Uldis Tīrons talks to the editor-in-chief of "Novaya Gazeta", 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov. The interview was produced in cooperation with the Artdocfest Riga festival.

Shortly before the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin launched the final, most destructive attack on the few independent media outlets that had remained in Russia. At that time, in the spring and summer of 2021, when editorial offices one after another, as well as individual people, were declared "undesirable organisations" and "foreign agents", it was linked to the upcoming State Duma elections.

The elections passed, but every Friday, the lists of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Roskomnadzor, were added to. And only on 24 February 2022 did it become clear what the purpose of these attacks was and what the Russian authorities were preparing for.

Among the few who had not been swept away by the wave of repression, two media outlets focused on a liberal audience stood out: Echo Moskvy and Novaya Gazeta. The professional community understood perfectly well why. The protection of these publications was ensured by their editors-in-chief's ability to find complex compromises with the authorities. Novaya Gazeta continued its work even after the editorial office was attacked using a chemical poisonous substance, and all security camera recordings had been erased.

Nothing changed when Novaya Gazeta author Dmitry Bykov became the next potential victim of the "Novichok" poison – fortunately, surviving. Nothing changed when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov called Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina a terrorist.

We must not forget how exceptional Novaya Gazeta was with its team and what journalistic sacrifices it required. However, we should also not forget how news and texts disappeared from the newspaper's website, we should not forget the influence that close Putin friend Sergey Chemezov has on the editorial office, and that truly impressive journalistic investigations into the "Russian washing machine" or the persecution and killings of gays in Chechnya are published next to the moralising, panic-inducing "Blue Whales" and Yulia Latynina's conspiracy columns.

During the Chechen wars, Novaya Gazeta was one of the boldest media outlets that strayed the furthest from the official line. It tried to be the same at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine: a blue-and-yellow front page, a gigantic headline "Russia is bombing Ukraine". However, the law that effectively introduced war censorship in Russia returned the newspaper back to compromises.

The editor-in-chief of the radio station Echo Moskvy, Alexei Venediktov – the same proponent of compromise as Dmitry Muratov – always claimed that his main goal was to save the radio station. In the first week of the war, Echo Moskvy was closed, and its archives on the internet are no longer accessible. To "liquidate", "neutralise" or "cleanse" the radio station – one can use any term from the new language of the echelons of power – the "board of directors" needed 15 minutes.

At the moment of writing this text, Novaya Gazeta had already received a warning from the supervisory authority in connection with a formal violation; a second similar letter would be the last. At post offices, Novaya Gazeta no longer issues printed copies of the newspaper to readers, and Russian Post no longer accepts subscriptions to the publication.

During wartime, it seems that compromises have become entirely one-sided. (Dmitry Treshchanin)

Rigas Laiks: Of course, it is difficult to talk under these circumstances, because compared to war, everything seems insignificant. For example, Ruslan Fedotov's documentary film "Where Are We Heading?", which was shown at Artdocfest, looks completely different after 24 February than it did before. Now, looking at the faces and behaviour of people on the Moscow metro, I seem to be trying to guess how this is connected to what is happening in Ukraine. Do you think it is possible to observe this link in what happened in Russia before 24 February 2022 and after it – if you look at an everyday level? (1)

Dmitry Muratov: When Vitaly Mansky and I were coming here, he asked me a similar question: have pre-war films – dovoyennye, as he put it – not become obsolete? We agreed that they are pre-war films because in many of them there is indeed a feeling, I would even say, a premonition of possible violence. Pay attention to both Belarusian films, "Mara" and "When Flowers Are Not Silent". When women stand before policemen who gave birth to those who are about to beat them. This rift, this feeling that there is no more law and only strength remains, is in many films. The film opening the festival, "This Rain Will Never Stop", is a Shakespearean-level tragedy, where a family loses its children, and an elderly man, a Syrian, one of the pillars of the family, sits at a table in a small German school in his old age and learns foreign words in German.

RL: Der Krieg.

Muratov: Yes! It is also the feeling that something has already happened and something is inevitably approaching. This is palpable in the film "The Island", which absolutely everyone must watch. A gap has formed between the people and the state. Between the state's wealth and the people's poverty. I really like, I fantastically like the film "Ivana's Life", which takes place in Taimyr. Where, before our eyes, a simply amazing character is formed, who is not broken by the poverty clearly visible in the frame. No one is ashamed of it. Quite the contrary, they show it to us very provocatively. If you have seen the film "Land of Women", where women make felt boots in a small town in the Kostroma region, then you know that feeling that people... They celebrate, they sing, they sometimes express themselves very funnily, they work hard with some pre-war – previous war – machines, but there is a clear feeling that they will raise their children alone, that the world, their husbands, and the state have turned away from them. One says: "Well, we won't wait for a prince who, with the clatter of horseshoes, will come galloping after us on a horse, but we will raise our children with our own strength." And this general mood, that we have been abandoned and forgotten, causes a huge, fantastic feeling of alarm in me.

RL: In your Nobel speech, you said that – I will now quote approximately, although I have it written down...

Muratov: You haven't learned it by heart yet?

RL: I learned Sergey Lavrov's poem by heart, I will quote a little to you later. So, but you said that the people should be trusted. I, in general, tend to think that sociology is, after all, a science and that researchers do not lie when they claim that 70% of Russian residents support the war in Ukraine. But these films, which you refer to, at least aesthetically, are infatuated with people who, most likely, support the war. Because, in the main, such films are made by Muscovites who have gone to some very poor province, where the main event after the collapse of the Soviet Union is that one person from the village perished in the sunken submarine Kursk – as it is in the film "164880". You see, I even learned the zip code of that place by heart, but forgot the name of the village. So, when I look at these people, who in peacetime are so wonderful, I think, to what extent are they connected to the war that is currently taking place?

Muratov: That is a very pointed and complex question. However, in philosophy, the question of the collective responsibility of the people has been discussed for more than one century.

RL: As, for example, in Jaspers' book "Die Schuldfrage" – about Nazi Germany.

Muratov: It is enough to read Herzen. It is enough to read Adam Mickiewicz, it is enough to read the last phrase in Pushkin's "Boris Godunov": "The people are silent, but next door they are murdering children," – isn't it? It is about the same thing.

RL: It is interesting that you mention only the Slavic part of civilisation.

Muratov: That I know a little better. But when you immediately refer to Nazi Germany, I want to remind you of Godwin's law. Do you know this law?

RL: No.

Muratov: The participant in a dispute who brings up the argument about Hitler automatically loses the argument. I propose using more complex arguments than Hitler and Goebbels. Do you agree with me?

RL: Yes, but I do not agree that we are having an argument.

Muratov: Well, let's agree that this is not an argument, but a discussion. So, what is the collective responsibility of the people? I would pose the question slightly differently. The elite, who should be dealing with education, enlightenment, who should give everything for the enlightenment of the people... This is a huge responsibility of the elite – first and foremost, the Russian elite – both to the people and to the whole world. Why did they start to hate democracy in Russia? Because what formed was not democracy, but the power of democrats. Why do people live in such poverty? Because first they took their property, and in return gave them supermarkets. The elite walks with legs spread wide for the reason that they are in nappies, they are pissing themselves from the authorities, pissing themselves from Putin. Did you see that Security Council meeting? When no one can even open their mouth to agree. So, this elite must be called to account before the people. This responsibility mainly stems from the fact that the elite has created propaganda radiation. The radiation enters everywhere, it starts with the TV channels run by Putin's closest associates, first and foremost Yury Kovalchuk, an old comrade from the Ozero cooperative era, in whose hands are REN TV, Channel One, and the rest of the propaganda machine. This channel explains to the people that the world has been conquered by aliens who live in the depths of the ocean. It is a kind of American QAnon. And then our government wonders why people aren't going to get vaccinated. Because Gates is chipping everyone. They irradiate the people around the clock from all screens with this radiation. With the money of those same people. But the most terrible thing in the elite's behaviour is that they first invented the propaganda, for example, war propaganda, and then believed in it themselves. In the language of psychologists and psychiatrists, this is called self-induction. They have overeaten their own propaganda and vomited it over the whole country. So, I am ready to talk about the responsibility of the elite! Regarding the responsibility of the people, let's rather talk like this: all the people? But the German people – also all? Bertolt Brecht too?

RL: Are you asking me?

Muratov: No, that is a rhetorical question. You mentioned sociological polls according to which 70% are for the war. But the Russian state services FOM and VCIOM conduct polls by telephone. Do you understand, Uldis? By telephone. They call a person and say: "Do you support Vladimir Putin's decision to conduct a special operation in Ukraine?" And the person understands: if they know his phone number, it means they know who he is and where he lives.

RL: But I am talking about the Levada Centre.

Muratov: But the Levada Centre has completely different numbers, sorry. In Levada's January poll – we printed a large study by Levada Centre scientific director Lev Gudkov – it was clearly written that here 70% of people are against the war. 70%! However, many are afraid to express an opinion. But there is another interesting figure. Here you, as a great European philosopher, please help me. Explain to me, Uldis: 70% are against the war, but the same 70% support Putin's actions as president. What is this? I have no answer to that.

RL: There was recently just such an article by Epstein – I apologise, it is not I who is invoking fascism – about so-called schizofascism.

Muratov: Do you mean the linguist Epstein?

RL: Mikhail Epstein. I don't know to what extent he is a linguist. And this article is dedicated precisely to the duality of consciousness, the split consciousness. But, as Alexander Moiseyevich Piatigorsky said: "One can only understand what one is prepared to understand." So, this is not prepared.

Muratov: Thank you. You answered my question.

RL: But I have one more question. You are also on that council, among other things...

Muratov: On the Public Council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

RL: Yes. When Isaac Babel was asked why he goes crawling to those high-ranking officials' wives, why he circulates in the echelons of power, what he is looking for there, he answered: "I want to understand what it smells of there." Tell me, do you consider yourself part of the Russian elite? After all, you are not the last person in Moscow.

Muratov: I hate the Russian elite until I feel sick. I am a professional journalist, and I have nothing to do with the elite, that is perfectly clear.

RL: So you narrow the concept of the elite to the ruling...

Muratov: Pinnacle. To the clique of power, that's exactly right.

RL: But statements like Bogomolov's in his infamous manifesto on the new ethics: we are rushing on this train of modernity, which is already approaching...

Muratov: Ah, you mean director Konstantin Bogomolov's publication in Novaya Gazeta?

RL: Absolutely correct. Is that a crude echoing of the elite, or what?

Muratov: Maybe let's start with the Public Council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Is it decent to be on the Public Council? Allow me to answer with an example, not with a judgment. Yesterday we published mind-boggling transcripts of tape recordings where they beat women, called them strumpets, promised to put cigarettes out on them because "Putin is with us" – that's what the policemen were yelling. And they beat them with plastic bottles. A million people have already watched it on the site alone. What opportunities does the Public Council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs offer? I immediately send a demand addressed to Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev...

RL: Yes, I saw it. The letter starts with "Dear Vladimir Alexandrovich..."

Muratov: Yes, no one has cancelled business etiquette. If I want contact, I write dear. And the investigation has already begun. When we had mass detentions at rallies and people were taken to police stations, I, at the request of that same public, drove around the outskirts and tried to release as many people as I could. The Public Council gives me such powers. Though they will soon end, and then I will no longer be able to be turned to for help. I myself will not leave from there. As long as there is an opportunity to enter a police station and help someone, as well as simply visit those detained who have been given 15-30 days, and bring them the newspaper, water, and rusks, I will continue to do so.

RL: That is an answer to the first part of the question.

Muratov: Now about Bogomolov. With Bogomolov's article, a huge, intense discussion began, in which significant Russian intellectuals, artists, writers, directors participated, starting with Zvyagintsev and Sokurov, ending with wonderful theatre workers, philosophers. I think it was extremely important. I don't think Mr Bogomolov would repeat his words "we have nothing to do in Europe", because Mr Bogomolov now, most definitely, has nothing to do in Europe anymore. I think the provocative nature of the discussion is a peculiarity of the genre. It is clear that I am not on Mr Bogomolov's side in this discussion, but he wrote a passionate manifesto.

RL: Dmitry, you have been in the editor-in-chief position for a long time. In your opinion, what were the decisive points due to which Putin began to slowly approach war with Ukraine? Perhaps you could look back on your 30 years of experience?

Muratov: Well, since I see no future, then indeed it only remains to look at the past. I hate quoting myself, but three or four years ago we were doing an interview with my good acquaintance Nikolai Solodnikov, the host of the YouTube channel Yeshenepozner, and I told him: "Nikolai, mark my words, soon we will be imprisoned here for inciting peace." Because it was visible that the propaganda was doing everything possible to stir up the people's resentment against strangers in every way. Patriotism turns out to be hatred towards others, not love for one's own country. That is a peculiarity of our patriotism. Strugatsky once wrote that the truth is what the king needs today, everything else is a crime. And, so, this mobilisation, the desire to prove to everyone that "we will do without you", the constant preaching of hatred on all channels was one of the causes why such insane militarisation broke out. Children in camouflage, flight caps, and with small machine guns. Militarisation effectively from kindergarten – all this caused terrible unrest. But the main cause is that the current government has abolished two things. In effect, courts have been abolished. You cannot file a complaint against the state. If your interests do not coincide with the state's interests, you will not win a single trial. Because the court is only a part of the state apparatus, not an independent branch of it. As a result, we are in a situation where everything that is beneficial to the king is the truth. You cannot prove anything anywhere. And the second thing is what started around the beginning of this century. That is the gradual destruction of free media – I won't say "independent", but "free", with their own internal editorial policy. It started with the destruction of NTV. Then the state completely took over Channel One. Irena Lesnevskaya was stripped of REN TV and it was turned into an obscurantist monster that constantly presses on the brain with its theories about American conspiracies against Russia. That has all reached a logical finale. In just the last month, maybe two, dozens of resources have either been closed, or declared foreign agents, or recognised as unreliable, or blocked. One must no longer write about anything! One must not write about space, about the army, about the war.

RL: Why must one not write about space?

Muratov: Because there is a special decision of the Federal Security Service. There are 60 points, of which about 10 are devoted specifically to the fact that one must not write about space. Simply must not. Because people sometimes smirk about it. People don't understand what a space robot, Fedor, needs legs for, because in space legs are not used, they actually get in the way there. So then Fedor went to space in a UAZ car. Well, I haven't seen UAZs in space, but maybe that's a future thing.

In a word, what must one not write about? If you write the word "war", you will be blocked. Telling people that fighting is taking place in Ukraine, you must not, because your duty is to reflect only the opinion of the Russian military leadership. We recently published an issue with white stripes because one must not write about anything. Absolutely wild censorship. You quoted a fragment from my speech in Oslo. What was it about? The destruction of mass media testifies to a lack of trust in the audience, in the people. We do not have a parliament. There are no parliamentary elections, the parliament is appointed. But the media had become a kind of parliament. They represented people who were not represented by deputies of either the upper or lower chambers. And now these media are being closed. It is a lack of trust in the public. That is what I wanted to say. The absence of courts, the impossibility of challenging the government's actions, unconditional censorship, and the closing of many media outlets – those are the reasons why there is nowhere to draw a different opinion from. There simply isn't. And I would like you to quote Piatigorsky once more.

RL: "One can only understand what one is prepared to understand."

Muratov: So! But who then can prepare that? If everything is switched off. That is back to the question of the collective responsibility of the people.

RL: Could you say what you yourself regret? Or do you feel that you could have done differently but did not? Of course, it is unlikely it would have influenced what is happening in Ukraine, but even so... How do you assess your private responsibility in the current situation?

Muratov: Padre, may I confess my sins?

RL: Come here, my... You don't have another option anyway. By the way, now I could quote that Sergey Lavrov poem.

Muratov: Listen, how peculiar your taste is!

RL: Yes, that's what I'm like, an admirer of everything beautiful. The poem is quite funny:

And to crucify, there's no doubt,
they can us, no question,
But as for resurrection,
somehow here it didn't pan out. (2)

I don't really understand what the verb sklalos' means, but never mind. The main thing is that there is no hope for resurrection, but that does not absolve one from personal responsibility for what is happening in the country, in the world, and so on.

Muratov: I will answer you briefly. There are my private actions for which I am ashamed. Definitely. They concern my personal life, relationships with people, and I feel the deepest pain and guilt for all those in our newspaper who were murdered. I have mentioned their names often, but I think it will not be superfluous to list them once again. The first was Igor Domnikov. An absolutely wonderful guy who could start an article like this: "I will tell you how from Turgenev girls, Nekrasov's women turn out. Namely, I will tell you about Siberian teachers."

RL: Beautiful.

Muratov: He was a genius. He was killed by bandits. For his series of investigations. The person who ordered the murder was even found, but the statute of limitations expired, and he was released in the courtroom. Soon he died, however. And resurrection is not in the cards for him either. I assume I could have protected Igor. Yury Shchekochikhin, my dear friend. An outstanding – as they used to say about him – journalist of the highest circles, a special correspondent for Literaturnaya Gazeta, then for many years my deputy, editor of the Investigative Department. He was poisoned. Nothing was left of his skin. He died within a few days in the same ward where, before that, banker Kivelidi had died, poisoned with heavy metals. It was a very high-profile crime, even his secretary, who had touched his telephone, perished, as well as FSB officers who were in his office, so strong was the poison. Then Anya Politkovskaya. She nevertheless rushed off to Chechnya, defying all orders, but I was on vacation in the meantime. Of course, I terribly berate myself for that. I will also mention Nastya Baburova and Stas Markelov. Natasha Estemirova, who was Anya Politkovskaya's main informant and Virgil in Chechnya. She was also killed, the killer has not been found.

But I am not ashamed of the newspaper even once. I am ashamed of myself, but of the newspaper – never. I failed to prevent the deaths of Anna Politkovskaya and Igor Domnikov. Perhaps I could have foreseen it and done something about it. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. And that is an eternal story. It cannot be forgotten. Among other things, because in that cheerful, long-legged editorial office where I have been lucky enough to work, in the round room where the editorial board gathers, their photographs hang right above the table. I see them several times a day. Now we have also opened an Anya Politkovskaya museum, it is excellently made, stunning. It is not a museum about how wonderful our Anna was with her slim neck, how she loved Akhmatova, how she wrote her thesis on Tsvetaeva, how beautiful she was and how well she cooked borscht. No. It is the so-called FBI wall. Who were the killers, how did we find them? How did the mastermind manage to dodge punishment? Who is Lomali Gaitukayev, relatively speaking. It is a wall with threads and so on. And there are Anya's things – her backpack, a book open to the page she was reading, her computer, unsorted letters, her glasses are there. You can always come there and watch her materials on the computer, films about her. None of us allows ourselves to forget what happened. A large part of my responsibility lies in that. But, speaking of the newspaper, I do not acknowledge any of its sins. A sinless newspaper.

RL: You know, I am of course an outsider, but when I see, for example, Venediktov in a photograph together with Putin, I feel disgusted even purely aesthetically. It seems that even the very involvement in a structure where you are fed some kind of information, where you have to get involved with scoundrels for the sake of work, excuse the expression, destroys a person.

Muratov: We can talk about this very briefly. I have heard many complaints against me, against Venediktov, but never against Echo Moskvy and Novaya Gazeta. It would be bad if it were the other way around. If there were no complaints against us with Venediktov, but there were against Echo Moskvy and Novaya Gazeta. But how we each manage, what we consider professional performance of duty, how we obtain information, how we try to protect our people, and it doesn't always work out... You know, the radio station Echo Moskvy has gone bust. For 32 years this absolutely powerful structure was built, which broadcast in various cities, in which outstanding announcers worked. Effectively the entire intellectual elite of the country, who were offered this platform. Thirty-two years! And suddenly three people – Savkov, Kostin and Golubeva, representatives of Gazprom-Media – with one vote, without inviting Venediktov, destroyed Echo Moskvy. So Lyosha did not protect it, so his editorial policy, not he himself, was so unacceptable to the government that they had to destroy this super-powerful radio, the most popular in the country, at least in Moscow in any case. Yes! There are complaints against Venediktov. But against Echo Moskvy – there are none. There are complaints against Muratov. But against Novaya Gazeta – there are none. And I consider that an achievement.

But who are we talking to? Yes, we have our own system of informants. Do we have to shoot because of that? No. We talk to whoever we want. When this turns into the censorship of Echo Moskvy or Novaya Gazeta, then protest. But for now, that is my business. I, for example, am now sitting and talking to you. I will go to Moscow, they will tell me there: "You, look, are talking to the main journalist from a NATO country. Our enemy of Russia." What will I answer? I will say: "Hands off Uldis! I talk to whoever I want, but to him especially."

RL: Dmitry, don't call me the main journalist. Otherwise, someone might hear. No, truly, I do not consider that I am engaged in investigative journalism. I have a different profile.

Muratov: Don't be modest, be so kind.

RL: But you highlighted one theme that would be worth discussing more broadly. You said: "So Venediktov did not protect it."

Muratov: Yes.

RL: And continued: "So Echo Moskvy said something that the government could no longer endure."

Muratov: Exactly!

RL: Then it turns out that, for your newspaper to be able to exist, you must perform, relatively speaking, censorship, because if you print what is forbidden, you will be liquidated. So you must choose compromise. I noticed that in your newspaper you announced in direct text: you will no longer publish anything about the war, because you have to write only what the official news channels allow.

Muratov: Aha, thank you for prompting.

RL: It turns out that you are publishing a newspaper that should keep its finger on the pulse of the state, but you cannot write about the main thing. That is some kind of Freudian situation, where, as the great Russian poet said, you have to step on the throat of your song.

Muratov: It's just that the song is very hoarse, but it continues.

RL: But already like Vysotsky.

Muratov: Yes. But read at least Elena Kostyuchenko's reports from the other side. How they hide the fallen soldiers here with us – have you read it?

RL: No, I haven't.

Muratov: But read it. There is that Saratov story about a soldier named Khabalov. I advise you. He was killed on 24 February, the message arrived for his mother on the 25th, on his very birthday. They dug a grave for him, but they didn't find the body. That grave, to which the parents go, is covered with cellophane. Whether Khabalov will be found or not is unknown. Therefore, let's look concretely.

Is it censorship if we don't write about the war? No. We refuse to publish only the official opinion. We refuse because we don't believe it. Can our newspaper's wonderful news department provide its own information about the fighting? No, it can't. Because in my bag I have a law according to which for the first time you get an administrative one, for the second – five years. Do you really want me, for someone's pleasure, even yours, Uldis, to send my people behind bars with these hands? Of course not! That is my responsibility. And we printed a disclaimer that we are forced to refuse some materials so that the newspaper can come out in the future. But we see that our readership is growing at wild speeds every day. So people understand the conditions in which we work, and I don't think we have much time left. But I have to continue because this concerns not only me and the newspaper, this concerns the overall system in the country. We deleted from the site a series of wonderful materials that our special correspondents had prepared, including on war topics. Although you might think, the law did come into effect on 4 March, but we deleted the February articles and a few other things. Why? Because here we have a unique legal innovation based on the concept of a "prolonged crime". Namely, the material is published before the introduction of the law, but because it is found on the internet, it is considered criminal from the moment of the law's adoption. Did I explain that understandably? Otherwise you are a philosopher, but I live in a practical world, I am a practising surgeon. And you – a theorising therapist.

RL: It is like an infinite present, an almost theological concept.

Muratov: So, and, to allow us to continue to tell what we can, we are forced to submit to real wartime censorship. To be able, firstly, to be sure that our children will not be put in prison. And, secondly, to continue to produce this publication. It is a compromise.

RL: I understand, yes. But, when you said that...

Muratov: Ah, no, you want... I know what you want! I know.

RL: You cannot know what I want.

Muratov: Your logic gives it away. You know, I really like Nikolai Robertovich Erdman's play "The Suicide". There, one woman asks a man who has decided to shoot himself to write in his suicide note that he shot himself because of her: it is very important to her to show it to her, so to speak, lover. But he says: "Why do you think I should write that in my suicide note?" She answers: "Well, how? You can only trust a dead intellectual." You are offering approximately such logic.

RL: Charming...

Muratov: Please, feel free to use it.

RL: But I want to return to sadder plots. When you say that you didn't manage to protect your fallen employees and feel guilt, I assume that it can also be an abstract guilt, because surely you couldn't, for example, stop Politkovskaya, who was rushing to Chechnya or who was going to Beslan.

Muratov: And who along the way they tried to poison, is that what we're talking about?

RL: Exactly. And who went to the Nord-Ost theatre. You couldn't stop her because she was that kind of person. By the way, in 2003 I was at your Novaya Gazeta editorial office and interviewed her. And she said: "We discuss a lot in the editorial office about how to tell these things so that people believe." That was the beginning of her answer to my question: "Tell me something about Chechnya so that I could truly immerse myself in this story." Because people die every day, but we don't particularly think about it, those are still numbers. But the war in Ukraine gives us scenes that should seem to act on our imagination. My question: in what language is it possible to talk about those horrors that are happening in Ukraine?

Muratov: If I may, two short parts. The main question that occupies me is this: through whose eyes should we look at the war? I cannot allow a professional publication to use information from anonymous Telegram channels. Because there is no information war, there is simply a war in which the subordinate forces of Russian television also participate. Special sabotage groups on Telegram. And on the Ukrainian side, the same story, because an information war is needed for mobilisation, inspiration, and for what else. It is closely connected with victory, but it is not connected with the truth about the war. But through whose eyes should one look at it? We decided that we would look only through the eyes of our special correspondents, because we trust them, these are people who have withstood more than one test. I will not name their surnames now, because some of them are working in combat zones and I don't want people to find out about them. Lena Kostyuchenko, one of the best European reporter journalists, can be trusted. Why? Because her level of empathy and courage, when she approaches an event closely, rather than reading about it and later retelling it, inspires trust. Lena brings every detail into close-up, makes every life ultimate and absolutely unique. During the first war in Ukraine, she made that famous interview for us with the known Buryat tanker, with whom she worked in the hospital, absolutely exposing the presence of our troops in Ukraine. She succeeded. And I believe that she will succeed now. Regarding other sources, our news department has checked them several times – by geolocation, by the quality of light in a photograph, by Face ID. That was huge work. Now, knowing that these people can be arrested, we unfortunately cannot put this work in the newspaper, but we are accumulating it. How to talk about the war and the fallen? You know – the way Lena Kostyuchenko talks. When she shows a button left over from a person. A person was created by God, but killed by a whim, a geopolitical whim.

RL: You just mentioned a word I wanted to discuss in our conversation: geopolitics. I agree: details are enough to understand what is happening in the war. However, they are not enough to understand what is happening at the level of states' geopolitical actions. There, a button will not be enough. It seems to me an important question, to what extent one is allowed to use generalisations and how to achieve such understanding that would be enough for a simple person. So, I consider myself a simple person and want to understand something. Because the most striking feeling that overcomes me at the moment is helplessness. An inability to understand what is happening. And here, among other things, the question arises: where is everything heading? Where are we heading? Again, quoting the film that was shown at Artdocfest. Or the film "This Rain Will Never Stop", which you called epic or tragic...

Muratov: Shakespearean-level tragedy, that's what I said.

RL: Yes. And it is wonderfully filmed, if talking about aesthetics... Although one of the most dangerous moments when talking about such things is making them aesthetically too attractive. Otherwise, it may turn out that death and war are sexy, but peace... How to tell about it? So, the story about the nice Syrian young man: Ukrainian mother, Syrian father, the family destroyed by war. It is a simple, very traditional family. They bury the child according to centuries-old traditions. But the film ends with a Pride in Berlin, which seems to be contrasted with the traditional life of a Syrian or Ukrainian. Here we have order, but here – some chaos, unmotivated revelry. I then read, pardon the expression, your Patriarch Kirill's words...

Muratov: I don't have such a patriarch.

RL: Yes, forgive me, please, not yours. But he said that this war is a metaphysical struggle between civilisations. And the yardstick that will determine to which civilisation you belong will be whether you allow a gay parade to be held in your country or you don't allow it.

Muratov: I do not consider your interpretation of the film "This Rain Will Never Stop" to be correct.

RL: Tell yours.

Muratov: Mine is this: it is a terrible tragedy of war. A man lived in his homeland, he had a wonderful brother, a manual therapist, they lived in a large family, they really had their traditional order. Now all that has been blown up and destroyed. He ends up in a foreign environment. And, yes, in this environment happens what he was not used to in Syria. But this environment, which holds prides, teaches him German and has accepted him into its country. So, that is what the finale is about, not about who won – gays the Syrians or Syrians the gays. You are looking in the wrong direction, you can be sure.

Now about geopolitics. Tolstoy had a saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Now, in my opinion, instead of "patriotism" one must write the word "geopolitics". It replaces the happiness of the people. Because it assumes that the people need to be given greatness, bypassing the stage of prosperity. It is a very complex story. That is why "we have risen, but we will bring the whole world to its knees". Approximately like that. How did it start? We do remember the beginnings of Vladimir Putin. Russia was ready to join NATO, in any case, negotiations were taking place. There was talk of democracy, of a global state, of cooperation with the West. In Brussels, they opened the Russia-NATO Council embassy. A large, full-fledged embassy. Everyone was friends with everyone, Russia was in the G20. But then important events started that led to what it led to. Putin completely and finally stopped believing in the West in August 2008, after the war with Georgia. Because President Bush told him: "Everything will be normal, there will be no war." But intelligence brought back conversations of a completely different nature with Saakashvili. At that moment, everything got jammed. Not long before that was the Munich speech. There, the thought already flashed that a unipolar world is impossible, but the entire second part was devoted to cooperation. However, they heard only the first. And then, in my opinion, Putin gained full conviction that talk about values is nothing, it is zero. Vitaly Mansky sneers when he is told about Putin and Western values, simply sneers. Because Putin bought for himself, the Russian state board of directors and companies standing close by, 16 first-class Western politicians – a couple of chancellors, some prime ministers, ministers, presidents – and sent them to earn several million a year, and they participate with pleasure. Putin does not believe in values, but knows their price. Therefore, excuse me, but some things that influenced Putin's policy were done by the West. If you consider that the West is white and fluffy, you are mistaken, that is not so. If you knew how many foreign ministers have turned to our editorial office! Because they had to account to voters that they had been in the newspaper that supposedly opposes the government. And immediately after that, they went to negotiations with Putin and Lavrov at Gazprom, to agree that, come on, you here reduce it a little, and then we here will close our eyes a little, as they said in the wonderful film "Election Day". Well, you closed them. What else do you want? He believes no one. And the gradual isolation from world processes has led to the concept of "Fortress Russia". It is a quite conspiracy-theory concept, which is set out in a book of the same name, there it is written that Russia can do without the West, but the West cannot do without Russia. That Russia has everything to develop independently. But what is needed for it not to be attacked? One needs nuclear weapons. Well, that's approximately how Putin's turn to geopolitics happened. Yes, he had such leanings. But from what started on 24 February, there is no way out anymore, it is irreversible and for all time. State relationships have been torn to shreds.

However, there is also another geopolitics, which is called friendship. It is very important to preserve relationships that stand above states. Like us with you – we are sitting and talking. Afterwards we will go have a drink. It is very important to preserve friends – in Ukraine, in Europe, in Riga. It is very important that a civil war does not break out between us. We are aware of the government's fault, we understand what we have brought upon ourselves. But we must understand: for future generations to be able to correct these terrible mistakes, we must preserve the friendship that stands above states and their politics. Look, the Munich Philharmonic is breaking its contract with conductor Gergiev, the Tretyakov Gallery is breaking its contract with, if I am not mistaken, the Netherlands. Huge things are stopping. But who are the visible cultural figures? They are a kind of embassy, and now these embassies are being closed, states' mutual relationships are falling apart at the cultural level. Films of young directors and their participation in festivals are being cancelled. Now they have cancelled the participation of Paralympians in the Olympics. But these people, the Paralympians, do not live long, in their lifetime there is usually only one Olympics. They have not been accused of doping or what have you. Was it really necessary to punish people without arms and legs, blind and deaf, and not allow them to compete under the Olympic Committee flag? Well, it wasn't necessary! Sanctions are the prerogative of states. But now a sanctions flash mob has started. One company leaves, another, a third. Today Estée Lauder, yesterday Danone, another 10 are preparing to leave, Netflix is gone. One can no longer stream films – I am very upset about that. But okay, that's still that. It has gone even as far as bone marrow transplantation. One must become adequate. One must understand that relationships between states have been severed for a long time, but bone marrow indeed needs to be delivered somehow! We in Russia in at least two places do the transplants ourselves for children with leukaemia. But the bone marrow banks are located in Germany. Do you know how long bone marrow lives?

RL: No!

Muratov: 12 hours. And that's it, it is no longer possible to deliver it for transplantation from Germany, because there is no such transport that could drive from clinic to clinic in 12 hours. Therefore, one needs to open corridors for medical aircraft. That is how it is. One must preserve human relationships, but let states sort out their relationships themselves.

RL: Very complex...

Muratov: What is complex there?

RL: No, I am about that it is difficult to follow the thought when you say "we". Sometimes the conversation is about both of us, but sometimes you say "we" about what states should do, and then also "we" sometimes are responsible for what is happening.

Muratov: But you did say: "my" patriarch.

RL: (Laughs.) And yet you expressed a quite interesting thought, although for now it is still quite superficial. Namely, you said that "we" need... I already started smiling when you proposed to have a drink later, and thought: that indeed is a good thought.

Muratov: And not so superficial at all.

RL: In my opinion, one of the Western values is individualism. I myself am an example of an extreme individualist and cannot stand anything collective. And yet, when you say that the way out is friendship above states, that seems superficial to me. But I agree that...

Muratov: And if also to drink with it!

RL: Then that is more significant, yes. When I talked to Anna Politkovskaya, she said about the Chechens in "Nord-Ost": "I know them personally. I know what they want." Namely, it is not about the state, it is about personal acquaintance with people who are ready to go to their deaths. And it is interesting that in the modern world, where everything seems global and only huge sums of money work, we both emphasise the ever-increasing role of the person. A terrible example, but terrorists are also often loners. How can one act contrary to what...

Muratov: Are states leading us?

RL: No, where we drive ourselves. I remembered the phrase of Schweik that it wouldn't be bad to meet in the "At the Cup" pub at six in the evening after the war. And that sounds like a popular solution in the current situation.

Muratov: I could sharply object to you, may I?

RL: That is even desirable.

Muratov: Over the last days, refugees are leaving Ukraine. There are more than one and a half million of them. It is a humanitarian catastrophe. And what is happening? Many of them are taken in by residents of Poland, Germany, they are taken in by Europeans, housed in their apartments, in their homes – that is what I was talking about earlier, that is indeed the friendship above states. When you give someone else your apartment, when you give someone else your towel and let into your bathroom a person who has been left with nothing. My acquaintance wrote yesterday: "Kharkiv no longer exists, my wife and I are living in a car, men are not being let out of Ukraine, I ask that one of you house the daughters, who are 9, 12 and 18 years old, and my wife." I passed that on to two acquaintances, and both – one in Germany, the other in Switzerland – said: "To us!" So, that is it.

RL: Tell me, Dmitry, why do the Russian elite and just people who have money nevertheless prefer to live in the West, send their children to be educated in Western universities? And please, don't consider this question unserious.

Muratov: Listen, we still recently lived in a quite global world, in which a person, having decided to get an education, could choose for themselves where to do it. I don't see a problem in the fact that many choose to study in Amsterdam or New York, Paris or Prague. Or in Polish design studios. Why restrict a person's opportunity for self-realisation? One wants to study at MGU, another at the Sorbonne. That is indeed good! Or is that bad? What kind of serfdom is that also in education?

RL: But those villas?

Muratov: You know, Baudrillard has long ago written everything about the sick psychology of consumption. The way our rich people measure themselves by the size of their yachts, of course, causes a fit of sarcasm. It seems Melnichenko, in whose mines accidents with human casualties are always happening, moored his yacht at a legendary World War II cruiser, namely, he negotiated that next to this relic and symbol would now stand his yacht. Well, and what did people in the world think about him after that? When it seemed that the yacht was longer than the cruiser. Now many are wailing: "Oh, we invested so profitably, earning there, but living here." Well, now you see, everything is finished. So excessive consumption – that is a disease.

RL: Yes. I already said, don't take this question as so insignificant. Yesterday, preparing for this conversation, I read the book "There Will Be No Third Millennium". Those are conversations with Mikhail Gefter, whom I respect very much. He wrote that... You did say that about Hitler one shouldn't...

Muratov: Yes, you will lose in the argument.

RL: But I didn't say that. He reasoned about different causes of the fascisation of Russia. One of them, as he considered, is attempts to become rich in too short a time for it to happen organically. That is why I thought that perhaps one shouldn't avoid the question of the consumer society... Although now it seems that if we talk about the consumer society, then I...

Muratov: We will immediately get into trouble, I agree.

RL: That is why perhaps we shouldn't. But I wanted to ask the last question, namely: Dmitry, what do you think, has the end of the world already arrived?

Muratov: May I start with what you said before? When...

RL: Just don't forget the question.

Muratov: I won't forget. Look, there are two things: firstly, here with us the majority of people are budget employees and perceive the president as their employer, it is high time to understand this phenomenon. And, secondly, this country, my country, has a gigantic 20th-century trauma. I will again refer to Mansky, to whom I explained today: in the 20th century the country lost approximately 100 million residents. World War I, World War II, the Holodomor, Stalin, terrible medicine, and so on. No nation has experienced such internal losses, therefore people gather around the state. But what about the state? The state with extreme cynicism uses words that pierce any armor of reason in a person. They use such terms as you just now – fascists, Nazis, denazification. And these words pierce reason. Because they are already connected at a genetic level with those losses. But under the windows, the Immortal Regiment is still marching. That is an important cause for addiction to such words and addiction to the state.

But Gefter stood as such an anti-Fukuyama. Perhaps you remember his work "The End of History", in which liberalism and capitalism have won all over the world and there is nowhere left to develop. As Alice in Wonderland said: "Under this table I can no longer grow." But it turned out that everything can collapse in an hour. Is there a chance to survive the third millennium? Small, but there is. In the world, there are 13,000 nuclear missiles. 13,000!

RL: I know, recently for some reason I looked at the statistics.

Muratov: I correspond here with a 2017 Nobel laureate, who created a nuclear weapons control organisation, we signed a joint appeal with her. Because we have started to be accustomed to the possibility of nuclear war and to the fact that nuclear war is such a thing – well, as they say, a mushroom will grow. I just said in the newspaper: let's find illustrations from Soviet textbooks, according to which we were taught the basics of military defence: how to properly cover your head, lie down in the direction of the explosion to save yourself, all this fluff. So, we are now being told approximately the same as in those books. Wrap yourself in a wet sheet and head towards the cemetery. That is what they are teaching us. Some of our politicians are already cupping in their hands like keys to a Maybach a red button that can be pressed in an emergency. Some of our experts quite seriously, appearing on propaganda channels, say: "Well, what? With a small nuclear charge. What then did you think, that we will go with tanks? No, we'll pelt them with missiles!" Showing all kinds of animations. But the most terrible thing is that these things truly exist. And I will be happy if I am mistaken, but it is very possible that in the very near future we will experience a unique test of some new bang of several megatons somewhere in the Novaya Zemlya area, so that all seismic stations there would shudder and collapse. And seismologists in their headphones would lose their hearing. Those indeed are not jokes. Vladimir Putin said if sanctions, with which they want to destroy Russia, are war, then we will find an answer to this war. But what will be the answer? I don't think you keep money in the Sberbank of the Russian Federation, it is unlikely he will be able to impose sanctions on you and take your euros. So how else can he answer? As our lot here, how do they, politicians love to express themselves with serious faces, as if they knew everything, the answer will be "asymmetric". What does that mean? And what does Vladimir Putin's phrase "our answer will be such as you have not yet experienced in your country's history" mean? And what is hidden behind the words of your favourite poet, which you quoted? When he says that the third world war will be a nuclear war? Now you understand what his poem is about, in which there will be no resurrection? Why? Because ash does not revive. Now do you understand? Very good. So, this is an important, very important, grandiose threat. Human relationships need to be preserved, but what to do with people in whose hands are these buttons? Once we were sitting with Gorbachev, even before he...

RL: Oh! How I like such introductions: "Once we were with Bill Clinton..."

Muratov: He is my friend! Not Clinton. Gorbachev is my friend and a Novaya Gazeta shareholder, so you know. We also have economic relationships, he owns 10% of the shares. We have been friends since 1990. So, we were sitting with Gorbachev and Lyosha Venediktov in a restaurant near Moscow. We poured cold vodka, the first glass, but he, Gorbachev, has such a huge tractor-driver's paw...

RL: Yes, I saw that paw in Mansky's film.

Muratov: Yes. And he says: "Wait. Put the glasses down. First I will read you my UN speech!" We say: "Well what are you doing, Mikhail Sergeyevich, what other UN speech? First let's drink, and afterwards the UN speech." He says: "Glasses down!" Well, we put the glasses down with Venediktov, he took his briefcase, took out a thick stack of paper from it. The sadness that overcame us was unbearable. He turned the page, there was written: "Gorbachev's UN speech." He pushed the paper closer to himself and read: "Ban war!" That's all, – he says, – speech over, let's drink. Not a bad story. Not bad at all.

RL: And in conclusion I wanted to express one more comment, so to speak, as a friend.

Muratov: That is, between us?

RL: Well, yes.

Muratov: Interesting, what you consider intimate in that case.

RL: (Laughs.) You cannot even imagine.

Muratov: I just imagined.

RL: Yes! Because the question which I asked you, about the end of the world, one Tibetan teacher asked his students, whom he had not met for a long time. He asked: "What is new they are saying about the end of the world?" One answered: "You know, we will have to wait a little, because I have heard nothing new." The second said: "I haven't either. But I think that if something interesting about it had been said, it would no longer have any sense to happen – a waste of time." But the third said: "The end of the world? But it arrived yesterday, at the very moment when I finished dinner." And the punchline of this whole story, as it seems to me, is that, if we have already talked about it interestingly, then there is no longer any sense to repeat it, so to speak, at a physical level.
1. Already the day after the foreword was written, the operation of Novaya Gazeta was suspended. (Ed. note.)
2. And to crucify us, without a doubt, / they can, what are you talking about, / but, as for resurrection, / then there it somehow no longer works out. (Paraphrase)
Article first published in the April 2022 issue of the magazine Rigas Laiks