Translated material
Kremlin sky
The Russian government is absolutely non-transparent. By whom and how the most important decisions that determine the life of the country are made is a mystery. With whom the president consults, and whether he consults at all, before annexing foreign territory or moving troops across the seas, is the subject of fortune-telling by specialists. The old models of describing the Kremlin's realities do not work - today the president is by no means only surrounded by members of the Ozero dacha cooperative. Moreover, there are rumors unthinkable a few years ago: for example, that the once most influential businessman Gennady Timchenko left Vladimir Putin’s inner circle in 2015. No traces of the activities of the shadow collegial body can be found either: the “new Politburo” is a spectacular, but not working metaphor. One of the NT sources even claims that Putin makes all the key decisions alone: "This is Caesar."
One of the NT sources even claims that Putin makes all the key decisions alone: “This is Caesar”
Specialists have to look for new ways to determine the weight of an official, businessman or politician. It is argued, for example, that the meeting of the Russian Geographical Society, held on April 24, during which Putin compared himself to an angelfish eating devils, is a protocol event only for the uninitiated. But for those who expected to receive an invitation to him and did not receive it, this is just a very bad sign, foreshadowing royal disgrace with all the ensuing consequences.
Society is deprived of the opportunity to know the truth about the functioning of the supreme power. There are only stable ideas about the existence of a certain inner circle, "persons close to the emperor", which includes old acquaintances, trusted friends, colleagues, and younger people who made a career in Putin's years and earned the trust of the first person. The lists of members of the inner circle vary, it is a matter of faith to consider one or another of them true. NT offers its own way of forming such a list.
INTERIOR CIRCLE
By no means all the experts interviewed by NT believe that talking about a certain inner circle of the president, defined by composition, is justified. “There is no “single center for making all decisions”,” says political scientist Ekaterina Shulman. In her opinion, one could talk about unity at the top with a certain degree of conditionality “during the golden years of our regime, when it was rich and stable,” and now controllability at all levels has “dramatically declined.”
Most specialists, however, are ready to name the members of the inner circle. And almost everyone notes innovations in the way the president interacts with those who are admitted to the body. First, the mere ability to communicate directly with Putin is no longer a 100% guarantee of influence. “Patrushev (head of the Security Council. - NT) is a friend, but he does not listen to him,” says one of the NT sources, “but Shoigu (defense minister. - NT), on the contrary, is not a friend, but Putin listens to him.” “Vaino (head of the presidential administration. - NT), for example, is clearly in the main, but is he taken seriously?” asks another. Secondly, the system of governing a vast country has to be described in terms of everyday psychology, in which everything is determined by the personal preferences, habits, likes and dislikes of one person.
NT asked political scientists Mikhail Vinogradov, Alexander Morozov, Valery Solovy, Tatyana Stanovaya, political strategist Andrei Kolyadin, who worked with the presidential administration, as well as several people close to the Kremlin and ready to speak only on condition of anonymity, to list those who, according to in their opinion, is included in the inner circle of Vladimir Putin. The results of the survey are presented on page 24. If a person is mentioned by all experts, then on the diagram he is in the orbit closest to the sun of our policy. If one of the experts did not mention it - to the second one. If it was mentioned more than twice - on the third. The fourth orbit is the periphery, the people mentioned by only one expert. Here the contours of the inner circle begin to blur. The method does not claim to be unconditionally reliable, but it allows certain conclusions to be drawn.
It should be noted that not only people from the special services are in the nearest orbit. It is also important that, although, according to NT sources, the president devotes most of his time to foreign policy issues and has little interest in domestic Russian affairs, there are only three people with diplomatic experience on the lists, and even those are in the farthest orbit.
The economy, according to NT sources, is of little concern to the president. What experts call stagnation or growth within the statistical error - 1.5% (the most optimistic forecast) - the president, as they say, is quite satisfied: the people subordinate to him will endure this state of affairs, and for more than one year. In matters of the economy, Putin primarily trusts the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina. About the publicity-loving head of Sberbank German Gref, one source said: “Clown. I go to Putin, but he does not listen to him. The former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin also lost his influence.
SPECIAL POLICY
Only one of the NT experts, on condition of the strictest anonymity, agreed to describe the political views of the inner circle in relatively familiar political science terms: “There are conservatives, liberals and scumbags. But if I call a person a scumbag, he will be offended. And if a liberal, he will be offended. And these are very powerful people. So no names. The rest state the insufficiency of the standard political language for describing the Kremlin realities. Valery Solovey proposes to talk about two types of worldview: KGB with its inherent conspiracy thinking and technocratic, when liberal ideas are not comprehended as values, but can be used as tools (see NT No. 14 of April 24, 2017). Alexander Morozov says: "They are all enlightened liberal imperialists." But then he clarifies: “It seems to me that Putin does not keep in his inner circle people who have some too pronounced “ideological views”. In the first circle are people with the ideology “We take care of Putin – we take care of Russia.” This is a direct reference to the famous formula of State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin: “There is Putin, there is Russia; no Putin, no Russia.
Another anonymous NT interlocutor claims: “There is no time for views, views are harmful to survival. What "dad" likes is good." NT offers the most striking scheme voiced by experts to get an idea of the ideological values of people in the inner circle - on page 26.
“There are conservatives, liberals and scumbags. But if I call a person a scumbag, he will be offended. And if a liberal, he will be offended"
SWORN FRIENDS
Relationships within the inner circle are a taboo topic, facts are replaced by hypotheses. It is noted, for example, that Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin spend time together and even go hunting, but there is no friendship between them, the relationship is tough and difficult. Perhaps because both claim to be prime minister.
The question remains open: are there stable coalitions in the near-Kremlin orbits at all, or are any alliances there only tactical and created to achieve specific goals? One of the NT experts suggested that Putin, a master of pushing people head-on, simply does not allow long-term alliances to arise so as not to lose control over those close to him and prevent any of them from becoming excessively strengthened. There is also an opinion that the Kremlin members are grouped not because of personal predilections, but because of the functions they perform. "Friends" control assets, "managers" propose and implement management decisions. “Some are sitting on pipes, others need money,” as the hero of Viktor Tsoi once said in the film “The Needle”. Or, as Tatyana Stanovaya put it, "some people drive the car, while others own it."
Versions of long-term alliances within the president's inner circle are presented on page 28.
Photo: kremlin.ru