The main official of the country was not "thrown down". He resigned himself Alexander Voloshin resigned. As the head of the presidential administration, he was perceived as a politician next in the unspoken table of ranks immediately after Putin. Even Prime Minister Mikhail...

The main official of the country was not "thrown down". He left on his own

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Alexander Voloshin retired. As the head of the presidential administration, he was perceived as a politician next in the unspoken table of ranks immediately after Putin. Even Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was inferior to him in political influence.

Voloshin joined the presidential administration in 1997 as an assistant to its then head, Valentin Yumashev. In 1998 he became his deputy. In 1999, he himself headed the presidential administration. And he remained in this post under two presidents - Yeltsin and Putin.

Talk that his career is coming to an end appeared back in 2000. Voloshin himself made several attempts to resign, but each time he received a refusal from his boss: "The time has not yet come for you to leave." And this despite the fact that Alexander Stalievich acted in an unfriendly, to put it mildly, environment.

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Aspiring to political, bureaucratic and financial power, a team of security officials made several attempts to "fall" Voloshin. According to reports, Prosecutor General Ustinov and FSB Director Patrushev initiated a request from 11 deputies to investigate Voloshin's commercial activities.

These efforts, however, came to nothing. Experts say that if Voloshin had not written his resignation now, he would have retained his post, at least until the presidential election. Voloshin was not “thrown down” (although, of course, there will be attempts to present the situation in this light), he himself left.

The secret of Voloshin's omnipotence was that he was an official to the marrow of his bones. He was the first to manage to organize the work of the presidential administration in such a way that extraneous influence on Putin was minimized as much as possible. He monopolized what in Russia is called "access to the ear." Did Putin understand this? Undoubtedly. But the president himself needed this buffer.

In addition, Voloshin was the guarantor of the interests of big business. He became the only channel through which the financial magnates of the first draft could bring the information they needed to the president. The condition for the survival of the "family" was loyalty not to the president, but to Voloshin.

He invented political parties whose ideology was loyalty to Putin. And not just invented, but achieved that his “party godchildren” became the favorites of all electoral battles.

Serious financing of "loving the president" was possible only with the sanction of Voloshin. “Those who don’t like the president” could also financially survive only with the knowledge of the head of the administration, and this limited the extent of their dislike. By manipulating the oligarchs - the owners of the shares of TV channels, he broke the television opposition.

Voloshin not only organized the work of the president, he organized the development of all events in the country. Even in the areas controlled by his opponents - "St. Petersburg", he appeared when the "St. Petersburg" could not cope. So, when the Chechen referendum was threatened with failure, Voloshin personally went to warring Chechnya to save the presidential project. The results of his intervention are well known to all.

Putin, who did not let go of Voloshin in recent years, was well aware that it was he who would suffer the biggest losses from his departure. Because Voloshin is the main scriptwriter of all elections in the country. Because without him, you need to look for a new source of fuel for love for the president of the same "United Russia". Because, no matter how cowardly our oligarchs are, it was Voloshin who ensured their loyalty.

Voloshin left not because the siloviki “left” him, and not because the president stopped needing him. Perhaps Voloshin simply decided to punish the boss.