The Current - The KGB techniques that helped Putin rise to power

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin once won over George W. Bush by appealing to his  Christianity, and tried to intimidate Angela Merkel with her fear of dogs. The CBC’s Terence McKenna explores how KGB techniques helped his rise to power in the new documentary Putin's Journey.

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available now everywhere you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. For 25 years, Vladimir Putin has ruled Russia with an ever tightening grip. In recent years, he invaded Ukraine, even threatened to use nuclear weapons. Now a new CBC documentary traces his rise and how he has managed to

seduce and manipulate Western leaders. The filmmaker is veteran CBC documentarian, Terence McKenna, who joins us in our Toronto studio. Terence, good morning. Good morning. You have been to Russia many, many times. What is it about Putin that you find so fascinating? You know, he's such a repellent character in so many ways, but he's

also extremely shrewd and cunning kind of guy. And he had to be to get where he is and stay in power for 25 years. He's also this kind of chameleon who was able to make people believe he was one thing at the beginning before he changed his color completely. A lot of this, and we'll get into that, how he changed his color as you say, a lot of this looks at kind of his origin story. He grew up in poverty in St. Petersburg, was famously an agent in the KGB in East Germany. How did all of that shape him, do you think, and lead to the person we know now?

You know, Putin describes himself as a hooligan who was fighting and up to no good a lot as a kid and claims his life was straightened out because he took up judo and this was what got him off the streets. He says by grade nine he wanted to become a spy because of popular TV shows. And he actually walked into the KGB and asked how to get a job there in grade nine. And they recruited him years later when he graduated from law school. And many times he's described himself as a sort of dyed in the wool KGB man. Once KGB, always KGB. How does he go from that to being the Kremlin star?

Well, one way was applying the KGB techniques to advance his political career. He came up against a corruption crusader prosecutor general in Russia in the Yeltsin period named Yuri Skorotov, who was actually after Yeltsin because of corruption in the Yeltsin regime. And Skorotov was liquored up and then lured into a KGB-style honey trap where he was filmed having sex with two prostitutes in a hotel room. Putin delivered the video to a national TV station and Skorotov's career was finished. He did that as a favor to his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, and Yeltsin was impressed, eventually choosing Putin as his successor. did that as a favor to his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, and Yeltsin was impressed, eventually

choosing Putin as his successor. And again, as you said right when we started talking, initially people thought that he was some sort of reformer, somebody who was going to come in and change Russia for the better. Have a listen to the man who served as Prime Minister under Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Kazunov. We all believe that Putin is a young energetic person and could continue reforms. Mr. Yeltsin, President Yeltsin believed to him and many of us also believed I also was among those who believed that Putin was a democratically devoted person.

What sort of promises was he making early on that convinced people that yes, he would be a reformer, that he would open up this country? John You know, according to people who spent a lot of time with him, he had a knack for figuring out what people wanted to hear and then pretending to hold those beliefs. Kasianov was one of those people. He convinced Kasiananov and others that he favored liberal economic reforms and democracy and told them what they wanted to hear about all these things and then proceeded to throw people in jail who disagreed with him. And Kasyanov was shocked and resigned after one turn.

Throw people in jail if they were lucky. A lot of his political opponents have fallen out of windows. People have been poisoned, people have ended up dead, Alexei Navalny, Alexander Lofeniancio, Boris Nemtsov to name a few, and many people have accused Putin of ordering those deaths, have traced it back in some ways to his office. Were there warning signs in the work that you've done, did you uncover warning signs that he was willing to use lethal force to get what he wanted and to intimidate the people who perhaps would stand in the way. You know, there's a famous interview with Putin where he is asked, can you forgive people? And he said, yes, yes, you know, except for one thing, betrayal. Betrayal, especially

from the KGB background, this is a shooting offense. this is a poisoning offense. And all of those people, the Skripal father and daughter who were poisoned in Britain, most famously Alexander Litvinenko, these were traced back, you know, the radioactive polonium-210 that was used in the assassination attempt was traced back to a Russian government reactor that left a signature on the poison.

You know, there's no question that these things were traced back directly to Putin. There's a little bit in the film which just as a side note, he's having a photo taken and the photographer says, give us a kind look, as kind as you can. That was Vitaly Minsky, Russian documentary filmmaker that I've known for years, and made, frankly, a very positive film about Putin. And he talks now about how he was kind of taken in by Putin the same way as other foreign correspondents and people who spent time, Kassianov, because Putin was able to kind

of ingratiate himself with them. And at the same time, in all of these cases, we're eventually kind of threatened by Putin. He would, you know, when he started to fall out with them, he would say, be careful that we don't have to launch an investigation of you. Be careful that you don't end up in front of a court. That would be a bad thing. You know, he's the kind of guy who looks at you, it's a nice tie you're wearing. It would be a shame if somebody strangled you with it.

Pete Slauson His ability to charm people goes to the highest levels of international government. Have a listen to George W. Bush, former US President speaking after a summit with Putin in 2001. George W. Bush I looked a man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue.

I was able to get a sense of his soul. I was able to get a sense of his soul. How did Vladimir Putin manage to persuade democratic leaders that he was one of them, that he was somebody that they could work with? You know, just look at the case of that first meeting with George W. Bush. And this was before

all these murders were in the news and whatnot. So it was definitely a different time. But in the case of Bush, you know, he had a KGB briefing document saying that Bush was a born-again Christian. And so Putin comes up with this endearing story about how he had a cross around his neck that his mother gave him, a crucifix, and it had been miraculously saved in a fire. And he fed this story to Bush and by all accounts, Bush went for it hook, line and sinker. And actually, I was looking, there was like seven cameras on them when they were having this press conference where Bush said that he looked into his soul. And on the close-up camera on Putin, you can see him actually a big smirk as soon as Bush said that, because it worked. I'm Sarah Trlevin, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories

I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now. Well, those who would know Putin, particularly dissidents in Russia, were furious that Vladimir Putin would be welcomed into kind of, you know, the family of nations, so I can put it that way. You did an interview with Vladimir Karameza, who was arrested in 2022 for speaking out

against the war in Ukraine Ukraine recently released from detention. Have a listen to that. Literally on the same week that Vladimir Putin's government pulled the plug on the last independent television channel in Russia, he was treated to a lavish state visit to London and a ride with the Queen of England. It was clear from the very beginning. And yet, so many leaders of Western democratic countries deliberately chose to turn a blind eye on all these domestic authoritarian abuses.

When do you think people started to wake up, particularly in the West, those who might have been charmed by him before, when did they wake up to who Vladimir Putin actually was and who the dissidents had said, this is ringing the alarm bells saying, this is the man that we know. You know, I think there were a few turning points.

A famous one was Barack Obama's famous red line when he threatened severe consequences of Russia or their Syrian allies use chemical weapons to preserve the Assad regime in Syria. The chemical weapons were in fact used and then Obama and the Western powers basically did nothing. Then Putin sent his Russian soldiers into Crimea in 2014 and lied about it saying that the soldiers had nothing to do with Russia and once again, there was a very limited Western

response and so Putin became bolder and bolder. That was right after the Olympics in Sochi and I know that because we were on the plane coming back from Sochi as this is unfolding. What does that tell you about what he would be willing to do? He had this multi-billion dollar party welcoming the world as soon as the world leaves, then the invasion unfolds. You know, in the documentary we talked to Gary Kasparov, who is the former chess champion, who's In the documentary we talked to Garry Kasparov, who is the former chess champion who's been trying to mobilize people against Putin for 20 years now or 25 years now. And he said this was a very clear turning point for Putin where Putin was going to tell

the Western world, I'm not playing by your rules anymore. And now I'm playing by my own rules and turning over the international world order and he wants a new world order. One of the people that you speak with in this film is the former Canadian foreign affairs minister Peter McKay. And he describes a remarkable encounter with Vladimir Putin that happened in 2014. Have a listen. Vladimir Putin came into this Have a listen. Vladimir Putin came into this private session with other world leaders and went immediately to our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who had been quite vocal about Putin and his obvious plans for Crimea.

And he made a beeline for him, put his hand out, to which Prime Minister Harper then looked at him and said, you need to get out of Crimea. And Putin said, we're not in Crimea. That's a wild story. What do you take from it? You know, McKay goes on to say that that was the moment that everyone knew that Putin was lying to their faces, and so he was kicked out of the G8 group. It's pretty apparent that Putin doesn't have a lot of respect for democratic leaders. For one thing, he sees them as short-lived. He's playing the long game.

He doesn't have to worry about being reelected. He thinks he can outlast them. He also feels like he can manipulate them. What is the story about Angela Merkel and the dog in Vladimir Putin? This is amazing, especially when you watch the videotape of it. It was widely known that Angela Merkel

had been attacked by a big dog and knocked off her bicycle. And this was a very traumatic experience for her. And she was widely known that she had a fear of dogs. And so in a private meeting, Putin brings his large Labrador dog into the meeting and you see it coming up, making its way towards her and she's stiffening. Like sitting right at her feet. Yeah, sitting right at her feet. And she's clearly trying not to be rattled by it, but

is rattled by it. And people talk about how, you know, Putin is very well-briefed, he knows people's buttons and he pushes those buttons. And he's always kind of playing this psychological game trying to get an advantage. And he has a wry smile on his face as this is all unfolding. He does, yeah. Yeah. You know, this is Angela Merkel wrote about this in her book that came out a few weeks ago and Putin said, oh, gee, I didn't know. Oh, you know what? I promise the next time she comes to see me, I won't have a dog, okay? There'll be no dogs.

He has said that, and his allies have said this as well, that the expansion of NATO pro-democracy movements in the former Soviet republics, he sees them as Western plots that are aimed at weakening Russia and weakening his own leadership. What responsibility do Western leaders have, do you think, for the aggressive Vladimir Putin that we might see now? I find this a preposterous argument. Jeffrey Sachs, there's a lot of Western commentators that hold this line.

That the West has provoked Putin. That the West has provoked this. And this especially has provoked this. You had, you know, and this especially dates from, you know, Putin gave a famous speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 when he complained about this, that this was, you know, he was being surrounded and all this kind of stuff. And you did have all of these countries, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, all joining NATO at the same time. Why were they joining NATO? Because they were terrified of

Russian militarism, because they had been a part of the Soviet orbit and didn't like it, didn't want that, didn't want the Putin model, they wanted the Western model. They desperately wanted to be a part of the West. And Putin constructed this as some kind of nefarious conspiracy against him. And a lot of people seem to have bought into that. As the war in Ukraine has unfolded, one of the things certainly that's rattled people, particularly in the West, is the threat by Vladimir Putin to suggest that he would be willing to use nuclear weapons in this conflict. You spoke with a number of people who have been in the room with him about how to deal with Vladimir Putin. What do you do in the face of those sorts of threats? This is Petro Poroshenko,

who is the former president of Ukraine. I have several recommendations, those who have a plan to meet with Putin. Point number one, don't trust Putin. Putin is a KGB officer, especially learn to lie. Second, please don't be afraid of Putin. If, because if you're afraid of Putin, this is feeding him. And Putin go as far as we together allow him to go. At the end of this film, the question that you ask is whether the democratic world has the will to stop him in some ways. Do Western powers, do you think, have the stomach to stand up to Vladimir Putin? I really think that's not clear.

And I would say people who are hoping for that face a more pessimistic scenario. Look at the people who have stood up to him, President Biden, who put together this NATO coalition now disappearing from the stage. Macron in France in trouble, Schulz in Germany in trouble. These governments are weak, their own populations are turning against spending so much money sending weapons to Ukraine. So it's looking a bit bleak right now.

What happens next week when Donald Trump is in the White House? He has made some statements about making a deal with Putin, how the war could be ended within 24, 48 hours, what have you. What are you gonna be watching for as of next Monday? The first few times he said that, he said,

this would happen between the election and the inauguration. Before the inauguration, he would be able to solve the Ukraine war. I haven't noticed that that has happened. And clearly, Putin was waiting for Trump because of all the negative things Trump has said about Ukraine, about President Zelensky, and particularly about NATO. He has said so many things to

undermine NATO. And so, Putin, you would think, would be thrilled to see him come to power. At the same time, the only kind of guardrail on this that I see is that Donald Trump does not want to look weak. And there would be a lot of people saying that if he just lets Ukraine fall and lets Putin get what he want, he will look weak and he does not want to look weak. You've been covering Vladimir Putin, as I said, for decades now and looking at his impact in Russia, a place that you've been to many times over those decades. As you made this documentary, what is something that surprised you about Vladimir Putin?

You know, I think this, I wasn't kind of aware of the level of which he applied these KGB techniques to people. Francois Hollande, the former president of France, told us about how Putin would reach out to befriend him, put his arm around him, and threaten him at the same time. You know, Boris Johnson told a story recently to the BBC that just before the Ukraine invasion, Putin phoned him.

They were having a conversation and he said, well, Boris, you know, I like you, but I could have a missile on your head in a matter of three or four minutes. And so this kind of, I'm friendly with you and I'm threatening you at the same time is a really key aspect of his personality and you've got to look at him through that lens all the time. We learn a lot about him from this documentary. It's fascinating. Terence, thank you very much. Thank you.

That's the CBC's Terence McKenna. His new documentary, Putin's Journey, airs tomorrow night Friday the 17th of January on CBC television at 8, 7.30 PM in Newfoundland. Or you can go to the CBC News YouTube channel and you'll be able to stream it there.