The Frontline Club and Theatre Royal Plymouth in association with Sputnik Theatre present four nights of new Russian drama. Featuring exciting and topical plays by British theatre directors and cast – translated into English by Sputnik’s artistic director Noah Birksted-Breen. Each evening will touch upon various aspects of life in Russia covering an array of issues, from the clampdown on theatre and freedom of speech to growing social tensions and immigration.

Doctor by Elena Isaeva

Running time: 55 mins

A surprising, sometimes shocking, often funny and moving play about contemporary medicine in rural Russia. Based on a real-life testimony taken from a Russian doctor, it is also a touching personal portrait of an individual coping as best they can in difficult circumstances.

Doctor is one of the longest running productions of Teatr.doc, the renowned studio theatre in Moscow which was supported by Tom Stoppard amongst other prominent British voices when facing closure in 2014.

This reading will be followed by a post-show discussion with artistic director of Teatr.doc, Elena Gremina, in conversation with senior international correspondent for The Guardian, Luke Harding.

The talk will be interpreted for Elena Gremina (Russian<>English) by Alice Terekhova, an independent theatre practitioner and a professional interpreter working across a variety of arts: opera, theatre, new writing, performance art, independent film and education. Terekhova assisted some of the most inspirational directors including: Tom Stoppard, Mark Ravenhill, Natalya Vorozhbit, Dmitry Krymov and many others.

On the eighth floor of an ordinary-looking building in an otherwise residential district of southwest Moscow, in a room occupied by the Federal Security Service (FSB), is a box the size of a VHS player marked SORM. The Russian government’s front line in the battle for the future of the Internet, SORM is the world’s most intrusive listening device – monitoring e-mails, Internet usage, Skype, and all social networks.

In a new book The Red Web, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan peel back the history of advanced surveillance systems in Russia. They will be joining us to discuss what they found and to reveal how a free global exchange can be coerced into becoming a tool of repression and geopolitical warfare.

Having conducted interviews with numerous prominent officials in the Ministry of Communications and web-savvy activists challenging the state, the picture they paint sees dissidents, oligarchs, and some of the world’s most dangerous hackers collide in the uniquely Russian virtual world.

This event will be moderated by the BBC’s Home Affairs Correspondent, Daniel Sandford. Sandford was the BBC’s Moscow Correspondent from 2010-2014, and covered the annexation of Crimea, the war in Eastern Ukraine, the downing of MH17, the anti-Putin protests, and the detention of Pussy Riot.

The panel:

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are cofounders of Agentura.Ru and authors of The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. Soldatov worked for Novaya Gazeta from 2006 to 2008. Agentura.Ru and its reporting have been featured in The New York Times, Moscow Times, Washington Post, Online Journalism Review, Le Monde, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Federation of American Scientists, and the BBC.

Edin Omanovic is a Researcher at Privacy International, a London based NGO which investigates state surveillance and the industry which enables it. Omanovic advocates for greater transparency and accountability over the trade and use of surveillance technology, and has published several investigative reports and policy analyses on limiting the trade in surveillance technologies and protecting human rights from unlawful surveillance practices. Omanovic led research on Privacy International’s recent report on the use of Israeli, Russian, and European surveillance technology in Central Asia, Private Interests: Monitoring Central Asia, and was previously a Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute where he focused on the arms trade and illicit trafficking.

Tonia Samsonova is foreign correspondent for Echo Moskvy. She is also founder of TheQuestion.ru – a popular service that aims to connect people who have questions with those who are able to find answers, and through that interaction create and spread the culture of consciousness.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Twenty years have passed since the beginning of the first Chechen war. How has the country changed in this period and what happened to the many men and women who fought for independence?

With this starting point, journalist and filmmaker Manon Loizeau revisited Chechnya, a country where she had previously lived and reported from during the war. The resulting documentary, Chechnya, War Without Trace, was screened ahead of its premiere on Al Jazeera on Friday 12 June to an audience at the Frontline Club.

“Chechnya is a schizophrenic land,” said Loizeau, describing the reality she faced on her return to Grozny. She found people who were once proud and fierce now scared and passively accepting of the regime of Ramzan Kadyrov, who “has tried to be Putin’s best pupil.”

History in Chechnya is re-written everyday: those who fought and died for independence are forgotten, and Putin’s birthday is a national celebration. How has this happened?

Loizeau told the Frontline Club audience that she had originally intended to interview those people that she had met decades before during the war against Russia. However, very few were willing to speak with her.

Loizeau said, “Lots of people I knew that fought during the war are now working for Kadyrov himself for lots of money.”

Before the annexation of Crimea, Chechnya received the highest amount of financial support from Russia. Kadyrov consequently bribed regional clans, buying their support. But money alone could not have achieved such a radical turnaround in national sentiment: terror and fear have also played a significant role in allowing Kadyrov’s grip to tighten around Chechnya.

Human Rights Watch estimates that 5,000 people disappeared during the second Chechen war alone, and – as Loizeau‘s documentary highlights – many families still don’t have an answer as to what happened to their loved ones.

Terror in Chechnya is commonplace, with rampant threats, intimidations, disappearances and murders. Few are those who risk their lives and livelihoods to denounce and actively oppose Kadyrov’s police state, but the lawyers of the Committee Against Torture are among those who take a stand.

“In December, the Committee was burnt down,” Loizeau said. “They managed to reopen three weeks ago. The sad thing was that the Committee was raided again by common people, and now they’re thinking of not reopening the office […] There should be a European campaign on what happened to the Committee against Torture.”

Entire chapters of Chechen history have been erased. When prominent Chechen politician Ruslan Kutayev referenced at a public conference the deportation of 500,000 Chechens by Stalinist Russia, he was subsequently arrested on charges of drug possession and sentenced to four years in jail.

In response to an audience question on how Putin’s policies had reached such heights of popularity in Chechnya, Loizeau responded:
“During the war, Putin said that they had to ‘Chechenise’ the war, and they managed to. Kadyrov has managed to break down the Chechen identity; he has managed to divide the society. Now brother denounces his own brother – they’re killing and fighting each other.”

More information on Chechnya, War Without Trace is available here.

This screening will be followed by a panel discussion with director Misja Pekel, writers Ben Judah and Peter Pomerantsev, and journalist Richard Gizbert.

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The rocket that shot down flight MH17 was actually intended for Vladimir Putin’s plane. That is, if we were to believe the headline Russia Today (RT) was running in the first hours after the tragedy. The disaster with the Malaysian Airlines flight wasn’t the first time the news channel stirred controversy with its reporting. In November of 2014, Ofcom gave RT a warning for impartial reporting on the uprising in Maidan Square in Kiev.

The channel was launched in 2005 under the name Russia Today to bring the Russian perspective on world events to a global audience. Almost ten years later, RT broadcasts in five languages and can be received almost all over the world. It is now the biggest news organisation on YouTube with 2 billion views, more then CNN and BBC together.

Its critics call it a bullhorn for Russian propaganda, RT claims only to show a different perspective on world events, and presents itself as an alternative to the mainstream media. In Misja Pekel’s The World According to Russia Today, current and former employees, journalists and media analysts dissect RT’s modus operandi. What is it like to work for the channel? How much influence does the Kremlin really have? And is it possible to discern between fact and opinion when Russian interests are at stake?

Directed by Misja Pekel
Duration: 40′
Year: 2015

The Panel:

Ben Judah is the author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In And Out Of Love With Vladimir Putin published by Yale University Press.

Peter Pomerantsev is an author, TV producer, and Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, his book about working in Russian media, was released by Faber in February. It has been short listed for the Pushkin House Award for Russia books, and was a BBC Book of the Week.

Richard Gizbert is a Canadian broadcast journalist. He is the presenter of the Listening Post on Al Jazeera English. Over the past 25 years, he has covered stories in more than 50 countries on five continents.

For February’s members’ BookNight we are pleased to welcome acclaimed Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, who will present his recently published book Ukrainian Diaries over an intimate dinner with Frontline Club members.

Kurkov’s diaries portray the ongoing crisis in his homeland which began on the first day of the pro-European protests in November 2013. This first-hand account describes the violent clashes in the Maidan Square, the impeachment of the former president Viktor Yanukovcyh, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the separatist uprisings in the east of Ukraine.

Guests will be expected to have read the book, ready and willing to contribute to the discussion. This will not be a standard format Q&A but an in-depth discussion, taking the conversation beyond the headlines in an attempt to make sense of the turbulent times that have gripped Eastern Europe over the last year.

The format for the night will be as tried and tested: drinks from 7:00 PM, dinner at 7:30 PM. We will get to know one another over starters before the introduction of the evening’s guest author. Andrey will then make his presentation and open the floor to discussion.

The evening will be hosted by Frontline Club director, Pranvera Smith and a founding member and senior correspondent at The Guardian & The Observer, Ed Vulliamy.

Menu £25 per person excluding drinks

Starters
Smoked Mackerel fillet with beetroot & horseradish cream
Pork belly salad with caramelised apple & dandelion
Pea & watercress soup
****
Main Courses
Roast rump of Norfolk Lamb with courgette, mash & black olive jus
Wild sea trout with linguine & lobster bisque
Pumpkin & chickpea tagine with couscous & minted yogurt
****
Desserts
Raspberry & blackcurrant parfait
Dark chocolate & salted caramel tart with creme fraiche
Lemon posset with shortbread

The young Harvard-educated economist Miklós Németh didn’t dream he would play a decisive role in the fall of the Berlin Wall when he was appointed Prime Minister by Hungary’s Communist Party to fix the nation’s finances in late 1988. Only a year later he was at the centre of it all.

On Wednesday 5 November, the Frontline Club tuned in to the world premier of 1989, a new documentary by Anders Østergaard detailing the months and days of Németh’s tense political manoeuvring that precipitated demolition of the wall, as it was shown in 57 cities across Europe during the 2014 Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (CPH:DOX).

Stitching together archival footage seamlessly with reenactments of behind-the-scenes political moves, 1989 shows how Németh’s decision to dismantle one of the biggest drains on Hungary’s budget – a 240 kilometre-long electrical fence bordering Austria – reverberated through the former communist block. Just months later, tens of thousands of East Germans were scrambling across the divide.

Post-screening, Németh joined Danish Broadcast Corperation news anchor, Lene Johansen; professor and EU analyst, Lykke Friis; Senior Advisor to the European Policy Centre, Hans Martens; and former Prime Minister of Denmark, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, to reflect on 25 years of changes his decisions brought to Europe.

Continuing Conflict
The continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine was at the top of the agenda. “I am a great believer in dialogue and compromise. That is the way of finding your way out of a difficult situation,” Németh said of the fighting, adding that his good rapport with Mikhail Gorbachev helped guide him through difficult times.

“Putin is not stupid. I don’t like seeing a comment or an article in the paper that now we’re facing Cold War number two. This is not cold,” Németh said. “Last month Ukraine, Russia, and the EU signed a very important contract on the gas supply. So dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.”

What we’re seeing in Russia is a generation of people who never really accepted what happened in 1989, added Hans Martens. “I think they’re striking back now,” he said. “It’s not just about Ukraine and Crimea, it’s also about trying to reestablish a kind of Soviet Union or at least an empire like that. So dialogue is very good.”

Find out more about 1989 on the film’s website, where director Anders Østergaard will answer questions submitted by audiences from audiences all over Europe participating in this simultaneous screening.

David Cameron has subsequently agreed to EU sanctions and travel bans have been imposed on Russian officials. But would our response have been stronger were it not for the importance of Russian money to London?

Russians are granted more investor visas than any other nationality; Russians buy London property, send their children to British schools and hire British lawyers and bankers. For some, Britain has become a shamelessly mercenary country, putting financial gain before morality.

Others argue that the government is right to put growth first; its obligations are to the British people, who are interested in their livelihoods, not the legality of a referendum in Crimea. Are sanctions even the best approach? With them comes the risk of isolating Putin, making a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis less likely.

Standpoint magazine brings together a distinguished panel to debate Britain’s response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Chaired by Daniel Johnson, the founding editor of Standpoint. He covered the end of the Cold War for The Daily Telegraph and is the author of White King and Red Queen: How the Cold War was Fought on a Chess Board.

The panel:

Ben Judah has reported for Standpoint from Russia and Ukraine. He is the author of Fragile Empire: How Russian Fell In And Out Of Love With Vladimir Putin.

Tony Brenton worked for 30 years for the Foreign Office and was British Ambassador in Russia from 2004 to 2008. In 2007 he was awarded a KCMG. He is now extraordinary fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

Roger Boyes is diplomatic editor at The Times. Previously he has worked as a foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe, Berlin and Rome.

Peter Hitchens is a journalist, broadcaster and author. He is a columnist on the Mail on Sunday and has worked as a foreign correspondent in Moscow and Washington.

Your ticket will include a copy of Standpoint magazine.

As news of the build-up of Russian forces in Crimea dominated the headlines, a distinguished panel convened at the Frontline Club on 5 March for a First Wednesday event examining the current crisis in Ukraine. The insightful discussion, chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC 4’s Broadcasting House, largely focused on Russian motivation for intervening in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin’s specific agenda, the extent of Western complicity, and forecasts for the political future of the state.

L-R Paddy O’Connell, Olexiy Solohubenko, Timothy Garton Ash, Richard Sakwa and Anne Applebaum

Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, and author of works on contemporary Russian politics, kicked off the discussion by arguing that Russian intervention in Ukraine, in the form of military presence, demonstrates a pointed and valid guarding of its interests in the region:

“Putin is responding to a long-term simmering…. The concern that Russia has had is significant… it is a major power with geopolitical concerns.”

Timothy Garton Ash, historian, political writer, and professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, denounced Russian efforts to “protect their interests”, recalling an earlier meeting with Putin in which he had declared Russia’s “right and duty” to protect all Russian speakers regardless of their citizenship. Garton Ash disputed this logic:

“All international order and respect for sovereignty would break down if the mother country had a right to protect all language speakers in other countries.”

Anne Applebaum, columnist for the Washington Post and Slate and the director of the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute in London, commented on Putin’s central role in manoeuvring the crisis:

“Putin has put himself very much at the centre of this in the last couple of days…and one of the things that has emerged from what he said is that this is very much a domestic issue in Russia. Russia sees the West as some kind of opposite… and feels the need to create an ideology which is anti-Western…. What he really fears is not so much the events in Kiev, but the kind of language we heard in Kiev – ‘anti-corruption, ‘democracy’, ‘rule of law’, ‘freedom of speech’.”

Olexiy Solohubenko, news and deployments editor at BBC Global News and former head and of the Ukrainian Service, agreed, adding that “Putin…in his mentality, doesn’t really accept Ukraine as a state”, and that his actions should be understood within the context of his view of Ukraine as an “artificial construct”. Solohubenko then dismissed tendencies to overcomplicate Putin’s motivations in the region:

“He wanted to pull Ukraine away from Europe – it is not going to happen. He wanted to stem nationalism in Ukraine – he is achieving the opposite. He is radicalising a lot of Russian public opinion.”

The question of Western involvement, and possible complicity, in the current situation in Ukraine was raised. Applebaum responded:

“There has been a stream of efforts to have a good relationship with Russia, that go back twenty years… (which) has almost always ended in disaster… Russia is unable to recognise the countries on its borders… as sovereign and independent states.”

Garton Ash remarked on the West’s cavalier attitude with regard to intervening in other countries without proper international legitimacy, which he admitted could be seen as a contributing factor, but ultimately denied that Europe should shoulder the blame for the crisis:

“The last place in which this crisis was manufactured is the West. Because the problem with the West is that it has done so pathetically little in, and for, Ukraine ever since its independence.”

An audience member commented in agreement with regards to the West’s past failure to act to a sufficient extent in Ukraine. O’Connell enquired as to how the West could positively aid Ukraine in the future; Applebaum responded:

“The most positive thing the West could do is to help Ukraine get out of this cycle of corruption, of cronyism, of poor rule of law, of a weak court system, of bad policing… the best the Ukrainians can do for themselves right now is to fix their economy… and construct institutions that will give the country a more positive future.”

Garton Ash agreed that the Ukrainian government must shoulder the majority of the responsibility for the resolution of the crisis, suggesting that it clearly verbalise its absolute commitment towards all Ukrainian citizens, namely Russian speakers and Crimean tartars. He added that, on the condition of Ukraine adhering to certain democratic principles, the West should welcome the state into its “union of sovereign, democratic countries.”

An audience member, originally from Ukraine, commented on the overshadowing in the Western media of the “popular revolution” in Ukraine by the Russian military invasion.

Applebaum offered a response:

“That was the purpose… to distract attention, to undermine the situation, to change the story… it is now up to Ukrainians to use the energy of that revolution to rebuild their political institutions… The role of the West is assistance, aid, conversation, but not dictation on how to rule.”

Sakwa was in agreement, yet stressed the importance of Russian involvement in the resolution process:

“Ukraine has to have a civilised relationship with its Eastern neighbour… Putin in many ways does reflect the complexity, the angst, the identity issues, of Russia itself… That’s why we need to bring Russia in, and Putin in. Not as a problem, but as the solution.”

The final parts of the discussion saw a focus on Ukraine’s future, with Solohubenko emphasising the mass disillusionment of Ukrainians with their current leaders, and pointing towards two opposition leaders with the potential to command popular support – Vitali Klitschko and Petro Poroshenko.

Solohubenko closed the discussion by highlighting the threat of bloodshed in Ukraine at the hands of Russian military, after which “de-escalation will be almost impossible.”

Garton Ash echoed this sentiment, and commented that if bloodshed is avoided:

“There is a real chance that future history books will see this as a decisive moment in consolidating the independence of Ukraine… one day Putin will go and Russia will think better of where it wants to be. Part of that conversion will be who lost Ukraine. Part of the answer will be Vladimir Putin.”

Watch and listen to the full discussion below:

“We used to say health to the people. Now we say health to the rich only.”

On Monday 3 February 2014, the Frontline Club screened the UK premier of Putin’s Olympic Dream. Director Hans Pool shone light onto the crooked nature of Putin’s very own “fake smile.” Behind the facade of the Sochi Olympics is a world where the elderly are uprooted to make way for ice rinks and where 50–70% of migrant workers are deported without pay after months of exploitation.

Director Hans Pool. Photo credit: George Symonds

Pool began the Q&A by describing the film – initially conceived as part of The Sochi Project – as his most difficult project to date. He talked of run-ins with the FSB and interviewees who would refuse further participation after being threatened.

In response to a question about managing the risk to people who spoke on film, Pool said:

“When we were filming, they only told us stories they really wanted to tell us. There was no pressure from us to tell really bad stories.”

However, he was only able to find one human rights defender in Sochi willing to speak to the filmmakers:

“It was very difficult. . . . They are very scared to talk about those things. He was the only one.”

Asked by audience members about navigation of visa restrictions and the more opaque elements of the Russian authorities, Pool described the situation as, “always a kind of cat and mouse”.

A crew member in attendance told a tale of sabotage:

“There were a few cars chasing us all the time. I’m Russian actually, so I was kind of embarrassed because of that, so I went up to them and said, ‘What are you doing? You’re embarrassing me and all the Russians, and we know you’re following us.’ They just acted like nothing was going on.

 

“We were actually laughing about it all the time,” she continued, “and going to this one restaurant every evening. But when we got back we figured out that actually every night we were sitting in the restaurant they were entering our hotel rooms. They managed to destroy all the [memory] discs we were using to film. We just figured it out when we got back to Moscow and when we sent the discs back to the Netherlands they couldn’t open them. When the Sony company, in the end, opened them they saw they were scratched. . . . Well we flew back and filmed everything again in one day, . . . but that was really frightening.”

Project participant Valery Molozov

When asked whether members of the International Olympic Committee had seen the film, Pool said he did not know, however: “For me it’s a big question why they organise those Olympic games in countries like Russia or in Beijing. I really don’t understand. It has to do with a lot of money. You know there’s a lot of corruption.”

“What do you think about boycotting the games?” posed another member of the audience.

“Boycotting the games, I don’t know,” responded Pool. “You have to protest. If you’re going there as a supporter or as a politician you have to discuss these things. I think that’s very, very important. . . . I think it’s very important not to shut your mouth, but to discuss it and to get it in the open. It’s terrible for those workers, because they’re paying for the Olympic games, actually. . . . It’s really a shame out there.”

Putin’s Olympic Dream will be screened at the Lexi Cinema in London on 13 February. It will also be screened in Bratislava, Slovakia, on 10 February through the Frontline Club’s International Partners project.

Ahead of the 2014 Olympic Games, the city of Sochi underwent drastic transformations. This nostalgic Soviet holiday resort, filled with gorgeous sanatoriums, had to become a modern Russian city. With no time to lose, everything and everyone had to give way in order to turn President Putin’s status project into a success.

Financial, economic, political and ecological limits are breached to make it happen. The 2014 Winter Games are on their way to becoming the most expensive Olympics ever. In Putin’s Olympic Dream director Hans Pool chronicles this transformation of ‘the Cannes of the Soviet Union’.

Pool shows crucial moments in the lives of all parties involved; the entrepreneurs, oligarchs, immigrants, athletes and activists. Everyone has a role to play in Putin’s business card of the new Russia.

Directed by Hans Pool
Duration: 80′
Year: 2013