Anatoly Kucherena at the Moscow airport quoting Snowden verbatin, July 13, 2013.
You know, it pays to go back and listen to some news videos again sometimes, after the scrum of the media frenzy is over on these stories like Snowden. I remember listening again closely to those videos from that ridiculous morality play that the FSB cooked up with our spy caught "red handed" where the Russian agent at one point curiously speaks of help "in other" (plural)…cases? which threaten our security. That was odd…
So I was listening to Genri Reznik, Vladimir Lukin, Anatoly Kucherena again in this news conference at Sheremetyevo after Snowden's "meeting with human rights activists and lawyers" slash media circus. "Can't we all act civilized here?" cries one cameraman at all his colleagues pushing and shoving. "This isn't Asia, after all," he warns. No, it's Eurasia, not My Asia!
In any event, there was some funny things that Genri said. Now, mind you, he is far more reputable than Kucherena who has remained on the presidential public council (in charge of relations with law enforcement) — although in the scheme of things in Russia, that isn't the worst (some of the establishment intelligentsia liberals would think they could have some influence on reforms that way). Reznik was always viewed as establishment, i.e. in the Moscow Collegium of Lawyers, yet independent and decent. Yes, he does seem to love the sound of his own voice — but what lawyer doesn't? Lukin, the ombudsman, also has a very good reputation as a fair and decent rights defender.
In this scene at SVO on June 13, Reznik seems to be in a kind of drama, perhaps imbued with the sense of historic and current importance and the throngs of media focused on him. Kucherena, too, of course. They go through this…charade…of explaining that Edward Snowden seems to be authentic to them, that is, just an idealistic guy — perhaps a bit too idealistic — who is concerned about people's rights and who seemed to realize he had to "balance" certain concerns — that he "understood" Putin's "dilemma" that he couldn't very well be seen to be going "against his partner, the United States".
Reznik even says Snowden may regret having joined the "special services" (the euphemism Russians use for intelligence agencies). Yes, he signed an NDA and agreed not to divulge secrets, but… Maybe he made a mistake? says Reznik. This is to set Snowden up in people's mind as a decent if blundering lad — because Russians evidently find the idea of agents going against their oaths of allegiance as bad as keeping in a service even when it becomes abusive…or something. It's not clear where he's going with this.
But…this is all so contrived and knowingly false that I'm not sure how they got Reznik to go along with it, but perhaps it's a slippery slope. I mean, somehow, their ambient fear of being under surveillance on social media, Russian or Western, has morphed into a docile faith that Snowden is right about his claims (and I don't think he is).
Then Kucherena quotes Snowden on one point that I don't recall getting attention in the media. He said "Putin's request is fulfillable" — well, that's literally from the Russian — "vypolnima".
That is, it's doable for Snowden not to leak any more stuff. Hmm, how did he climb down from his original principled position that he would keep leaking? I'm not getting this. What persuasive tactics were used on him? If Reznik thought Snowden was tortured, I think he would say so. Kucherena, I don't know, but not Reznik. In fact, that's why they had Reznik — and Tanya Lokshina — come out there, because they knew these are credible figures, particularly Lokshina.
But, they can only work with what they have in front of them, which is Edward Post-Factum, if you will, after the GRU, FSB, and whatever other service has had their way with him under conditions unknown.
"Fulfillable…"
A journalist asks what Snowden's motive is, and Reznik says it is "the defense of the rights and liberties of citizens in his own country and the world." Reznik says that he is "indisputably an honest person". When a journalist asks whether it isn't the government's prerogative to decide if it is in its interests to give him asylum (obviously, Russians don't think of asylum in terms of "well-founded fear of persecution" only), then Lukin says, of course, and the Russian government has its interests here and must weigh them.
"There's the problem of state interests, as our government understands them, and that's not a simple choice," Lukin says. He said as a human rights defender, his job was to ensure the safety and rights of this individual, but then let the courts decide about whether to grant him asylum. True enough.
"He treats the position of the president of Russia with understanding," then Reznik intones. It's no accident that these grey-heads have been brought out to persuasively and convincely remind us of Putin's interests.
"He understands perfectly well there are various interests. And of course the Russian Federation would not like to aggravate relations with the United States. So when Snowden says he regards the position of the president of Russia with understanding," Reznik emphasizes, "and that if he is granted political asylum on Russian territory he will not act to harm the US, he is fairly in touch and competent, and understands the complexity of the situation in which he has found himself."
Adekvaten and vmenyayem — in touch with reality and mentally competent, which are legal terms — are the words Reznik uses about Snowden, i.e. he's not a crazy person.
You know, I never get why no one doesn't ask more questions about this jam, this predicament that young Edward is in. Why is it being treated as if it were Hurricane Sandy? He chose to go to Moscow. He was not forced to leave Hong Kong. In fact, he could have first gone to Venezuela instead of Hong Kong if he felt that was the best perch from which to disclose America's secrets and help the world's tyrants take great glee in America's weaknesses. I've never gotten this…
Kucherena then butts in here. "Literally, what he said, was, 'The request of the president is fulfillable," he says, quoting Snowden. Reznik nods. Then what he does next is a sort of very lawerly thing — he recites the "theory of the case," the defense, the story as he is giving in on behalf of his client, but the twinkle in his eye lets us know that he doesn't quite believe it.
"Maybe at some time he made a mistake," says Reznik with a gleam of humour in his eye, "when he became an officer of the special services [intelligence agencies]."
So is this what the GRU has gotten him to think? Or has he felt this for some time now? Like the way Bradley Manning probably regrets becoming a soldier.
"There [in those intelligence agencies], there should be people who without looking into anything, without getting into any hassles, observe the formal demands of the law. Yes, he signed an agreement not to divulge, that's it," summarizes Reznik.
I could make a pun here and translate "ne zamorachivaya" as "not getting snowed under" haha, but what Reznik is talking about here is that Snowden seemed to brush off the reproach that he had gone against his contract and his obligation not to reveal secrets by saying that you had to observe these formalities in those agencies, so he did.
I'd be curious to see if anybody else derived some other meaning from that interchange, watch it here.
BTW, I bet the original English of the hipster Snowden's "vypolnima" was simply "doable" which is hard to translate literally in Russian and might lead an interpreter to say "vypolnima". It's hard to know whether he's speaking with the meaning of "doable" as you do in a negotiation, like "Yeah, that's doable, we can look at that," or "yes, I will indeed fulfill that request". We'll see.
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