The principle of Kozak

Where did this official come from in the Kremlin, why he stayed next to Putin and where he went

On Friday, September 19, the biography of Dmitry Kozak as the deputy head of the presidential administration still hung on the Kremlin’s website. Although the day before was his last day in Old Square. Putin’s decree with the laconic "dismiss" dated September 18. Once Kozak had already left a very good work in power, and reasons were disagreement with what the authorities did, the lack of demand for his professional qualities, the “decorative” presence in his position. Knowing the biography, it is easy to guess why he is leaving now.

Unofficially, the sources claim that Dmitry Kozak himself resigned, and he asked for the exit since the spring of 2022. And so, unlike many in the Russian government, who would like to jump off today, he received a resignation. At the same time, he did not fly out of the window, did not fall down with a mysterious infection, did not fall with the plane, did not shoot himself, but simply said that he wanted to go into the business.

“Putin did not indicate in the decree that the Kozak was leaving of his own free will. Unhappy, ”the former editor of Echo of Moscow, Alexei Venediktov, wrote on September 18 in his telegram channel.

It is amazing not that Kozak, having worked with Putin for 26 years, was in disgrace. It is amazing that he generally lasted so much next to Putin.

- The workaholic. Talented. It is harshly formulating, it is interesting to talk with him,-so in a conversation with the New Evrope a man described a cossack (he asked not to name the name), who knew him well for almost one and a half decades. -

When the situation changed and his last boss became the president, he did not switch to "you." The only person who calmly smoked in the presence of Putin.

Among those who are personally familiar with Dmitry Kozak, he has a reputation as a man who not only smoked in the presence of Putin shaking for his health, but also openly expressed his opinion, regardless of what the boss thinks. Actually, the last such conversation The New York Times called the reason for the Cossack departure: he again, as he had already done many times, urged Putin to stop the war in Ukraine, but in addition proposed a reform that would lead to the independence of the judicial system in Russia. The sources of the New Evrope confirm this and add this: it was, in principle, about the full-scale reform of the entire law enforcement system, so that in the end the FSB lost its incredible power.

"It was an interesting and exciting service"

Kozaka is often called a person close to Putin, almost a friend from the time of Smolny. This is wrong. Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, the authors of the book “The Rostalger in the Kremlin”, explain: Putin doesn’t just value the inner circle, the Modus Operandi of the KGB is fixed at the subcortex level. The closest environment for him - a kind of network, one link will fall out - the rest can collapse, so he reluctantly “releases” his people. Kozak was also part of this "network". But he was not a friend of Putin.

“He’s not at all from Putin’s man,” says the deputy of the first convocations of the St. Petersburg parliament, not just knowing Kozak since 1990, but who was friends with him. - In St. Petersburg, they and Putin walked simply along parallel lines, and I do not think that a lot crossed. Well, for example, Igor Sechin was the head of the secretariat of Putin, Alexei Miller worked with him in the Committee on External Relations, the future head of the CEC Vladimir Churov worked there.

Kozak with Putin was not on friendly relations, he never worked in any special services; Putin was not subordinate to any committee. I also do not remember conflicts between them.

Normal working relations between the chairmen of the two committees. They worked together in Smolny for less than two years.

According to the biography of the Kozak, there is a feeling that this is a rare, if not the only one, an official who was “growing” next to Putin, not because he was a friend or colleague-glassist, but thanks to his own professional qualities.

In the Soviet passport, Kozak listed the nationality of the Ukrainian. He was born in 1958 in the village of Bandurovo, Kirovograd region of the Ukrainian SSR. After school, he joined the army. A long -standing acquaintances believe that that service to a large extent formed its character.

“He never talked about exactly where he served,” says the former Kozak’s colleague in the St. Petersburg parliament. - I only know that it was a real hell who made a person for a lifetime a professional in special operations.

The Kozak himself only once, in 2011, said in an interview with the newspaper Metro Moscow that it was an “interesting and exciting service, especially for young people” (the interview text is now deleted from the newspaper’s website, the name Dmitry Kozak can only be found in the news about retired). Wikipedia mentions that even earlier, in 2006, the Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov called the place of Cossack’s service: the special forces of the GRU of the General Staff of the USSR. Kozak’s old friend in St. Petersburg confirmed in a conversation with Novy-Europe that it was special forces, but he did not even call the geographical points where the Kozak served in 1976–78.

After the army, he returned to Ukraine and entered the Vinnitsa Polytechnic Institute, but two years later he moved to Leningrad and graduated from the University’s legal faculty there.

- I remember that for five years he was the Lenin scholarship and commander of the operational detachment. It was something like a voluntary folk squad, ”says the Petersburg friend of Kozak. - I had a newspaper with a tiny note about the advanced student of Kozak for a long time at my house.

After the university, Kozak worked for four years in the Leningrad Prosecutor's Office, rose to the senior prosecutor, and in 1989 he left there to business and headed the legal departments of commercial companies.

Peter

Kozak began working in St. Petersburg in 1990 first as a deputy head, and then the head of the legal department of the Leningrad City Council. In the same year, Anatoly Sobchak became the chairman of the Leningrad City Council, but was soon elected mayor of the city, and Vladimir Putin became his adviser in Smolny. Kozak continued to work in the legislative branch - in the Mariinsky Palace.

“Somehow, Putin personally could help Putin as a lawyer Kozak is unlikely to,” says a former deputy of the St. Petersburg parliament. - The most loud scandal with Putin dated to 1992, when food was “gone”, allegedly purchased in exchange for the sale of rare -earth metals. This was engaged in the commission of Salier in the Legislative Assembly, and Kozak had nothing to do with this. He was responsible for the legal purity of decisions made by the Leningrad Council, and that deal was the decision of the city hall.

Only in 1994, after the disbandment of the Lenso Council and new elections, Sobchak invited Kozak to the post of city hall.

“It was September 1994,” says Kozak’s colleague on the Lensovet. - The deputies were then elected then, but they did not start working, and the Kozak was sitting in his office idle. For him, it was an unusual state. Then Sobchak called him to him, and he quickly agreed.

In June 1996, Anatoly Sobchak, as you know, lost in the elections, the administration changed in St. Petersburg. Thus, Kozak managed to work next to Putin only a year and a half. They were in the same rank, each headed his own committee.

The relations between the branches of the authorities in St. Petersburg were then difficult. As deputies of those years recall , Kozak acted as a good lawyer who always defends the interests of the client. It was just earlier the “client” was parliament, and now the city administration. “Everyone quickly learned to recognize when he expresses his opinion, and when he sets out what he was put by his position,” one of the deputies wrote about him. “The wider and more dazzling Kozak’s smile, the less he believes in what he says.” In addition, he was engaged in “shuttle diplomacy” between Smol and Mariinsky Palace, persuading either the Legislative Assembly to adopt the right law, then the administration - to agree with the deputies.

Before the failed elections, Putin took the floor from the whole team that if the chef loses, everyone writes together to leave, no one remains.

“When Sobchak lost, only two people honestly wrote the promised statements: Vitaly Mutko and Dmitry Kozak,” says their former Smolny colleague. - Everyone else did not write, and Putin just went to Yakovlev and asked for work until Yakovlev sent him obscenities. Mutko worked further as the director of a football club,

And about Kozak, one of the deputies came to Yakovlev and said that he should be persuaded to remain at all costs, because such a lawyer could no longer be found. Kozak returned to Smolny and worked there for another two years.

In 1998, in St. Petersburg, the difficult relations between the mayor and the city parliament outgrown into an open conflict.

“By that time, Yakovlev sprinkled tightly with the deputies,” says an eyewitness to those events. - The decisions that Smolny made did not like the deputies, but they, apparently, began to correspond to the law less and less, because from a legal point of view they did not suit Kozak, he refused to put his signature. In the end, the administration simply stopped contacting him.

To hold the Kozak in the device, Yakovlev appointed him as vice-governor. And already in this status, Kozak continued to sit idle, maintaining a “decorative” position.

“He didn’t like everything that was happening, he did not want to bear responsibility for this, so he wrote a statement and left,” his colleague continues.

Leaving the civil service, Kozak did not give a single press conference and never revealed a single secret of the Yakovlev team.

“He behaved like a good lawyer here,” says his colleague in Smolny. - He worked with the client - and will never give a "law" secret. Knowing Kozak, I can say now: he will not give out any secrets now, he will not turn into “second Kasyanov”, he won’t start to brand Putin, this is not in his habits.

The "St. Petersburg" in Moscow, who knew what the Kozak was standing, called him to his place, he replied that "he tied up with civil service forever." He got a job in the Law Firm "Just", but worked there for less than a year. In August 1999, Putin became chairman of the country's government. He persuaded Kozak to return to the civil service, he first became the head of the government apparatus, then, when Putin was chosen by the president, the deputy head of the administration.

Moscow, Caucasus, Ukraine

Another former deputy says that Putin invited Kozak to Moscow for a very specific purpose: to prepare the draft future judicial reform. The executive and clear Kozak prepared a detailed document. It was assumed that he himself would soon take the position of Prosecutor General.

“But when they discussed the reform with Putin, Kozak said something in this spirit: you understand that I will do everything“ by garlic ”, I will plant those whom I need to plant,” says our interlocutor. - The prosecutor was eventually appointed Vladimir Ustinov.

“Then we began to call it the“ Kozak’s principle ”: he is never appointed to the position that they promise,” says another former St. Petersburg deputy.

Indeed, Kozaka was read to the deputy prime ministers, but Igor Shuvalov took the place. Then there was talk that he was a minister of justice without five minutes, but Yuri Chaika was appointed. There were rumors that Kozak was about to go to St. Petersburg by the governor, but Valentina Matvienko took the place.

All this time, Kozak worked next to Putin, like a well -learned German shepherd: devotedly, executively, readily attack everything that interferes with the “master”. And closing his eyes to a lot. In particular, the never -ended judicial reform. More precisely, what the Russian judicial system eventually turned into. When Putin went to the prime ministers for a while, he took Kozak to his apparatus, then returned to the presidential administration, and the Kozak continued to work where he would be appointed. For all these years, no investigators could find either luxurious real estate or fabulous avuars from him.

When rumors about the imminent resignation of Kozak went, many recalled that Putin never pushes “his own”. Anatoly Chubais managed to jump off only having left the country.

Kozak was called the future presidential envoy to the NWFO instead of Alexander Mutsan, who goes to the prosecutors general. Now it is known that the “Kozak principle” is still valid.

In fact, the work in the Kozaku district is well acquainted, from 2004 to 2007 he was a plenipotentiary in the Southern Federal District, was responsible for the North Caucasus and for interaction with former union republics: Moldova, Georgia. When the “interaction” reached the war with Georgia and the seizure of Abkhazia with South Ossetia, Kozak was responsible for new ties with these regions and the “integration” of their legislation into the Russian one. This is under him, an unsurpassed lawyer, in South Ossetian courts they began to say: "The name of the Republic of South Ossetia, in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation." And under his sensitive leadership, the chairman of the Supreme Court of the Republic became a girl without experience in a lawyer.

Then the Kozak was the Minister of Regional Development and was responsible for the preparation of the Olympic Sochi.

“I saw how in 2011-13 the Kozak examined the Olympic objects,” says our interlocutor, who knows Kozak and a half decades. - everyone checked on himself.

The legend says that he went down on a faner from the constructed springboard, although I myself did not see this. He is a “round -the -clock” man, he was just sick of a matter of shaking.

At night he left the facility, shaking on the roads not yet built for two hours. At seven in the morning he was already at construction sites again. He knew how to deal with the workers, spoke their language - like an experienced old -timer.

As soon as the Olympics ended in Sochi, Russia began the war with Ukraine. Then, as we recall, not full -scale, but only annexed Crimea and arranged armed clashes in the Donbass. Kozak was thrown on this "front". In particular, he was responsible for the distribution of half a million Russian passports in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. And he also oversaw the water supply of the Donetsk region, which is now dehydrated to the full disaster stage.

“In 2014, both Russia and Ukraine actually ceased to follow the Seversky Donets River, supplying Donbass water,” says our interlocutor, who has known Kozak for many years.

- There, before, it was necessary to constantly carry out treatment work, filter, drain and so on. Kozak tried to establish it. But now, after 2022, the river is also littered with corpses, this is one of the worst ecologically places on the planet.

In 2015, Kozak headed negotiations from Russia in the Norman format and participated in the preparation of the Minsk Agreements. Eyewitnesses remember him as a tough and difficult negotiator.

“He recorded every agreement on paper,” our interlocutor continues. - Given his army experience, he was always a sincere supporter of the world, he sought a ceasefire. But in the evening he agreed on some concessions on both sides, and in the morning, from Kyiv, then from the Kremlin, the team came: no, it would not.

In 2020, Kozak returned to the presidential administration as a deputy head. Especially for him, two managements were created there - according to border cooperation and on interregional and cultural ties with foreign countries. Until 2022, these administrations still somehow cooperated and contacted foreign countries, then the Kozak simply headed them. As once in Smolny, he remained in a “decorative” position and, in fact, did not affect anything.

Probably, Kozak’s opal occurred on February 21, 2022. At a well -known meeting of the Russian Security Council, Kozak was the only one who categorically opposed the invasion of Ukraine. His speech was cut out of television, the content remained unknown. Sources of Novy-Europe say that Kozak spoke more than once, but three times. And three times he, in fact, predicted what would happen in case of invasion.

“He said that there will be sanctions, and they will be tough,” the source of the New-Europe, familiar with the participants of that owls. - He said that Ukrainians will not meet Russian tanks with roses. He warned that the Ukrainian army over these eight years became one of the strongest armies of Europe.

All his forecasts came true, so I think that Putin, making a decision on “Kyiv in three days”, actually understood very well what was going on.

In August of this year, both administrations headed by the Kozak in the presidential administration, Putin abolished, and transferred the powers of relations with regions and abroad to Sergey Kiriyenko. As the New York Times wrote and as the sources of Novo-Europe confirm, Kozaku Putin gave another responsible assignment: to develop a draft of the next reform. Предложения Козака, повторим, сводились к тому, что для выживания страны, в том числе экономического, необходимо прекратить войну, обеспечить независимое правосудие, лишить силовиков непомерной власти, снизить роль ФСБ. После того как очередная реформа, разработанная Козаком, отправилась по тому же адресу, что предыдущие, он всё равно мог остаться в Кремле на какой-нибудь синекуре. Вместо этого, как когда-то в Смольном, он написал заявление об уходе.