From the BBC:
“Ukraine conflict: Who's in
Putin's inner circle and running the war?”
(In the days before the invasion,
Russian TV broadcast a session of President Putin's 30-member security council)
Vladimir Putin cuts a solitary
figure, leading Russia's military into a high-risk war that threatens to tear
apart his country's economy. He has rarely looked more isolated than in two
recent, choreographed appearances with his inner circle, where he sits at a
resolute distance from his closest advisers. As commander in chief, ultimate
responsibility for the invasion rests with him, but he has always relied on a
deeply loyal entourage, many of whom also began their careers in Russia's
security services. The question is who has his ear, during this most fateful
moment in his presidency?
Sergei Shoigu
If anyone does, it is long-time
confidant Sergei Shoigu, who has parroted the Putin line of demilitarising
Ukraine and protecting Russia from the West's so-called military threat. This
is a man who goes on hunting and fishing trips with the president to Siberia,
and he has in the past been viewed as a potential successor. But take a look at
this extraordinary photo of him at the end of this table, sitting awkwardly
beside the head of the armed forces, and you wonder how much of President
Putin's ear he is able to reach. "Shoigu was supposed to be marching to
Kyiv; he's minister of defence and was supposed to win it," says Vera
Mironova, a specialist in armed conflict. He was credited with the military
seizure of Crimea in 2014. He was also in charge of the GRU military
intelligence agency, accused of two nerve agent poisonings - the deadly 2018
attack in Salisbury in the UK and the near-fatal attack on opposition leader
Alexei Navalny in Siberia 2020. It may look awkward, but Russian security
expert and writer Andrei Soldatov believes the defence minister is still the
most influential voice the president hears. "Shoigu is not only in charge
of the military, he's also partly in charge of ideology - and in Russia
ideology is mostly about history and he's in control of the narrative."
Valery Gerasimov
As chief of staff, it was his job
to invade Ukraine and complete the job fast, and by that standard he has been
found wanting. He has played a major role in Vladimir Putin's military
campaigns ever since he commanded an army in the Chechen War of 1999, and he
was at the forefront of military planning for Ukraine too, overseeing military
drills in Belarus last month. Described as an "unsmiling, craggy
bruiser" by Russia specialist Mark Galeotti, Gen Gerasimov also played a
key role in the military campaign to annexe Crimea. Some reports suggest he has
now been sidelined because of the stuttering start to the invasion of Ukraine
and reports of poor morale among the troops. But Andrei Soldatov believes that
is wishful thinking from some quarters: "Putin cannot control every road
and every battalion, and that is his role." And while the defence minister
may love his uniforms, he has no military training and needs to rely on the
professionals, he adds.
Nikolai Patrushev
"Patrushev is the most
hawkish hawk, thinking the West has been out to get Russia for years,"
says Ben Noble, Associate Professor of Russian Politics at University College
London. He is one of three Putin loyalists who have served with him ever since
the 1970s in St Petersburg, when Russia's second city was still known as
Leningrad. The other two stalwarts are security service chief Alexander
Bortnikov and foreign intelligence head Sergei Naryshkin. All the president's
inner circle are known as siloviki, or enforcers, but this trio are closer
still. Few hold as much influence over the president as Nikolai Patrushev. Not
only did he work with him in the old KGB during the communist era, he replaced
him as head of its successor organisation, the FSB, from 1999 to 2008. It was
during a bizarre meeting of Russia's security council, three days before the
invasion, that Mr Patrushev pushed his view that the US's "concrete
goal" was the break-up of Russia. The session was an extraordinary piece
of theatre, showing the president holding court behind a desk as one by one his
security team walked up to a lectern and expressed their opinion on recognising
the independence of Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine. Nikolai Patrushev passed
the test. "He's the one who has the chief battle cry, and there's a sense
in which Putin has moved towards his more extreme position," says Ben
Noble.
Alexander Bortnikov
Kremlin watchers say the
president trusts information he receives from the security services more than
any other source, and Alexander Bortnikov is seen as being part of the Putin
inner sanctum. Another old hand from the Leningrad KGB, he took over the
leadership of its replacement FSB when Nikolai Patrushev moved on. Both men are
known to be close to the president, but as Ben Noble points out: "It's not
as if we can say with complete confidence who is calling the shots and who took
the decisions." The FSB has considerable influence over other law
enforcement services and even has its own special forces. He's important but
he's not there to challenge the Russian leader or give advice in the same way
as others, believes Andrei Soldatov.
Sergei Naryshkin
Completing the trio of old
Leningrad spooks, Sergei Naryshkin has remained alongside the president for
much of his career. What, then, should we make of a remarkable dressing down he
was subjected to when he went off-message during the security council meeting? When
asked for his assessment of the situation, the intelligence chief became
flustered and fluffed his lines, only to be told by the president: "That's
not what we're discussing. The lengthy session was edited so the Kremlin had
clearly decided to show his discomfort in front of a big television audience. "It
was shocking. He's incredibly cool and collected so people will have asked
what's going on here," Ben Noble told the BBC. Mark Galeotti was struck by
the toxic But Andrei Soldatov thinks he
was simply enjoying the moment: "Putin loves playing games with his inner
circle, making him [Naryshkin] look a fool." Sergei Naryshkin has long
shadowed Mr Putin, in St Petersburg in the 1990s, then in Mr Putin's office in
2004 and eventually becoming speaker of parliament. But he also heads the
Russian Historical Society and, in Soldatov's view, he has proved very
important in providing the president with ideological grounds for his actions. Last
year he gave an interview to the BBC's Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg in
which he denied that Russia had carried out poisonings and cyber attacks or had
interfered in other countries' elections.
Sergei Lavrov
For 18 years he has been Russia's
most senior diplomat, presenting Russia's case to the world even if he is not
considered to have a big role in decision-making. Sergei Lavrov, 71, is yet
more proof that Vladimir Putin heavily relies on figures from his past. He is a
wily operator: last month he attempted to ridicule British Foreign Secretary
Liz Truss over her knowledge of Russian geography and the year before sought to
humiliate the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. But he has long been
sidelined on anything to do with Ukraine and, despite his gruff and hostile
reputation, he advocated further diplomatic talks on Ukraine and the Russian
president chose to ignore him. He is unlikely to have cared that most of the UN
human rights council walked out as he tried to defend Russia's invasion over a
video link.
Valentina Matviyenko
A rare female face in the Putin
entourage, she oversaw the upper house's vote to rubber stamp the deployment of
Russian forces abroad, paving the way for invasion. Valentina Matviyenko is
another Putin loyalist from St Petersburg who helped steer through the
annexation of Crimea in 2014 as well. But she is not considered to be a primary
decision-maker. That said, few people can say with complete certainty who is
calling the shots and taking the big decisions. Just like every other member of
Russia's security council, her role was to give an impression of a collective
discussion when it is more than likely the Russian leader had already made up
his mind.
Viktor Zolotov
A former bodyguard of the
president, he now runs Russia's national guard, Rosgvardia, formed by President
Putin only six years ago as a kind of personal army in the style of a Roman
empire-like praetorian guard. By choosing his own personal security guard to
front it he made sure of its loyalty, and Viktor Zolotov has boosted its
numbers to a reported 400,000. Vera Mironova believes the original Russian plan
was to complete the invasion within days, and when the military appeared to be
failing, Russia's national guard took the lead. The problem is that the
national guard's leader has no military training, and as his force has no tanks
they have been vulnerable to attack too.
Who else does Putin listen to?
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has the unenviable task of rescuing the
economy but has little say over the war. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and the
head of Rosneft state oil giant, Igor Sechin, are also close to the president,
according to political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko. Billionaire brothers Boris
and Arkady Rotenberg, who were childhood friends of the president, have long
been close confidants too. In 2020, Forbes magazine named them as the richest
family in Russia.
^ All of these people could end
the bloodbath that Putin is currently doing in Ukraine to innocent Men, Women
and Children. Unfortunately, I don’t see any of them doing that. They are all “Yes
Men/Women.” ^
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