With Putin’s presidential election over, now the question becomes who will make it into the new government, at a time when some insiders are suggesting there may be some substantial change. On the whole, the siloviki tend not to experience particularly rapid reshuffles, but there are some who are looking more vulnerable. In a couple of columns for the Moscow News, I look first at the three key silovik ministers (Serdyukov at Defense, Nurgaliev of the MVD and Prosecutor General Chaika), and secondly at the chiefs of the main security and intelligence services (FSB, SVR, GRU, FSKN, FSO). After all, it’s not just about personalia: the decisions about who stays and goes and more to the point the nature and origins of any new hires will say a lot about what Putin plans for the future, and what he fears.
All posts in category Russian Politics
Shuffling the siloviki: who may be the winners and losers in 2012?
Posted by Mark Galeotti on March 16, 2012
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/shuffling-the-siloviki-who-may-be-the-winners-and-losers-in-2012/
Judicial reform: the necessary flip side of police reform
The decision today to convict Alexei Kozlov on fraud charges and sentence him to 5 years in a labor camp, seemingly as retribution against his wife, the activist journalist Olga Romanova, raises a crucial issue in terms of Russian reform. I appreciate that I am unfashionable in being mildly optimistic about police reform in Russia and the prospect that — over years, not overnight — it might lead to the emergence of a force concerned less with protecting the interests of the state and the elite and more with upholding the law and providing security for all. However, that will be impossible or meaningless without a corresponding change in the nature and culture of the Russian court system. If the courts are corrupt and/or subject to undue political influence, then police reform will be largely irrelevant: the guilty can arrange for themselves to be released, even if arrested, through bribery and blat (influence, connections), while the innocent who fall foul of the state or the elite will still be at risk. As is, time and again the courts appear to be — as in Soviet times — nothing more than instruments of factional and elite interest, from denying environmentalists their rights to characterizing efforts to confront homophobia as ‘extremism.’
Posted by Mark Galeotti on March 15, 2012
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/judicial-reform-the-necessary-flip-side-of-police-reform/
The Security Forces, Moscow, March 4
"Russia. Putin. Victory."
The presidential election weekend (and the following Monday, given the decision of activists to gather at Pushkin Square) saw Moscow in the grip of a massive security operation that saw especially the heart of the city swamped with police and security forces of every kind. A reported extra 6,500 personnel were drafted in (although I suspect this is a conservative figure), over and above the extensive array of forces already present in the capital, which I have detailed elsewhere, in my post Moscow’s Praetorians. Being a rather obsessive cop-spotter, I made a point of trying to identify as many of the elements I could see. Obviously there may well have been a number I missed, but the tally I came up with included:
Posted by Mark Galeotti on March 9, 2012
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/the-security-forces-moscow-march-4/
Second Thoughts on the Russian Election and its Aftermath
As sleep eludes me on the long flight back from Moscow to JFK, instead I type up some more undigested and ill-thought-through observations (to follow on from my first responses). (more…)
Posted by Mark Galeotti on March 7, 2012
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/second-thoughts-on-the-russian-election-and-its-aftermath/
The Chechens Under The Bed
As a little light relief from the presidential election and the subsequent punditry, I was contemplating the place of Chechens as a Russian folk devils. For once, this was not so much about terrorists and criminals but the recurring alarum of Chechen police being sent to Moscow for the election.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on March 5, 2012
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/the-chechens-under-the-bed/
Some initial responses after a morning of the Russian election
No, can't see any excitement here...
There is an interesting contradiction. Twitter is full of accounts of election fraud, especially so-called ‘carousel voting’ and the webcams now watching polling stations seem to have shown numerous irregularities. But here in southern Moscow a thoroughly unscientific amble around a number of polling stations, often buried deep within the high-rise villages that nestle between the main thoroughfares, has been decidedly free of drama. The mood seems in the main relaxed and despite a couple of instances of more heated political debate (the most vigorous, ironically, was between a partisan of the Communist Zyuganov and a champion of billionaire Prokhorov), amiable.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on March 4, 2012
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/some-initial-responses-after-a-morning-of-the-russian-election/
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