brand of writing. georgian president mikheil saakashvili military police have been accused by prosecutors of using a very unusual weapon to control members of the government a weapon so unusual that history's great villains wouldn't even touch it that weapon was almost sexuality the georgian prosecutor's office claims a network of gay spies was set up to seduce certain politicians in order to surveil them and blackmail them the gay spies would tempt men in the government into going back to their apartments which were filled with hidden cameras and microphones to record information and create a not safe for work video to be used to put pressure on these officials this is

truly one of the most unique and kind of gross weapons of political intrigue i've ever heard of i mean how many men in georgia politics could possibly fall into the spy trap you know if he actually did implement this scheme and it actually worked than machiavelli and von bismarck could have a thing or two to learn from president saakashvili but that's just my opinion. hello in welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle russia what is its reputation in the world at least according to western media doesn't deserve it and what can russia do to change it.

to discuss russia's branding i'm joined by victoria pound over she's an associate professor at moscow state university of international relations. and off he is the c.e.o. of the russian international affairs council and david burkhardt he is the editor in chief for moscow news website all right crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it between let me go to you first if you could in a few sentences for me describe the russian brand russia as a brand. well i would say it's how our leaders try to put traits and it's. a tough crossing. to rebrand democracy and it's energy energy but. is this a good marriage and no it's not a good brennen it's something that the words of the leaders of officials they are made and sometimes it's very often it's about bad image make image making efforts

sometimes it's about bad policies as well but it's like it's come by and all together doesn't give a prop of you know what russia is so when foreigners come to russia they say oh we find something very different picture from what from what you just said it seems like it's the worst of both worlds what is the brand the brand i think is one of your your local brands so when you get here and it's something you've always you think you get used to and you will begin to like it i don't think it's one that can be actually sold on the major markets of the world but does russia try to sell it on the because i don't think you know now unfortunately i for there's a lot of good things here that is. advertising of howard how it should be how it should be accepted by its own p.r. under its own p.r. job well it's a little bad on the north thing for us to go compared to a country or its own population because you. know young people can see they're going to pay for the super bowl from you know just something to vote. but of course you could take the whole state would you please show host pete with like you know

what. i don't know cost me go. maybe you know you know barely. believe for one what is good we got you know this this low. but definitely this is not enough for a country we should try to position itself as a great power you know that the soviet union is being gone for a quarter century right now i mean the. kind of technologies and ideas about branding and p.r. out there ok why aren't they employed more here well you know i think that of course. the bread is something which is difficult to change if not the better of the perception if people think about this country particularly i think you take a look you do take a lot of effort to change the way how they approach the country. of course a lot depends on how russia itself would like to position so you know the rules i

mean every country likes to brand itself ok but it's seems to me and i've lived here for about fifteen years is that the outside world has branded russia ok and the brand that russia attempts or thinks about is in second place third place no place ok because every single day i can see the branding of russian headlines well if that's true and you know what it's. branding is about to bring up some sensations like if you good are it goes wouldn't be published even if they have published how out in the west and so there's never any good news coming out of a. bad headline which would actually really give absolutely opposite idea to what actually is in the article then it would be so so only bad or worse bad sensational news would be a really well so. we do this every day yeah there's a couple things here of one hundred that hundreds had. rebranding. if we talk about

we're going to like the movies in any western movie the russians are always the bad guy that's held over from twenty five years are from the soviet union so they're always the spy they're always the thug. they're always the person who the killer. and that goes on until today so we're still using that old stereotype of the soviet union the bad people and using them in today's movies in regards to new because i do this every day. good news doesn't sell bad news everyone will read it and that's what a lot of the western press is doing stations and sensation if it's ugly if it's nasty yes it gets out there and that's what a lot of the western press does is that like to take these things and ride with it and bring it all you know and come up with this really strange angles to get their sales up and their ratings up is that fair this year i don't think probably the most prominent story over the last twelve months i've given you as much information on what you suppose the right. was here by. you give the disconnect between what

western media present it in what russian people think the most of the russians from from all lowering that i know and also in the mass media most of the russians are the. actual active survive those very very small percentage of people who support what they did you know they're the forerunners of of a new. what you call it outlook of russia where they're going with democracy and freedom they should be heralded as as heroes. how they try that in any other. church. it's almost a synagogue or anywhere else in europe or the united states they've been sitting there for three years they also have those laws and they have tried it in french you remember there was this act with the mena and what was the reaction of the police of the public in there so absolutely different perception and different but trail of the similar events in different countries there there were days where

right here the pussy riot just a couple days in the on vatican square st paul's st paul square same thing happened so what was going to happen was a why is russia treated differently well i think as i said there is soap inertia here and i think that someone has to be the bad guy in this world. is the usual suspect you know russians but the russians are not exporting its. political system is not bombing foreign countries it doesn't have one ton of obey it except the united states is the good guy in the world i mean again i mean it's seems to me that you know there are elements here russia is far from a perfect place i've lived here for a long time we've all lived here a long time some of you were from here ok but i think it's a much more mixed story and complicated story and that every country has problems and problems are to be solved but it sounds like i mean if you read the economist the mean or you read newsweek this country is going to collapse this year did you

know that victoria heritage a lot although every year a list that is going to collapse that ok soon we're going to witness that is does integrate never i think so that's what sells a lot and that's what people like to eat but of course you know we have to work harder yes to project a different image there are many bad things that you can say about from french i read a great in brand in their countries that cannot be denied the same can be said about spain or you know u.k. or even china i think that we are making some steps in this direction of modest steps that we have to advertise our culture not all the dostoyevsky and tolstoy but contemporary culture but we just. we can advertise for you know brain power which is lear and there are not many people aboard who believe that has any brain power so there are things that can be done and things that should be done off course say to requires flexibility. resources requires international

cooperation and sometimes i think we've seen police make you know very very very sort of bloggers trying to be you know a very straightforward quote unquote southern russia and that doesn't work you know you need to be professional of this field like many others but who is going to listen to that in the west they don't want to hear that that's no reason i think that there's some sort of there are stereotypes but the. take for example the you know germany after the second world war which had a very bad image united states and in the rest of europe japan you know there are countries. you know these are not exactly the best record our current how we were able to reinvent themselves to position themselves but one of the things that tony and said you know we're all talking about states here and i think a lot of the branding that all of you are talking about for other countries comes from civil society as well ok i mean i'm sure the french government pushes french

cheese ok but it's the cheese producers themselves that make the cheese so ok what i'm saying is that it has come more from civil society and i think a lot of people in russia don't take responsibility for that on their own branding of their country but we had it for example take the civil g. eight simulate that we had in back in two thousand and six the people that we brought here there was like almost thousand all throughout the year throughout the russian presidency and they were all coming back to their countries and saying that russia is so great and then with the next year with the g. eight in germany the same people who came there is over russia is a democracy you're not because you're not doing the good job where they heard you know it was state on the individual local level those this people still held the perception that is more open to civil society than germany for example but it doesn't really brant or also for the civil twenty that it was in december first meeting this trailing guy came and he said you know i see i've been here over the

past half year like several times and i see how open you guys and it's absolutely different from what we are listening here in trillium but he said i will write a positive article for on what i have seen like branded spreen and during russia in russian christmas i'm president to be accused of being paid off and that's what i mean it's not well you. know what he said i'm risking my own reputation doing it. because i know i'm writing what i think but i will be seen as a as a solo soul guy but all right folks we're going to a short break and when we turn from that break we'll continue our discussion on russian branding. believe.

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welcome back to crossfire to remind you we're discussing the branding of russia right dave you know give me your critique of western media of latin your puter. or critique or just a list of the key words that i think they have to go with keyword here is the gravy you know the tinana the spell check when you put in the word put in i think the adjective show up you know that song are etc strong man and. athletic person all of this just shows up to not to improve his. authority but about basically being cynical and downgraded they don't want they don't want to strong putin ok you don't want to strong russia there was wrong russia because well actually you don't need a strong russia or a strong putin because of putin's gone you don't have

a strong russia there's no one to replace him i mean you can't get anyone choose someone who's going to i mean now i think it's really interesting is. very often we can look at reuters be able to bloomberg eccentrics address a sentence vladimir putin comma former k.g.b. agent comma now when i think back george bush sr he was head of the cia so have you ever seen george bush former head of the cia comma said today in texas i think the assumption is that let me put it is not necessarily a former k.g.b. . agent the job and he became president of the united states and. still keeps his loyalty to his parent institutionalised that's how i would have had this headline. is it because this negative branding that russia get it's

because it just doesn't fall in line i mean we look at we look at the post cold war narrative you know the soviet union was defeated and the defeated must accept terms of surrender and the terms of surrender is become like us ok because if i think i look very back at this very carefully. let me put it was actually light because we had mr president for for a while there and and he was white then what was the event that everything went south went negative and it was the yukos affair it went and had a cough ski was the bad guy and now he became the good guy ok i mean is this part of it i mean this negative branding it's geo politically driven because putin. the jewels to the family jewels to texas oilmen. i would say that's part of the reason because i would say is not their route it's

a cause already of the tour and so once russia yes it's not just thanks to putting things to anomic to conjuncture of oil prices that russia started regaining its power that it didn't collapse in two thousand and three when it was expected going to be able to really understand sounds and eight nine there and with all their so forget is that ok it's the worst out of breaks it was expelled it's still now it's one of the best before main in even in brics in terms of many indicators so it's about russia gaining back its strength and not quite not taking all the orders as it should behave and it's actually standing up to its interests sometimes very harshly but most of the time very let's say it was motivated properly right so. it's interesting because russia is a threat if it's strong russia is a threat if it's weak i mean it's the flavor of the month i mean it's contradictory

here well it definitely does contradictory and i think that you will never be able to satisfy everyone there are people in the last time you want to satisfy everyone in russia lives in fear you cannot sort of in russia therefore you know my take is that indeed we should pay much more attention to. the. in house and i think that i guess i'm the oldest person sitting here so i still remember the soviet union and there are many bad things that we can say about the soviet union but there is at least one thing which i remember fairly well you know we were a proud people we're proud of our country we believe that the soviet union was the beacon of progress that we helped to save the humankind that we were in the vanguard of development and i think that this is something that have gone unfortunately if you talk to people in the streets of moscow or and i also hear you know well no longer

a proud nation and this is something that has to be dealt with i know that you know love him a putin and others are trying to do something about that but they're not the six two successful in my view and there is a point there that there's internal patriotism that is mine to revive here in russia but there's also this line of patriotism and nationalism which out of russians haven't figured out yet yeah that's correct carrot and that's a dangerous line as i'm in my area michael i agree but i would also add that unfortunately that is sort of hypocrisy here because you can multiply one set of rules two. you know part of the ocean population and intel a different set of rules to serve a different part of the population so i think that the idea of fairness the idea of fairness is something that which is in deficit here and people are looking for that and even they become really proud of the nation of their country eve they respect

themselves then sooner or later i think the outside world will start to spec trash as well i think it's very interesting because in the time i've lived here it's really about money money and money because i've been asked so many times about you know ideology worldviews and all that and i kind of laugh a little bit because i think i don't come across that too often in conversation and you know what. it's usually for you guys that are talking about it more. i think it's something here because there is this deficit in russian society there are many poor people still here people have been pulled out of poverty yes but there are still huge divisions in this country that hinders an identity issue that can help bring the country there's a lot of black holes throughout russia when we're basically talking all the time about moscow but russians of right very huge country peter and i have traveled russia a lot and we've seen these places you know. and they're kind of stuck with whatever moscow decides they're stuck with that decision so they don't really have a place in the entire nationalism of the country of that pride they hear what

moscow's doing over there and they're kind of left over on the sidelines they need to be involved more. interesting is when i was invited to a stock for apec and that was a very different russia. was really quite refreshing because it was very conservative out there very patriotic extremely patriotic i was really impressed and the amount of money they put into investing it and that was kind of a branding rebranding of russia that i like that i thought they could sell i don't think they sell it well enough but that's just a deficit in p.r. here. and one thing and same with the soviet union i was in afghanistan you know and all the infrastructure in kabul is soviet because the americans have built nothing their tents and castles ok let's go back to western media. how intentionally that on their part to be betrayed russia and such a negative way because i won't i won't name names but i know some foreign journalists and i will privately on facebook and say why did you write that well my

editor changed it ok because you know you got to spice it up a little bit here i mean is there a disconnect there also there is someone on the on the i don't know it's probably the rules of the of the company i don't know in the west to be portrayed this where we have certain. angles and russia will always be on the bad side so don't try to make it look good otherwise you're just predator yourself i'll give a very good example and i will name a name here if if i'm allowed to that was during the may sixth riots in moscow when fox knew it was totally blew it i don't know if you saw that new segment or not when they were showing the riots they were showing the riots in moscow bureau three sales breaking up shop windows and there was complete chaos there was grease the letters were kind of similar but they're way off line there you know that's how they're going to the people of protesting against the change of time remember and

that was the football riot ok but they said no these are people protesting the change of you know what is the standard daylight time or something like that that's quite exciting and it's change gears here because in looking at how people write about russia it seems to me in tell me if you think i'm wrong but i see a lot of western journalists using their own values because what they do is they they look at the opposition in they they like the opposition because they are like us they have our values ok and they write about them in such a positive way but if you look at what people think about them and their popularity it is again a huge disconnect exactly especially if you look into their biography many of their position leaders who used to be in power and who actually brought it to. the whole of lower than you know so and they were there educated in the west as well as the closer so they they are they have closer well values they they were actually

bringing their russia that's not too strong on all these people but are these people the same people you're talking about telling western media what they want to hear exactly exactly this is yeah but you know i would also add that i think that there were so many inflated expect. and it's transition if you come here to china for example you know they have never been such expectations about chinese become an american so you know these are different. you know they don't christians you know they have a different skin color so you know we cannot really. expect too much from them under russian style like os you know they're europeans you know be a white christian and why shouldn't they be like us so there were so many expectations about becoming another you know additional bastien county problem or rest of them from something similar to the united states and disappointments

were practically on the way to find it i find it really interesting is that americans think everyone wants to be like them whether they're going to work with the media is that you have most of these commentators and columnists and everyone writing and talking about russia where they sitting i think here now they're sitting there not as warm office in london washington new york berlin and saying all these things right if they come here and they learn about it and they sit here and live the life that everyone else is they might get a little bit of a different perspective on that and they live their dream and i look at the washington post every once in my own washington post a lot of these are these articles by people i have absolutely never heard of before but they're very authoritative you know but if you have either you and i sent an article to the washington post would be they did they did you know they did they just put it in the trash can you know that's propaganda no it's like no but that's the truth. proved to prove to me differently this is the way it is here actually on the side of time what's one single thing you would like to see russia do this year

to improve its image to the world well i would like us with the position itself as a from to your state and country with a lot of opportunities that's not easy but that has to be done all right we have run out of time on i think my guests here in the studio and thank the viewer for watching us here r.t.c. next time and remember crosstalk words. really. soon. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for langley you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

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