naturally, [Yeltsin] and Putin never discussed this question in their meetings before the president’s retirement. Boris Nikolayevich would have considered this improper. As far as I know, they never discussed it after his retirement. . . . [Yeltsin considered himself] completely above all this.” Valentin Yumashev, personal communication to the author (October 30, 2007). The Putin decree lost effect when it was replaced by a federal statute in February 2001.

89 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 254 (italics added). Earlier in the memoir (79), Yeltsin writes of thinking that the generals and security officials with whom he had contact in the first half of the 1990s were inadequate. “I waited for a new general to appear, unlike any other general, or rather one who was like the generals I read about in books when I was young. . . . Time passed, and such a general appeared . . . Vladimir Putin.”

90 The plotters were associated with Lev Rokhlin, a retired general and Duma member who was murdered, evidently by his wife, in early July. Rumors of a conspiracy in the Moscow Military District circulated at the time and were confirmed in my fifth interview with Valentin Yumashev.