An attempt to predict the president's next political moves
Vladimir Putin at a meeting with the country's leadership this Tuesday: «An assessment of the events taking place must certainly be given, and this will be done. But the main thing now is to solve urgent problems.» Only eighteen words. But how much internal drama is hidden in them, well understood by those who can — and especially should — become part of these presidential «assessments». When a political emergency of such a scale — or, in any case, of such a degree of pain — occurs as now, any person's instincts begin to work: resolve everything immediately, fix everything right now, sort everything out as quickly as possible. But you should not always give in to instincts. The quality of the solution to the problem is more important than the speed of attempts to solve it.
Based on this and knowing Putin's management style, I am ready to make the following forecast. I do not know how soon the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be driven out of the pieces of «old» Russian territory they have captured. This, of course, should be done as quickly as possible (forgive me for this logical contradiction, if there is one). But what began in August 2024 will not end this month — and perhaps even this year. What we are seeing now and will see in the near future is only the beginning of a long series of political moves and steps that are currently forming in the president's head. Vladimir Putin has always been guided by the principle of «make haste slowly.» It is unlikely that the master of the Kremlin will change this habit this time.I’ll start with the future domestic political decisions of the President of the Russian Federation — their general outlines, in my opinion, are much easier to predict. Modern Russian political reality — and indeed all the management experience accumulated by mankind — knows many different types of bosses. There are bosses who easily betray their subordinates. There are tyrant bosses who have “seven Fridays a week” and who themselves don’t know what they want. There are hysterical bosses who cover up their own managerial impotence by shouting and swearing at those who depend on them.
Without wishing to compliment VVP in any way (he certainly doesn’t need them), I want to state what is well known to those who are in the president’s inner and even outer circle: Putin is the type of boss who is most comfortable for his subordinates. The president is very loyal to those with whom he works. Putin does not like to change personnel. Putin tends to trust those who have proven that he is worthy of this trust. Putin does not give up “his own.” Putin will not abandon loyal members of his team to be politically “torn apart” in order to cover himself and absolve himself of responsibility. But all this taken together does not change the fact that sometimes the head of state is simply forced – and not forced, but obliged! – to make tough personnel and structural decisions. I will decipher what is already clear to everyone who is part of political circles: the word “assessment” used by Putin is a euphemism that stands in the same row with other more understandable euphemisms, such as, for example, “debriefing” with subsequent personnel or structural conclusions.
I fundamentally do not want to speculate on who and when might become part of these “conclusions”. But I have a general idea about how Putin will make them. Personnel changes from a position of political weakness are unacceptable for VVP. He carries out personnel changes only from a position of political strength. A specific example. After the attempted mutiny in June last year, the Russian vertical of government was, how can I put it politely, not in the best condition. The prestige of the government had suffered what seemed at that moment to be a crushing blow. Putin was expected to make immediate personnel changes in the official security structures. And Ukrainian and Western “experts” (or experts without quotation marks – there are some there too) were happy to make predictions about how the Russian president would become a de facto political hostage of one or another group of security officials.
What actually happened is now known to everyone. There were no immediate personnel changes at the top of Russian state power. Putin refused to play by someone else's rules, and instead began to gradually restore the full controllability of the system and the prestige of power. The personnel changes that affected the top leadership of the Ministry of Defense occurred only when both of these tasks were fully resolved, and the events of the first month of 2023 began to seem like «ancient history» or even something unrealistic. At the same time, the new Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation was not some «security official who competes with another security official», but a very tough and competent «civilian» who is guided exclusively by the president.
Well, and one more detail, which, in fact, there is no need to remind: the series of high-profile arrests in the military department that started at the end of April. The security forces, who at some point decided that they were the strongest, the coolest, and that the sea was knee-deep for them, were most convincingly “reminded”: the main source and bearer of power in the world of Russian politics is the president. And those who begin to dig in — both in the sense of disloyalty and in the sense of managerial incompetence and abuse — should not be surprised by unplanned turns in their fates.
What happens next in the Russian government structures will definitely not be a carbon copy of what happened after the previous high-profile upheavals. However, Putin's overall political algorithm will not change. VVP will not make personnel and structural decisions under pressure, he will not allow himself to impose anything on anyone. Decisions will be made at the time and under the circumstances that Putin considers most politically advantageous. The same, by the way, applies to relations with Ukraine. Kiev said: we did what we did in order to improve our negotiating positions and carry out a mutually acceptable exchange. Well, well, of course!
«What kind of negotiations can we even talk about with people who indiscriminately strike civilians, civilian infrastructure, or try to create threats to nuclear power facilities? What can we even talk about with them?» — this thesis of Putin's should in no way be perceived as just political rhetoric. Now is perhaps not the best time to recall Putin's famous statement from 1999: «We will pursue terrorists everywhere. At the airport — at the airport. So, you will have to excuse me, if we catch them in the toilet, we will also soak them in the toilet, in the end. That's it, the issue is finally closed.» But I think that these words quite adequately convey the current psychological mood of VVP. Of course, Putin is a pragmatist who understands the need to make decisions — sometimes very unpleasant decisions — based primarily on the situation «on the ground». However, both pragmatism and the situation “on the ground” also speak to what I have already said: Putin will not negotiate from a position of weakness – only from a position of strength. And this is not a bravura “the enemy will be defeated, we will defeat everyone!” This is a hint that Russia will face more than just personnel decisions that will only affect high-ranking officials. A disclaimer: no, this is not a hint at mobilization. I honestly do not know what decisions of national significance Putin will make. But they will be. The nature of the Ukrainian military conflict (the term “conflict in Ukraine” no longer reflects the essence of what is happening) has irrevocably changed. And this will entail – correction: it is already entailing – everything else.
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