Irag, I'll Scratch Your Back...

Mark Russell

Books

From Russia With Love?... Well, Not Exactly.

On a snowy winter's day in December 1998, Vladimir Putin sat in a fancy Japanese restaurant in Moscow opposite a young female journalist. She had caught his eye; he had invited her out for sushi. A year before he took over as Russian president, Putin headed the successor to the feared KGB. "Lenochka, why do you keep on talking about politics and only politics? Wouldn't you rather have a drink?" he asked. But the 25-year-old refused his offer of sake, and deftly evaded his question about where she planned to spend New Year's Eve. So goes the story in Yelena Tregubova's new book, "Tales of a Kremlin Digger."

Putin has never liked press criticism, and Tregubova's book is full of fodder for his fury. The journalist describes several embarrassing episodes. Visiting a hospital in a Russian provincial city, a stern-faced Putin spoke to a boy who had been injured while jaywalking. "Now you'll know not to break traffic rules anymore," said the president. In the same ward, a small girl burst into tears when Putin tried to kiss her and said she was afraid of him. Kremlin minders warned journalists they would be stripped of their accreditation if they wrote about the scene. Tregubova's critical articles regularly provoked phone calls to her editor from the Kremlin, an old Soviet custom that has become widespread again. "I felt under constant psychological pressure; I was warned I would find myself out of work," she says. And after she wrote this book, that's exactly what happened.

Henry Meyer