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Russian Roulette
The Increased Level of Repressions Within the Russian Elite
00:45:48
Max and Maria spoke with Nikolay Petrov and Mikhail Troitskiy, two leading experts on the contemporary Russian elite, to discuss the current status of this ruling group inside Russia today, and why it finds itself increasingly under pressure from state security organs.
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- [00:07]
A
Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, Director of the Stewart center and Europe Russia Eurasia Program at csis.
- [00:12]
B
And I'm Maria Snigavaya, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia.
- [00:16]
A
And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the center for Strategic International Studies. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Russian Roulette. Today, Maria and I are joined by two incredibly knowledgeable guests here to discuss the increasing pace of repressions being carried out against the Russian elite in wartime Russia. And what we're talking about is that there have been at least 38 Russians that have died under mysterious circumstances since Russia invaded Ukraine. According to one U.S. analysis, officials and businessmen are falling out of windows. There's been a lot of suicides. And so there's a lot happening inside of Russia, especially amongst Russian elites. And we have two great guests here to discuss that. First, we have Nikolai Petrov, who we are thrilled to welcome back to the show. Nikolai is an expert focused on Russian domestic politics, and he currently serves as a Senior Research Fellow, head of Analysis of Transformation Processes at the New Eurasian Strategy center, or nest. Additionally, he's a consulting fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program of Chatham House in the uk. Next, we're thrilled to welcome Mikhail Troitsky to the show. Mikhail is currently a visiting professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and has also held positions at Harvard and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Before arriving in the United States in 2022, Mikhail was a school dean and Associate professor of International Politics at Mgimo University in Moscow. Thank you both for joining us. And let's jump right in, Maria, maybe I'll turn it over to you to kind of maybe introduce the topic a bit, actually, and to discuss what's going on in Russia.
- [02:03]
B
Of course, it's important to flag for our audiences why elites matter so much. While in a democratic setting like Russia's and historically dominated by the state, especially in the foreign policy realm, a lot of decision making is concentrated on top of the power circles. And of course, especially in light of this horrible war in Ukraine, it's highly important to understand who the key decision makers are and to what extent the broader elite circles do have an impact on policymaking with very direct policy implications. Right. For example, to what extent sanctions would affect these groups. All of that is conditional on their background. That's exactly why we really want to understand more about the background of the elites. And there are a lot of great scholars helping us to do that, including our participants for today's podcast. Now, just recently, coincidentally with our podcast, an investigative media outlet, Projek, that's very renown, has published a new database of 1329 Russian elites. They studied their biographies and they find out something very interesting and perhaps unconventional about the Russian elites. I just want to quickly sum up the results and then have our guests comment on them. First, they discovered that nepotism fully dominates Russian elites. About three fourths of the data set have relatives embedded in state structures, primarily in such institutions as parliament and the Kremlin, more broadly understood, but also other institutions. There's a lot of, like several ruling dynasties, so almost like inherited monarchy sort of style aristocracy that exist in top power structures. They identify 25 such families that have more than 20 members in government, including Ramzan Kadyrov's family, Putin's extended family, and so on. They also confirm my previous research on continuity of the Soviet elites on top of Russian ruling circles by demonstrated significant presence of those with links to the Soviet officials. And they actually come up with a number. Exactly. It's similar to our number with publication Post Soviet affairs with Kiril Petrov. About 60% of current Russian officials come from Soviet Arab bureaucratic dynasties. Dmitry Piskov, for example, exemplifies this continuity as a descendant of a prominent Bolshevik and intelligence family. And Przess administration in particular is heavily dominated by this group. So it's important because this is where decision making is often concentrated. And they also show a lot of criminal ties. One in 10 Russian lawmakers have criminal ties. And more than that, perhaps it's not random because they might be deliberately purchasing their seats in power in Parliament in order to avoid persecution and a lot of other findings. I highly recommend our audiences to explore this database. It's an important contribution to the existing analysis, but I would like our guests to please comment on it. Nikolai, if I may start with you, we've learned a lot of new things. To what extent these findings something that we've already known, and to what extent you agree with them.
- [04:55]
C
Thank you, Maria. I think that this correct investigation is first of all a good piece of investigative journalism, but it's not a kind of political analysis at all. And we need to be very careful when making any conclusions on a base of this investigation. They do start their story with citing Olga Krztanowski, who used the term melitocracy in her publications with Stephen White a while ago. And the idea was to calculate the share of persons with, I would say, checkers, secret services rather than military background around Putin. And this share was increasing all the time. And now we do see another share of relatives, including distant relatives, which can work in some cases and which doesn't work in other cases. It's not necessarily a kind of nepotism because these careers can be connected to any relative support or cannot be connected. And I would say that managerial corporation and managerial elite is a kind of professional corporation like any other. And we are not surprised to see actors, dynasties, military dynasties. So managerial dynasties are similar. And of course we should differ between federal elite members and regional elite members. So out of these 25 ruling dynasties, as they put it, 10 dynasties are northern Caucasian dynasties, which are expanded families, real clan consist clans consisting of relatives, northern Caucasus. And it's funny to hear these names as of ruling dynasties in Russia. And I would say that in my view in the United States, we do have more evidences of ruling political dynasties than in present day Russia. Not to speak about France and Britain. And I would not use this term in case of Russia because they are of single usage and will not see majority of them after disappearance of Vladimir Putin. So in my view, it's very understandable signal that Putin is short of any reserves, personnel reserves to make new appointments. That's why he looks around and he uses his distant relatives. He is using his bodyguards who are around him 24 7. But it doesn't mean that it's a kind of real dynasty.
- [07:53]
B
So thank you so much for that much needed, you know, definitional and theoretical clarification. And I think that it's an important comment that especially when it comes to elite analysis, we should be very careful defining. Right. What who we mean by elites, because there's a lot of, like, discussion about that. There is a lot of different streams of scholarship, the data sets that we're focusing on, and also the type of regime, to the extent. Right. Really we can think of these actors as being dependent or independent, autonomous in that context. Thank you, Nikolai. Mikhail, off to you if perhaps you have any comments on the project.
- [08:27]
D
Yeah, I would second Nikolai's major point. And it is that elite carryover from Ancian regime isn't so uncommon in world history, and especially in the history of great powers undergoing domestic upheaval. Those powers have very strong entrenched bureaucracies that it is quite difficult to purge for the new regime. And not all new regimes even try doing that. So if you think in terms of, you know, Germany post 1945 or even Bolsheviks post 1917, you'd see that there's a substantial carryover and continuity, whether the same we can observe in post Soviet Russia. That's a good point. And of course you, Maria, have cogently argued that this is a factor that ensured continuity of Russian foreign policy at the very least. And then we also have some very solid research by Catherine Belton, for example, who claims that it's not just ancient bureaucracy, but it's ancient KGB bureaucracy that carried over. But again, and all of that makes sense, but I think it's not uncommon. This is something that we can observe in different places. But that said, of course, and that's my, you know, final point related to that, of course, in 1917, Russia had its revolution, and so the purge indeed happened with time. And of course the course of policy of the new Russian state was significantly altered, regardless of who remained in the positions of power. And then in 1945, of course, Germany was just simply occupied and shepherded through this period of transition. So again, although some Nazi leaders did keep their positions and jobs, they had no choice but to kind of toe the line of the victor powers and, you know, denazify, although they probably didn't have any taste for it. But in Russia it was different. In Russia, of course, there was no incentive to change and the carryover was significant, which indeed resulted in significant continuity of policy.
- [10:41]
B
Thank you so much, Kyle. Since this is something I engage with and the common criticism that I encounter, I just wanted to tell to our audiences a small preview of my forthcoming book on this really exact topic, where indeed continuity is a common feature of most regimes. Having said that Russia's continuity of the Soviet elites in Russia is actually abnormal by not just standards of say, post Nazi Germany or post fascist Italy, but also by the standards of the region. And we have a comparative data set for all other post Soviet countries where until to date there is much more continuity with Soviet elites on top of Russian Soviet circles than in any other countries of the post Soviet region. Again, we can discuss why. Maybe it's because of the imperial legacy. And second, even comparatively speaking, the Bolshevik Revolution actually introduced much more elite change than the transition from Soviet to post Soviet Russia. And I think it has a lot of very important implications for how that democratic transition happened. That it was actually sudden collapse of the old regime implemented primarily by no cultural elites, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, for different reasons, and also for its foreign policy, which in a lot of ways preserved many of the features of the old regime, even if the new shape and form, and thankfully with fewer resources. But I'll just let this be. Thank you so much for your important comments. Certainly all of them something that we'll keep engaging with. And off to Max.
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A
Maria, great plug. What is the title of your forthcoming book?
- [12:02]
B
Kajits Decide All. Although that is to be decided.
- [12:05]
A
Okay, okay. Well, Mikael, maybe I want to turn back to you. I guess I have a broader question of do the Russian elites matter when it comes to the policy and decision making of the Kremlin? Of course they matter in implementing a policy. But do they matter in the actual policymaking and decision making that we see coming out of the Kremlin? You had a very, I think, interesting piece in Post Soviet Affairs. You argued that Russia's globally integrated elites, the technocrats, the oligarchs, the business leaders and policy professionals, you know, they remained passive and unprepared before the 2022 full scale invasion of Ukraine. Not because they lacked information, were resigned or were intimidated, but because the Kremlin deliberately misled them through a dual track signaling strategy. Could you please sort of maybe elaborate your argument of why did this strategy work, did it work? And how have the elites reacted to that? And does the Kremlin feel concerned about perhaps losing some of the loyalty of this elite class?
- [13:06]
D
Yeah. Thank you, Max. So autocratic leaders sometimes choose to start wars or engage in other kinds of aggressive or revisionist behavior at home or abroad. And so if the autocrat is smart, just like Vladimir Putin, and he wants to hedge his bets, he tries to control the risks that arise from his plans that may be disliked by at least some members of the autocrats ruling coalition. And so the autocrats certainly have leverage over his coalition members, especially if he's a dictator. And he can dispose painlessly of many of them without problem. But he may be vulnerable to their premature defection or loss of their support in the lead up to an invasion of another country or some such action. And we indeed have historical record of cascades of elite defections in paternal regimes. Some very good political scientists provided several examples. So the autocrat needs to keep those members demobilized and careless before the storm hits. And in contemporary world, it's hard to prepare for a full scale war in secret. Your preparations would inevitably be evident to many. And as we know, Russia was massing troops on the ground and pre positioning equipment on the border with Ukraine for no less than nine months before the February 2022 invasion. Now Russia had a whole class of globalized or globally exposed or globally integrated, as you put it, Western connected elites that had major assets in Western countries and who received essential services in the west and who could not imagine their lives in a situation of rupture of Russia's ties with EU countries, Great Britain, the United States and others. And this group, and especially its representatives in top government and business positions, was characterized by many expert observers as very influential before the war. And indeed, some smart political scientists have described Putin's way of governing as governing by networks. So unlike junta that goes all in, in pursuit of a certain goal and fails and then dissolves, usually Putin ruled by network. He was keen not to allow for, you know, accountability of major representatives of his elites, and especially those whom he was using as, you know, mediators in relations with the west as competent managers of the Russian economy, of the private enterprises that he himself was rumored to have a stake in. Right? And at the same time, Russia's mass public and powerful national hawkish elites that Putin also had to respect approved of the increasingly hostile rhetoric vis a vis Ukraine and the west, as well as military preparations on the ground in the months preceding, you know, the February 22nd invasion. So they thought these guys, the hawks, thought some coercive blackmail vis a vis NATO, the EU and Ukraine wouldn't hurt. And all the Russian media, except for two, maybe three opposition outlets, were ginning up this anti Western and anti Ukrainian sentiment. So what Putin did was that he set up dedicated channels to convey reassurance messages to the globalized groups in the Russian elite, to lull them until the marching orders were given, you know, the morning of February 24, 2022. And it was impossible to conceal preparations for war. But the Kremlin proved capable of dismissing the seriousness of its intentions in the eyes of the groups that needed to be kept quiet and quiescent before they could be fully repressed. And so it was a unique moment in Russian history, aside from perhaps 1917, because the, the stakes for several million globally exposed people and their top tier in the Russian government have never been so high. Like 10 billion of dollars were lost and opportunities that they had been creating for decades were to be squandered. And the storm that would take all of that away from them was gathering in plain sight. And yet they somehow remain demobilized. So I argued in the article that based on existing research in formal economic modeling, some marketing studies, political campaigns and so forth, a leader can organize treat of messaging in such a way as to make those signals only credible to a particular group of people. And this can be achieved and was achieved in Putin's pre war messaging to Western connected elites by creating the impression that Putin's interests were aligned with those of the globalized connected elites. So he would pose as a moderate nationalist, somewhat revisionist, but committed to the status quo. And so he also set up dedicated international platforms like St. Petersburg Economic Forum or the Valdai Club, where he would consistently deny, deny expansionist intentions and commit to partnership with the West. So the nationalist public and the hawks were not paying attention. They didn't consider those forums credible. But the Western oriented groups thought that Putin could not lie to foreign counterparts because of the high stakes that were involved and so on and so forth. So all of this contributed to reassurance of Western connected elites and demobilized them despite the gathering storm. They would only scramble to control damages after the invasion, but not the before it.
- [18:30]
B
Can I just quickly jump in here? Mikhail, thank you so much for your clarification and your very interesting article. However, one point specifically where I'm not fully convinced by your argument is that you pointing out that 2022 was so different from all the previous instances when in the past cases when Putin also started wars and we have at this point on record five wars of different kinds that he has started, the elite response was pretty much the same. In fact, you can argue there was somewhat more pronounced and shocked in early days of war. And we have seen very few but at least some defections in 2022. But in the past 2014, 2015 in Syria, 2008 in Georgia, they more or less all created the same acquiescence among the elites. So why would we anticipate this time to be any different?
- [19:17]
D
The quick answer is that because in 2021 and early 22, everything happened in plain sight. In 2008, I mean it was staged as a provocation by Georgia against South Ossetia and the Russian troops went in and it was gathering, but it came as a surprise. And of course in 2014, at the height of Russia's prestige and glory, at the end of the Sochi Olympics, Putin moves to annex Crimea that invade Ukraine. That came completely out of the blue. But the paradox of 21 and 22 was that everything was, you know, predictable very well predictable and obvious to Western governments, for example, some of which even leaked in a controlled way some of that intelligence. So that's the source of the paradox I'm trying to respond to. But of course anyone is welcome to study the 2008 and 14 cases and maybe find some of the similar dynamic back then.
- [20:11]
B
And Nicolai may if you also perhaps comment on this argument, I'm wondering what your thoughts are.
- [20:17]
C
In my view the situation is slightly different and of course I do look at it from within, not from outside And I would explain a reaction which followed the invasion by the fact that there are no elites in Russia as political subjects, as persons who are capable to say something or to act against the will of the Kremlin and Putin. And this is partly due to the west did manage to construct neo nomenclaturian system where there are no elites.
- [20:55]
D
There are.
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C
And each cork is responsible for very limit its functions. He or she should do whatever is ordered for him or for her not to think about the general consequences for the whole system and so on. So there was very short moment when these cops could somehow react. And we've seen some of them who escaped, but in general, they are so much focused on how to fulfill their duties, how not to be punished, how to please their bosses, that we should not wait for any thinking or for any serious, I would say, opposition to what they've seen.
- [21:39]
A
Nikolai, maybe I could turn back to the way I started off the show about deaths from elites, you know, people falling out of windows. It does seem like there's an elite purge taking place inside of the elites and led by the Kremlin. I'm curious, do you think there is a purge? You know, purges aren't new to Russian society. They've happened numerous times historically. Is there a purge taking place? And if so, why? What do you think are kind of the driving forces behind this? And so maybe you could unpack that kind of general question. Is there anything new here, or is this actually just run of the mill? This is how the elite Russian society sort of works with this Kremlin.
- [22:21]
C
Thank you, Max. I think this is very important question, and I would say that that systemic repressions against elites started in 2014 after invasion of Crimea and after Putin started to play pretty new role. Instead of being elected president, he became military chieftain, and being military chieftain, he became much less dependent from elites, and elites, vice versa, became very much dependent from him. And that's when these repressions had started. And 2022, of course, gave the new impetus to these repressions. And I would say that repressions is not any kind of deviation. It's the basic pillar of neo nomenclaturian system. It's very important political institution. So if you do not have, well, public competition, if you do not have this election mechanism represented by elections, you should have something in order to keep elites under control, in order to intimidate them, in order to make certain changes, improvements in managerial design, like to keep the balance between major elite claims or to fix some other important tasks, like, say, to radiate leadership of important corporations like we've seen recently in case of the Ministry of Defense, or just to divide different resources controlled by this or that person or by this or that elite group, like say administrative resources, business resources, financial power resources and so on. Then the system needs to redistribute property. And this is very important, especially now, because regime is aging and all quasi private, not to speak about state oligarchs are aging as well. And the system cannot allow them to take those assets, part of them think is their property from control of the system. So it's needed to provide for this redistribution mechanism. And finally, there is a kind of repressive populism. And this is very typical and we've seen it many times in Russian history when wayward boyars heads given to the public. And it's the reason how Putin staying 25 years in power is still a kind of populist leader who is very popular and who should feed this populism.
- [25:15]
A
That's fascinating that this is sort of a way, in some ways of having like an inheritance tax on big oligarchs and money that is concentrated, needing to disperse it. But it seems like you're saying that this is sort of run of the mill business or how things operate. And Mikhail, I'm curious if you agree, if you have a similar take, is this sort of things are sort of operating normally in how the Kremlin engages with its elites. Is that how you see it as well?
- [25:40]
D
Yeah, I agree with Nikolai on the diversion hypothesis, which is that of course it has been generally for show and the relatively low sort of level and profile of the at least government officials that have been, you know, purged, persecuted. Points for me to the fact that this is kind of done to reassure the public that in wartime the government apparatus is mobilized and combating corruption like never before. And also, of course, the monetary sort of the squeeze hypothesis is there, which I also agree with. Like, you know, in wartime you try to squeeze whatever and whoever for resources given, you know, this financial crunch. And of course, much of that of the money that is being, you know, confiscated and that is being used to bail some of those people out about whom we may even not hear in the media. Someone was apprehended and then offered, you know, a bail and was released on that bail. And of course the bail was never to be recovered. So that is clearly understandable. Now, I think ideology may now be taking a life of its own in Russian politics. And this is another topic I know Maria has engaged with. I never believed ideology played any role in how Putin used to govern. But now ideological zealots may no longer be constrained by pragmatists, even among the ultra hawks. And so these guys have long wanted to actually to move, to proceed to a major sort of purge of corrupt officials, not because they want, you know, anyone to like it, but because they like it. And this has acquired, you know, a momentum of its own. And maybe very provocatively, I would end my statement by suggesting that this kind of purge may be indicative of some struggle for power in which, by the way, the hawks, unless ideologues that call for purges, but also we are kind of seeing the system maybe getting off equilibrium and acquiring new momentum again. Putin used to run Russia by network. He was very careful not to change the intricate balance among factions, not to create this impression that, that it's dangerous to work as a regional, you know, government official or as a federal minister. But now as federal ministers are getting, you know, shot or shooting themselves and other serious executives of oil companies falling out of windows and so forth, this kind of destabilizes the system. And I wonder why would, you know, Putin and the Kremlin allow that, given their long record of being very careful to keep bureaucrats happy and quiescent and satisfied. But that said, finally, I'd say, you know, remember Boris Yeltsin easily fired federal ministers and even deputy foreign ministers like Kozarev, Chubai, Snemtsov and others. And then he played a game of prime ministers with Chernomierzin, Kirillen, Kaprima, Kosty Pashin and Putin himself. So we are not yet seeing that kind of struggle, but if we see something of that kind, it would mark the beginning of a new time of troubles.
- [28:54]
B
Really fascinating. Thank you so much. So to follow up on that, Nikolai, on to you, together with this effort to promote the so called participants of the special military operations into some low level positions of power for our audiences. Just some statistics that in the last unified voting day held in fall 2025, according to some estimates at least to 870 participants of this, the special military operations were nominated, who were nominated by parliamentary parties, won some of the seats in government. So to what extent are we really seeing the major, maybe Stalin sort of like effort at literature shuffling, so repressing the old guard that demonstrated some disloyalty, perhaps based on your previous description, and imposing the new one, ideological one that will keep loyal through this ongoing, quote, unquote, cultural revolution in Russia, you know, to create the new beautiful Russia of the future, albeit very different from the liberal image imagination.
- [29:54]
C
Well, a year and a half ago, in his State of the Union speech, Putin blamed well, traditional elite and said that the new elite is coming and will be chosen from heroes of special military operation. And in general, we've not seen any signs of large scale replacement of old but effective in managerial sense elites by newcomers, except for special type of newcomers prepared by Sergei Kuryenko, the first deputy chief of presidential staff, when bureaucrats from deputies of the State Duma or regional officials sent to participate far away from the front line in special military operation. And in three or six months of this participation, they are coming back as war heroes. And this is, I think, the only way the Kremlin will use these war heroes. Not in any kind of Red God or khun wei bin in Russian Chinese language replacement. And 900 you've mentioned out of 30,000 means that the share of those participants of the war elected to low level municipal and regional parliaments is almost negligible. But what is important, I think that in our study of repressions, and we're finishing now, the report on elite repressions in Russia, we took four different categories of elites. Federal elites at the top level, members of the big government and their deputies, then business elites, then regional elites at the level of governors and deputy governors and deputy heads of federal agencies in regions. And we did calculate how many persons are prosecuted every year. And the scale of elites is impressive. It's about 3 to 4% in general. Which means that this scale of repressions, in spite of the fact that Russia is considered to be information autocracy, different from Stalin type of totalitarian regime. And this is exactly the scale of Stalin repressions. If to exclude 36 and 37 and 38 years. But in 20 years of Stalin's rule, before the Second World War, the scale of repressions was almost the same as we see now. And recently we've seen two very important features of these repressions. It's repressions against judiciary, which never took place before. I mean the top level of judiciary in regions and at the federal level, and repressions which can be called expropriation of kulak property, which is raskula chivani in Russian. And this is very new and interesting type of repression, when the property can be taken out of relatives of the dead official who died 10 years ago, but now he was announced to be corrupt. And this is the single base how the property can be taken out of hands of his children, for example. And this is large scale process where persons who used to occupy very important positions in parliament Almost touched.
- [33:38]
B
Thank you very much, Nicola.
- [33:40]
C
Very important.
- [33:40]
B
And thank you for bringing up your important studies on these topics which are really eye opening. My follow up questions to you and also Mikhail on that. So with that complex dynamic in mind. Right. And you flag that there are like some of the facts, such as participation of this special military operation participants maybe not as pronounced, but repression's been a very serious deal. To what extent we can think and speak of a qualitative change within Putin's regime that followed 2022, it's much of the same. Or are we really witnessing something different? I guess that's what I want to ask based on like this aggregated evidence that your studies come by.
- [34:16]
C
Our last report published is on transition. And in my view this is exactly what is taking place after last year presidential elections. But this is not a kind of transition from Putin to anybody else. And this is not even a kind of transition from one team to another team. This is more about transition from one generation to a different generation. And this is very important feature of current political regime because Putin is now trying to replace old guard. But it's understandable that they cannot be happy with this. And in my view, part of, or perhaps the major explanation why we've seen increase of repressions against elites in 2425 is connected with the fact that Putin needs to keep elites motionless. And the easiest way to do this is to intimidate this, not to let them somehow to oppose this process when Putin will be replaced by Putin to zero. The same leader who will play very different role, who will be not involved into daily routine duties, but who should rule. Just like Dan Supin in China. But unlike Dan Sarpin, who didn't occupy any official position his last years, Putin should keep enhanced control over law enforcement and power agencies. That's why he should keep the office of the President. But in all other cases, I think the plan is to put the system onto autopilot regime, to define the cause, to appoint this new generation of Putin's bodyguard and everybody else to keep this cause, but to let Putin the opportunity to intervene in case it's needed. And this operation in our view should be finished by 2030, by the next presidential elections where Putin, if something will not happen to him, will be re elected as president of Russian Federation.
- [36:33]
B
Thank you very much, Nicolai. Mikhail, on to you and perhaps to what extent you agree with this characteristic of the ongoing transitions within the system and also what does it mean for Russia's foreign policy going forward? I mean this is going to become a little Bit more moderated or even more aggressive, assertive. What is.
- [36:49]
D
Yeah, I agree that the two basic motives are basically a shakedown of relatively minor representatives of corrupt elites. And secondly, it is essentially throwing corrupt officials publicly to the dogs of the public opinion. But then I am still not seeing truly big fish getting ensnared in this process. And it seems to me as if much of the old guard is actually running this process. They are not about to leave. As far as I can see, some younger figures are being integrated here and there, maybe at the level of regional governors, but the federal government and the core of it, like the Security Council, if you look at who is present around the table, these are people who have been there for decades and of course foreign ministers. Sergey Lavrov is a great example. So that said, I do think there are signs of, sans shifting of some potentially destabilizing efforts being undertaken for the sake again of this shakedown and the public opinion and some quiescence, you know, ensuring quiescence of the elites. We haven't seen that much before. But again, I think the jury is still out as to where, where it's, it's going. And if we are to see some ministers really getting, you know, ensnared and fired and maybe, you know, again shaken down some oligarchs, truly, you know, influential people, then I'd be questioning whether the system runs on the same rules as it used to and whether, you know, someone is truly in charge and capable of adjudicating the collide interests of different groups and elites.
- [38:40]
A
Maybe one final question. At the beginning or prior to Russia's full scale invasion, one of the kind of ideas coming out of the west, coming out of capitals like Washington and London and other places that if you were to really crack down and do sanctions and squeeze the Russian oligarch class, particularly the class of Russians that had a lot of wealth in the west, that had their kids studying in the west, that would put pressure on the regime that essentially the Russian elite class could be a potential instigator of change within Russia. That theory of the case appears to have been proven pretty incorrect. The sanctions, you could say that they were useful to do in general to remove Russian money from the Western system. In part, some of the Russian oligarchs that were operating in the UK in particular may have been sources of Russian influence. But the idea of the Russian elites as a source of potential change and pressure point on the Kremlin, the Kremlin at least appears to have neutered that. And I wonder maybe how you See, the Russian elites and Russian oligarch class as has Putin effectively put them under control? Is there still scheming is the repressions that we're seeing about sort of nervousness on the part of the Kremlin. I mean, you all sort of answered that, but I want to kind of get at the the are the Russian elites sort of worth watching in the sense of man, this is something that Putin really has to watch out for as he's going and thinking about the war in Ukraine or Russia's posture toward the west or other places. Nikolai, maybe start with you and then to Mikhail.
- [40:16]
C
Well, I did start to say about neo nomenclaturian system, which was partly reconstructed by Putin, partly newly constructed by Putin. And the west after the beginning of the war, did help Putin to finish this construction and to construct the second fence which does not allow Russian elites to go out and which pushed all of them, including those mentioned by you, staying in Britain for more than a decade, to go to Russia and to stay within Putin's control. And now if they are totally controlled by Putin, it would be strange to wait for any kind of resistance or any attempts from their side to push Putin in a different direction. So not only the west helped Putin to explain each and everybody, including his elites, which are becoming more and more anti Western as the war is going on, that, that he was right when saying that the west conspired against Russia all the time and the west is putting pressure not onto war criminals, not only to Putin and his entourage, but to everybody, including ordinary Russians. So if only you are right and the idea behind personal sanctions was to use elites or business elites in particular as a kind of leverage against Putin's war plans, then it was counterproductive and it was mistake. But in my view, the reason why personal sanctions were imposed was a kind of populism from a side of Western leaders for whom it was much easier to demonstrate their decisiveness against Russian elites, especially when they were blamed for making favors to these businessmen of Russian origin. And to do this at no cost. And this was a very serious mistake which cannot be fixed now and which in my view is one of the reason why the war is going on for that long.
- [42:39]
D
Yeah, very quickly. Needless to say, Russian business elites and government people who truly matter under heavy tutelage being monitored 24, 7 their, you know, freedom of maneuver is extremely limited. That said, some of those people who truly became billionaires or top government officials throughout the decades are very smart and they have their positions exactly because they knew when to use their options, when to move. And so I think nothing is over determined. And if there are options, they will move now. What kind of options? Well, we are operating, we are discussing all of that under the assumption of, you know, macroeconomic stability, of sufficiency of, you know, funding going from Moscow to Russian provinces that help local government governors to just fund their networks and remain in power and uncontested. That's all contingent on what they have to spend on their paternal network. So if that stream of money starts to dwindle or if there's some sign of, well, of turmoil, of a crisis, of the lack of answer to the question, who is in charge at that point, I think these smart people would rush to use their options in all sorts of ways. And again, just think about how they got rich or influential, some of them in the 90s, some of them in later decades. There's something in them. There's something entrepreneurial in their mindset and spirit, which I think tells everyone, including people in the Kremlin, that these guys would mercilessly exploit any opportunity that would arise in Russia today or tomorrow.
- [44:38]
A
Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. Nikolai Mikhail, thank you so much. This has been a fascinating conversation and as always, I want to say thank you to our listeners for tuning in. If you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe to our show and give us a five star rating. It really helps people find the podcast. Additionally, be sure to check out CSIS's page on YouTube where you can find live streamed videos of conversations like the one you heard today. And lastly, don't forget to subscribe to our sister podcast, the Europhile, wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next time on Russian Roulette.
- [45:18]
B
You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon. And be sure to check out all the latest analysis by the Europe, Russia and eurasia program@csis.org Russian Roulette releases new.
- [45:32]
A
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