AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE PUTINISM AT HOME AND ABROAD: A CONVERSATION WITH VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA INTRODUCTION AND MODERATOR: LEON ARON, AEI DISCUSSION: VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, OPEN RUSSIA 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 EVENT PAGE: http://www.aei.org/events/putinism-at-home-and-abroad-a- conversation-with-vladimir-kara-murza/ TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY DC TRANSCRIPTION – WWW.DCTMR.COM LEON ARON: Welcome. Vladimir’s vita was part of the invitation and you also saw it and I saw some of you picked it up at the registration. So I will not go through it. He’s very well known. Let me mention only that he’s deputy leader of the Party of Russian Freedom, better known by the Russian acronym of PARNAS. He’s the resident coordinator of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia. He’s a resident because Vladimir actually moved. He lives in Russia now, or rather he’s recuperating and then he will move there, and we’ll get to that in a moment. He’s also a Cambridge trained historian and author of several monographs, one of which I hope to be able to discuss here. And he is, of course, a prolific and most enjoyable and insightful commentator on Russian domestic and foreign policies with publications in all leading Western and Russian media. So thank you very much, Volodya, for coming over. We’re honored to have you. VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: Thank you very much, Leon. And thank you to the American Enterprise Institute for organizing and hosting our meeting today. MR. ARON: Volodya, we were all very saddened and disturbed by the news about your mysterious near fatal illness in the last week of May. Then, you were in a coma for quite a while. So what happened exactly? MR. KARA-MURZA: Well, before I answer your question, I just want to say that today is October the 9th. And today is the birthday of Boris Nemtsov. He would have been 56 and it’s the first birthday without him. And there is – there is a Russian saying, as you know – (speaks Russian) – there are no irreplaceable people. But that saying is not true because Boris was irreplaceable as a political leader, as a human being, and as a friend. And he inspired so many people with his courage, his vision, and his commitment to always do the right thing, regardless of the price. And in the end, he paid the ultimate price in his struggle for a free and democratic Russia. And we shall never forget. And we now have to carry on the work without him and we will carry on, but it will be so much more difficult. Now, to your question, as you said, it was the last week of May, May 26, I’ve just come back from one of my many trips around Russian regions. I was in a meeting in Moscow and I was suddenly taken ill with an acute intoxication of unidentified origins. I went into a coma. All my major organs started failing, just shutting down one after another, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, all of them. And in fact, doctors told my wife that I had a 5 percent chance of making out alive. So I’m very grateful to be here today and I’m very grateful for the concern and the support and the prayers of so many people in Russia, in this country, and elsewhere. And I just want to take this opportunity to thank everybody. It really means a great deal. And we still do not know the cause. The poison, toxin that caused the poisoning was not identified. The tests were inconclusive. So I guess we’ll never know the exact poison. But of course, to state the obvious, I’m certain that this was not an accident. This was not natural. And this was somehow connected with my public activities inside Russia. MR. ARON: And I should add, of course, that in addition to being the deputy leader of PARNAS, you’re also the resident coordinator of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia. MR. KARA-MURZA: Right, the Open Russia movement, exactly. MR. ARON: Well, Volodya, as I’ve mentioned, among many hats that you wear, perhaps the largest is – well, one of the largest is that of a Russia expert. So let me start with one issue that this town is mostly concerned about these days, Syria. Why do you think Putin decided to go there and what is his objective or objectives? MR. KARA-MURZA: Well, I think as was all foreign policy adventures of the current regime, the origins are domestic. And everything this Kremlin has been doing in the last several years, especially since 2011-2012, when we saw the biggest pro- democracy protests on the streets of Moscow, during the whole time of Putin – (inaudible) – especially since then, everything they’ve been doing was dedicated to one chief goal, the preservation of their power. Thank you so much. And that’s why, I think, for example, that Putin’s aggression against Ukraine was not primarily about geopolitics or spheres of influence. What he disliked the most was the precedent of a corrupt authoritarian ruler fleeing as popular protests were breaking out in the capital city. He didn’t enjoy those pictures of Mr. Yanukovych boarding the helicopter. And what he was afraid the most, and I think rightly, is that a successful democratic Ukraine would be a contagious bad, in his view, example for Russian society. And I think he was right in that. And that’s why he had to do everything he could to try to prevent the success. And so with this latest adventure in Syria, I think the regime needed, frankly, new ammunition for his propaganda machine, which is the main essential pillar, support pillar for the Putin regime. And now Ukraine’s become a quagmire, the Novorossiya project has clearly failed. The economy is in a free fall. They need something, you know, to oil the propaganda machine. And they chose this. And now, if you look at the Russian state TV news, Ukraine’s almost completely gone. It’s all about Syria, Syria, Syria, you know, how we’re a super power across the other side of the world doing what we want without asking anybody, and so on and so forth. Of course, an added bonus to this for Mr. Putin is to help a fellow dictator stay in power. As we know the informal international club of dictators is a loyal one. And Mr. Putin does not like to see fellow despots lose their position. He’s seen too many in recent years, you know, from Gaddafi to Yanukovych. And so we are seeing now that the main targets for Russian airstrikes are not in fact ISIS areas, but the anti-Assad opposition. We’ve all seen the maps, you know, Homs and so forth, which is not an ISIS area. But I think there is a potentially very big problem for the Kremlin here, the problem being that Syria could possibly become for Putin what Afghanistan became for the late Soviet regime. You know, and – a draining and unpopular foreign military adventure that helped hasten the system’s demise in the end. And there’re already warnings being sounded to this effect. And in fact, there was a new poll by the Levada Center yesterday, which showed that despite all the barrage of the bravado and the propaganda that we see today almost half of Russians, almost half respondents are afraid already today that Syria could become what Afghanistan became for the late Soviet Union. So I think, you know, for all the hype that’s being put up today, I think that’s a potentially big problem for the regime. MR. ARON: Volodya, presidential primaries are starting in this country. You and I talked about that. And unlike Russians, we don’t know who the next president will be. (Laughter.) So with that uncertainty comes, you know, some intellectual work. What would be your advice to the presidential hopefuls of both parties? Let me narrow this a bit. What would you say be three, four, five things they must keep in mind as they shape and project the Russia portion of their foreign policy message? MR. KARA-MURZA: I think they’re all informed and intelligent people, so I wouldn’t presume to tell them something they don’t know. But I would – MR. ARON: Don’t presume. (Laughter.) MR. KARA-MURZA: But I will would say this. I think many political leaders in the West, including in this country, too many, fall into one of the two extremes when it comes to the approach to the current Kremlin regime. Either they want to make friends with it, or the other opposite is they blame the entire Russian nation for the actions of this unelected authoritarian system. And I think it’s the most important thing for policymakers, presidential candidates, is to recognize the situation as it is. And the fact is that Russia today is ruled by an unaccountable, unelected, dictatorial regime. And if history teaches us anything it’s that making friends with such regimes and closing eyes on their abuses is not a sound long-term strategy. And unfortunately we’ve seen administrations of both parties in this town tried to do this. You know, remember President Bush famously looking into Putin’s eyes and seeing his soul. We remember the reset policy of the current president, Barack Obama.