generalspeaking

Who Is Advising Putin Now?

Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/Reuters      Russian President Vladimir Putin (c.) chairs a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on Tuesday.

"In Russia, decision-making is the most obscure realm of all. This system is top secret. Nobody, not even top officials, know for sure who or what Putin is listening to."
"Anything anyone tells you about how Putin decides things is either disinformation, or error."
Alexander Dugin, right-wing scholar, founder of "Eurasian" school of political philosophy

"Putin meets with people based on the importance of the jobs they do."
"The Putin-era oligarchs had the mission to develop Russian business at home and abroad, with the purpose of strengthening Russia's integration with the global economy. That hasn't worked out at all, and as a result the relevance of those billionaires for Putin has fallen sharply. On the other hand, the importance of siloviki – security people – has grown amid the current challenges. So, he spends more time with them. It's a fact that the siloviki tend to be more anti-Western, and obviously this will influence his views."
"Of course we have no solid information about who Putin meets with and listens to. But Putin is known to be a good manager. He will move to restore the balance between the different groups that are close to him. He needs them to help formulate new policies to minimize the economic losses and neutralize the political trends that could threaten his power. He's a rational player, and he's very interested in his own political survival."
Nikolai Petrov, professor, Higher School of Economics, Moscow

The straitened economic position Russia founds itself in now with the double wallop of sanctions and the astonishingly low price per barrel of oil, has put a crimp in the Kremlin's plans to promote the Russian federation at the expense of its former satellites. The Sochi Winter Games, exquisitely planned by Vladimir Putin to dazzle the world community with its off-handed expense account and its ability to mount a world-class event outdoing even China's pride of presentation, was to have been the introduction to Russia's ambitious aspirations to claim its former status as a world power equal to the U.S.

Things went off the rails fairly swiftly when two events occurred; first the Islamic Republic of Iran's plans at nuclear attainment, aided and abetted by a more than willing Kremlin with Russian engineering know-how helping to build Iran's nuclear plants, creating a huge concern for the Gulf States and in particular Saudi Arabia, shuddering at the prospect of Shiite Iran aggressively presenting itself as the Aryan (Shiite) Muslim leader in the Arab (Sunni) Middle East. Iran seemed to be able to weather Western sanctions, but Saudi Arabia had a better plan and engineered cheap oil to really slug it to Iran.

The fallout of which is where Moscow finds itself at the present time, suffering under its own economic sanctions imposed by the West as a genteel but firm punishing admonition over its ambitious annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, and its covert support for the Ukrainian-Russian rebels who insist on joining the geography they claim with that of Russia, transferring land and allegiance from Kyiv to Moscow, to the delight of the Kremlin.

In choosing to target Vladimir Putin's closest friends and colleagues whom he had placed in a position to enrich themselves as powerful oligarchs whose loyalty to Mr. Putin was undisputed, the West reasoned that their displeasure at how they were targeted through sanctions creating a diminishment of their wealth, pressure would be placed upon the Russian president to curtail his territorial ambitions.

Instead, his resolve has been heightened, just as his popularity among the Russian people has soared at the spectacle of their president thumbing his nose at Western leaders pressuring Russia to stand down from its aggression against its neighbours. Russians view their president as a hero for resisting outside pressure and forging on with the intention of restoring Russia's past greatness as a world power, evidenced by the vast treasury spent on acquiring new military technology.

Those whose wealth has been dealt a blow by Western displeasure over Russia's expansionist imperialism have become resentful of their president's ambitions. The 21 most wealthy in the country have lost a collective $61-billion in the last yer alone as a result of the U.S. and European sanctions, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Political consultant Sergei Markov relates that businessmen who have been close to Mr. Putin are now "on the periphery". Russia's economic plight has been tremendously exacerbated by the low per-barrel world market price. Zap!

The core group that Vladimir Putin has now assembled around him has been altered, led by Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov, and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, if Mr. Markov is to be believed -- and why would he not be? Those who were tasked as ministers and state functionaries to counter the economic slowdown in the country have complained that their recommendations haven't been welcomed.

"It's a very difficult time for Putin. He's being criticized from both sides, the liberals and the hawks. Many people in the Kremlin believe Russia should adopt an even tougher stance", explained Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who has noted the rise of the security services under President Putin. Although the Russian population supports Russia's involvement in Ukraine with the intensified fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk, the Moscow elite are alarmed about the political and financial costs.

Two former prominent government officials have called on Vladimir Putin to find an exit in the fighting. Russia must avoid "self-isolation" over Ukraine and keep the door open to cooperation with NATO and the U.S. according to Yevgeny Primakov, a former premier, foreign minister and spymaster. "We lost our country as a great power" without that collaboration, Mr. Primakov wrote last week in Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Former finance minister Alexi Kudrin, a longtime Putin ally, who now sits on the president's Economic Council, last month claimed that Russia faces a "full-fledged" economic crisis if it fails to repair its damaged ties with the United States and Europe. But none of these concerns address the more signal problem devastating Russia's finances; its reliance on high oil prices per barrel to keep its ambitions afloat....

Labels: Conflict, Energy Resources, Finances, NATO, Russia, Ukraine

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 28, 2015