Reshuffling the house of cards

A major reshuffle of the ruling elite rages on in Russia. Fiction has never been this fascinating …

On September 14, RBC reported that Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin would quit his post following the Duma elections. The publication’s sources in the FSB maintain that dissatisfaction with Bastrykin’s performance had been “brewing for a long time.”

His fate was finally sealed this summer when high-ranking colleagues (including a personal friend of Bastrykin’s) were accused of accepting a large bribe from a criminal kingpin. And though the presidential press secretary professed ignorance of any impending headline-making resignation, we can take a glimpse into Alexander Bastrykin’s future even without assistance from Dmitry Peskov. Bastrykin has already been denied use of two Mercedes escort vehicles. In Russia, country of rituals, this sort of ostentatious deprivation of status privileges speaks volumes. In fact, it tells us almost everything we need to know.

Scandals have dogged Alexander Bastrykin throughout his time at the Investigative Committee. In 2012, Bastrykin – charming chap that he is – enraged by an article penned by the deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, had the journalist driven to a forest outside Moscow, where he threatened to “cut off his head and chop off his legs.” In 2015, Spanish investigators published findings regarding links between the “Russian mafia” and Russia’s leaders; the document indicated that Bastrykin’s appointment as Investigative Committee chief was lobbied through by the Tambov criminal group. Nor must we overlook the fact that the Bastrykin-led Investigative Committee is embroiled in tens of thousands of cases against entrepreneurs (with legal proceedings frequently being initiated in an effort to extort money from businesses – or simply to seize them altogether).

It’s practically impossible now to find Russian netizens sympathetic to Bastrykin.

A user from Makhachkala: “Under Bastrykin, the IC has electrocuted suspects. Choked them. Drowned them. Hanged them.”

Pavel: “That scumbag Bastrykin’s main achievement as investigator numero uno is, of course, the Bolotnaya Square case. We won’t forget and we won’t forgive.”

Generally speaking, Alexander Bastrykin’s impending resignation can be explained with reference to the generational rotation of Putin’s elite – a factor which, as far as political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky is concerned, can only augur ill for the current Investigative Committee chief: “What we’re seeing is a continuation of Putin’s policy of replacing old friends in key government positions with servants, foot soldiers, functionaries – people who don’t remember a time when Vladimir Vladimirovich wasn’t Russia’s ruler. In this sense, Alexander Bastrykin […] is really under the cosh.”

There was a time when the postulate “Putin doesn’t desert his own people” enjoyed wide currency. As it turned out, however, “Putin’s people” have an expiry date; once this lapses, Putin feels absolutely no qualms in dispatching them into retirement. Journalist Oleg Kashin suggests that the next silovik [member of the ruling elite] to suffer this fate could be Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov (this, despite the fact that he’s currently sitting pretty): “If I were Chemezov, I wouldn’t take heart in any strengthening of my position, or even in rumours to that effect; in fact, I’d fear them. Being the last of Putin’s influential old cronies at a time when he is culling them all  – that isn’t too great a situation for him. Generally, the last man standing always risks the greatest fall.”

According to political analyst Yekaterina Shulman, the siloviki clan wars represent the single most important development in contemporary Russian politics, and will only escalate in intensity as the “resource base progressively narrows.  […]  [But] a single super-silovik, a single great repressive government agency that would dominate all the others, must never emerge, for then the top leadership would be overly dependent on the actions of a single player – something they cannot afford to allow to happen.”

Political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko, for his part, believes that no siloviki grouping currently wields greater influence than that revolving around new National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov; nonetheless, he maintains, the frontline in the siloviki war has always been highly fluid, adding that “the security-service shake-up is far from over. There’ll be further high-profile resignations and appointments before the year is out.”

Although Putin’s old entourage is departing in droves, the public generally receives no reliable information about the reasons behind the latest high-profile resignation or dismissal – at best, some cover story comes to light. But the situation changes radically when information available to the president reaches journalists and the public in the wake of an inter-clan battle. That represents a setback indeed.

Only successful corruptionists are permitted in Putin’s Russia; their “loser” counterparts – the ones incapable of putting their own house in order and either appeasing or destroying their enemies – are inevitably offered up as sacrifices by the system.

The rationale behind the Bastrykin affair may well be entirely outlandish. The whole thing could be to do with the fact that Bastrykin – an old classmate of the president, and ten months his junior to boot – simply has no right, in today’s Russia, to look so old … perhaps he just can’t do whatever number of press-ups Putin deems to be satisfactory. And here’s what really matters: no one in Russia (save, of course, for one man) can dismiss this outlandish interpretation of events with absolute certainty. That’s the most alarming thing of all.