Putin's close technocratic officials, without whom he could not do it

NV has collected six portraits of technocratic officials, without whom Putin cannot live. It is not excluded that at least two of this group claim to occupy the main position in the Kremlin.

 

Mihailo Mishustin. 57 years old. Head of the Government of the Russian Federation.

He could not be omitted from the list - the prime minister, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, becomes the acting prime minister. the president, if anything happens to the president.

Mishustin replaced Dmitry Medvedev as head of government in January 2020, having previously headed the Federal Tax Service for 10 years. As chief fiscal chief, he is remembered for implementing a system reminiscent of Orwell's "Big Brother" - global digital control of the movement of money and checks. Mishustin's "merit" in the digitalization of Putin's regime is unquestionable.

Nothing is known about Mishustin's political views. On February 21, 2022, at the meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, he was one of three participants (along with the head of the Security Council Nikola Petrushev and the head of the SSR Sergey Naryshkin) who spoke in support of the continuation of negotiations with the West. "I think it is necessary, of course, to prove our position, if you will, to catalyze it and, if there are no changes, to recognize the "LNR" and "DNR", Putin said. There was no negative reaction to these words of Putin, although he immediately humiliated Naryshkin.

According to Meduza's sources, the prime minister found out about the invasion of Ukraine on February 23, 2022. Information about the alleged introduction of a "limited contingent" of the army into the Donbas was brought to that Cabinet of Ministers from the Kremlin.

After the beginning of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the USA, Western Europe and Japan imposed sanctions on the Russian Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Mishustin, unlike his predecessor, does not threaten the world with a nuclear attack and does not announce a "revival of neo-Nazism". In the spring of 2022, speaking in the State Duma, he only stated that "an economic war is being waged against Russia", after which he repeated this formulation several times.

The high status of Mishustin in the hierarchy was highlighted in 2023 by the President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping. He held a separate meeting with the prime minister during his visit to Moscow, although, according to Atlantic Council expert Anders Aslund, it was not according to protocol.

 

Moreover, at the head of a huge delegation from the Russian Federation, Mishustin visited China in May, where he also met with Xi Jinping.

 "The Chinese have expressed their distrust of Putin and may be looking at Mishustin as a worthy alternative," suggests Aslund.

Russian opposition political scientist Abbas Galyamov believes that there is no reason to suspect that Mishustin is in a conspiracy against Putin. According to him, the prime minister is a non-conflictual person and knows how to "mix things up", negotiate and convince.

 "But if Mishustin becomes president and gets a chance to reconcile with Ukraine, lift sanctions on Russia with a demand to extradite Putin to the tribunal in The Hague, then there is a risk that he will agree to it in order to save Russia," Galyamov said on Channel 24.

"Ukraine will probably be ready to negotiate with him to some extent. But those are armistice talks, not peace talks, that's the difference. Negotiations on ending the war will be possible, even with the bald devil, as President Zelenski once said. That is, especially with Mishustin. But there can be no normalization of relations between the countries with Mishustin, because he is a war criminal," said political technologist Mihajlo Šejtelman in an interview for the Jutro Februarya channel.

Sergey Kiriyenko. 61 years old. First Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation.

The special feature of this character is that he was once formally Putin's boss. In 1998, Kiriyenko introduced him as the new director of the FSB. About a year will pass, and Putin will already be the prime minister, and soon the president.

The youngest head of government of the Russian Federation in history, Kiriyenko, is remembered for the terrible failure of the economy, which led to the first and only default in the country's history. But he remained close to the highest circles of power. From 2000 to 2005, he was the deputy representative of the president in the Volga region, from 2005 to 2016, he was the head of the Rosatom corporation.

The European Union sanctioned him for his possible participation in the poisoning of the so-called opposition leader Aleksi Navalny.

He did not particularly stand out in public. Kiriyenko was mentioned before the elections, when they were trying to guess what kind of result Putin or the party in power would "paint".

Everything changed with the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. The first deputy head of the administration led the political bloc of the Kremlin, he began to regularly give patriotic speeches. Meduza called Kiriyenko the "viceroy of Donbass": it was this official who prepared the "referendums" on the accession of the pseudo-republics "DPR" and "LNR" to Russia.

As an informal mentor, he often visited the occupied territories and, it is said, once came under fire.

The autumn offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2022 deprived Kiriyenko of his role as manager of the conquered lands. But he is still in the Kremlin's orbit, representing those who oppose the bloc's military and security forces.

Sergei Lavrov. 73 years old. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

 

In March, it will be 20 years since Lavrov became a minister. During that time, the Ministry turned from a diplomatic one into a propaganda one, and the diplomat perfectly mastered the jargon ("morons, *la", etc.).

"In essence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation long ago ceased to be a diplomatic agency and began to perform mainly internal political tasks, trying to instill in the minds of the subordinate population a myth about the exceptional role of Putin's Russia in the world, a Russia that most of the planet respects and the rest fear", commented on the function of the Russian foreign minister, Den newspaper columnist Ihor Jakovenko.

As German political scientist Felix Riefer told DW, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry called his former reputation into question by supporting "the policy of reorientation of the Russian regime".

"Lavrov does not decide on anything in Russian foreign policy, he waits for Putin's instructions and will not lead an independent policy," Rifer said, adding that the head of Russian diplomacy was not initiated into the preparation of an open invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine.

In the conditions of the international isolation of the Russian Federation and Putin personally, for which the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant, Lavrov is the only one who can represent the country in many international forums. This was the case, in particular, at the G20 summit in India and at the BRICS forum in South Africa.

In this sense, Putin cannot do without Lavrov. But there is something else in common between them - anti-Semitism. In the spring of 2022, the minister said that Hitler had Jewish blood and that Jews were "the most ardent anti-Semites". Lavrov ignored demands from Israel and numerous Jewish communities around the world that he apologize. Moreover, he then compared the US and European support for Ukraine to Hitler's policy regarding the solution of the "Jewish question".

In this sense, Putin is not far behind Lavrov. In recent months alone, Putin has had several anti-Semitic attacks.

Elvira Nabiullina. 59 years old. President of the Central Bank of Russia.

He has held this position since 2013. The derogatory word "sislib" in Kremlin circles refers to her completely. Nabiulina does not hide that she is a supporter of market approaches in the economy, she has never expressed her support (or non-support) for the war.

At least publicly. The FT wrote that a month before the invasion, Nabiullin and the head of Sberbank, Herman Gref, visited Putin at his residence and convinced him that the war would bring catastrophic consequences for the Russian economy. "In the presentation, the technocrats warned that Russians' quality of life will lag behind even developing countries, as import restrictions will force Russia to struggle not only for advanced technology, but also for basic necessities such as medicine and food," it said. in the publication.

It was not possible to convince Putin. But the economy didn't fail either. It is Nabiulina, as the head of the regulator, who is doing everything to keep inflation within acceptable limits in a situation where public spending has grown unimaginably.

 

"The central bank has a strict policy. That is, it raises the key rate to make free market money scarce. The budget is growing and you can't buy money on the free market: it's too expensive. And that's how it balances," political scientist Kirilo Rogov commented on the situation in an interview with The New Times, adding that such an approach is generally irrational.

"She ordered the Central Bank: 'Our task is to pretend nothing is happening and help the country withstand the blow,'" Nabiulina's colleague, former deputy head of the Central Bank and now a member of the opposition, Sergei Aleksashenko, told DW. — From the point of view of the tasks that Putin sets before her, he should not have objections, but the price of the question? It made the ruble non-convertible, forbade foreigners to sell Russian property, effectively freezing it."

Since 2022, Nabiullina is under the sanctions of the USA, Canada, Great Britain and a number of other countries.

Marat Husnulin. 57 years old. Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

A Meduza source close to the presidential administration described the deputy prime minister as follows: "Marat Šakirzianović is an experienced vizier from the East." He always knows what to say to a chess player, how to interest him, how to thank him. This style of communication has become comfortable for the president."

The official in charge of construction and infrastructure gave Putin a pleasant topic - the "restoration" of the territories of Ukraine occupied by Russia.

The maximum of cynicism is the appearance of new buildings in the ruined Mariupol. This city was visited by Putin on the night of March 18-19, and Husnulin was a passenger in the car driven by Putin. They allegedly accidentally drove into the yard, where a table with some drawings was carefully placed. The Deputy Prime Minister was bragging about his successes for a long time, when someone from the crowd shouted: "This is not true! It's all for show!"

Husnulin is responsible for the repair of the Crimean bridge, which has already been damaged several times. In October, he announced that the reconstruction was completed 18 days ahead of schedule and that traffic had been established.

One of Putin's "loyal subjects" manages to avoid political and "patriotic" statements. At the same time, it is demanding the allocation of huge funds for construction contracts in the occupied territories, notes Meduza.

Anton Vaino. 51 years. Head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation.

In terms of career, he is not inferior to his grandfather, the long-time First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia Karl Vain.

All of Vain Jr.'s early activities were related to presidential or government protocol service. In 2016, he was suddenly appointed as head of the AP, replacing Sergei Ivanov, a longtime Putin associate.

However, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, Kirilo Budanov, head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Ukraine, singled out Vaino himself: "Vaino can influence any decision in the Russian Federation. Few people in our country know this surname. But in fact, his influence is enormous."

The press published exotic details about the official. He wrote a "scientific paper" on the invention of the nooscope, a device supposedly capable of scanning changes in the noosphere. He has a passport and the small country of Bhutan.