Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Vladimir Putin’s elite can be called a Politburo 2.0, whose members each have a delegated role in political life. But Putin also has a court, which shuns publicity and exercises informal power in everything from foreign policy to cultural life. This system looks increasingly difficult to manage as Putin approaches his fourth term.
The high-profile trial of former Russian economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev is not playing out according to the script that most analysts had expected. The prosecution’s case increasingly relies on the testimony of one man, state oil chief Igor Sechin, making this master of Kremlin intrigue potentially politically vulnerable.
The Ukraine war that broke out in 2014 became possible due to the governmentalizing of the Russian economy during the 2008 crisis. But these actions didn’t anticipate war. The manual control of the Russian economy formed to fight the crisis became an important component in fighting sanctions, and even in equipping the Donbas. But it was initially planned for different needs.
Since this spring, it has become clear that Russia’s political system of managed chaos is devolving into a free-for-all in which Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and his small cadre of current and former FSB officers have the upper hand.
What will the two recently appointed behind-the-scenes technocrats, Sergei Kiriyenko and Anton Vaino, do in the Kremlin? They will have no say in foreign policy, and even in domestic politics they cannot change course unless the president desires it. It seems that both are awaiting orders. They must have a mission of some sort, a specific project to carry out. But what is it?
President Putin’s formation of a new National Guard gives him extra powers as a time of political uncertainty begins. It also helps him cut some strong individuals down to size.
Russian Railways Chief Vladimir Yakunin relied on his personal friendship with President Vladimir Putin to keep his job for a decade. But the political realities of 2015 require a different kind of personality for that job.
Thanks to the carelessness of officials, what at first was a purely technical question of rescheduling Russia’s 2016 parliamentary elections from December to September snowballed into a political scandal that landed at the feet of Russian President Vladimir Putin