Strongman, The

the exception in Russia’s television system, because it is aimed at a foreign audience. It showed its true colours and purpose during the 2008 war with Georgia, when all pretence at balance was dropped and Russia Today became a full-blooded propagandist for the Kremlin.
    The station was founded by a state-owned news agency, RIA Novosti, which grew out of the Soviet-era Novosti Press Agency (APN) and like it combines two separate roles: firstly, it is a news-gathering organisation which provides news reports primarily to foreign audiences (APN’s network of foreign correspondents also included a large number of undercover KGB spies); secondly, its foreign bureaus serve as hubs for the propagation of Russian government information. The latter function overlapped greatly with the role Ketchum and GPlus were expected to play, and this led to a certain amount of friction. I got the impression that RIA Novosti was none too happy about its role as official Kremlin propagandist being usurped by foreigners. Occasionally GPlus, for example, would be asked to set up a press briefing with the Russian envoy to Brussels, Yevgeny Chizhov, only to find that the ambassador was already working with RIA Novosti on the same project – except that RIA, with its enormous resources, was doing it in style, with a video link to Moscow.
    RIA Novosti was the prime mover behind another image-making innovation – the Valdai International Discussion Club which began its work in Putin’s second term. The Valdai Club brings together about 50 foreign ‘Russia watchers’ (mainly journalists and academics) each September for ten days of debates with Russian specialists, combined with sightseeing (every year a more exotic location) and meetings with top Kremlin officials (every year a better, more senior crop). The first session, in 2004, was at Lake Valdai, north of Moscow, from which the Club derived its name, and the surprise guest of honour was President Putin himself – fuming in the aftermath of the Beslan tragedy – who was willing to spend several hours with the group, letting off steam and answering their questions. Since then the itinerary has included trips to Kazan, Chechnya, Siberia and St Petersburg, and featured lavish lunches with Putin and Medvedev (separately) at their dachas outside Moscow or in Sochi. In 2009 Medvedev apparently decided that Valdai was too closely associated with Putin; he held his own event for foreign experts, the ‘Yaroslavl Global Policy Forum’, instead.
    Valdai was a brand-new way of influencing outsiders – much more subtle than giving an interview on CNN or the BBC, or trying to steer Moscow correspondents towards giving more favourable coverage. This was soft propaganda – quite a risk, since hosting 50 foreigners in five-star hotels for ten days is not cheap and certainly not guaranteed to change perceptions overnight. The idea was that the guests – experienced Kremlin-watchers who write in academic journals, advise governments, and appear as pundits in the media – would become better disposed towards Putin if they were given the opportunity to meet him over a long lunch and spend a week or so debating issues with friendly Russian experts and officials.
    Critics in the Moscow intelligentsia are utterly dismissive of the project, claiming that the majority of participants are ‘useful idiots’ who have the wool pulled over their eyes and go home parroting the propaganda that’s served up to them with the lobster terrine and fine wines.
    Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Endowment, for example, says the Kremlin uses Valdai to ‘co-opt’ and manipulate Western commentators: ‘Foreign guests come to the Valdai meetings to absorb the opinions of Russia’s leaders and then transmit them to the rest of the world.’ 6 I would agree entirely that this is what the Kremlin wants to happen. Otherwise they would not spend so much time and money on it. But having attended three Valdai conferences, I think she overestimates the effect. Maybe some participants become less critical – and it is certainly true that almost everyone, Valdai member or not, tends to be mesmerised by personal contact with Vladimir Putin (Margaret Thatcher used to have a similar effect, even on her critics). But the coverage that spills out from these weeks is not all sycophantic. Ariel Cohen of the conservative Heritage Foundation and the experienced Marshal Goldman are hardly Kremlin stooges.
    Meeting officials is