November 1, 2025 • 34 mins
In this bonus episode, Stephen talks to Andrew Ryvkin, a Russian-American who says that he used to work as a Russian propagandist.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, this is Stephen Devinchenzi. Today we have a very
special bonus episode. I'm talking to Andrew Rivkin. Andrew is
a Russian American who, in his own words, used to
work as a Russian propagandist. This episode was quite long,
so I've cut it into two. In this first part,
(00:23):
we talk about Andrew's time working at a Russian magazine
for the ultra Rich, his time working on a political
TV show in which he was directly given orders from
the Russian government, and when he left that show and
was beaten up in the street by other propagandists for
President Putin. In the second part, we focus more on
(00:46):
how Russian propaganda works, why it is different to media
in other countries, how Andrew sees Russian propaganda adapting and
being effective the war in Ukraine, and why Andrew thinks.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
That Russia will lose the war.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I am really excited to bring you this interview because
Andrew is in such a unique position. It is very
rare for people to have worked in Russian propaganda to
be able to talk about it afterwards, and even more
rare for them to have English as a native language.
And something else excellent about this interview is that Andrew
(01:24):
has been kind enough to say that he is happy
to answer your questions in another episode later on. So
while you are listening, if a question comes to you
that you would like to ask Andrew, send it to
me in an email to podcast atenseven dot org, or
if you aren't listening on an app that supports comments,
(01:46):
like Spotify or cast box, then you can write your
question for Andrew there. Sen seven is completely free, but
is supported by our wonderful send seven supporters, who have
access to all of our trans scripts, including this one,
and also vocabulary lists, weekly worksheets, and a weekly world
news quiz. You can become a supporter at send seven
(02:10):
dot org. Part two of this episode will be released
next Saturday. Now Here is Andrew Rifkin. I'm joined by
Andrew Rifkin. Andrew, thank you for joining me, Thanks for
having me. Before we start talking about your time in
the Russian media world, maybe you can give a little
(02:34):
bit of background about your life, including about how you
are both American and Russian.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Of course, so I was born in the eighties in
a witness defall of the Soviet Union, but before I
went to school, So just as a very little kid
but I got to see all the quote unquote wonderful
stuff that was happening, so teap shelves and store supermarkets,
et cetera. And like many right after the Iron Curtain
(03:08):
crumbled the Soviet Union fell. Like many Soviet Jewish families,
we lived in Leningrad later Saint Petersburg, we decided to,
you know, seek a better life overseas, like you know,
many people did. So we moved to the United States,
to Boston. I was ten and that's I went to
(03:30):
school there. So grade school, everything, high school, lived there,
I want to say, ten twelve years something like that,
and then I made the very interesting choice to actually
go back to Russia, which was a brand new country,
Like it was entirely it was a different country.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Here was you.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I came to RUSSI in two thousand and two, So
you were maybe two thousand and three something like that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, yeah, I was twenty son nineteen or twenty something
like that. I would have to look closer. It was
a while ago. So I came back and I enrolled,
came back to Saint Petersburg. It was a you know,
capitalist wild West, wild East heaven, very dangerous place, very
(04:20):
fascinating place, lots of like new bars and social norms
and parties, and it was generally so much more exciting
than the Boston suburb in Massachusetts where I lived, because
that place we used to hang out on parking lots.
I mean, it was the American Northeast, so very civilized.
(04:41):
Harvard was nearby everything. But as an immigrant, Boston is
not the most welcoming city, although I love it with
all my heart, and I kind of felt like, you know,
the poll of the Empire, so to speak. I enrolled
in Saint Petersburg State University, which is Putin's alma mater.
It's known for producing such greats as Vladimir Lenin in
(05:01):
Rand and Vladimir Putin with a bunch of physicists and
like Nobel laureates and stuff, but it does produce a
lot of political extremists on all specters left right, modern
Russian ultra right. And I studied there. I studied history
for bachelor's international relations for master's degree, and that's afterwards,
(05:28):
so I started working for Crumlin Media al Rading University.
But afterwards I did spend some time in Russia, and
then I kind of lived between Russia and America. I
still consider myself to be a product of both. You know,
I would have to When I lived in Russia, I
had American cereal, which is breakfast cereal delivered to me
(05:48):
via eBay, where I bought it for like fifty dollars
a box. But like, I just had to have it,
and I would try to download American let's say, not illegally,
I would try to download American TV shows and like
watch Seinfeld and stuff like that, because we didn't have
it in Russia back then. So I consider myself a
child like very much two of these cultures. But my
(06:12):
formative years were spent in the US and that kind
of did shape me. But twenties and later on, of
course Russia, this new Russia, and I got to witness
the oil boom and this period that is considered the
most stable in free period in Russia. Early putin money, oil, restaurants,
(06:33):
and this opening to the world. How Russia opened to
the world, not with the face of poverty, but with
the face of you know, we're rich now, we want
to be civilized, we want contemporary art, we want, you know,
to have this interaction with the West. And then of course,
I witnessed the descent, Russia's descent into I would say fascism.
(06:58):
Probably you could classify it as now into this new
imperialist mindset.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Okay, well, before we get get this, you you mentioned
there like after you finished university, or maybe while you
were still at university, that was when you started to
work for, in your words, the Kremlin's propaganda machine.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
In my.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Funny thing about Russian propaganda, first and foremost, I came
into that world, into the world of Russian propaganda, not
because I was into politics. I was, but still I
came into that world from the world of marketing. I
was a brand manager for a brand of wine and
(07:52):
some champagne in Saint Petersburg, and I used to go
around night clubs. I would create parties. I would, you know,
promote that wine everything. I would like, you know, sponsor raves,
things like that. I was good at that, and I
created advertising campaigns for that. Like my sales were through
the roof. And a friend who was head of the
(08:15):
company where I worked, he recommended me to this man.
His name is Konstantine Rukov, and that man is considered
the godfather of modern Russian digital propaganda. Of Internet propaganda,
I would say godfather, if not just Russian, pretty much everywhere.
He truly had very evil but a visionary nonetheless very
(08:36):
keen understanding of how the media works. And when I
was in my junior year, so for those of us
not from the United States, third year of college. In
my junior year, he did invite me to Moscow. We
had a breakfast. It was sushi and vodka.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
She's very traumatizing but interesting. And he said, I'm launching
a magazine, a glossy lifestyle magazine Lake GQ, like Vogue,
and it's going to be aimed at the richest of
the rich Russians. And I want you to head it's
(09:17):
Saint Petersburg Bureau. You're going to produce it, You're going
to be the chief of the editorial and in Saint
Petersburg co publisher. So you're going to handle that magazine there.
Would you like that? And I said, yes, of course,
because I was always drawn to that, you know, world
of glamour. I not anymore, but back then definitely. So
(09:40):
it's my junior year in college, third year, and what
my job, you know, I described my job. The magazine
was very interesting in the sense that it mixed a
classic lifestyle magazine for the ultra rich. And I'm talking
like by the Mercedes for only half a million dollars.
(10:03):
This new jewelry came out very exclusive, only two pieces
in Moscow. You would have this really like targeting the
multi millionaires because Russia was getting all that oil money
because American vadad Raq, so it was very invader raq.
Russia gets money, I get a job. But in this
(10:26):
magazine you would have interviews with the Russian with the
top minds of Russian ideology, of Russia's imperialist ideology. It
would have articles on Putin. It would have think pieces
that would say the West doesn't want a strong Russia.
(10:46):
It would have interviews with I don't know, people like
Alexander Dugan, who's considered the father of modern Russian fascism,
one of the people whose teachings have very much influenced
Vladimir Putin. And all of it would be meat packaged
into this lifestyle magazine. So and the interesting thing about
(11:07):
it was if you were not rich, you wouldn't even
know that this magazine existed. You couldn't buy it anywhere.
It would only be distributed in the most exclusive restaurants
in the most exclusive hotels, private jet terminals, et cetera,
et cetera. And it was one of these very interesting
(11:28):
concepts that Ruka my boss had, where the Krumblin messaging
towards the rich was going to reach them specifically through
this medium because they all read glossy magazines about you know.
It would have interviews with Western pop stars and movie stars.
It would have reviews of hotels like, oh, this boutique
(11:50):
hotel in Switzerland, you have to visit it. It would
have all of that plus ideology. So that's essentially what
I was doing at the age of twenty three or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Was the Kremlin ideology in there because your boss wanted
it to be alone? Or was it because the Kremlin
wanted it to be there? How did that message get
pushed along like that?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
My boss was open to having this Kremlin ideology there
because at the time he was already working with the Kreumblin.
So Russian propaganda is unique in the sense that most
of it, you would you see Russian propaganda and you
(12:38):
think it's TV hosting, let's drown America, let's bomb this,
and guess it's that, But so much of it is
a public private enterprise. And Rikov he had a for
profit magazine, he made money off of that magazine, and
he wanted to do a lifestyle magazine. It's just that
(12:59):
he integrated Crumblin's messaging into it. And I don't know,
but I'm very much sure that he got paid in
through some various channels by the Kremlin for that, not
of course, not officially. Nothing was ever official. You would
get a contract of a subcontract, of a subcontract, something
(13:21):
like that, but you would in the end have the money.
So the Krumblin was interested in it as an outlet,
and he was interested in the Krumblin as a client.
But also, of course he was very much a pro
putin guy still is. So it was a mix of both.
He would make the money, the Kremlin would reach the
(13:41):
target audience that it was looking for.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So maybe if he wanted to make this magazine without
the Kremlin messaging, it would have been possible, but it
just wouldn't have made that much money, or it wouldn't
have had the funding from the Kremlin in that way,
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I'm yes.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Plus also I think it would not have had the
the guests and the people who would give their interviews,
and because it was a lot of very serious people,
people in power, people who would otherwise probably not talk
to just a random magazine. It was like chief correspondence
(14:25):
for newspapers for Russia's key newspapers that would travel with
Putin who were in the presidential press pool, and they
would talk about their jobs. These people, they wouldn't really
go to any magazine, so you would need some reputation
and some credentials as that you are part of the system,
(14:46):
so they would talk to you. But definitely he could
do it on his own. It wouldn't be as well funded,
it wouldn't have these people talking to it.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, and then you moved to a TV show, right.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yes, So a little later, a little later, another friend
of mine, it was actually in Spain. So I was
in Spain, not far from where you are. I was
in Spain and I met an official from the Krumlin
there at like a friendly dinner on some vila, and
(15:26):
that official was launching That was I think two thousand
and eight. That official was launching a TV show and
he was very much interested in a talk show, a
national talk show on a federal channel that would go
all across Russia obviously, so not local, big, big budget everything.
(15:50):
And his concept was, we need the kind of TV
show that would a TV show for the people who
don't really watch TV. TV is boring, and TVs for
old people and TVs outdated. So even back then they
kind of felt this, and this was the two thousands,
(16:10):
this was before YouTube. Well YouTube appeared, but it wasn't
massive back then, and they kind of felt that, you know,
to get a younger audience, to get a more well
off audience, middle class, smart educated people. It's very hard
to deal with television. Mostly in Russia at that time.
(16:33):
You would have fun TV shows, serials whatever on television
and movies, but when it came to politics, only old
people would watch that and just watch it and get angry.
You wouldn't have younger people. And the idea was, we'll
create a show that has opposing points of view. It
was based in part in like French TV shows where
(16:55):
very big studio you would have different people, you know,
a left person of left leaning views, right leaning center.
But the idea was this is financed by the Kremlin,
this is made according to the Kremlin's agenda. Every week,
the Kremlin would set its agenda and it would say, Okay,
this week we're covering pensions, or we're covering relations with Moldova,
(17:20):
say for instance, and every TV channel, every show, newspaper
that was loyal to the Kremlin in part funded by it,
it would cover it in a certain way in their
own style. And the TV show style was you would
have people very much opposing the Kremlins point of view.
But my task was to co produce the show to
(17:45):
alter its format to make it better through you know,
you shoot one TV show pilot, something's not working, something,
you fix it like you you know, you modify it
to better fit TV. And it was of course to
write every episode. And what we did was you would
get this Kremlin idea pensions, we want to raise the
(18:07):
pensions or we want to lower them. And I would
get this Kremlin brief, and I would rate three points
of view, a left cleaning point of view, centrist, right
leaning of cour It's based on Russian policy, so it's
not like European left or American left. It's based on
the Russian political spectrum. And then we would look for
(18:30):
people with the experts. They could be members of parliament,
they could be media persons, even actors if needed, with
these points of view, who adhere to these points of view,
And then we would find an ordinary Russian citizen, say
a factory worker who's about to retire, and you know,
the question of pensions matters to him very much, so
(18:53):
what does he do? So essentially it was these experts,
a lot of them working for the government, would try
to defend their position to this or Russian citizen. At
some point we got rid of the idea of an
ordinary Russian citizen. By that time I left the show
because it was proving to be a little opposition minded
(19:13):
a lot of Russian citizens. They weren't exactly in line
with the Kremlin, but that was the general idea. And
of course, no matter the debates, it was still the
Kremlin always won. Its position was always that of the
house always won. Like in a casino. In a casino,
(19:34):
you can play, you can win, but the casino wins
really always, and that was the same thing there.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So you had somebody from the left, somebody from the right,
somebody from the center, but you had what somebody else
giving the Kremlin's view or was it one of those
three would be shown to be the correct one. But
it is the same as the Kremlin thought or somebody else.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
One of those three would more often than not be
the correct one, and the host would sort of massage
this position into sort of persuading that this was the
more correct version, and it would often be positioned as
the left say and the right would. They would say
some reasonable things, but more often than not they would
(20:20):
be not fringes, but almost fringes. They would be they
would be saying things that most people in Russia wouldn't
agree with, probably, and the centrist the idea was to
make the Kremlin sound rational, to make it wasn't specifically
said that, oh, well, and this is the Kremlin's point
of view. No, it wasn't said like that, even if
(20:41):
we had Kremlin officials. Nothing was direct, but it was
still the idea, well, well, this person is just more rational,
this person is just like and the host would sort
of agree with that person more. Now that again was
when I was working. At some point this of course,
this was proven to be the Krumlin got a little
(21:03):
paranoid and towards the end of the two thousands early
twenty tents, and they said, you know what we need,
We need to push our agenda without these like opposing views,
and the show lost its ratings and it went off air.
I exited the show before that, but the reason why
(21:24):
it stayed on air was this image of a debate,
and that was a very hard thing to do. You
have to create an image of a debate. And that
was like the entire policy, the entire domestic policy, because
it was all handled by the presidential administration.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Kind of like professional wrestling where they have everything scripted
and everybody knows who's going to win in the end,
but it looks like a dramatic fight.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yes, yes, and the hits look real. And it was.
It was theater. It was political theater, but very carefully age.
The amount of effort and money that went into it
was rather staggering at times. Nothing like what it is now,
and I would say nothing like what it is now
(22:12):
even in America, where also, you know, the state acts
very strongly in Russia. Back then it was the state
try to act in a very sophisticated and cunning ways
to reach its goals through a program like this, through
a magazine that would affect the rich people, that would
(22:32):
reach them. So you would have this very insidious kind
of way to influence people as they wouldn't even know
that something's influencing them.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Did you did you know at the time when you
were working in the magazine and in the TV show,
did you already feel like you were working for propaganda
or was there a specific moment wherever it clicked for
you that you were working in this propaganda machine.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
So when I worked at the magazine, I did not
really feel that I was working for the propaganda. This
is not this is not to say that, oh, I'm innocent,
but it just did not really feel like it because
I would say eighty five percent of the stuff I
(23:26):
did was restaurants, parties, the new Mercedes Benz, things like that,
and what these interviews that came with Premlin people or
like Kremlin linked people they came in from Moscow. I
didn't really handle that. They just were there sort of,
(23:48):
and to me, I was much more focused on the
glamorous side of things and not on the Cremlin side
of things. But then with the TV show, so I
completely understood what was going on because it literally started
with a Krumblin official, with a meeting with a Krumblin official.
(24:08):
He was well, in Russia, we measure everything. Power is
measured in handshakes. How many handshakes are you away from Putin?
It's not people, it's how many handshakes. So you shook
the hand of someone who knows someone who worked for Putin,
which was my situation. My boss worked for a man
who worked directly for Putin, his chief ideologs. So it
(24:32):
was two handshakes.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Oh, so just two handshakes away from Putin's.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yes, even though obviously it's not as if I did
not hold any high position or anything like that. Obviously
these people were you know, they were state officials and
they were very powerful in the world of propaganda. But
it was a very direct not a direct line to Putin,
but it was in proximity. So not with the magazine,
(25:00):
but with the TV show, it was very much in proximity.
It was an important show for the Kremlin.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, and you said that towards the end of the
time that you were on that show, they started to
give you even more specific and direct instructions to target
the opposition or to follow the Kremlins line even more specifically.
(25:29):
And you say that that's when you left. Was that
part of the decision as to why you left?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Definitely, definitely, because prior to that I could explain to myself.
I could rationalize, well, there's still a debate. I agreed
with some talking points, because again this was before CRIMEA,
this was before this was during and after the war
(25:57):
in Georgia, which I then disregarded. Sadly, I view it
differently now, but I could justify some viewpoints. They were
not extreme. Really, even now I don't consider them extreme.
As someone who studied politics, you can't say they were
like fringe. But they were part of an agenda. But
(26:17):
then the Kremlin did start, it became more paranoid. Like
I said, it said, you know what, we don't want
the debate style. We want it more direct style. We
want three people who more or less agree on one thing.
We don't want this ordinary citizen to be there. We
don't want to take these risks, and we have this opposition.
(26:41):
Navolney wasn't big back then, but still it had. There
was Gary Kasparov, who's now, you know, an intellectual here
in the United States, obviously a symbol of freedom fighter
from Russia exiled.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Exactly, also a colleague of views at the Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yes, that's right, that's right, and you would start and
it was very it was very sudden. So television goes
by seasons. As we all know, you end, you start
in September, roughly you end in May. Nothing comes out
in the summer. TV shows are like that, most news
(27:20):
talk shows are like that, comedy shows and one season
ended and they kind of saw the ratings weren't amazing,
but Kreumlin mostly got paranoid and we're hirding you director,
and that director was like it needs to be. That
director was very much a propagandist in the sense that
it was can I swear on this podcast? Can I
(27:43):
say the word shit or not?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Please do?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Okay, okay, okay, So I just clarify it so that
the Krumlin hirting you director for us, you know, suggested
and we heard him. And that director's concept was the
first thing the audience has to do when they turn
on the television is they have to shit themselves. They
have to be bombarded with so much emotional overload, like
(28:10):
this is happening, and this is happening, and everything is
going to hell and what are we going to do
about this as opposed to the more moderate messaging we
had before, and that so you could see that emotionally
it became much more charged the tone of the program itself,
(28:31):
not the arguments, and then you could see that we
would get directions, oh, bash this guy and bash that guy.
And very soon afterwards, just very early in the start
of a season, I exited through a public spat, very
you know, I said, well, you guys are very much
Kremlin shows like I can't do this, even though I
(28:53):
understood it was propaganda, but just not this level of propaganda.
And yes, and I exited the show.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I quit.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
So that was the breaking point, you could say.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
I read in your Atlantic article that a couple of
years after you left that show you were attacked by
a couple of men who worked on that show. I
think or were related to that show in some way.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Is that right? Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yes, that's right. So a couple of years later, I
was working as a GIKI Russia chief political correspondent. I
transitioned to journalism and I try to sort of explain
this system to the Russian people, the system where I
worked at. It's still what I do is I try
to explain because I was inside the system. I try
(29:46):
to explain how it thinks and what it does, and
it was on the date right after the twenty twelve
presidential election when Putin won his third unconstitutional term as president.
And on the day after, I was invited to an
interview at the Brussia's biggest press agency, inter Interfacts Russia.
(30:11):
They invited me to like GQ got a call and
it was like, we're inviting Andrew to speak well, Andrey,
my Russian name is Sunday. And I went and near that.
It's about half a mile from the Krumlin something like that.
And when I came to the agency, just add its doors,
I was met by two men. One of them worked
(30:33):
at the show and the other one was a trustee
of Vladimir Putin. And what this means is for his election,
Putin picked five hundred people very loyal to him from
each industry. So they were factory workers, actors, directors, people
and the media people, doctors, everything to sort of create
(30:56):
the solution of popular support. Even though he was popularly supported,
it wasn't like he was an entirely unpopular president in
twenty twelve. He created this and this was one of
those also one of those people he passed away recently,
and they assaulted me and they started beating me right
(31:17):
on the street for well, for saying bad things about them,
for you know, and for my political position. And they
clearly waited for the election to happen, to not do
it before. And it was very scandalous because I was
still a GQ correspondent and you know, these people were
(31:37):
like really a trustee of Putin. It wasn't They weren't thugs,
which I guess is a mark of honor of some
respect to me that they didn't hire someone to beat
me up but did it them. But still it was
two on one and when the police came, because police
was everywhere in Moscow obviously elections, they were afraid of
protests and riots. And the police police came thirty seconds
(32:02):
after they started beating me, and they were like, what
the hell are you guys doing, and they were about
to arrest them, when the two people who were beating
me showed them government documents and government ideas and credentials
which were so powerful that the police looked at them
and they said, could you at least do it not
in the street, could you go to some yard, like
(32:25):
we're not going to stop you. It just looks really bad.
This is Moscow's It was on Moscow's basically fifth Avenue,
on the main street of Moscow near the Kremlin, and
the police were so afraid of these people. They saw
what it says like the official Vladimir Putin trustee fromt
whatever that they were just please don't beat them outside
(32:48):
on the street, just do it somewhere else. And that
was very Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And was the reason that they were beating you up?
Was it because you left that show or was it
because if they you'd said, since you left that show,
you know, in the run up to the election or something.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I think it was both. I think it was me
having left the show, which was bad. But then that
when I transitioned to journalism and to explaining to people
how propaganda works, that was I became like a trader,
a rat to them. And that is the worst that
you could be in Russia. You can leave the power,
(33:29):
you can leave propaganda, you can leave the Krumblin. For
the most part, you can. You can do that, but
God forbid you you cross the line and you start
working for other people, which is what I did. For
the opposing force essentially for and any independent media is
the opposing force to the Krumblin. They are any independent media,
(33:53):
any people telling the truth are the enemies of the Krumblin.
So when I started doing that, and I started I
didn't have any state secrets. Obviously, I was doing like
TV shows and magazines. I wasn't working for the KGB
or I wasn't a nuclear physicist or anything like that.
But the idea that I was loyal to them and
(34:13):
now I wasn't that was to them. It was too much.
So it was a combination of me being a trader
and me hurting them because my articles would be popular,
the things I wrote, they would get some traction, even
in the West, and again they couldn't tolerate that, and
that was sort of that was sort of the message
(34:35):
that they wanted to send
Hi, this is Stephen Devinchenzi. Today we have a very
special bonus episode. I'm talking to Andrew Rivkin. Andrew is
a Russian American who, in his own words, used to
work as a Russian propagandist. This episode was quite long,
so I've cut it into two. In this first part,
(00:23):
we talk about Andrew's time working at a Russian magazine
for the ultra Rich, his time working on a political
TV show in which he was directly given orders from
the Russian government, and when he left that show and
was beaten up in the street by other propagandists for
President Putin. In the second part, we focus more on
(00:46):
how Russian propaganda works, why it is different to media
in other countries, how Andrew sees Russian propaganda adapting and
being effective the war in Ukraine, and why Andrew thinks.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
That Russia will lose the war.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I am really excited to bring you this interview because
Andrew is in such a unique position. It is very
rare for people to have worked in Russian propaganda to
be able to talk about it afterwards, and even more
rare for them to have English as a native language.
And something else excellent about this interview is that Andrew
(01:24):
has been kind enough to say that he is happy
to answer your questions in another episode later on. So
while you are listening, if a question comes to you
that you would like to ask Andrew, send it to
me in an email to podcast atenseven dot org, or
if you aren't listening on an app that supports comments,
(01:46):
like Spotify or cast box, then you can write your
question for Andrew there. Sen seven is completely free, but
is supported by our wonderful send seven supporters, who have
access to all of our trans scripts, including this one,
and also vocabulary lists, weekly worksheets, and a weekly world
news quiz. You can become a supporter at send seven
(02:10):
dot org. Part two of this episode will be released
next Saturday. Now Here is Andrew Rifkin. I'm joined by
Andrew Rifkin. Andrew, thank you for joining me, Thanks for
having me. Before we start talking about your time in
the Russian media world, maybe you can give a little
(02:34):
bit of background about your life, including about how you
are both American and Russian.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Of course, so I was born in the eighties in
a witness defall of the Soviet Union, but before I
went to school, So just as a very little kid
but I got to see all the quote unquote wonderful
stuff that was happening, so teap shelves and store supermarkets,
et cetera. And like many right after the Iron Curtain
(03:08):
crumbled the Soviet Union fell. Like many Soviet Jewish families,
we lived in Leningrad later Saint Petersburg, we decided to,
you know, seek a better life overseas, like you know,
many people did. So we moved to the United States,
to Boston. I was ten and that's I went to
(03:30):
school there. So grade school, everything, high school, lived there,
I want to say, ten twelve years something like that,
and then I made the very interesting choice to actually
go back to Russia, which was a brand new country,
Like it was entirely it was a different country.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Here was you.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I came to RUSSI in two thousand and two, So
you were maybe two thousand and three something like that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, yeah, I was twenty son nineteen or twenty something
like that. I would have to look closer. It was
a while ago. So I came back and I enrolled,
came back to Saint Petersburg. It was a you know,
capitalist wild West, wild East heaven, very dangerous place, very
(04:20):
fascinating place, lots of like new bars and social norms
and parties, and it was generally so much more exciting
than the Boston suburb in Massachusetts where I lived, because
that place we used to hang out on parking lots.
I mean, it was the American Northeast, so very civilized.
(04:41):
Harvard was nearby everything. But as an immigrant, Boston is
not the most welcoming city, although I love it with
all my heart, and I kind of felt like, you know,
the poll of the Empire, so to speak. I enrolled
in Saint Petersburg State University, which is Putin's alma mater.
It's known for producing such greats as Vladimir Lenin in
(05:01):
Rand and Vladimir Putin with a bunch of physicists and
like Nobel laureates and stuff, but it does produce a
lot of political extremists on all specters left right, modern
Russian ultra right. And I studied there. I studied history
for bachelor's international relations for master's degree, and that's afterwards,
(05:28):
so I started working for Crumlin Media al Rading University.
But afterwards I did spend some time in Russia, and
then I kind of lived between Russia and America. I
still consider myself to be a product of both. You know,
I would have to When I lived in Russia, I
had American cereal, which is breakfast cereal delivered to me
(05:48):
via eBay, where I bought it for like fifty dollars
a box. But like, I just had to have it,
and I would try to download American let's say, not illegally,
I would try to download American TV shows and like
watch Seinfeld and stuff like that, because we didn't have
it in Russia back then. So I consider myself a
child like very much two of these cultures. But my
(06:12):
formative years were spent in the US and that kind
of did shape me. But twenties and later on, of
course Russia, this new Russia, and I got to witness
the oil boom and this period that is considered the
most stable in free period in Russia. Early putin money, oil, restaurants,
(06:33):
and this opening to the world. How Russia opened to
the world, not with the face of poverty, but with
the face of you know, we're rich now, we want
to be civilized, we want contemporary art, we want, you know,
to have this interaction with the West. And then of course,
I witnessed the descent, Russia's descent into I would say fascism.
(06:58):
Probably you could classify it as now into this new
imperialist mindset.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Okay, well, before we get get this, you you mentioned
there like after you finished university, or maybe while you
were still at university, that was when you started to
work for, in your words, the Kremlin's propaganda machine.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
In my.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Funny thing about Russian propaganda, first and foremost, I came
into that world, into the world of Russian propaganda, not
because I was into politics. I was, but still I
came into that world from the world of marketing. I
was a brand manager for a brand of wine and
(07:52):
some champagne in Saint Petersburg, and I used to go
around night clubs. I would create parties. I would, you know,
promote that wine everything. I would like, you know, sponsor raves,
things like that. I was good at that, and I
created advertising campaigns for that. Like my sales were through
the roof. And a friend who was head of the
(08:15):
company where I worked, he recommended me to this man.
His name is Konstantine Rukov, and that man is considered
the godfather of modern Russian digital propaganda. Of Internet propaganda,
I would say godfather, if not just Russian, pretty much everywhere.
He truly had very evil but a visionary nonetheless very
(08:36):
keen understanding of how the media works. And when I
was in my junior year, so for those of us
not from the United States, third year of college. In
my junior year, he did invite me to Moscow. We
had a breakfast. It was sushi and vodka.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
She's very traumatizing but interesting. And he said, I'm launching
a magazine, a glossy lifestyle magazine Lake GQ, like Vogue,
and it's going to be aimed at the richest of
the rich Russians. And I want you to head it's
(09:17):
Saint Petersburg Bureau. You're going to produce it, You're going
to be the chief of the editorial and in Saint
Petersburg co publisher. So you're going to handle that magazine there.
Would you like that? And I said, yes, of course,
because I was always drawn to that, you know, world
of glamour. I not anymore, but back then definitely. So
(09:40):
it's my junior year in college, third year, and what
my job, you know, I described my job. The magazine
was very interesting in the sense that it mixed a
classic lifestyle magazine for the ultra rich. And I'm talking
like by the Mercedes for only half a million dollars.
(10:03):
This new jewelry came out very exclusive, only two pieces
in Moscow. You would have this really like targeting the
multi millionaires because Russia was getting all that oil money
because American vadad Raq, so it was very invader raq.
Russia gets money, I get a job. But in this
(10:26):
magazine you would have interviews with the Russian with the
top minds of Russian ideology, of Russia's imperialist ideology. It
would have articles on Putin. It would have think pieces
that would say the West doesn't want a strong Russia.
(10:46):
It would have interviews with I don't know, people like
Alexander Dugan, who's considered the father of modern Russian fascism,
one of the people whose teachings have very much influenced
Vladimir Putin. And all of it would be meat packaged
into this lifestyle magazine. So and the interesting thing about
(11:07):
it was if you were not rich, you wouldn't even
know that this magazine existed. You couldn't buy it anywhere.
It would only be distributed in the most exclusive restaurants
in the most exclusive hotels, private jet terminals, et cetera,
et cetera. And it was one of these very interesting
(11:28):
concepts that Ruka my boss had, where the Krumblin messaging
towards the rich was going to reach them specifically through
this medium because they all read glossy magazines about you know.
It would have interviews with Western pop stars and movie stars.
It would have reviews of hotels like, oh, this boutique
(11:50):
hotel in Switzerland, you have to visit it. It would
have all of that plus ideology. So that's essentially what
I was doing at the age of twenty three or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Was the Kremlin ideology in there because your boss wanted
it to be alone? Or was it because the Kremlin
wanted it to be there? How did that message get
pushed along like that?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
My boss was open to having this Kremlin ideology there
because at the time he was already working with the Kreumblin.
So Russian propaganda is unique in the sense that most
of it, you would you see Russian propaganda and you
(12:38):
think it's TV hosting, let's drown America, let's bomb this,
and guess it's that, But so much of it is
a public private enterprise. And Rikov he had a for
profit magazine, he made money off of that magazine, and
he wanted to do a lifestyle magazine. It's just that
(12:59):
he integrated Crumblin's messaging into it. And I don't know,
but I'm very much sure that he got paid in
through some various channels by the Kremlin for that, not
of course, not officially. Nothing was ever official. You would
get a contract of a subcontract, of a subcontract, something
(13:21):
like that, but you would in the end have the money.
So the Krumblin was interested in it as an outlet,
and he was interested in the Krumblin as a client.
But also, of course he was very much a pro
putin guy still is. So it was a mix of both.
He would make the money, the Kremlin would reach the
(13:41):
target audience that it was looking for.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So maybe if he wanted to make this magazine without
the Kremlin messaging, it would have been possible, but it
just wouldn't have made that much money, or it wouldn't
have had the funding from the Kremlin in that way,
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I'm yes.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Plus also I think it would not have had the
the guests and the people who would give their interviews,
and because it was a lot of very serious people,
people in power, people who would otherwise probably not talk
to just a random magazine. It was like chief correspondence
(14:25):
for newspapers for Russia's key newspapers that would travel with
Putin who were in the presidential press pool, and they
would talk about their jobs. These people, they wouldn't really
go to any magazine, so you would need some reputation
and some credentials as that you are part of the system,
(14:46):
so they would talk to you. But definitely he could
do it on his own. It wouldn't be as well funded,
it wouldn't have these people talking to it.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, and then you moved to a TV show, right.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yes, So a little later, a little later, another friend
of mine, it was actually in Spain. So I was
in Spain, not far from where you are. I was
in Spain and I met an official from the Krumlin
there at like a friendly dinner on some vila, and
(15:26):
that official was launching That was I think two thousand
and eight. That official was launching a TV show and
he was very much interested in a talk show, a
national talk show on a federal channel that would go
all across Russia obviously, so not local, big, big budget everything.
(15:50):
And his concept was, we need the kind of TV
show that would a TV show for the people who
don't really watch TV. TV is boring, and TVs for
old people and TVs outdated. So even back then they
kind of felt this, and this was the two thousands,
(16:10):
this was before YouTube. Well YouTube appeared, but it wasn't
massive back then, and they kind of felt that, you know,
to get a younger audience, to get a more well
off audience, middle class, smart educated people. It's very hard
to deal with television. Mostly in Russia at that time.
(16:33):
You would have fun TV shows, serials whatever on television
and movies, but when it came to politics, only old
people would watch that and just watch it and get angry.
You wouldn't have younger people. And the idea was, we'll
create a show that has opposing points of view. It
was based in part in like French TV shows where
(16:55):
very big studio you would have different people, you know,
a left person of left leaning views, right leaning center.
But the idea was this is financed by the Kremlin,
this is made according to the Kremlin's agenda. Every week,
the Kremlin would set its agenda and it would say, Okay,
this week we're covering pensions, or we're covering relations with Moldova,
(17:20):
say for instance, and every TV channel, every show, newspaper
that was loyal to the Kremlin in part funded by it,
it would cover it in a certain way in their
own style. And the TV show style was you would
have people very much opposing the Kremlins point of view.
But my task was to co produce the show to
(17:45):
alter its format to make it better through you know,
you shoot one TV show pilot, something's not working, something,
you fix it like you you know, you modify it
to better fit TV. And it was of course to
write every episode. And what we did was you would
get this Kremlin idea pensions, we want to raise the
(18:07):
pensions or we want to lower them. And I would
get this Kremlin brief, and I would rate three points
of view, a left cleaning point of view, centrist, right
leaning of cour It's based on Russian policy, so it's
not like European left or American left. It's based on
the Russian political spectrum. And then we would look for
(18:30):
people with the experts. They could be members of parliament,
they could be media persons, even actors if needed, with
these points of view, who adhere to these points of view,
And then we would find an ordinary Russian citizen, say
a factory worker who's about to retire, and you know,
the question of pensions matters to him very much, so
(18:53):
what does he do? So essentially it was these experts,
a lot of them working for the government, would try
to defend their position to this or Russian citizen. At
some point we got rid of the idea of an
ordinary Russian citizen. By that time I left the show
because it was proving to be a little opposition minded
(19:13):
a lot of Russian citizens. They weren't exactly in line
with the Kremlin, but that was the general idea. And
of course, no matter the debates, it was still the
Kremlin always won. Its position was always that of the
house always won. Like in a casino. In a casino,
(19:34):
you can play, you can win, but the casino wins
really always, and that was the same thing there.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So you had somebody from the left, somebody from the right,
somebody from the center, but you had what somebody else
giving the Kremlin's view or was it one of those
three would be shown to be the correct one. But
it is the same as the Kremlin thought or somebody else.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
One of those three would more often than not be
the correct one, and the host would sort of massage
this position into sort of persuading that this was the
more correct version, and it would often be positioned as
the left say and the right would. They would say
some reasonable things, but more often than not they would
(20:20):
be not fringes, but almost fringes. They would be they
would be saying things that most people in Russia wouldn't
agree with, probably, and the centrist the idea was to
make the Kremlin sound rational, to make it wasn't specifically
said that, oh, well, and this is the Kremlin's point
of view. No, it wasn't said like that, even if
(20:41):
we had Kremlin officials. Nothing was direct, but it was
still the idea, well, well, this person is just more rational,
this person is just like and the host would sort
of agree with that person more. Now that again was
when I was working. At some point this of course,
this was proven to be the Krumlin got a little
(21:03):
paranoid and towards the end of the two thousands early
twenty tents, and they said, you know what we need,
We need to push our agenda without these like opposing views,
and the show lost its ratings and it went off air.
I exited the show before that, but the reason why
(21:24):
it stayed on air was this image of a debate,
and that was a very hard thing to do. You
have to create an image of a debate. And that
was like the entire policy, the entire domestic policy, because
it was all handled by the presidential administration.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Kind of like professional wrestling where they have everything scripted
and everybody knows who's going to win in the end,
but it looks like a dramatic fight.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yes, yes, and the hits look real. And it was.
It was theater. It was political theater, but very carefully age.
The amount of effort and money that went into it
was rather staggering at times. Nothing like what it is now,
and I would say nothing like what it is now
(22:12):
even in America, where also, you know, the state acts
very strongly in Russia. Back then it was the state
try to act in a very sophisticated and cunning ways
to reach its goals through a program like this, through
a magazine that would affect the rich people, that would
(22:32):
reach them. So you would have this very insidious kind
of way to influence people as they wouldn't even know
that something's influencing them.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Did you did you know at the time when you
were working in the magazine and in the TV show,
did you already feel like you were working for propaganda
or was there a specific moment wherever it clicked for
you that you were working in this propaganda machine.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
So when I worked at the magazine, I did not
really feel that I was working for the propaganda. This
is not this is not to say that, oh, I'm innocent,
but it just did not really feel like it because
I would say eighty five percent of the stuff I
(23:26):
did was restaurants, parties, the new Mercedes Benz, things like that,
and what these interviews that came with Premlin people or
like Kremlin linked people they came in from Moscow. I
didn't really handle that. They just were there sort of,
(23:48):
and to me, I was much more focused on the
glamorous side of things and not on the Cremlin side
of things. But then with the TV show, so I
completely understood what was going on because it literally started
with a Krumblin official, with a meeting with a Krumblin official.
(24:08):
He was well, in Russia, we measure everything. Power is
measured in handshakes. How many handshakes are you away from Putin?
It's not people, it's how many handshakes. So you shook
the hand of someone who knows someone who worked for Putin,
which was my situation. My boss worked for a man
who worked directly for Putin, his chief ideologs. So it
(24:32):
was two handshakes.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Oh, so just two handshakes away from Putin's.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yes, even though obviously it's not as if I did
not hold any high position or anything like that. Obviously
these people were you know, they were state officials and
they were very powerful in the world of propaganda. But
it was a very direct not a direct line to Putin,
but it was in proximity. So not with the magazine,
(25:00):
but with the TV show, it was very much in proximity.
It was an important show for the Kremlin.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, and you said that towards the end of the
time that you were on that show, they started to
give you even more specific and direct instructions to target
the opposition or to follow the Kremlins line even more specifically.
(25:29):
And you say that that's when you left. Was that
part of the decision as to why you left?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Definitely, definitely, because prior to that I could explain to myself.
I could rationalize, well, there's still a debate. I agreed
with some talking points, because again this was before CRIMEA,
this was before this was during and after the war
(25:57):
in Georgia, which I then disregarded. Sadly, I view it
differently now, but I could justify some viewpoints. They were
not extreme. Really, even now I don't consider them extreme.
As someone who studied politics, you can't say they were
like fringe. But they were part of an agenda. But
(26:17):
then the Kremlin did start, it became more paranoid. Like
I said, it said, you know what, we don't want
the debate style. We want it more direct style. We
want three people who more or less agree on one thing.
We don't want this ordinary citizen to be there. We
don't want to take these risks, and we have this opposition.
(26:41):
Navolney wasn't big back then, but still it had. There
was Gary Kasparov, who's now, you know, an intellectual here
in the United States, obviously a symbol of freedom fighter
from Russia exiled.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Exactly, also a colleague of views at the Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yes, that's right, that's right, and you would start and
it was very it was very sudden. So television goes
by seasons. As we all know, you end, you start
in September, roughly you end in May. Nothing comes out
in the summer. TV shows are like that, most news
(27:20):
talk shows are like that, comedy shows and one season
ended and they kind of saw the ratings weren't amazing,
but Kreumlin mostly got paranoid and we're hirding you director,
and that director was like it needs to be. That
director was very much a propagandist in the sense that
it was can I swear on this podcast? Can I
(27:43):
say the word shit or not?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Please do?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Okay, okay, okay, So I just clarify it so that
the Krumlin hirting you director for us, you know, suggested
and we heard him. And that director's concept was the
first thing the audience has to do when they turn
on the television is they have to shit themselves. They
have to be bombarded with so much emotional overload, like
(28:10):
this is happening, and this is happening, and everything is
going to hell and what are we going to do
about this as opposed to the more moderate messaging we
had before, and that so you could see that emotionally
it became much more charged the tone of the program itself,
(28:31):
not the arguments, and then you could see that we
would get directions, oh, bash this guy and bash that guy.
And very soon afterwards, just very early in the start
of a season, I exited through a public spat, very
you know, I said, well, you guys are very much
Kremlin shows like I can't do this, even though I
(28:53):
understood it was propaganda, but just not this level of propaganda.
And yes, and I exited the show.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I quit.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
So that was the breaking point, you could say.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
I read in your Atlantic article that a couple of
years after you left that show you were attacked by
a couple of men who worked on that show. I
think or were related to that show in some way.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Is that right? Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yes, that's right. So a couple of years later, I
was working as a GIKI Russia chief political correspondent. I
transitioned to journalism and I try to sort of explain
this system to the Russian people, the system where I
worked at. It's still what I do is I try
to explain because I was inside the system. I try
(29:46):
to explain how it thinks and what it does, and
it was on the date right after the twenty twelve
presidential election when Putin won his third unconstitutional term as president.
And on the day after, I was invited to an
interview at the Brussia's biggest press agency, inter Interfacts Russia.
(30:11):
They invited me to like GQ got a call and
it was like, we're inviting Andrew to speak well, Andrey,
my Russian name is Sunday. And I went and near that.
It's about half a mile from the Krumlin something like that.
And when I came to the agency, just add its doors,
I was met by two men. One of them worked
(30:33):
at the show and the other one was a trustee
of Vladimir Putin. And what this means is for his election,
Putin picked five hundred people very loyal to him from
each industry. So they were factory workers, actors, directors, people
and the media people, doctors, everything to sort of create
(30:56):
the solution of popular support. Even though he was popularly supported,
it wasn't like he was an entirely unpopular president in
twenty twelve. He created this and this was one of
those also one of those people he passed away recently,
and they assaulted me and they started beating me right
(31:17):
on the street for well, for saying bad things about them,
for you know, and for my political position. And they
clearly waited for the election to happen, to not do
it before. And it was very scandalous because I was
still a GQ correspondent and you know, these people were
(31:37):
like really a trustee of Putin. It wasn't They weren't thugs,
which I guess is a mark of honor of some
respect to me that they didn't hire someone to beat
me up but did it them. But still it was
two on one and when the police came, because police
was everywhere in Moscow obviously elections, they were afraid of
protests and riots. And the police police came thirty seconds
(32:02):
after they started beating me, and they were like, what
the hell are you guys doing, and they were about
to arrest them, when the two people who were beating
me showed them government documents and government ideas and credentials
which were so powerful that the police looked at them
and they said, could you at least do it not
in the street, could you go to some yard, like
(32:25):
we're not going to stop you. It just looks really bad.
This is Moscow's It was on Moscow's basically fifth Avenue,
on the main street of Moscow near the Kremlin, and
the police were so afraid of these people. They saw
what it says like the official Vladimir Putin trustee fromt
whatever that they were just please don't beat them outside
(32:48):
on the street, just do it somewhere else. And that
was very Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And was the reason that they were beating you up?
Was it because you left that show or was it
because if they you'd said, since you left that show,
you know, in the run up to the election or something.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I think it was both. I think it was me
having left the show, which was bad. But then that
when I transitioned to journalism and to explaining to people
how propaganda works, that was I became like a trader,
a rat to them. And that is the worst that
you could be in Russia. You can leave the power,
(33:29):
you can leave propaganda, you can leave the Krumblin. For
the most part, you can. You can do that, but
God forbid you you cross the line and you start
working for other people, which is what I did. For
the opposing force essentially for and any independent media is
the opposing force to the Krumblin. They are any independent media,
(33:53):
any people telling the truth are the enemies of the Krumblin.
So when I started doing that, and I started I
didn't have any state secrets. Obviously, I was doing like
TV shows and magazines. I wasn't working for the KGB
or I wasn't a nuclear physicist or anything like that.
But the idea that I was loyal to them and
(34:13):
now I wasn't that was to them. It was too much.
So it was a combination of me being a trader
and me hurting them because my articles would be popular,
the things I wrote, they would get some traction, even
in the West, and again they couldn't tolerate that, and
that was sort of that was sort of the message
(34:35):
that they wanted to send
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