Is Putin Losing His Grip on Russia? | Steve Rosenberg

Since the full -scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the authorities have passed a series of laws designed to silence dissent and to silence criticism.That is why expressing publicly criticism of the Kremlin can get people into trouble.Independent Russian journalists who are critical of the authorities are very much on the front line, putting themselves in a lot of danger.Because of its decision primarily to launch this full -scale invasion of Ukraine, we've seen Russian influence wane.Two -thirds of Russians, approximately, would like peace talks rather than a continuation of the war.This is the house that Vlad built.

It was built by Putin.It was built for Putin.It was built around Putin, which raises the question, can the house survive post -Putin?

Welcome to the Restless Politics Leading with me Rory Stewart and me Alistair Campbell and our guest today is the BBC's Russia editor Steve Rosenberg.If there's one voice that's been the soundtrack of Britain's understanding of Russia it is definitely Steve's.He's one of the few foreign journalists who seems to be allowed to ask questions at Putin's marathon press conferences and he's regularly abused on state media.But let's start with the war.We keep hearing that there's real war fatigue in Russia.Is that so?

there is war fatigue certainly amongst the population.I mean we're still allowed to travel across the country, we go to towns and villages and cities and speak to people and people still willing to speak to us on the street.Wherever we go, yes, people talk about, well, we hope the war will be over.And people do use the word war.Officially, it's not a war.Officially, it's still a special military operation.

But most people call it a war now, because when they switch on their television sets, they see a war, basically.And this war is now in its fifth year.And yes, you certainly feel that people are feeling the effects of it more than ever.A couple of years ago, when I used to ask people on the streets in what ways are they affected by the war, a lot of people said, well, we're not affected by it.you know, it's something on our television sets.But now, you know, a lot of people know other people who've been fighting in Ukraine, who've been getting injured, who've been being killed in Ukraine.

And people are feeling the economic effects more of more than four years of international sanctions.And the latest polling here suggests that, you know, two thirds of Russians approximately would like peace talks rather than a continuation of the war.

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Progress.Your capital is at risk and other fees may apply.Does it feel like a totalitarian state where people are worried that if they openly criticize Putin, they're going to end up getting thrown in jail or getting their heads chopped off?Or is it a state which somehow operates in quite a different way, where people are able to talk pretty freely?

It's an interesting question.I mean, you know, despite the level of anti -Western bile in the state media here, and anti -UK rhetoric, on the street people are willing to stop and to speakto us when we tell them we're the BBC.Obviously there are things I wouldn't ask people.There are questions I wouldn't ask that could get people into trouble.I wouldn't ask people directly what do you think?

Do you support Vladimir Putin, or do you support the war?But there are plenty of other questions you can ask around the subject to get an idea of the mood.Because of that, I think it's worth being here still, because you can get a sense.You can put the jigsaw pieces together and get an idea of what the mood of the country is. I would say that 95 % of my interactions with ordinary Russians are positive.So on the one hand, you've got a very sort of anti -Western attitude from the state media, from the authorities.On the other hand, Russians are happy to chat.

Russians still believe that they're Europeans.You know, many people have said to me, we're glad you're here.We're glad you stayed.

Just to explain for an audience that doesn't know Russia as well as you do, why wouldn't you be able to ask, do you support Vladimir Putin?Do you support the war?What would be the consequences for an individual who spoke out in a very open and critical way on the BBC attacking Putin or the government?

On paper, Russia is a democracy.It says that in the constitution.But particularly since the full -scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the authorities have passed a series of laws designed to silence dissent and to silence criticism of the authorities.That is why expressing publicly criticism of the Kremlin can get people into trouble.That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and over the last few months on social media, voices have popped up openly critical of the authorities and of the president.But it is quite dangerous.

When you're out and about, let's say you want to travel to, I don't know, Novgorod, would you be under surveillance the whole time?And for example, would they know before this interview goes out that you've done this interview?and would they be aware of things that you might say?

It's a good question I don't know to what extent you know we're under surveillance I'm sure that these days there are lots of different ways in which the authorities can sort of keep an eye on what we're doing and if you thought about that all the time then you'd probably never leave the house.We try not to think about that all the time.So I'm not doing anything wrong.I'm just doing my job and we go out.I think if you fly somewhere or you take a train somewhere, then probably the authorities are more alerted.to the fact that you're going somewhere.

But as soon as you register in a local hotel, they certainly know you're there.

And do you ever feel that you have to pull your punches or just be a little bit more careful than maybe you would be, say you were in the UK or France or Germany?

It's a really difficult balancing act because on the one hand, there's no point in me being here if I can't tell the stories I think it is.There's no point in me being here if I can't say anything.On the other hand, I'm aware that there are restrictions and new restrictions coming in all the time.For example, in Moscow recently, they brought in new rules saying that we can't report about the consequences of drone attacks, for example, in the Moscow area.All these rules and regulations and laws, they're in my head.I'm walking a bit of a tightrope when I go on air.

because I want to get the story out, but I want to remain so I can get more stories out.

Let's take us back in time and give us a bit of a portrait of how you've seen Russia change.Tell us about what Russia was like when you first arrived and maybe give us three or four moments in history to show the changes during your professional life.

Well, I've seen several different kinds of Russias, Rory.I saw the end of Soviet Russia as a student of Russian.I spent a year here in 1989 -1990.so just before the collapse of the Soviet Union.In fact, that was the year the Berlin Wall came down.It was an amazing time.

People, I remember, in 1989 -1990, believed that they had the power to change their country.People were energised by politics.There were sort of semi -free elections for a new Soviet parliament, and people were listening to their radios, watching the television.They were really interested in the changes that Gorbachev had brought into their country.Changes which led to the collapse of their country, but still.And Soviet television at the end of the 80s was incredibly interesting.

Millions, tens of millions of people sat watching the popular talk shows at the time.That was the end of Soviet Russia.Then you had Yeltsin's Russia, independent Russia.which was a mixture of chaos.Millions of people fell into poverty because of the switchover from the command economy to the free market.And the economic reforms pushed a lot of people into poverty and made a lot of people disillusioned with the idea of democracy.

And yet there was still hope.There was hope for that decade, the 1990s, that Russia and the West were going to link hands and be friends and be partners.and that the Cold War was behind us.But you had the drama of 1993 and Yeltsin sending tanks against the parliament.You have the two Chechen wars.So it was an often chaotic period.

And it's a period that Vladimir Putin often refers back to, to warn people, you know, what life could be like.Then you have Putin's Russia.Vladimir Putin came along and stabilized things.I think for the first few years he was incredibly popular.Oil prices went up, which was good timing, and people's prosperity went up.But gradually he became increasingly frustrated.

with the West, I think, and fuelled by resentment of the West.He believed that the West wasn't serious about a long -term relationship with him and with Russia.And then you come to this current Russia we're in now, which I often call Zed Russia, because Zed is one of the symbols of Putin's special military operation.So the Russia we see from February the 24th 2022 just feels like a very different kind of Russia.Much more repression, more repressive legislation.Russia's taken a darker path, and Russia presents itself as a besieged fortress.

Even though Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, Russia presents itself to the world and to its people as a besieged fortress.It says there are threats to it everywhere.NATO, America, Europe.It wants the Russian public to believe that they need to unite around the government.That's the message from the authorities.So yeah, over the last 35 years, I've seen different kinds of Russians.

But one conclusion from that is that things can change here quite quickly, actually.Just when you think that your, you know, Russia has taken one particular path, it changes.

Just on the theme of change.So I met Yeltsin quite a few times and, you know, working with Tony Blair, and then I met Putin, you know, quite a lot during the early period of his rule.And when Marie and I interviewed the widows of Alexander Litvinenko and Alexei Navalny, they both said that they thought we were naive.ever to have believed that Putin might be trying to build better relations with the West.We, if you remember, we were quite a big part of trying to get the G8, G7 to become the G8.And, you know, for some years there he was alongside, he was even standing alongside Tony Blair when Tony Blair announced that he was

returning to London to deal with the 7 -7 bombing.So were we naive?Or was, when we talk of change, is the Vladimir Putin of today a completely changed Vladimir Putin to the one that we knew back at the turn of the century?

I think he has changed.People change, particularly over a quarter of a century.And when I think back to the Putin of 2000, the Putin that sat with Tony Blair at the ballet, right, in St. Petersburg, someone who reached out to the West, who believed in building a relationship with the West, the United States with the UK, he changed.And I think that we saw that particularly with his big speech in Munich at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, when a lot of the resentments that had been bubbling away inside him came out.And that was a shock for Europe.

Remind us a little bit of that speech.Tell us a little bit about what happened, why it was dramatic, why it was a change, what he said and why he changed.

He was in Munich.We kind of heard for the first time his resentment about a world dominated by one power.this call for a multipolar world that you hear a lot now from the Russian authorities.And he was laying down a challenge, I think, to the West, basically saying that, no, you know, Russia isn't going to take things lying down.Russia is going to protect its interests as it sees them.And I think it was a warning to the West.

It wasn't the moment that Western leaders concluded it was impossible to build a relationship with Russia.And of course, not long after that, Vladimir Putin, on paper at least, stepped aside and Russia had a new president, Dmitry Medvedev, although, you know, the power behind the throne very much, I think, was Vladimir Putin.But the sense was that Russia was kind of keepingon a democratic path.However, certainly from 2012, when Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin, we'd seen street protests, big street protests in Russia.I think Putin believed that the West was out to get him.

The West was out to foment revolution.He convinced himself of that.And do you remember when Barack Obama described Russia as a regional power?I think that hurt.That hurt Putin.And I think he kind of concluded that he wanted to show the world that Russia was a global power and a superpower.

So all of these things were bubbling inside him.He wanted to assert his authority, and particularly in relation to Ukraine.The annexation of Crimea was obviously a key moment.

What about the corruption?Do you think he was always minded to be corrupt or to at least to kind of organize this oligarchic economy?And secondly, when did he sort of decide that you didn't really necessarily have to worry too much about telling the truth when you're in power?you can actually create your own fictional narratives and force them through public opinion.

I don't know if there was one particular moment.I mean, you know, he came back.He gained power.He was given power, basically, in 2000.And very quickly, we saw changes, right?Him bringing back the Soviet national anthem was a sign that he was going to take Russia in a different direction.

But I think the thing we have to keep in mind about Vladimir Putin and the Putin system, we need to think of it as a house.You know, this is the house that Vlad built, right?It was built by Putin.It was built for Putin.It was built around Putin.If you go around to every room of the house, every room is in the image of Vladimir Putin, which raises the question, can the house survive post -Putin?

But that's another question, I think, for another day.But it was built with very strong foundations, this system.this house.And those foundations have been rocked, certainly in the last four years, by the war and by the economic consequences of the war.And there's definitely structural damage which has been done to it.And we saw that in 2023 during the Wagner mutiny, you know, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, remember, started marching on Moscow with his mercenaries, and for 24 hours the system was in paralysis.

So damage has been done.What we don't know is what are the shocks around the corner, I think, to this house.There's no sign of it falling at the moment.But, you know, we don't know what shocks are ahead of us.

You went back to this moment where Obama called Russia regional power.And I grew up in a British politics which from 2010 onwards loved to say, you know, the Russian economy is a third smaller than the British economy, doesn't really matter anymore.And then we had this strange moment, I think probably 2014, where we suddenly discovered this country that we thought was, you know, less wealthy than the United Kingdom, and therefore we imagined maybe was a third less powerful globally than the United Kingdom, was able to completely tip the balance of power in Syria, annex Crimea.So what is it that people missed about Russia when they went around saying this is a country of an economy a third smaller than Britain and it's just a regional power?What is it that makes Russia in a sense much more powerful than countries like Britain or France?

Well Russia obviously is the biggest country in the world geographically.It's a nuclear superpower.So that's for starters.But I think what we saw in Vladimir Putin, he was someone who was prepared to push the envelope and to play the hand that he had in quite a clever way to project Russian power.And he got used to winning.regularly.

Whether we're talking about the war in Georgia, whether we're talking about Syria, the Russian army in Syria, whether we're talking about Russia's annexation of Crimea, he got used to playing poker and winning.There is an argument to say that perhaps the West was too slow in reacting to that or finding a way to react to that.That leads up to the full -scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.I think he believed, he was confident in 2022, that the special military operation that he launched would be successful.Of course, it hasn't gone at all according to plan.But just listening to him now, he still believes, I think, or he has convinced himself, that actually Russia is is in the driving seat, despite everything we see.

What you've just said, does that not underline the nonsense really of him thinking that everybody's out to get him?If anything, I too agree with you that maybe the West was too accepting, too forgiving, too slow, too actually confident in thinking that he wouldn't keep pushing the envelope.And I think Syria probably was the turning point in that.That's where he thought these guys aren't going to do anything.

Absolutely, absolutely.And to add to that, Alastair, I think there's no doubt that European leaders and European business firm wanted a decent relationship with Russia.They thought it was beneficial to their countries and to their businesses to have a good relationship with Russia, not to going to war with Russia, not to have conflict with Russia, and certainly not to have a war in Europe.But the view from the Kremlin, I think, you know, as we got these current revolutions going on in parts of the former Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin got convinced, and perhaps people around him were telling him as well, that no, attempts are being made by the West, by the United States, by NATO to undermine Russia, to move into parts of the former Soviet Unionthat Russia still considered its backyard.And this continued as street protests built inside Russia that many people in the Kremlin thought were being orchestrated by forces in the West because, as officials here believe, it couldn't be that people would want to come onto the streets themselves.

They had to be organized by external forces.And all of this, I think, built up over the years, this resentment and this sort of suspicion of the West into, you know, the decision to launch this full -scale invasion of Ukraine.And, you know, whenever he makes a big speech, Putin, this resentment, the suspicion of the West, you know, comes pouring out.

If you were a country, and Russia maybe is like this, Britain's probably like this, that feels that we're declining.We used to be a great empire and I don't know, US and China are dominating the world and are much bigger than us and more powerful than us.One thing that you might do is think the problem is your economy.The problem is your technology.You know, this is what famously Japan did in the 19th century.They had this Meiji restoration and they went full out all society effort for reinventing their technology and society.

So, you know, I don't know Britain or Russia could be saying the only thing that matters is renewable energy or AI or we're going to build data centers everywhere, we're going to have the finest frontier AI models in the world.But that doesn't seem to be, probably you might say not the way Britain's responding, but it's certainly not the way that Russia's responding.Why is the natural response to decline from Putin not we're going to make ourselves the tech superpower of the future, despite the fact that Russia is stuffed full, presumably, of brilliant mathematicians, brilliant engineers, and the rest.

Yeah, absolutely.But Russia, you know, Britain has got used to the fact a long time ago, right, that it's not an empire, it doesn't have an empire, it's given away.most of the empire.Russia, I think, this massive country, hasn't come to terms with the fact, still, more than three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, that perhaps things have changed.It wants to maintain some influence over the countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union.But what have we seen over the last four years or so, we've seen Russia lose influence.

Because of its decision primarily to launch this full -scale invasion of Ukraine, we've seen Russian influence wane in Azerbaijan, Armenia, the recent elections there showed that, Moldova, to an extent in Central Asia.Two, we see more NATO now on Russia's borders, Finland and Sweden.subsequently became members of NATO.This is the result, I think, of this decision taken by Vladimir Putin to launch the full -scale invasion of Ukraine.But he thinks in terms of not of technological development, he thinks in terms of Russia's power and influence.And certainly I think he cannot imagine a sort of a great Russia without Ukraine being part of that, and Belarus being part of that.

I think it's very difficult for him to to think about that.There was an article he wrote, I think it was the year before the full -scale invasion of Ukraine, about Russians and Ukrainians.And, you know, he sees them as one people.But the result of the last four years, it appears, has been to push, you know, Ukrainians further apart, further away from Russians.Yeah, it doesn't appear that he's achieved his aims.

One of the things that we've sort of grown used to, and it's almost been normalized, is the the killing of his opponents, you know, including, you know, on our soil, they got the wrong people.There was a Brit who got killed, but including in Salisbury, but I mentioned Navalny, I mentioned Litvinenko, and you keep reading little paragraphs here and there.of people falling out of windows and what have you.I just wondered, as a journalist, what it's like for a Russian journalist in Russia?Do you feel that as a BBC guy, even though there is this anti -British feeling, occasionally but you don't confront it very often but what's it like for the Russian who's trying to speak truth to the power of Putin or do they just give up?

I think independent Russian journalists who are critical of the authorities are very much on the front line putting themselves in a lot of danger and you know we've seen cases over the last four years of journalists across the country being arrested and put on trial for a number of of offenses and It's a very difficult situation.I talked about the repressive legislation that's been introduced over the last few years, and that is used to silence critics of the authorities.

What would happen if you did report a drone attack on the apartment block next to where you live?

Who knows?You know, it's a bit of a grey area.As a foreign journalist, if I reported that, you know, my report is going not to a Russian audience, but it's going out of the country.So maybe that would, you know, be seen differently, I don't know.It's like walking this minefield.You don't exactly know where the mines are, and you're trying to navigate yourself around all these problems, all these issues.

It's quite difficult.I'll give an example, actually.I was in St. Petersburg recently for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and trying to chase kind of movers and shakers and officials and businessmen there.But at the same time, we were being harassed by the Russian media and sort of slagged off by certain Russian officials and tried to defend ourselves.So it was a bit like being in the trenches.So you've got all these different things going on and trying to choose.

When you're doorstepped by Russian state television or pro -Kremlin bloggers, you have to think very carefully, think very quickly on your feet about what you're going to say.It's quite tiring in that sense.It's quite tiring coping with all that.Trying to gather and tell the story, but also trying to be aware and be ready for these kinds of moments.

a politician.I mean this idea of being doorstepped and suddenly asked questions.Journalists normally ask the questions.You must have developed a whole different skill set to work out what you do if Russian state television stuffs the camera in your face and asks you something.What sort of questions do they ask?I mean, what are they doing when they're harassing you?

It depends.If a particular event has happened just before your doorstep, they may ask about that.Every time you go to an event where you think state television might be at and might doorstep you, you have to think what they might ask you.what you're going to say.

Give an example of a moment where you felt particularly surrounded by people and they were particularly excited by a particular issue.

Oh, I mean, there are so many.I mean, one of the most common questions I get asked by Russian television is at the Putin press conferences, you know, why is it that you're allowed to come to these press conferences and ask questions to our president and Russian journalists are not allowed to ask questions to Keir Starmer?That's a common one.

And is that true, Steve, that Russian journalists are not allowed to ask questions to Keir Starmer?

Well, I don't know what the situation is in the UK, whether Russian state television is allowed to go to these Downing Street briefings.I mean, I'm glad that I have the chance to go to the Kremlin ones.And there's no guarantee that I get a question, but I've been lucky in the past to get questions.I'm grateful for that because it's a chance to ask something that perhaps President Putin doesn't get asked normally.

I mean superficially it sounds like a pretty fair point, doesn't it, for the Russians?How come you're allowed to turn up and they're not allowed to turn up?So what's the answer to that as somebody who used to do this stuff?

The answer right now, Roy, is you're not going to have many situations where Russian media are attending a Kirstein press conference because he's not going to be standing alongside Vladimir Putin.We did have, we had several press conferences with Putin.and we used to go, you know, Britain, Russia, Britain, Russia, occasionally American, whatever.So there was never, the only person, I'm ashamed of this, the only person I ever stopped asking a question at a press conference was John Sweeney, because I knew he was going to give Putin a really, really hard time, and we didn't want that at that particular time with the relationship we were developing.But no, I don't, and we've done interviews, Tony did interviews at Russian television.We even appeared on a Russian TV show radio soap opera.

Get this, Steve, I said we're only doing it if he can say the line, my three priorities are obrozovanya, obrozovanya, obrozovanya.

How about that?Oh my goodness, Alistair, excellent pronunciation there.Thank you.Education, education, education.There you go.

Very good.That's a really good hook to take us back into the deep past of Steve.So you are somebody who developed a fascination with Russia, right?But you're not you know, you're a Brit from Chingford in Essex.

North London, North London Rory.I have to say it used to be Essex.Yeah, it became North London.

All right, give us a glimpse of your childhood in Chingford, the young Steve Rosenberg, what this world was before you became an almost full -time Moscow resident.

I used to watch a lot of television.you know, a lot of television.I sat there, glued to the screen, and I used to watch everything, you know, whether it was news or children's programs or music or whatever.So I kind of fell in love with TV.

And your parents, Steve, didn't try to stop you?I mean, they didn't say, Steve, stop watching so much television, get on, read a book?

No, they were quite happy for me to watch television.Absolutely.Yeah.And in the end, I think it worked out okay.

What did your parents do, Steve?Who were they?

So my dad, who's sadly no longer alive, he was a dentist.My mum, a housewife.Yeah, it was a sort of typical Chingford upbringing for me.But I remember watching, you know, in 1980, it was just before the Moscow Olympics.and just after Soviet troops had invaded Afghanistan.What timing!

The BBC broadcast their first Russian language course on television.I think it was on Sundays.I sat there transfixed watching this Russian language course.It was amazing.All these strange letters and pronunciations.They had little films about life in the Soviet Union, this mysterious country that I knew nothing about.

I thought it was really interesting.And then our French teacher at school, it turned out, spoke a little bit of Russian and taught a few of us a little bit of Russian in the lunch hour.So when I was thinking about going to university, I thought, well, I'll do French and I'll do Russian kind of from scratch.And the Russian was so interesting, the Russian department up in Leeds, that I dropped the French and just did Russian.And I was just fascinated by the place.And every lunch hour, they used to wheel this television, this satellite TV, into the the department foyer, and you could sit down and watch an hour of Soviet television, Gorbachev TV.

And it was amazing, all these programs about Perestroika, and Glasnost, and the Soviet TV news bulletins, which were nothing like the 9 o 'clock news as it was, or the news at 10.And I just thought, wow, this is a place I'd like to spend a bit of time in, just find out more about.It's 40 years ago this year that I started learning Russian, and then I went to the Soviet Union on a tourist trip.

and just thought really interesting place.Russian is in your background, in your family background.Do you think, is it as romantic as that, that there was something kind of deep in you that was calling you almost?

Yeah, my great -grandparents came from the Russian Empire, like from Belarus, and one day Belarus and Ukraine.They left at the end of the 19th century.But interesting, I didn't know that actually when I sort of took the first steps learning Russian.My grandma then found a box with old documents in it, including my great -grandfather's passport that he used to exit the Russian Empire in 1894.It was in pristine condition, and I really wanted to work out what was written.So that kind of pushed me a little bit to get on with the Russian lessons.

Why didn't you know this, Steve?What did you think your family were when you thought about your grandparents and great -grandparents?What was it you imagined?

It wasn't talked about very much, what the background was.My grandma didn't talk much about it.But when she found the documents, then we started talking about it more, and I got really interested.Interestingly, one of the little towns, the shtetls, that one of my great -grandfathers came from is called Shklov, which is where Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, kind of grew up.It's the cucumber capital of Belarus.There's a big cucumber statue there.

Bizarrely, I've been to Shklov since.Yeah.

You've interviewed him as well, haven't you?You've interviewed Lukashenko.I've always imagined he's, I mean, he strikes me as Well, you tell me.You've met him.I've never met him.Tell me what you make of him.

Yeah, I've done two big interviews with Alexander Lukashenko.One of the most memorable interviews I've ever done.Quite a difficult interview, because he spent half of it being the bully, trying to put me in my place, threatening to end the interview several times.But the other half, he was prettyto be charming.So he kept switching between the two, and I just had to sit there, be like a brick wall, as calm as possible.

But the interesting thing about Alexander Lukashenko, he was prepared to sit there for as long as he wanted and answer any question.If he didn't agree with the questions beforehand, he'd answer anything.And that's, I think, different with Vladimir Putin.I still hadn't managed to organise a sit -down interview.with Vladimir Putin.I've managed to ask him questions, single questions at press conferences, but I'd love the opportunity to have a detailed, deep conversation.

with him about everything.

I think he's coming on the rest of his politics before he does the BBC, I really do.Next time you talk to Lukashenko, we'll definitely have him on as well.Get in the queue, Alistair.

Steve, let me take that as an opportunity for you to tell us a little bit about, and you also have interviewed Gorbachev, so give us a snapshot of the difference in personalities between Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Lukashenko and Putin.and what it tells us about Russia.

After one of the interviews, quite bizarrely, there was a piano in the corner of his office, and he said, do any of you play the piano?And I said, yeah, I play the piano.And he said, sit down and play the piano.So I sat down and started playing the piano, and he started singing.I was playing Russian folk songs, and he sang.And that, to me, showed he was a very emotional, nice guy.

Yes, he made mistakes.Politicians make mistakes, and I think probably he made a whole string of mistakes.But I think his heart was in the right place.He wanted to change the country for the best.I think he lost control of his reforms, and the Soviet Union kind of fell apart.I think Vladimir Putin is a very different kind of character.

Vladimir Putin obviously has his KGB background.That was different from Gorbachev.Obviously, the background, I think, influences what someone is like.Yeah, he doesn't have the KGB background.He was a collective farm boss.Maybe that explains why he's quite familiar, quite friendly at times, sometimes bullish.

They're all different in their own way.I never interviewed Yeltsin, but the thing about Yeltsin that I think makes him very different from Putin, Yeltsin was quite thick -skinned.You can criticize Boris Yeltsin for many things, but he could take criticism.himself.And in the 1990s, there was a TV channel that was very critical of Boris Yeltsin.He didn't close it down.

There was a Russian version of Spitting Image, Kukly, which made fun of him.He didn't close it down.He could take that, I think.Vladimir Putin's a different kind of character.you know, perhaps not as thick -skinned.

Although I think Yeltsin was, I mean, Yeltsin always struck me, no jokes about tired and emotional because he did clearly drink too much, but very, very emotional.I mean, I saw him several times where he, you know, would almost move himself to tears by the way he talked about his own life or the country.Now, okay, sometimes under the influence, but very, very emotional.

Yeah, we don't see that with Vladimir Putin so much.No, no, you certainly don't.Keeps himself to himself, keeps his emotions locked away.And of course Vladimir Putin saw what happened with Gorbachev.He saw that Gorbachev tried to reform, tried to open up the country, and the country collapsed.And the last thing that Putin wants to do is to go down as a second Gorbachev.

That's why it's hard to imagine Vladimir Putin opening up the country again.And he saw what happened with Boris Yeltsin and the chaotic 1990s.So I get the feeling that Putin has decided, no, the way to rule Russia is to maintain control, to have complete control in the Kremlin.

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You also interviewed Roman Abramovich at one point and Abramovich famously does not do many interviews and I just wonder what your reaction is looking back the extent to which we in the UK allowed these you know really dubious Russian characters so muchentry into our economy and into our society and into our national life.

That was also a, yeah, that was a rare interview.That was the first interview, I think, that first TV interview that Roman Abramovich had given just after he bought Chelsea.

Yeah.

And it took a lot of persuading to persuade him to sit down.We flew to the end of Russia, to Chukotka in the Far East, where he was the local governor.and spend a week running around after him trying to persuade him to speak to us.But yes, you could say that there was a lot of naivety going back a quarter of a century on the part of politicians, on the part of journalists.We still believed that there could be a good, beneficial relationship with Russia.I couldn't have imagined 25 years ago what would be happening now, to be honest.

I couldn't.The fact that the relationship has broken down to such an extent that we have this huge war in Europe.I could never have imagined that, you know, sitting down chatting to Roman Abramovich about football, that 25 years later, you know, Russia would be accusing Britain, NATO, Europe of waging war against Russia, that we'd have this terrible, you know, war in Ukraine.

How on earth did we sort of normalise figures like Roman Abramovich?I mean, remember, this was a guy who, although he absolutely denied it, was sued by Boris Berezovsky, another big oligarch, in the High Court in London, in which there were extraordinary allegations made.And the story of the way in which these people made their money, which has been documented so often, is, to put it mildly, pretty eye -raising.Now, I have to say, for legal reasons, and I'm sure you'd say that, you know, these people deny all allegations, but it's pretty fruity, the context, right?which these people come.How do we possibly think it was suitable for them to take over a British football club?

I suppose the answer to that is it's easy to be wise after the event, isn't it?I suppose going back to the 90s, which was as a fair chaotic period, and so many Russians fell into poverty, and this small group of tycoons struck rich.The oligarchs made huge fortunes.I remember people saying at the time, well, it's like America in the 20s or the 30s.There were people who maybe you know, made money through illegal means then and became accepted members of society.And yeah, people turned their eyes away from that, because I think people in the West still wanted to have a good relationship with Russia and still believed it was possible.

Command economy had collapsed.You now had this sort of crazy market economy that was sort of developing in Russia, something that people in the West could associate with more than what came before it.And so I think there was hope that actually this would lay the foundations for a decent relationship between businesses and between governments.

But Steve, maybe I'm being naive, but looking at these business people, they're not business people, they're not equivalent to American business people in the 1920s.I mean, you can see when Berezovsky and Abramovich start suing each other in Supreme Court, they're talking openly about kind of mafia codes, godfather oaths of loyalty, some of these people end up getting murdered, you know, it becomes clear that they've built their empires partly around huge armed groups defending their factories and attacking each other's things.I mean, was it that we weren't aware of that at the time or we sort of shut our eyes to it?Were Russiansaware at the time how these people made their money?

I think we turned a blind eye.I think some people did turn a blind eye to it, probably, as I say, thinking that it will work out okay in the end and that there was a lot of money to be made by doing business with Russia.And there's no doubt that I think that there was a degree of that.Some people did raise alarms at the time, but going back to the late 90s, the early 2000s, there was still hope that this relationship would work out for the best.And with hindsight, it didn't work out like that.But there was no kind of instruction booklet for people in Russia or people in the West what to do when a Soviet superpower, a communist superpower collapses.

You know, if Gorbachev could have gone to the library or Yeltsin could have gone to the library and taken a book out, what to do, how to kind of switch to a normal economy and a normal country, then that would have been absolutely wonderful.But there wasn't.And so Russia kind of stumbled its way through the 1990s.The leaders made lots of mistakes, trying to keep the country afloat.There were many people who didn't get their wages or pensions for months and months and months.It was a very difficult decade.

But Russia stumbled its way through this decade, got to the end of the 90s, and Putin came in.I think many Russians, certainly, in the early 2000s, were grateful for the stability, the early stability that Putin brought.He was genuinely popular in those early years, in the early 2000s.And he kind of did this deal with people, you know, you don't get involved in politics and we'll make sure you have a decent sort of level of prosperity.that suited a lot of people after the chaotic 1990s.

If he did welcome you into the inner circle or when he's sitting down with his inner circle today and they say, come on Vlad, what do you really think of Donald Trump?What do you think he would say?

I think he'd be disappointed.I think he'd express disappointment.I think last year the Russians had high hopes for Donald Trump.I thought that they thought that he was the man to deliver the kind of peace deal that the Kremlin wants on Russia's terms, that he would be the US president to put pressure on Volodymyr Zelensky to give up, to make the territorial concessions that Russia wants.Putin had many meetings with Steve Whitkoff, Jarikushna, and we had the Alaska summit.And it seemed as if, you know, the Russians started talking about the spirit of anchorage, the spirit of anchorage, as if some kind of deal was done or some understanding was reached with Donald Trump there, that America would help to end the war in Ukraine on Moscow's terms.

And it hasn't happened.And so I think Vladimir Putin will be quite disappointed that things have worked out like that.and that we're now in the fifth year of the war and it hasn't ended on Russia's terms.

That's interesting because Roy and I both think that Trump's on Putin's side but Putin doesn't think that at all.

Or maybe he's on Putin's side but he's not as powerful as Putin hopes.I mean one of the interesting things is given that Trump hasn't exactly been very helpful to Ukraine, I mean he cut $50 billion worth of funding.He's firing Patriot missiles as though he's on a drunken spree in a Dublin bar in the Middle East, which could be used to defend Ukraine.He's threatened to turn off satellites.He's played footsie with Putin.He's sent Witkoff out.

He's tried to put forward...Why is it that Trump has been unable to deliver the sort of peace that he was consistently talking about from before the election?What is it about Ukraine that'sit difficult for Trump to deliver that kind of peace?

Well, it seems that despite Donald Trump saying that President Zelensky doesn't have any of the cards, he seems to have some cards.And he seems unable to put pressure on the Ukrainian president to do a deal that would suit Moscow.And That'll surprise people here in Russia.I remember last year, lots of articles in the Russian papers almost crowing about Donald Trump, that our Donald has come into power in the White House, that NATO was about to collapse, that everything was looking good, basically, in the US -Russian relationship.And if everything was good in the US -Russia relationship, that would almost certainly deliver a peace deal in Ukraine on Russia's terms.And it just hasn't happened.

And so now you're getting disappointment being expressed here openly.

Part of this, I think, is that the US administration, or some of them at least, and JD Vance sometimes spoke like this, convinced themselves that the only reason why Ukraine was surviving was because of American support.And therefore, it was logical to me, we take away our $50 billion worth of support, Ukraine will collapse like a pack of cards.It only, you know, Ukraine's only fighting Russia because of American support.Europe will never be able to fill the gap.Ukraine will never fill the gap.But presumably what we've learned is that actually it wasn't true that the only thing keeping Ukraine standing was American financial support.

Yeah, I think the Russians are particularly furious with Europe.When you listen to Russian officials, you read the Russian papers here, they are spitting blood about Europe and European support for Ukraine.As far as the Kremlin is concerned, it's Europe which is prolonging the war in Ukraine.If Europe, if pesky Europe wasn't there supporting Ukraine, then the war would end much more quickly.And so I think the Russians are surprised that even though America has reduced its support for Ukraine, the war hasn't ended, and Ukraine has been able to carry on.Now, we don't know what lies ahead.

Certainly, The last few weeks have been difficult, I think, for the Russian army, and Ukraine seems to have stabilised, at the very least, the front line.But judging by what is being said, even in the state media here, there is, I think, a disappointment.that this war continues and Russia hasn't secured victory yet.

What do you think, if you were in Xi Jinping's inner circle, when he kicks his shoes off, what do you think he thinks of Putin?I suspect as a junior partner.

There's no doubt that even though Russia and China talk about their partnership and their friendship, and they were talking about a no -limits partnership, weren't they, not so long ago, there are limits to it.And Russia has become increasingly dependent on China because it sort of burnt its bridges with Europe.That makes Russia, I think, to a large extent, the sort of junior partner of China.And last year, there was this quite an amazing image when Vladimir Putin went to Beijing.Do you remember?Xi was walking in the middle.

On one side, you had Vladimir Putin.On the other side, you had Kim from North Korea.And clearly, the Chinese leader was there.He was calling the shots.He was in the middle.And I think that causes a little bit of unease in some quarters here.

The fact that Russia has become quite dependent on China, on China buying Russian goods.And as I say, most of the people that I talk to and meet on the streets feel European and still see Russia's place in Europe.and not in the East, despite officially the country sort of pivoting to the East.

When we think about great power competition, we tend to assume that in the long run, it's the economy stupid.You know, we look back in time, we tend to assume that the reason why, you know, Germany and Japan did what they did is, and Britain did what it did, is their economies take off.And the Russian economy remains tiny, right?The Chinese economy is 10 times the size of the Russian economy.The European economy is 10 times the size of the Russian economy.The American economy is 15 times the size of the Russian economy.

So if Russia really wants to be a global superpower, it's got to sort its economy out.How's it going to do that?How's it going to become competitive?How's it going to become productive?How's it going to develop technology?How's it actually going to have its moment that Japan or Germany found at the end of the 19th century or Britain found in the 19th century, which is really going to allow it to be the kind of superpower it wants to be?

It's a really great question.And it's a question that if Vladimir Putin was sitting here, you should ask him, because it's the key question, isn't it?You know, Russia is spending so much money on this war, so much money to try to ensure that Ukraine remain, you know, comes back into Russia's sphere of influence.And at the same time, And again, state media confirms this in newspaper articles regularly.Russia is falling back technologically.And so logically, the question is, how can a country build a stable future as a great technological superpower if it's falling back?

And the distance between Russia and countries in the West is growing larger.Vladimir Putin's argument, I suspect, because he said that to me in a press conference, is, well, at least we've become sovereign.and he talks about Russia becoming a sovereign nation.This, he believes, is Russia's greatest achievement over the last century.years.That Russia had become too dependent on the West.

It had been deceived by the West.And what Russia has shown over the last four years is that it has broken free of the shackles and is now sovereign in so many words.Now, I'm not sure.I don't know what exactly that means, because Russia was an independent, sovereign country before that.But he believes Russia become too dependent on the West.Well, those bonds, those links have certainly been broken now.

As I say, Russia's become more dependent on the East, but it's falling back technologically.Yes, there are big questions about Russia's future.When I ask people, I often ask people on the street, how do you see Russia's future?How do you see your future and the country's future?Most people don't answer that or can't answer that.They think maybe a week ahead or a month ahead, but they don't know what's going to happen here.

further down the road because things are so unpredictable.And if people can't think long -term about their future and where Russia's place in the world will be a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, that's That's a problem, I think, for the country.

Finally, finally, finally, Steve.One thing you and I have in common, we both saw the advent of ABBA at the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton as one of the seminal moments in European history.We don't need to talk about our ABBA obsession now.But one thing that people do know you for is this extraordinary ability you have on the piano.and every year you weave the songs that are in the Eurovision Song Contest into one kind of mellifluous piece of music, which is absolutely brilliant.But the one I want to talk to you about is this extraordinary song you wrote for the woman in the newspaper kiosk, Valentina.

Just tell us that story because it's the most, with all due respect,it's not Paul McCartney, the lyrics, it's not John Lennon.They're very mundane lyrics, okay, but it's a beautiful piece of music, and the BBC singers did it so well.

Thank you.So I used to buy the newspapers from the kiosks down the road, and Valentina, this great babushka, sold me the papers.And we struck up a really nice friendship, and she used to talk about her life, which was very dramatic.And I used to record our conversations on my phone with her permission and make little videos of Valentina's kiosk.And I loved it because it was a constant reminder to me why I'd fallen in love with Russia in the first place.You know, she kind of symbolized for me mother Russia, all the good things, all the positive things about this country.

She left Moscow in 2022, went back to live in Kursk on the border with Ukraine.She got sick.She got cancer.And I wrote her a song.Yeah, I wrote her a song to cheer her up, Valentina's song.And the wonderful BBC singers who apparently were following these Valentina kiosk videos online, They wrote to me and said, we'd like to do a little collaboration with you.

Have you got any ideas?I said, well, I've got this song for Valentina.And they said, oh, we watch Valentina's kiosk.We'll sing it.So I went over to London on my next trip, and we recorded it with the BBC Singers.And I sent it to her on WhatsApp.

And I was waiting.And five minutes later, the message came back.And she said she was very moved by it.and she kept watching it.But the interesting thing after that was it got picked up by media inside Russia.So a lot of the channels that are normally full of anti -Western bile and criticising the BBC, for one wonderful moment,

they were just reporting that a British journalist had written a song about a Russian newspaper kiosk vendor who wasn't very well.And they were reporting it kind of positively.And I thought, well, I'm always looking for the hope.I'm always looking for the optimism.And to me, that was an optimistic sign that actually, despite everything, you know, we can rebuild the relationship with Russia despite all the things that have happened in the last four and a half years.And I still keep in touch with Valentina and touch wood she's feeling better.

She's learned English.I mean, how many Russian babushkas start learning English, you know, in their late 60s?And she's an amazing person.

I'll tell her that she's going to be discussed on the UK's number one podcast.Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.It's lovely chatting to you both.

Thank you, Steve, very much.