THE Kremlin’s political nature resembles its physical
structure: a walled fortress whose interior is invisible to those on the
outside. On August 12th, when President Vladimir Putin sacked Sergei Ivanov,
his powerful chief of staff, the Kremlin released only a cryptic video in which
Mr Putin thanked Mr Ivanov for his 17 years of service. The move’s real meaning
was left to speculation. This aura of mystery is not happenstance, but a
guiding principle.
“We have a system that believes it can do anything without
any explanation,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin advisor. “We
have only a black box.”
Mr Ivanov, like Mr Putin an ex-KGB man from St
Petersburg, was seen as one of Russia’s most influential figures, perhaps
second only to the president himself. The decision to replace him with the
44-year-old Anton Vaino fits a broader pattern of Mr Putin’s old comrades being
pushed out in favour of younger loyalists. “Those who don’t fit Putin’s vision
of the new aims are leaving,” says Aleksei Chesnakov, a former presidential
administration official. However, he adds, “no one except the president knows
what those new aims are.”
The switch comes at a sensitive time. Parliamentary elections loom in
mid-September and the Russian economy remains weak. Tensions with Ukraine have
escalated over Russian allegations of an attempted terrorist attack in Crimea.
Russia is also expanding its presence in the Middle East, launching bombing
runs into Syria from Iranian bases this week.
So, Kremlinologists wonder, does the shake-up signal
that Mr Putin wants early presidential elections next year, as a means to renew
his mandate and launch needed economic reforms? Or does he instead plan to step
down as president in 2018? Is Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Putin’s successor in 2008,
destined to return once more? Or is Mr Putin seeking a new heir? “The bottom
line is we don’t know much,” says Mark Galeotti, a veteran Russia expert.
Certain trends can be divined. Last year the Russian
Railways boss, Vladimir Yakunin, a close friend of Mr Putin known for his lavish lifestyle, was dismissed. Earlier
this year, Mr Putin created a national guard force, pushing out longtime allies
heading the drug enforcement agency and federal migration service. New faces
have taken over the powerful economic-crimes department of the Federal Security
Service (FSB). In July Andrei Belyaninov, chief of the lucrative customs
service, stepped down after FSB agents raided his home and found stacks of
cash. As budgets tighten, such blatant corruption has become too costly to
tolerate, some analysts argue.
As for Mr Ivanov, the death by drowning of his son in
2014 may have left him exhausted. He retains his seat on the powerful Security
Council, suggesting that any falling-out with Mr Putin may be overblown. Yet he
had reportedly been excluded from the inner circle for some time. Some analysts
think Mr Putin is losing interest in the independent counsel of old friends who
can speak to him as equals.
In any case, clearing out ageing comrades helps
refresh (and intimidate) the country’s elite. Without public politics, Mr
Putin’s system lacks effective means for generating new cadres. Where the
Soviet Union had a Communist Party that trained and promoted new leaders,
today’s Russia relies on informal nepotistic ties.
As Mr Putin’s long rule continues, he has become
increasingly concerned with the personnel problem. When he returned to the
presidency in 2012, he created new recruitment channels, says Nikolai Petrov, a
political analyst. Primary elections earlier this year by the ruling United
Russia party served as “an incubator of new faces”, says Andrei Kolesnikov of
the Moscow Carnegie Centre, a think-tank. The president even put his weight behind
a national academy for gifted children in Sochi.
Buddy guards
Yet when it comes to new appointments, Mr Putin is
still turning to people he knows personally. This year he appointed former
bodyguards as governors in three regions. Another former bodyguard, Victor
Zolotov, heads the national guard. The new generation of “Putin’s people” tend
to owe their careers entirely to the president. They should be “loyal,
effective and non-ideological”, says Evgeny Minchenko, a political consultant.
The president’s new right-hand man, though not a
bodyguard, has also spent his career by Mr Putin’s side. Working in the
administration’s protocol department, Mr Vaino kept Mr Putin’s schedule,
accompanied him on travel and carried his umbrella. Oleg Matveychev, a former
presidential administration official, says Mr Vaino developed a reputation as
“rigorous, upright and well-dressed”.
The grandson of an Estonian Communist Party leader, Mr
Vaino started out as a diplomat, serving in Tokyo. (Japanese observers wonder
if Mr Vaino’s promotion augurs a deal over the disputed Kuril Islands.) As a
bureaucrat unlikely to challenge Mr Putin, he may turn the administration into
a less influential, more technocratic operation. But Mr Vaino is also
auditioning for future roles. Mr Putin’s former chiefs-of-staff have included
Sergei Naryshkin (now speaker of the Duma), Sergei Sobyanin (mayor of Moscow),
and Mr Medvedev (prime minister, for now).
Mr Vaino’s promotion may portend wider changes.
Ministers may be swapped out after parliamentary elections. More old cronies,
such as the Rosneft head, Igor Sechin, may find themselves under fire. Yet
where these shifts will take the country remains a mystery. That is part of the
point. As Kirill Rogov, a political analyst, explains: “They believe that
secrecy is power.”
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