The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 194. Is Putin Losing His Grip on Russia? (Steve Rosenberg)

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

With war fatigue growing and polls showing increasing dissatisfaction with life in Russia, is Vladimir Putin beginning to lose control? What is really happening inside Russia today? And what is it like to report the truth from inside one of the world's most repressive states? Alastair and Rory are joined by Steve Rosenberg, Russia Editor for BBC News, to answer all of these questions and more. __________ Search IG.com to find out more and/or Look for IG in your app store. __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] __________ Social Producer: Emma Jackson Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members' chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's therestispoletics.com. 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 Wayne, 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? This episode is presented by IG. So whether it's the vetting of senior political appointments or its costly policy U-turns,

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With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Welcome to the rest of this politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. and our guest today is the BBC's Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. Now, in today's somewhat chaotic media landscape, BBC news might not be as dominant as it once was, but if there's one voice

that's been the soundtrack of Britain's understanding of Russia, it is definitely Steve's. Born and raised in Essex of Jewish-Russian heritage, he became mildly obsessed with Russia in his teens, has now lived there on and off for over 30 years, is married to a Russian woman, and despite all the horrors he has to cover, he somehow managed to maintain BBC standards whilst witnessing the development of a country that he loves, I think it's fair to say, into something of a Vladimir Putin dictatorship. 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 for his pains. I thought a defecating squirrel was one of the more memorable insults I read.

So Putin has been a permanent feature of his BBC life. Steve's very first broadcast as the only person left in the office on New Year's Eve, 1999, was to report that Boris Yeltsin was making way for none other than Vladimir Putin. So Putin has been there now for over a quarter of a century, the last four years fighting a war with Ukraine that he thought would be over in days and it's still going on. And I think that's where we'd like to start. But I also hope, Steve, that we have time to discuss your other. sessions, one of which I share, which is Aba, and the others are the Eurovision Song Contest and

your wonderful piano. But let's start with the war. We keep hearing, I want to know how much this is our wishful thinking, we keep hearing that there's real war fatigue in Russia. Is that so? I think 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 what we hope the war will be over. And people do use the word war. You know, 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. You know, 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. 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, an anti-UK rhetoric, on the street, people are willing to stop and to speak to 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 that in the 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. And because of that, I think it's worth being here still, because you can get a sense, you could put the jigsaw pieces together and get an idea of what the mood of the country is. I would say that, you know, 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 they're, 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 law. 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, you know, 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 know, you'd probably never leave the house. Yeah, you'd go mad. You know, we're trying not to think about that all the time. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just doing my job. And, you know, 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're in the UK or France or Germany? It's a really difficult balancing act, because on the one hand, there's a one hand. there's no point me being here if I can't tell the stories I think it is. There's no point me being here if I can't say anything. On the other hand, I'm aware that there are kind of 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. So all these rules and regulations and laws, They're in my head. So it's kind of, yeah, I'm walking a bit of a tightrope kind of 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 Russia's, Rory. I saw the end of Soviet Russia as a student. to Russian. I spent a year here in 1989, 1990. So just before the collapse of a Soviet Union,

and in fact, that was the year the Berlin Wall came down. It was an amazing time. People, I remember, in 1890, believed that they had the power to change their country. People were energized 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. People, 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. 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 had 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 had Putin's Russia. Vladimir Putin came along and stabilized things. And I think for the first few years, he was incredibly popular. Oil prices went up, which was good timing. And, yeah, people's prosperity went up. But gradually he became increasingly frustrated with the West, I think, and fueled 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. And it wants the Russian public to believe that they need to kind of unite around the government. That's the message from the authority. So, yeah, over the last sort of 35 years, I've seen kind of different kinds of Russians. But one conclusion from that is that things can change here quite quickly, actually. Just when you think that Russia has taken one particular path, it changes. Just on the theme of change.

So I met Yeltsin quite a few times and working with Tony Blair, and then I met Putin quite a lot during the early period of his rule. And when Rory and I interviewed the widows of Alexander Lovineko and Alexei, 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 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 bond 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 Europe, 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 the 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 interest 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, stepped aside and Russia had a new president, Dmitzsche 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 keeping on a democratic path. However, certainly from 2012, when Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin, you know, 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 for to ferment 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 at least to kind of organise 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? In 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. We saw that in 2023 during the Wagner mutiny, you know, when Yvgeny Pregoshen. Remember, started marching on Moscow with his mercenaries? And for 24 hours, the system was in paralysis, it's soon. So damage has been done. And 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.

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 the third smaller than the British economy. It 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 imagine maybe was the 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. And 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.

And 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 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, Alistair, I think there's no doubt that European leaders. 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 go 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 colored 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 Empire that 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, you know, as people, officials here believe it,

But 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 the decision to launch this full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And 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 in 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, you know, 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 facts 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, you know, this massive country hasn't come to terms with the fact. Still, you know, 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 Wayne 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, you know, 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 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 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 normal. normalized is the killing of his opponents, you know, including, you know, on our soil,

or they got the wrong people. There was a Brit who got killed, but including the 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 offenses. 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, 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 kind of trying to navigate yourself around this kind of all these problems, all these issues. You know, it's quite difficult. I 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 try to choose when you're doorstep by Russian state television or, you know, pro-Clemmen bloggers, you have to think very carefully, think very quickly on your feet about what you're going to say. And it's quite tiring in that sense. It's quite tiring, and coping with all that. Trying to gather and tell the story, but also,

you know, trying to be aware and be ready for these kind of moments. It's very weird, isn't it? Steve, because it's more like being a politician. I mean,

this idea of being doorstepped and suddenly ask questions. A journalist normally ask the questions. You must have to develop 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. So, you know, 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 me an example of a moment where you felt particularly surrounded by people and they were particularly excited by particular accuracy.

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. 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 Stama? That's a common one. And is that true, Steve, that Russian journalists are not allowed to ask questions to Kirstama? 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, and I'm grateful for that because it's a chance to ask something that perhaps President Putin doesn't get asked normally. I mean, it's superficially.

Sounds like a pretty fair point, doesn't it, for the Russians. How come you're allowed to turn up? So what's the answer to that as somebody who used to do this stuff? The answer to right now, is you're not going to have many situations where Russian media are attending a Kiyosthama 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 press conference was John Sweeney, because I knew who was going to give Putin a really, really hard time when 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 of Russian television. We even appeared on a Russian radio soap opera. Get this, Steve.

I said, we're only doing it. If he can say the line, my three priorities are Obrozovania, Obrosovania, Obrosovania, 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 British. from Chinkford in Essex. North London. North London, Rory, I had to say it used to be Essex. It used to Essex.

But when I, yeah, it became North London. All right. Give us a glimpse of your childhood in Chinkford, 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's your parents do, Steve? Who were they? So my dad, who's sadly no longer allied, he was a dentist, my mum, housewife. Yeah, it was a sort of typical Chinford 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, and the BBC, what timing? The BBC broadcast their first Russian language course on television.

I think it was on Sundays. And I sat there transfixed watching this Russian language course. It was amazing, all these strange letters and pronunciations. And they had little films about life in the Soviet Union, this mysterious country, 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 department foyer. And you could sit down and watch an hour of Soviet television, kind of Gorbachev TV. And it was amazing. All these programs about Perestroika and Glasnest and the Soviet TV news bulletins, which were like nothing like, you know, 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 kind of spend a bit of a bit of. the 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 modern-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 started, you know, took the first steps learning Russian. My grandma then found a box with old documents in it, including her father's, my great-grandfather's passport that he used to exit the Russian Empire in 1894, and it was in pristine condition. And I really wanted to kind of work out what was written. And 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, you know, 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 Stettles, that one of my great-year-old,

great grandfathers came from, it's called Schlov, 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. What of the most memorable interview I've ever done. Quite a difficult interview because, you know, 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 trying to be charming. And so he kept switching between the two. And I just had to sit there, you know, 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 you wanted and answer any question, you know, he didn't agree, didn't agree the questions beforehand. He'd answer anything. And that's, I think, different with Vladimir Putin. I still hadn't had a managed to organize a sit-down interview with Vladimir Putin. You know, I've managed to ask him questions, single questions at press conferences, but I'd love the opportunity to have a, you know, a detailed, deep conversation with him about everything. I think he's coming on. The rest is

politics before he does the BBC. I really do. And next time you talk to Lukashenko, we'd definitely have him on as well. Getting the cue, 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. Gorbachev, a very different kind of person. Yes, I've interviewed Gorbachev, I think five or six times. I found him to be a very warm-hearted man, someone who was a family man, someone who loved deeply his wife, who died before him, and he couldn't get over that.

And he was always talking about Raichsa, his late wife and his children, and a very warm-hearted person. And after one of the interviews, quite bizarrely, there was a piano in the corner of his office. 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 sort of 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, 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 comes as his KGB background. That was different from Gorbachev. Obviously the background, I think, influences what someone is like. Lukashenko, yeah, doesn't have the KGB background. He was a collective Farm boss. Maybe that explains why he's, you know, he's quite familiar, quite friendly, quite friendly at times, sometimes bullish. They're all different in their own way. I never interviewed Yeltsin, but the thing about Yeltsin, 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 1990, There was a TV channel that was very critical of Boris Yelton.

He didn't close it down. There was a Russian version of spitting image, coquely, 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, he certainly don't. Keeps himself to himself, keeps his emotions locked inside. And of course, Vladimir Putin saw what happened with Gorbachev. Yeah. He saw that Gorbachev tried to reform, try 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. that about 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. Stephen, Alasah, let's take a quick break and then back for more. This episode is brought you by Vauxhall.

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It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. easy, breathable and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapy denim wide leg. 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 really dubious Russian characters. as so much entry into our economy and into our society and into our national life.

That was also a, yeah, that was a rare interview. It was the first interview, I think, the 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 Chikotka in the Far East where he was the local governor and spent 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 normalize 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 from which these people are. 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 easier 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, you know, America. in the 20s or the 30s, you know, 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. The 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, sorry, 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 know, you can see when Berezovsky and Abramvich start suing each other and Supremov. in the 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 Russians aware at the time how these people had 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, you know?

And with hindsight, you know, 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. wasn't. And so Russia kind of stumbled its way through the 1990s. The leaders, you know, made lots of mistakes, you know, trying to keep the country afloat, trying to, you know, 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 kind of decade, got to the end of the 90s, then Putin came in. And I think many Russians, certainly, in the early times, and the early

2000s were grateful for the stability, the early stability that Putin brought. And he was genuinely popular in those early years in the early 2000s. And he kind of did this deal with people. You don't get involved in politics and we'll make sure you have a decent sort of level of prosperity. And that suited a lot of people after the chaotic 1990s. If he did welcome you into 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 expressed 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. Bologna Zelensky to give up, to make the territorial concessions that Russia wants. You know, Putin had many meetings with Steve Whitkoff, Jared Kushner, 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,

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 he's effectively on 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 drug. 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 Wickev 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, which makes it 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 has surprised people here in Russia. I remember last year lots of articles in the Russian papers, almost crowing about Donald Trump. Our Donald has come into power in the White House that NATO was about. to collapse, that everything was looking good, basically, in the U.S.-Russian relationship. And if everything was good in the U.S. Russian 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 U.S.

administration, or some of them at least, and J.D. 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 them. 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.

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 stabilized, at the very least, the front line. But, you know, judging by what is being said, even in the state media here,

there is, I think, a disappointment that this war continues. And, you know, Russia hasn't secured victory. What do you think if you were in Zhuzing Ping's in a 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, she 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's, um, 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

The economy is stupid. We look back in time. We tend to assume that the reason why, you know, Germany and Japan did what they did 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 the Russian economy. The American economy is 15 times the size the American, the Russian economy.

So if Russia really wants to be a global superpower, it's got to sort its economy out. How is 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. so much money to try to ensure that Ukraine remains, you know, comes back into Russia's sphere of influence. And at the same time, and again, the 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 four 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 three 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 had become too dependent on the West. Well, those bonds, those links have certainly been broken now. And as I say, Russia has become more dependent on the east. But it's falling back technologically. And 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? And most people don't answer that or can't answer that. They think maybe a week ahead or a month ahead.

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 for a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, 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 melifluous piece of music, which is absolutely brilliant. But the one I want to talk to you about, I think, in fact, I'm going to make an executive decision here, Rory. I think we should end this program when we put it out with the, if we get the copyright sorted, Steve, with you playing the piano and the BBC singers singing that 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, you know, 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 recall our conversations. She's filmed on my phone with her permission and make little videos on a 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, your 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 for a song to cheer 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. Well, it's brilliant. 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 kind of channels that are normally full of anti-Western bile and criticizing 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 side that actually, despite everything, you know, we can rebuild a 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 touchwood 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.