Crimea. Ivanov. What next?

Is there a chance to avoid war with Ukraine and why the presidential administration is a new chapter

Augustus met expectations. As it happened more than once before, the last month of summer makes even those who hoped to hide from news pressure in a distant vacation corner. In the air, the war between Russia and Ukraine smelled, the relations between which are nowhere worse. On August 10, the FSB of Russia accused the intelligence service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine of sabotage and terrorist activities in the Crimea-supposedly Kyiv tried to send three groups of saboteurs to the peninsula, and they at first on the night of August 6-7 and a day-tried to break through with fire support from the naple, but at the same time, the FSB officer and the FSB officer and died. soldier of the Ministry of Defense of Russia. According to the FSB, the detained, the Ukrainian reconnaissance colonel Evgeny Panov, gave a confession-they say, the goal was to commit terrorist attacks on a number of important objects in the Crimea.

On the same day, President Putin makes not only the most tough one -year -old statement to the Ukrainian authorities - Ukraine “has passed to the practice of terror”, “this is a very dangerous game” and “we will certainly not pass such things,” he declares a way out of negotiations on peaceful resolution in the east of Ukraine in “Norman format”, with the participation of high -ranking representatives of Ukraine, Russia, France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France and France Germany, including heads of state. It is pointless to meet now, Putin says.

It is difficult to understand what happened in the period from August 6 to August 8 on the Perekopsky Isthmus. Kyiv removed all the accusations, while bringing his troops on the border with the Crimea in full combat readiness. The United States announced the lack of evidence that Ukrainian artillery really fired at Russian positions, and called both sides to restraint. Europe seems to be in a stupor - no intelligible comments about the exit of the Russian Federation from the Norman format followed. And everyone wonders: how Putin will behave.

Of course, you can guess as much as you like. But there are facts. Firstly, Russia is transferring additional units to the Crimea and to the border with Ukraine. Secondly, the Russian leadership already speaks out loud about the possibility of breaking down the diplomatic executions with Ukraine, and from this to the war, as history teaches us, very often only one step. Thirdly, in addition to the facts, there are parallels. The Russian-Georgian war broke out in August 2008, according to the official Russian version, due to the “provocations of the Georgian side” on the border with South Ossetia. As now, the “only superpower”, as Putin himself admitted, was then completely absorbed in the internal election campaign, and the rest of the world - competitions at the summer Olympics (in Beijing). A formal pretext for a massive Russian military intervention was the death of Russian military personnel (peacekeepers). Servant people have also died now. And for Putin this is precisely this, if not Casus Belli, then the signal to a sharp tightening of the course: everything, we stop the conversations, they certainly will not get off with the tomatoes, and there we will see what to do with them ...

Putin also threw additional questions regarding the further intentions of Putin in the Kremlin. On August 12, the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, who held this post longer than any of his predecessors, was fired from his post - almost five years. Ivanov became a representative of the president on environmental protection, ecology and transport. There was no such position before, apparently, it was created specifically under Ivanov. And the post of head of the AP was taken by Anton Vaino, who worked as deputy Ivanov since May 2012.

To change the head of the administration before or immediately after the elections to the Duma is the old Russian tradition, Ivanov also came to AP in December 2011. And the rumors of the ambulance Ivanov and that it was Vaino that would take his place a month ago. But the background - the events in the Crimea and the sharp statements of the president - allowed the political scientists to immediately put forward a lot of versions of what happened, from expected to exotic ones. Ivanov is a successor (he was already a successor in 2008) and will wait in an insignificant position in the wings; Ivanov missed control of intra -elite conflicts, for which he was punished; Ivanov knows Putin too well-they worked together in the Leningrad KGB in the 1970s, and Putin gets rid of old acquaintances and his obligations to them; And even, which is quite surprising and it is contrary to the sharp public performances of the ex-head of the AP-Ivanov is the opponent of the aggravation of the conflict with Ukraine, and the war is not far off.

And for Putin this is precisely this, if not Casus Belli, then the signal to a sharp tightening of the course: everything, we stop the conversations, they certainly will not get off with the tomatoes, and there we will see what to do with them ...

However, it must be borne in mind that for quite some time the deputy heads of AP, overseeing domestic policy, first - Vladislav Surkov, then Vyacheslav Volodin, more influential than their nominal bosses. The position of the chapter is rather a stationery than political. They say that Ivanov was just tired and he himself resigned. He experienced his personal tragedy - the death of his son, let go of the administration on its own, much more interested in basketball and other joys of life. And the native of the Foreign Ministry (and the family of Estonian Part Functioners) Vaino is, on the contrary, the pedantic performer, who was obliged to Putin personally and since 2003 in the AP, in the government and again in the AP engaged in the protocol and hardware issues. Putin has been holding him with him for more than ten years - which means he is satisfied and trusted. In the difficult situation for the Kremlin, Putin may simply try to restore the hardware efficiency of AP.

And of course, Sergey Ivanov with anti -American statements as the head of AP and Sergey Ivanov with any statements as a court ecologist - very varied figures. The Kremlin should only have one voice, and Anton Vaino will definitely not claim this role.

Photo: Victor Korotaev/Kommersant, Vladimir Smirnov/TASS, Maxim Shemetov/TASS