A Final Interview

„Newsweek: The opposition takes to the streets, but the regime holds on tight as ever. Is Russia going to change?

Boris Nemtsov: For now, we’re drowning. Everyone. Due to the policy of Vladimir Putin, a country with unparalleled potential is sinking, an economy which accumulated untold currency reserves is collapsing. We used to have $500 billion of savings! For the first time in our history we had a chance to make a great developmental leap. No Russian leader ever had such a comfortable situation. And today we are in a slump. What do we have? Double-digit inflation, devaluation of the ruble, flight of capital—$150 billion is already gone!

The West, the U.S. and Europe are moving forward, and what is our government doing? It comes up with some desperate ideas, wants to regulate prices, subsidizes state-owned companies to let its people on the boards earn even more. And worst of all, this government wades into a costly, fratricidal war in Ukraine and into pointless confrontation with the West. We all feel the effects of this insane policy. We can’t remain indifferent. That’s why we take to the streets. This is the protest against a collective suicide of Russia. And it is not instigated by the opposition, it’s supported by all the Russians.

Newsweek: Apparently not by all of them. Even if tens of thousands were to march in Moscow, it would still be nothing compared with the 80 percent of Russians who support Putin.

Nemtsov: I have no doubt that the struggle for the revival of Russians will be tough. People see what this crazy politics led to, they see widespread corruption, they have firsthand experience with the inadequacy of the state. But they still believe in the leader because for the past several years, the leader was doing one thing very well: He was brainwashing the Russians. He implanted them with a virus of inferiority complex towards the West, the belief that the only thing we can do to amaze the world is use force, violence and aggression.

[Putin] programmed my countrymen to hate strangers. He persuaded them that we need to rebuild the former Soviet order, and that the position of Russia in the world depends entirely on how much the world is afraid of us. He managed to do all these things with Goebbels-style propaganda. If we are talking about the responsibility for spilling both Russian and Ukrainian blood, it lies not only with Putin, but also with such gentlemen as Konstantin Ernst [director general of Channel One] or Dmitry Kiselyov [head of the new, Russian-government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya]. They operate in accordance with the simple principles of Joseph Goebbels: Play on the emotions; the bigger the lie, the better; lies should be repeated many times. This propaganda is directed to the simple men; there is no room for any questions, nuances. Unfortunately, it works. The hysteria reached unprecedented levels, hence the high level of support for Putin. Therefore, we need to work as quickly as possible to show the Russians that there is an alternative, that Putin’s policy leads to degradation and a suicide of the state. There is less and less time to wake up.”