The Russia Conundrum

When respected Western politicians sat on the boards of Putin’s companies, notorious for their corrupt schemes and for pilfering from the Russian budget, it made it harder to go after these organisations. Most prominent among them was the former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. At the end of his term in office in 2005, Schröder agreed to become head of the shareholders’ committee of the Nord Stream consortium, the natural gas pipeline project linking Russia to Germany, which he had helped launch a matter of weeks earlier. Schröder later became chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG, as well as chairman of the board of Rosneft when the company was already under sanctions for its role in the conflict in Ukraine. The purpose of Nord Stream was to bypass traditional transit countries, such as Ukraine and Poland, to funnel Russian Arctic gas supplies under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany. The project was controversial from the outset, notably for the central role played by long-term Putin ally and former Stasi agent, Matthias Warnig. Critics warned that the pipeline would open the door for Putin to threaten the curtailment of gas supplies to Ukraine and Poland without endangering supplies in the West, a particularly vindictive means of coercion. So, the decision in the wake of the Ukraine invasion to block Nord Stream marked a substantial turning point.

I have long felt there is a dearth of strong Western leadership. But the recent decisions to freeze assets, not just of those Russians who take part in operations directly against the United States, but also those who fight the free press, who violate human rights and take part in corruption, will have a real impact. Enforcing sanctions is crucial, but it is vital to apply them alongside developmental goals, supporting the people within Russia who are seeking to make a positive difference. The Kremlin’s attempt to insulate the Russian people from the truth about the war in Ukraine risks turning Russia into another North Korea, with a population hermetically sealed from the outside world. This must not be allowed to happen. Cultural and scientific exchanges, assistance in education and the raising of the new generation must be maintained where possible, as only this will help to build the civil society of the future. No matter how well intentioned those who suggested imposing sanctions in the fields of culture, education and science might have been, this is not sensible in the longer term; once the war is over and Ukrainian sovereignty has been guaranteed, it will be vital to restore cultural ties between Russia, Europe and the broader West in the future. If this does not happen, the West will struggle to show itself to be an ally of the Russian people, rather than simply a force determined to topple its government.

CHAPTER 20

YOU ARE NOT SAFE

At the beginning of July 2018, along with many people in the United Kingdom, I opened my newspaper to discover headlines about a middle-aged couple in the southern English city of Salisbury who had fallen mysteriously ill. Four months earlier, Salisbury had been the scene of the attempted assassination by Kremlin agents of a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, and the British media were already making a connection between the two events. As someone with first-hand experience of Vladimir Putin’s methods, I knew this did not make sense. In the minds of Putin’s regime, Skripal was a legitimate target – a person who had expressed his disgust at the men running his homeland by cooperating with the British; but the couple in the latest story had no involvement with Russia or indeed with politics of any sort. Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were in their mid-40s, unemployed and existing on the fringes of British society. Dawn, who was a mother of three children, had a history of drug abuse and she and Charlie were living in hostels for the homeless. The couple were known to scavenge in litter bins and recycling containers. Why on earth would Vladimir Putin select them as targets for his hit squads?

In the weeks that followed, the terrible truth emerged. On the morning of Sunday, 30 June, Dawn Sturgess had unexpectedly collapsed. An ambulance was called and Dawn was taken to hospital. Later that day, Charlie Rowley fell ill and he too was rushed to hospital. Dawn’s condition worsened and she fell into a coma. The doctors decided she could not be saved and, on 8 July, her life support system was switched off. When Wiltshire Police concluded that foul play was involved, the story became national news. Two days later, Charlie regained consciousness. The hospital reported that he was no longer in a critical condition, but his health had been severely impaired; an unknown substance had inflicted serious damage on the functioning of his central nervous system.