Stark divisions within Russia’s elite were exposed on Monday when a hot mic mishap showed Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev slamming security forces as “jerks” for launching an early morning raid against a filmmaker.
Medvedev on Friday gave an extensive end-of-year interview to five Russian channels in a clear bid to keep up his profile after ceding the Kremlin to his mentor Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
But attention has focused less on the interview itself than on a six minute video of Medvedev’s supposedly off-the-record conversation with the journalists that followed the interview itself and has now emerged on the internet.
In a relaxed exchange, Medvedev is shown bantering on topics ranging from wristwatches to whether Santa Claus exists. But most notably he also launches a blistering attack on the habits of the Russian security forces.
Medvedev slammed Friday’s pre-dawn raid by investigators on filmmaker Pavel Kostomarov who has been working on an internet documentary about the Russian opposition called “Srok” (Term).
“Everything is going to be fine, do not worry,” Medvedev tells one of the interviewers, NTV television newscaster Alexei Pivovarov who is one of the co-producers of the documentary.
“They (the investigators) are jerks for showing up at eight in the morning,” he said, using a colloquial insult that literally means “goats”.