Putin breaks his silence on Prigozhin

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Putin breaks his silence on Prigozhin’

Marc Filippino Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, August 25th. And this is your FT News Briefing.

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Russian president Vladimir Putin broke his silence on Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death.

Max Seddon What this shows to the Russian elite is that anyone who thinks that Putin is weak, you know, who has any ideas, you know, they will be thinking twice.

Marc Filippino The emerging markets group Brics is majorly expanding, and Turkey’s central bank is majorly raising interest rates. We’ll take a look at whether it’ll make a difference against surging inflation. I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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(Vladimir Putin speaking in Russian) Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash on Wednesday. (Vladimir Putin speaking in Russian)

Prigozhin led his military group Wagner in a failed coup earlier this summer against Putin’s government. Here to discuss is the FT’s Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon. Max, how are you doing?

Max Seddon It’s been quite the day. I can tell you that.

Marc Filippino Yeah, it’s been a wild few days since news broke that Prigozhin died. What have we learned?

Max Seddon Vladimir Putin said initial data indicates that Yevgeny Prigozhin was indeed on his private plane when it crashed on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg. And to give you an idea of what it’s been like trying to confirm this, even though Russian aviation officials put out the flight manifest that had Yevgeny Prigozhin listed as one of the passengers, this is someone who led such a mysterious life that even that wasn’t really convincing because he has been known to pay people to change their names to Yevgeny Prigozhin, and sign his name in official documents to try to obscure where he is and what he’s up to.

Marc Filippino Can we say, though, Max, that this was an assassination at this point?

Max Seddon We don’t know. There is no official version of what happened yet. Putin said that it would take time. But at the same time, Putin has said many times over his career that the one thing that he can’t forgive is treason. And even though he reached a deal with Wagner to end the mutiny, he said before that they would answer for betraying the motherland. So everyone that I’ve been speaking to over the last 24 hours in Moscow and members of the Russian elite who are out of the country, they are pretty close to unanimous in thinking that this was ordered from the top in Russia.

Marc Filippino Now, Max, a lot of people thought Prigozhin was a dead man walking after the failed coup, but he was out and about, even reportedly recruiting in Africa for Wagner. It seems like a lot of freedom for someone who should be looking over their shoulder.

Max Seddon The obvious explanation seems to be that one, Wagner’s operations in Africa are a very significant asset to Russia. They’ve helped Russia win over a lot of allies by deploying mercenaries in conflicts in countries like the Central African Republic, Mali, Libya. And this was something that was really built around Prigozhin and in this man’s personal connections with those client state. This is something they couldn’t take over overnight. The other indication I got is that Prigozhin appears to have believed that things are broadly OK and that he’d be able to get back into Putin’s good graces at some point. And one way that that looks now to a lot of people is that Putin had just decided that revenge was a dish best served cold. They were just preparing to do essentially some kind of demonstrative murder.

Marc Filippino So what are the lessons we can take away from the last few months of Prigozhin’s life?

Max Seddon Really, you know, if you are going to launch a coup, even if you’re saying during your coup that it’s not against Putin, it’s just the defence minister, you have to think that your days are numbered after that. You know, you nearly started a civil war. You nearly brought about the collapse of the entire state, you know, during the biggest war that Russia’s been in for many decades. And what this shows to the Russian elite is that, you know, anyone who thinks that Putin is weak, you know, who has any ideas, you know, they will be thinking twice. It’s like in The Wire, you know: come at the king, you best not miss.

Marc Filippino Nice. Got to love a good reference to the TV show The Wire. That was the FT’s Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon. Thanks, Max.

Max Seddon Thanks so much.

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Marc Filippino The emerging markets group Brics has invited six more countries to join. They include Saudi Arabia, Iran and Argentina. It’s the first expansion in over a decade. Now, this is a big win for China, a current member. It’s trying to create a bigger rival to the G7. And South Africa’s president said this is just the first phase of their expansion plans. Brics is also looking into how to reduce the reliance on the US dollar when trading with one another. And some members have suggested creating a common currency for the bloc.

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Turkey’s central bank raised interest rates by seven and a half percentage points yesterday. It’s the third big rate rise in as many months. Here’s the FT’s Adam Samson in Turkey.

Adam Samson I guess the thing to realise about Turkey is inflation here is really, really high. It was nearly 50 per cent in July. It’s expected to go to 60 per cent in . . . by the end of this year. So in order to tackle that, you need to really, really increase interest rates. And that’s why this move is much, much bigger than sort of, you know, the quarter point moves you might see in developed markets like the US or the UK or Europe. You know, even now interest rates are way, way lower than the inflation rate. So economists expect that they have to go even higher to even start really making a dent.

Marc Filippino This is a big break from what president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had previously championed. Remember, this is the guy that called high interest rates “the mother and father of all evil”. That is a real thing that he said. And Adam says investors are wondering if Erdoğan will allow this tighter monetary policy to continue.

Adam Samson The problem is there’s really important local elections here next March, particularly in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s two biggest cities. And there’s a fear that if the economy is starting to look kind of ropey before those elections, because interest rates are higher, because growth is slower and all that, then Erdoğan may turn around and say, “OK, we’ve got to get rid of these policies. Wanna go back to my previous policies of big stimulus measures, low interest rates and all that.” And I think that’s why we’ve seen investors have been very, very cautious about re-entering Turkey’s markets. We haven’t seen really big inflows at all despite the fact that the picture is looking better. People are a little bit more optimistic. People are also very, very cautious at the same time.

Marc Filippino Adam Samson is the FT’s Turkey correspondent.

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Before we go, we bring you a story that has to do with the pharmaceutical industry and horseshoe crabs.

Ben Levitan Horseshoe crabs are an incredible species that has been around for about 400mn years in virtually an unchanged form.

Marc Filippino Ben Levitan is a senior attorney at Earthjustice, and he’s been working with horseshoe crabs for years now.

Ben Levitan They can be about the size of dinner plates with a hard shell on the back and legs coming out from underneath that shell.

Marc Filippino Their numbers are rapidly dwindling because the biomedical industry uses their blood to test products like vaccines for impurities.

Ben Levitan Horseshoe crab blood has this really cool quality where if it encounters an impurity, it clots to prevent that impurity from spreading throughout the horseshoe crab. And that same characteristic can be used to test for impurities in products that are going to be implanted into humans.

Marc Filippino The practice has come under pressure from environmentalists like Ben, who have advocated that companies use a cloned substance instead of horseshoe crab blood. This week, a non-profit that set standards for American-made medicines proposed new rules for using the synthetic alternative. And if the rules are finalised . . . 

Ben Levitan Pharmaceutical companies will be able to put the synthetic on the same level as the horseshoe crab drive product.

Marc Filippino The synthetic would eliminate the need for harvesting horseshoe crabs. And there you have it, hope for some of Earth’s oldest creatures.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back next week for the latest business news. Oh, and one more thing — our FT Weekend festival is back on Saturday, September 2nd in London. Speakers include Jesse Armstrong, Rachel Reeves and many others. As a Briefing listener, you can claim a special discount. We’ve got that promo code in our show notes. The FT News Briefing is produced by Sonja Hutson, Fiona Symon and me, Marc Filippino. I’d like to welcome our new senior producer, Kasia Broussalian, to the team. She started with us this week. Our engineer is Monica Lopez. We had help this week from Josh Gabert-Doyon, Monique Mulima, David da Silva, Michael Lello and Gavin Kallmann. Our executive producer’s Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio, and our theme song is by Metaphor Music.

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