I read this interview with fascination, and a growing trepidation. So much of it is possible in so many places, and there are signs of so many democracies going this way already!
- In 2012, a new Russian law expanded the definition of treason to include the sharing of any information the FSB (the successor to the KGB) deemed harmful to Russia’s national interests. The noose tightened further in 2020, when another law made it effectively illegal to write anything at all about the security services—a change that “basically cancelled our profession,” Soldatov says. But the last straw came later that same year, when the Russian government cancelled the media license for Soldatov’s website, citing the death of its editor—the very job Soldatov held at the time. Taking the hint, he and his partner Irina Borogan fled for London.
- in the 1990s, you had competing political forces in the country. You had opposition parties. You had oligarchs. You had very strong regional centers of powers, such as the mayor of Moscow. All of them were competing, so if a group of generals became unhappy with the president, they could rush to this group or that group for political support. That’s not the case anymore. There is no political force left in the country except for Vladimir Putin. The political opposition is either dead, in jail, or in exile. The oligarchs are extremely dependent on Putin and on the military-industrial complex. The regional governors are really scared, because a number of them have been thrown in prison.
- you cannot fix your intelligence problems with repression
Unjustly 