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50 Opinion bne July 2018
Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino (centre). www.kremlin.ru.
STOLYPIN: Putin builds a Presidential Administration fit for stagnation Mark Galeotti of the Institute of International Relations Prague
What better time than the eve of the World Cup for Vladimir Putin to reshuffle his team? However, if his tweaks of the Presidential Administration are anything to go by, he considers everything is fine, and no change in direction is needed.
The Presidential Administration is undoubtedly the most powerful institution in Russia. Indeed, as Putin continued his predecessor Yeltsin’s de-institutionalisation of the state, ripping away the autonomy and authority of any bodies which could challenge his hyper-presidential power, he soon was forced to come to terms with the basic reality of modern, complex states: they need institutions to provide the guiding impulses that will run along the bureaucratic nerves and sinews.
Inexorably, the Presidential Administration became the chancellery, audit committee, enforcer and gatekeeper of Putin’s court. If one wonders who decides what appeals and briefings reach the president’s desk, who schedules his day, who coordinates the grand projects both overt and covert,
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and who directs the puppet-show politics of Duma and public discourse alike, the answer is the Administratsiya prezidenta.
Of course, there are those figures within the government who do have a degree of independence, from the defence minister and the security chiefs to the chair of the Central Bank. But
to a considerable extent this is not so much because of their jobs so much as their personal relationship with ‘The Body,’
as Putin is known within the Presidential Administration, or the faith he places in them. Just as many of today’s oligarchs are now politically powerful because they are rich, but rich because of their political status, so too these boyars are not close to the president because of their important jobs, but hold those positions because of their proximity to the boss.
Even so, for most of them, their contact with ‘The Body’ is still mediated by the Presidential Administration, and they can expect Putin will have been briefed beforehand by his own people on whatever they want to discuss. Putin is notoriously touchy about any sense that he is being ‘handled,’ but even so, he has constructed around himself a machine that not only