>Boris Abramovich is in France.
Hardly had I typed the question that I noticed this in the FT. They say he's in London.
Doug
----
Financial Times - May 28, 2002
COMMENT & ANALYSIS: The problem with Putin By Boris Berezovsky
Vladimir Putin is everything the west always wanted in a Russian president: the democrat who believes in order; the strongman who has put the criminals and corrupters to flight; the man of sober habits and sound judgment whose behaviour shines against the drunken antics of his predecessor. But is he good for Russia?
Mr Putin is a product of the Tsarist-Soviet security machine, a traditionalist who believes authoritarianism is the only way to preserve order and defend the state. Thus his political, military and legal reforms - his "dictatorship of the law" - have rolled back the progress made by the Yeltsin administration. They have been implemented at the expense of important freedoms that a progressive state would consider fundamental to liberty.
Mr Putin has centralised control over the government by curbing the powers of regional governors. He has also expanded the bureaucracy inherited from the Soviet era - at the expense of accountability.
Living off a high oil price, but with no sustained programme for economic reform, he has courted popularity by failing to introduce measures that, while involving short- and medium-term economic sacrifice, would restore credibility to the state's long-term financial commitments. The effect has been to build expectations that Mr Putin will not be able to meet.
Moreover, he has restricted freedom of speech and destroyed the independence and credibility of the media. He has prosecuted a hard war against Russian citizens in Chechnya when he might have made peace by recognising the legitimacy of their leaders.
All this suggests that the image Mr Putin has cultivated abroad is as false and unprincipled as his programme at home.
There is an alternative to all this: the genuine democrats who believe that freedom and progress depend on three strategic priorities, all rooted in a concept I call essential liberalism.
The first of these is the liberalisation of the individual and society. A new generation of middle-class Russians has come of age. They love Russia and they have ideals. They believe in self-reliance and opportunity and they have a strong work ethic.
These are the new "free citizens" of Russia and it should be the first priority of a liberal government to encourage the conditions in which these citizens can flourish. That depends on leaving people alone - letting them build companies, open stores and cafýs and travel abroad. It depends on encouraging them to accept, and to cherish, personal responsibility. It depends on encouraging institutions that promote citizens' desire to be independent.
The second priority is the liberalisation of the state - in principle and in structure. In principle, this means revoking all decrees and laws that conflict with the constitution of the Russian Federation, reaffirming the individual's supremacy over the state and the separation of powers. Both principles are enshrined in the constitution but Mr Putin has subverted them by decree, establishing his "dictatorship of the law", and his "vertical power structure" which has created seven federal districts, their powers ultimately residing with the president. A liberal government would immediately reverse these decrees.
Structural liberalisation of the state means fundamentally reordering the relationship between Moscow and the regions. It is not Moscow that should decide which powers to exercise, and which to delegate to the regions, but the other way round. This reordering would grant the regions more freedom and flexibility in their interaction with Moscow and among themselves.
As its third priority, a liberal government would realign Russia's foreign policy around a new organising principle I think of as "control, not capture". Russia must abandon its ancient policy of capture and possession, which has led us into such hubristic misadventures as the occupation of eastern Europe, the invasion of Afghanistan and now the destruction of Chechnya. Instead, it should adopt a policy of control through influence.
Based on these principles, Russia should restore a unified economic and military zone across the Confederation of Independent States; integrate itself into the European community through the European Union and Nato; understand the leading role of the US in world politics; define what that means for the Russia-US relationship; and give China a long-term interest in a strong, liberal Russia.
These priorities are a natural external dimension of the programme that Liberal Russia, my party in Russia, would pursue at home and abroad.
This is the course that Boris Yeltsin, in spite of his flaws, began but from which Mr Putin, in spite of his deceptive charms, has strayed. If we do not return to that original course, we Russians will irretrievably lose our way.
The writer is a businessman and former adviser to Boris Yeltsin. He lives in exile in London