Putin’s inner circle | All the President’s men

All of them were born during the heydays of the Cold War. An inner core of the group cut their teeth during their service at the Committee for State Security, better known for its Russian acronym KGB, in the 1970s’ St. Petersburg. They saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as a geopolitical catastrophe — as their future boss, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, termed it — that threw Russia into chaos and misery and diminished its great power status. The disintegration of the Soviet Union might have brought the Cold War to an end, but for the “siloviki” (men of force), who would rise with Mr. Putin and make up his inner circle, the geopolitical contest with the West has never been over.

Mr. Putin saw the new state (the Russian Federation) as a continuation of the Russian empire. States collapse — the imperial state collapsed in 1917 and the communist state fell apart in 1991 — but the civilisational nation (the motherland) continues to exist. If the Soviet Union was a bulwark against western capitalism, the new Russian state, according to the elites, became a bulwark of traditional values. Statehood became its ideology, rooted in Russia’s rich, expansionist history and its permanent geopolitics. Resurrection of the motherland became the motto of the new elites, who were often referred to as nastoyashchy chekist (Real Chekists, a reference to Cheka, the first Soviet secret police established by Lenin) to portray them as disciplined, ideologically committed leaders. They attacked not just Western foreign policy but also western culture and way of life. And they never challenged their boss’s authority in public. This created an aura of unchallenged power around the Kremlin. The challenge came, however, from a private warlord on June 24, in the middle of the war in Ukraine.

When Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner forces seized a regional military headquarters in southern Russia and set off a march towards Moscow demanding the dismissal of the country’s top defence brass, he was effectively challenging Mr. Putin’s authority. Mr. Putin avoided a civil war by cutting a deal with Mr. Prigozhin and letting him relocate safely to Belarus, but the crisis has already done enough damage to the perceived cohesiveness of his regime. The unprecedented crisis also put the spotlight on Mr. Putin’s inner circle, who, even in the moment of weakness, stayed loyal to him, and later issued statements demanding support from the public and officials for “the motherland and the President”.

Nikolai Patrushev

A former director of the Federal Security Services (FSB), the main security agency of Russia and a successor of the KGB, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev, 71, has been one of the closest advisers of Mr. Putin for years. Currently Secretary of the National Security Council, Mr. Patrushev, a known anti-western hawk, is arguably the second most powerful man in Russia. Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Mr. Patrushev started his career in the KGB in the 1970s. The relationship between Mr. Putin and Mr. Patrushev goes back to the KGB years. After the Soviet Union fell, he continued to work in the security services. When Mr. Putin was appointed Director of the FSB by then President Boris Yeltsin in 1998, Mr. Patrushev was made his deputy. When Mr. Putin was elevated to the role of the Secretary of the Security Council (the post Mr. Patrushev holds today) in March 1999, the latter was made the FSB chief, a post he would continue to hold for more than nine years.

Editorial | Rebellion in Russia: On the mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin of the Wagner private military company

He rebuilt the FSB as a modern, effective security agency in Mr. Putin’s Russia, which cemented his standing in the Security Council, which itself became a powerful institution under his leadership. His views about the West or Ukraine have hardly been a secret. An admirer of Ivan the Terrible, the 16th century Russian Tsar, Mr. Patrushev played a critical role in Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. In his views, the Ukraine war was “part of a wider struggle with NATO and the collective West”. Ukraine, he once said, “has become one big military camp”. In a televised Security Council meeting, just three days before the February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Patrushev was seen telling President Putin that the U.S.’s “concrete goal” was to break up Russia.

Sergei Shoigu

Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu, the Defence Minister, was at the centre of Mr. Prigozhin’s mutiny. The Wagner chief had attacked the Defence Ministry for Russia’s poor war performance in Ukraine, and demanded the sacking of Mr. Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff, who is also in charge of the Ukraine campaign. Mr. Prigozhin said Mr. Shoigu, 68, misled President Putin into launching the war out of his own personal ambition. But days after the mutiny was brought to an end through talks and Mr. Prigozhin was forced to move to neighbouring Belarus, Mr. Shoigu still remains the Defence Minister. He was seen meeting soldiers and attending a Security Council meeting with other security chiefs and President Putin.

A long-time Putin ally, Mr. Shoigu started working in the Soviet Communist Party in the 1980s. He was an active member of the Leninist Young Communist League (Komsomol), and was made a Minister of Emergency Situations by Boris Yeltsin in 1991. But his rise to the top echelons of the post-Soviet Russia began in the late 1990s when he became the leader of the pro-establishment Unity party. Unity was later merged into United Russia, President Putin’s party and the most powerful political machinery in the country. In 2012, Mr. Putin made Mr. Shoigu, by that time an Army General, the Defence Minister.

The military was undergoing a major reorganisation initiated by his predecessor Anatoly Serdyukov. Mr. Shoigu’s job was to continue the reforms and transform the Russian fighting force into a more powerful and capable army, matching Mr. Putin’s geopolitical ambitions. Mr. Shoigu delivered on Crimea, which the Russians annexed in 2014 without even a fight. Mr. Shoigu also delivered on Syria where a Russian intervention turned around the civil war in favour of the Russian ally, President Bashar al-Assad. The Crimea and Syria episodes elevated Mr. Shoigu’s standing in Mr. Putin’s inner sanctum. He was often seen travelling with the President for hunting and fishing in Siberia. But when Russia’s Ukraine war failed to meet its objectives quickly and ran into an unending war, questions were raised about Mr. Shoigu’s leadership, which eventually led to the Wagner mutiny. It is to be seen whether he would ever recover from the damages caused to reputation. .

Alexander Bortnikov

Alexander Vasilyevich Bortnikov, head of Russia’s powerful FSB, is hardly seen in public. Unlike Mr. Patrushev, his predecessor at the FSB who is not averse to the media, Mr. Bortnikov maintains the mystique of a spymaster. But the 71-year-old former St. Petersburg KGB colleague of Mr. Putin has remained a loyal soldier ever since the latter rose to the presidency. Like others in Mr. Putin’s inner circle, Mr. Bortnikov joined the Soviet Communist Party in the early 1970s and started working for the KGB from 1975, according to his official biography. In the KGB, he “held positions of operational and management staff in the counter-intelligence units in the Leningrad region”.

The rise of Mr. Putin, who was picked by Yeltsin to head the FSB and later made Prime Minister, changed the lives of most of his close KGB colleagues in St. Petersburg, including that of Mr. Bortnikov. When Sergei Smirnov, head of the FSB in St. Petersburg, was relocated to Moscow to be the agency’s deputy head, Mr. Putin turned to his old comrade to head the agency in his favourite city. That was a turning point for Mr. Bortnikov.

Mr. Putin and his regime was at war with the Yeltsin-era billionaires, often termed oligarchs in the western media. He wanted his old colleagues in Moscow to strengthen his hands. Mr. Bortnikov would soon be summoned to the Kremlin, and be appointed the head of the Economic Security Service, a key division of the FSB which had control over the levers of the Russian economy. When Mr. Patrushev, Mr. Putin’s trusted lieutenant who was heading the FSB, was promoted as the Secretary of the Security Council in 2008, Mr. Putin appointed Mr. Bortnikov as the country’s top spy. Ever since, he has been loyally serving the regime with excessive influence within the regime as well as in Russian society. He has been accused of using force against Putin critics at home and hunting rebel FBS operatives abroad, including the polonium attack on former FSB Lt. Colonel Alexander Litvinenk in London.

Sergei Naryshkin

Sergei Yevgenyevich Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is another old colleague of Mr. Putin from his KGB days in St. Petersburg. In the late 1970s, he was the first secretary of the communist youth league Komsomol. He was sent to the Soviet embassy in Brussels in 1988 as an “expert” of science and technology, but according to Kommersant, a Russian national daily, he was a KGB man. In the early 1990s, he would return to St. Petersburg and work at the Mayor’s office, where Mr. Putin was also working. It was the beginning of a long-term association. In 2004, Mr. Putin appointed him as his Cabinet Chief of Staff, which announced his arrival at the top layer of the Kremlin power circle. In 2016, he was named the Director of the SVR and ever since, he has remained the Kremlin’s eyes and ears abroad.

Irrespective of their personal or official equation, Mr. Putin still wanted to show the world who the boss is among Russia’s elites. The Security Council meeting he chaired on February 21, 2022, three days ahead of the war, in which he gave a dressing-down to a visibly nervous Mr. Naryshkin, was a case in point. In the meeting, telecast by the state TV, Mr. Putin was seen asking Mr. Naryshkin to speak plainly his views on whether Russia should recognise the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk, the two breakaway regions of Ukraine’s Donbas that were then partially controlled by Russian-speaking rebels.

“We need to adopt a decision on what’s being discussed today,” says the SVR chief.

“What does that mean? Are you suggesting we start negotiations?” Mr. Putin asks him with a grin.

“No.”

“Or to recognise sovereignty?” Mr. Putin interrupts again.

“I will support to recognise,” Mr. Naryshkin says.

“Will you support or you do support? Speak plainly, Sergei,” Mr. Putin says.

“I support the proposal to incorporate Donetsk and Luhansk into the Russian Federation,” Mr. Naryshkin adds quickly.

“We are not talking about that,” says Mr. Putin. “We are discussing whether to recognise their independence or not.”

“Yes, I support the proposal to recognise their independence,” Mr. Naryshkin says.

“Okay, sit down, spasiba (thanks)”, Mr. Putin says.

Mikhail Mishustin

A former tax official, Mikhail Mishustin is seen a lightweight in Mr. Putin’s Security Council compared to the security czars. He may not have much say over the Ukraine war or Russia’s security policies. Yet, he has one of the toughest jobs in Russia — managing the wartime economy, which has been placed under crippling western sanctions. One of Mr. Putin’s key economic goals after the war began was to protect ordinary Russians from the economic impacts of the war. And that’s what Mr. Mishustin is striving to achieve.

A PhD in economics from the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Mr. Mishustin was a Deputy Minister of Taxes in the early years of the Putin regime. He has worked in the realm of economic policy throughout his career, including as the head of the Federal Agency for the Management of SEZs and head of the Federal Taxation Service. In January 2020, Mr. Putin appointed him as Prime Minister, replacing Dmitry Medvedev. After the war began, like other members of the Security Council, Mr. Mishustin has been sanctioned by the U.S. He has also been sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the EU, New Zealand, and the U.K. But Mr. Putin seems to approve of his management of the economy. In the recently concluded 26th edition of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the Russian leader was vocal about the country’s economic resilience. The Russian economy contracted by 2.1% in 2022, way less than the 7-10% contraction projected by the Economic Ministry and the Bank of Russia. Despite the sanctions, the economy is expected to grow by 1.2% this year, while Germany is currently in recession. But as the war drags on and the West keeps piling up sanctions on Russia, Mr. Mishustin has a huge task of protecting the economy from falling into chaos.

Yury Kovalchuk

A billionaire businessman and financier, Yury Valentinovich Kovalchuk has been considered President Putin’s “personal banker”. They are believed to have met in the early 1990s when Mr. Putin was the Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg. Mr. Kovalchuk is not a member of the Security Council but remains one of the closest aides of Mr. Putin. According to Forbes, Mr. Kovalchuk is now the largest shareholder of Rossiya Bank and has a huge stake in Sogaz insurance company. He also owns stakes in different media organisations through the National Media Group, which he controls.

Mr. Kovalchuk, whose networth, according to Forbes, was $1.3 billion as of March 2022, was sanctioned by the U.S. (and the EU) in 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, calling him Mr. Putin’s “close advisor”. Through his control over the media houses, Mr. Kovalchuk retains a grip over the flow of information, amplifying the state propaganda. In recent years, he has emerged as an important tool in Mr. Putin’s ideological war against the West.

Others

The Security Council has other permanent members. Dmitry Medvedev, a former President and Prime Minister, is the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council. Mr. Medvedev, who was seen as a willing leader to engage the West while he was the President, has now turned out to be more hawkish than the Kremlin. But he seems to have slipped in his standing inside the Security Council. Sergei Lavrov is Mr. Putin’s long-time Foreign Minister but he keeps a low profile in the council. (Mr. Lavrov himself once said in a private chat, according to a report in Financial Times, that “Putin has only three advisers: Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great”.)

Matviyenko Valentina, Chairwoman of the Council of Federation; Volodin Vyacheslav, State Duma Speaker; Vaino Anton, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office and Kolokoltsev Vladimir, Interior Minister, are also among the Permanent Members of the Security Council. But it’s not clear how much clout they hold in the Kremlin or on critical decisions compared to the security czars and Mr. Putin’s close aides from the St. Petersburg clan.