Ich habe Putins Taktik aus nächster Nähe gesehen. Epstein hilft Russland von jenseits des Grabes

In March 2000, the week [Vladimir Putin](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/putin-ready-take-europe-uk-finance-war-4201106?ico=in-line_link) was first elected president of Russia, I was on a tour of the [Chechen](https://inews.co.uk/topic/chechnya?ico=in-line_link) war zone overseen by the Russian army. The Kremlin was furious and frustrated at the negative news coverage that had followed thousands of civilian deaths. The restrictions on reporters in that phase of the conflict, which had started in the autumn of 1999, had been tightened.

A correspondent’s courage was no longer the only limit on where they travelled. Now you had to have special permission and work under the suspicious, unforgiving glare of the military and accompanying officials.

One stop was a winery, ostensibly chosen to show how the industry was reviving in areas no longer under rebel control. They offered us, foreign reporters, a glass as a Russian photographer raised his camera. I refused the wine. The camera was lowered. The photographer’s face fell.

I suspected then, as now, that the goal was to say we were drinking on the job – and that’s why our critical coverage couldn’t be trusted.

Later, we stopped at a village park that had become a cemetery. The graves seemed real; I had seen similar elsewhere. But it was striking that a woman, apparently a villager, just happened to pass by and say in near-flawless English: “That’s what your beloved Chechens do.”

The last day of our trip was polling day. We were taken into Grozny, Chechnya’s regional capital, which was largely in ruins, to witness voting before Putin’s first election victory. More than a quarter of a century later, he’s still at the summit of [Russian power](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/ukraine-humiliated-putin-russia-use-leverage-4222301?ico=in-line_link).

I have often remembered that assignment when seeing the photos emerging from the [Epstein files](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/new-epstein-file-suggests-trump-knew-paedophiles-behaviour-4228410?ico=in-line_link). How could prominent, media-savvy people not have been aware of being photographed? Perhaps they had been put at ease by their companions and were no longer mindful of the pictures being taken.

It’s a classic KGB tactic. Techniques may have evolved along with Russian political changes – and more sophisticated technology – but the purpose remains the same: to gather compromising material (kompromat in Russian) that can come in handy later when you need to get a favour from someone, or end their career.