Putin is listening: Site leaks tape of key opponent’s rants

THE broadcast of private phone calls from an opposition leader laced with invective about colleagues is being taken as a sign that prime minister Vladimir Putin is increasingly worried by recent mass protests.

The recordings appear to be aimed at sowing discord within a fragmented opposition, which this month united in demonstrations against Mr Putin following a disputed parliamentary election which returned his United Russia party to power with a much-reduced majority.

The www.lifenews.ru website, said to be part-owned by Mr Putin’s ally Yuri Kovalchuk, has published 36 recordings of conversations between opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and other protest movement leaders.

“She is a f****r but what the hell can I do about it? She doesn’t f***ing listen,” one recording purports to show Mr Nemtsov saying of Yevgeniya Chirikova, a 35-year-old campaigner involved in the mass protests.

“You are a f***ing great Russian writer for f***’s sake. Can you call that Chirikova and tell that bitch that you are insulting Nemtsov by accusing him of working for money. That bloody beast,” Mr Nemtsov said.

In other comments, he derided supporters he was trying to rally as “office plankton” who had never seen a riot policeman in their lives.

Mr Nemtsov, a former minister once tipped as possible Kremlin leader during the rule of Boris Yeltsin, yesterday said the recordings had been heavily edited and partly made up in a bid by Mr Putin’s supporters to divide the opposition.

He said: “Parts of the recordings are genuine, part are heavily edited and parts are simply fake and falsified.”

Mr Nemtsov said the publication was an attempt by Mr Putin and Kremlin acting chief of staff Vladislav Surkov to undermine a day of mass protests planned across Russia on Christmas Eve.

“The aim of Putin and Surkov is to prevent a mass meeting this Saturday and split the opposition,” he said. “They will not succeed: it will have the opposite effect and more people will come out.”

A spokesman for Mr Kovalchuk’s Bank Rossiya refused to say if there were any links between him and Lifenews, requesting written questions.

Lifenews said it did not know of any links with Mr Kovalchuk, who is reputedly a billionaire in dollar terms. Mr Nemtsov said he had offered his apologies to Ms Chirikova but said the publication of his comments contravened his rights. He said he was consulting lawyers with a view to opening a criminal case.

In Russia, only state security services or their commercial cousins have the resources to carry out such extensive “phone hacking” so the recordings may also indicate the continuing role of the secret police.

They often meddle in Moscow politics, even coining the term “kompromat”, for compromising material used for blackmail.

While Mr Putin was head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 1999, the security services were suspected of having a hand in the airing of a video purporting to show Russia’s top prosecutor in bed with two women.

“We were taught at school that it is disgusting to listen to other’s telephone conversations,” Ms Chirikova said yesterday. “I see this as a set-up by the FSB and the party of swindlers and thieves who are using our taxes to do everything possible to thrust themselves into the private life of an individual.”

Lifenews, which has delivered scoops such as the 24 January suicide bombing at Russia’s biggest airport – Domodedovo, which serves Moscow – by building close contacts with the law enforcement agencies, refused to disclose the source of the recordings.