A Few Words About Methods
By Viktor Shenderovich
December 7, 2010
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

I intentionally waited a few days – would anybody speak out?

Nope. All is quiet…

Impudence is bliss.

“The methods of our security services differ in a good way from the methods used by United States security services,” Putin told Larry King. “Thank God… the officers of our intelligence services and other security services are not noted as having been involved in the organization of secret prisons, kidnappings, or the use of torture.”

They were noticed, naturally, and more than once.

The difference between Russia and the US is that the people who used torture in Guantanamo are in prison, having been convicted by American courts, and the Russian citizens, kidnapped and tortured by FSB officers, won’t get justice from anywhere closer than Strasbourg.

The second difference is that the American journalists who investigated Guantanamo won the Pulitzer Prize and are all alive, and Politkovskaya and Estemirova, who investigated the filtration camp in Chernokozovo, have been murdered, and their murderers have not been found, and Putin still managed to publicly spit on Politkovskaya’s grave.

So that’s it about the methods. And not those of the security service, but of Putin and his propaganda. They are simple, like a stick: lie through the teeth, nobody will notice!

It doesn’t go unnoticed there – here it definitely goes unnoticed, because 99% of Russian citizens simply don’t hear the objections. Ekho Moskvy, a couple of uncensored magazines with a two-kilometer radius… The sweet joys of our liberal ghetto.

And on television, Putin makes a universal smear to Larry King.

Speaking in an interview with CNN host Larry King, the prime minister effectively accused the United States of applying a double-standard to criticism of democracy. “When we talk with our American friends and tell them there are systemic problems in this regard, we hear from them: ‘Don’t interfere in our affairs. These are our traditions, and we don’t plan on changing them.’ And we don’t interfere,” Putin said. “But to our colleagues, I would also like to advise you: don’t interfere, either, [with] the sovereign choice of the Russian people.”

In response to a Wikileaks document where the United States compares Putin and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to Batman and Robin, Putin responded that such remarks “are made in order to compromise one of us.”

“The truth is that this was said regarding our [Putin and Medvedev’s – ed.] cooperation. And this is an important thing for the domestic politics of our country,” the prime minister said. “To be honest, we didn’t suspect that it was going to be done with such arrogance, with such rudeness, and so unethically.”

Overall, however, Putin said he did not think the Wikileaks scandal was a catastrophe. “Some experts believe that somebody is using Wikileaks for their own political goals,” he said in the interview. “That’s one of the versions. That’s the opinion of experts. If that’s not the case, then the diplomatic services need to be more attentive in providing confidentiality for their correspondence. Leaks like this, by the way, have happened before, so it’s not a catastrophe.”

The interview will be aired on CNN tonight at 9 pm EST. It comes ten years after Putin’s last interview with Larry King, memorable for the then-president’s response to King’s question about the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster. When asked “what happened with the submarine,” Putin paused and simply responded: “it sunk.”