Nobody lasts forever

Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov resigned at his own request. One could talk about the end of an era, but Surkov’s omnipotence ended much earlier than this resignation - even when he was transferred to the government from the presidential administration, in which he had worked (first as simply deputy head, and then as first deputy head) since 1999. Surkov invented sovereign democracy, nurtured pro-Kremlin youth, supervised information policy, party politics and interaction with the opposition. It is no coincidence that the deputy head of the Voice Association, Grigory Melkonyants, called the NTV television company Surkov’s propaganda.

In the presidential administration, which Surkov left in December 2011, after the last so-called parliamentary elections and the mass protests that followed, he was replaced by Vyacheslav Volodin. Experts said that in this way, sledgehammer blows were preferred to subtle and cunning techniques of the political game.

Surkov’s departure from the government, where he was in charge of personnel policy, supervised the media, justice, interaction with the courts and the prosecutor’s office, statistics, interaction with religious organizations, was preceded, firstly, by Putin’s reprimand of the government in connection with the failure to comply with decrees a year ago, and secondly, a skirmish with the Investigative Committee: Surkov (which is typical, while in London!) stated that the Investigative Committee does not have evidence of theft in Skolkovo, and yet they are opening a criminal case; The official representative of the Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, reacted sharply to this on the pages of Izvestia.