Peter Pomerantsev

Biography

In 1978, ten months old, Pomerantsev moved with his parents to West Germany, and thereafter to London and Munich. After studying at university he moved to Russia in 2001. He "jumped jobs" between think tanks and was a consultant on European Union projects until he went to film school. He returned to Moscow in 2006 to work for Potemkin Pictures, then worked as a producer for the television channel TNT. In November 2010 he returned to London.

Starting in 2011 Pomerantsev wrote about Russia, with articles in Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines. He coined the term "post-modern dictatorship" to describe Vladimir Putin's regime.

In 2014 Perseus Books published Pomerantsev's Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia under its PublicAffairs imprint. In the book Pomerantsev provides insight into how the Russian state apparatus uses "black PR" to manipulate truth, while the Russian public — accustomed to the lies of the Soviet regime — remain cynical and assume that all of "Kremlin's reality is scripted". The New York Times noted the "book is written in different genres, a sort of intellectual docudrama. Mr. Pomerantsev concedes that some of the dialogue he quotes is from memory."

Pomerantsev is project chair for the Information Warfare Initiative of the Center for European Policy Analysis. He also leads the Beyond Propaganda programme within the Legatum Institute's Transitions Forum, where he is a Senior Fellow.

Rose Of The World Investigation

While researching for a documentary into the suicide of Nina Ricci model, Ruslana Korshunova, Pomerantsev revealed that Korshunova's death was linked to the cult-like influence of the Rose Of The World. Korshunova attended the Rose's "training sessions" along with her friend, Ukrainian model Anastasia Drozdova, who herself committed suicide in 2009. After three months of training, Korshunova returned to New York City (where she wrote of feeling lost and doubting herself), to look for work. On 28 June 2008, Korshunova died after leaping from the ninth-floor balcony of her Manhattan apartment. Police stated there were no signs of a struggle in her apartment and concluded that Korshunova's death was an apparent suicide, although no suicide note was found. It was three days before her 21st birthday.

Criticism

In a May 17, 2015 post at Pando.com, Mark Ames — a former Moscow-resident and editor of the city's (now defunct) english-language paper Exile — questioned whether Pomerantsev was transparent with his motives regarding Russia. In Ames' view... in his capacity at the CEPA and at Legatum, Pomerantsev was effectively lobbying NATO for sanctions against Russia.... causing Ames to ask "Where does the independent critical analysis stop, and the manipulative lobbying begin?"

Ames goes on to question the docudrama nature of "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible":

...there is a vague, foggy, masked quality to his writing and to his approach to most things, including his intimate vignettes in his book: people without last names or recognizable faces, characters whose canned descriptions seem lifted from writers’ workshop classes rather than from experience.

That said Ames remains bullish on the book's thesis — "[it has] a lot of truth to it, and is worth studying" — but he condemns Pomerantsev for associating with — but not being forthright about his connections to — colleagues with anti-Putin positions; including Legatum's Chris Chandler, Jeffrey Gedmin, Anne Applebaum, Ben Judah, and Bill Browder. Ames concludes that Pomerantsev is a new kind of neoconservative who masks his purpose using the very same avant-garde sleight-of-hand Pomerantsev condemns in Russia.

Criticizing Pomerantsev for his neocon connections traces back to a 2014 article at Russia Today (RT.com) where Maidhc Ó Cathail originated that line of argument. Similarly, two days after Ames' post at Pando (May 19, 2015), James Carden — writing for The Nation — claimed Pomerantsev was fomenting belligerence toward Russia for unsubstantiated hawkish reasons.