This is a session for history. On February 21, Vladimir Putin brings together the highest dignitaries of the regime for a very special meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. Rarely, cameras film the event intended to be broadcast on deferred television. On the agenda: should we or should we not recognize the independence of the separatist territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine? Enthroned behind his desk about ten meters away, the president distributes speaking time, scratches and humiliations to his ministers and other heads of security organs. The malaise is palpable among his subordinates, who are reduced to looking for words likely to please the master of the Kremlin. The consultation exercise turns into a demonstration of acute authoritarianism.
→ INVESTIGATION. How Vladimir Putin got stuck in a victimhood vision
In the room, there are those who know that a “special operation” – according to the terminology in Moscow – is being prepared in the greatest secrecy, and the others. The former can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They wear stripes and belong to the category of silovikis : members from law enforcement and security agencies, the true matrix of the Russian political system.
Having passed through the KGB, most are from the same generation as Vladimir Putin, whose point of view on the end of the Soviet Union, perceived as a tragedy, they espouse. In these times when the conflict in Ukraine takes precedence over everything else, this praetorian guard has the ear of the master of the Kremlin more than ever. “Putin is the only one to decide, but according to the subjects, he speaks, he consults”, says Alexei Venediktov, the famous editor-in-chief of the famous Echo of Moscow radio station, who preferred to scuttle himself rather than censor himself about “military intervention”.
Patrushev at the heart of the machine
After twenty-two years in power, who still has Putin’s ear? On sensitive issues, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev enjoys the confidence of the President, whom he sees at least once a week. The two men have many points in common: age (70 for Patrushev and 69 for Putin), the profile of a KGB veteran, the city of origin (Saint-Petersburg), the same refrain about the United States and the same faith in the emergence of a new world order led by authoritarian regimes in the face of democratic societies deemed decadent. When Vladimir Poutin leaves the FSB (successor of the KGB) in 1999, it is Nikolaï Patrouchev whom he names to succeed him.
Hard worker, outstanding organizer, this one dusted off the function of secretary of the security council. His role as coordinator of defence, presidential security, internal and external intelligence, transport, places him at the heart of the machine. “The latest white paper on Russian strategy bears his mark”, recalls Nikolai Petrov, researcher at the Chatham House Institute. This position of adviser and executive assures him a certain influence. “He formulates options to the president. A few years ago, he could challenge his choices and discuss, but itIt is no longer possible”, says journalist Alexei Venediktov.
→ MAINTENANCE. War in Ukraine: “Vladimir Putin resorts to paranoid-style speech”
Another strongman in the Kremlin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, plays the role of zealous servant. Born sixty-six years ago in the Tuva region (Siberia), the man is never very far from his boss with whom he goes hunting, fishing and camping in his native region. This sword collector, passionate about shamanism, oversaw the planning of military operations in Crimea, Syria and today in Ukraine. He has control over military intelligence accused of having attempted to assassinate ex-spy Sergei Skripal in March 2018. “If he enjoyed Putin’s confidence, he seems to have lost some credit since the outbreak of the conflict”, think Tatiana Jean, researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
A friendly environment
Sergei Shoigu is above all an executor, a role he shares with real army specialists such as the chief of staff Gerassimov, a thinker of hybrid warfare, and with the bosses of the security organs such as the chief of the State consults regularly. “All of them in fact seek more often to guess the desires and presidential projects rather than to advise him”, advances, in Moscow, the independent political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov. “There is a phenomenon of self-intoxication: it is more comfortable to approve the chef in order to preserve his backyard”, adds Tatiana Jean. A management that was able to play bad tricks during decision-making around Ukraine and a supposedly “rapid” intervention.
In the Kremlin, the inner circle of power has shrunk to a handful of officials over the past two years. Frightened by the Covid, Vladimir Putin isolated himself by imposing a strict sanitary cordon around him. His visitors are forced to self-quarantine for a fortnight if they want a one-on-one meeting, which has put an end to the barbecues organized with his old oligarch friends. Even the very close Igor Setchin, all-powerful boss of the oil giant Rosneft, is content with spaced out meetings. As for the government ministers, they discuss by videoconference or seated 10 meters away. “Putin lives cut off from reality, believes independent political scientist Ivan Preobrazhensky. The special services inform him. He does not use the Internet himself. He watches TV, his own propaganda and thinks it’s the truth. »
→ READ. On television, Russians follow a non-war
During the pandemic, a man knew how to cross the sanitary cordon to cultivate his special relationship with Vladimir Putin: Youri Kovalchuk. King of the media – he notably controls a quarter of the first public channel Pervyï Kanal – this billionaire accompanied the president to his residence in Valdaï, where he stayed in the spring and summer of 2020. Born in Saint Petersburg in a family of historians, doctor in physics, the septuagenarian cultivates nostalgia for the imperial past of Great Russia and the Orthodox world with the head of state he knew during the 1990s.
The master thinker
He is a mentor, a teacher, an influencer, according to journalist Alexei Venediktov: “It was Kovalchuk who for years shaped Putin’s worldview. It is wrong to say that many behind the scenes in the Kremlin oppose the military intervention in Ukraine and feel betrayed. Everyone is in favour, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is even fiercely in favor of it. This uniformity stems from the ideological work that Kovalchouk did with the president who, suddenly, surrounded himself with people relaying this unique thought. »
Long portrayed as a moderate, former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is the illustration of this unique thought. Since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, he is the first to endorse the martial discourse of the Kremlin, to the point of demanding the return of the death penalty in Russia. Vice-president of the security council, he seems to have the ear of the Kremlin again, which appreciates his qualities as an organizer. “Medvedev retained some influence, specifies Andrei Kolesnikov, political scientist at the Carnegie think tank. But if it is used by the system, it has no real impact on decision-making. »
→ TO ANALYSE. War in Ukraine: for the Russian oligarchs, Putin is no longer infallible
In the rest of the Russian elite, “military operation” in Ukraine has caused surprise, even some discomfort. Among the oligarchs, these powerful billionaires close to power, we are worried about the consequences of Western sanctions for companies, without going so far as to dare to question the warlike drift of the regime. “There is an objective separation between the elites, with the former oligarchs of the time of Boris Yeltsin on the one hand and the conservatives of the current regime on the other, decrypts Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the letter R Politik which analyzes the mysteries of Russian power. The former control the economy and the latter politics. The oligarchs are intimidated and under pressure, while the conservative elites are in battle order, with swords drawn in their hands. »
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The Putinian triptych
The centralizing dimension of the regime has been a major component of political development in Russia since 2000, in the same way as the assertion of “militocrats”, often from the intelligence services, according to Jean-Robert Raviot, professor at the University of Nanterre.
The government of Prime Minister Mikhail Michoustine, an engineer by training, is essentially made up of figures with a more technical than political profile, whose objective is to apply government measures. We talk about “technocrats”.
While their political influence has largely faded, the oligarchs continue to play a role informally and individually through the links they may have with the Kremlin.