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The Guessing Game Continues: Who Is Really In Charge In Russia?

It’s a question which is being asked in Moscow more and more often nowadays: who is really in charge in Russia? Because it is getting more confusing by the day. One moment everyone concludes that it is Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who is calling all the shots and then, all of a sudden, something happens and people start to wonder whether it is a good idea to write President Dmitry Medvedev off with such haste and whether he might not be actually strengthening his influence.

 

Last week alone several developments sent completely different signals to the public about the status quo in the Russian leadership. First of all, Mr Putin had quashed all rumours about who is actually going to represent Russia at the G8 summit in Japan next month and confirmed that it is going to be President Medvedev. There was a lot of speculation in Moscow about a last minute change of players with Mr Medvedev finding something else to do instead of meeting his counterparts in the G8 club and Mr Putin replacing him. But now we know that Mr Medvedev is going so that means that his position is not so weak after all.

 

   But no sooner had the president’s standing been reinforced when Mr Putin paid an official visit to France where he was greeted more as a head of state rather than just the head of government. Because there was no way that a Russian Prime Minister would have been invited by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy for a private ‘working dinner’ in Élysée Palace; no way. So it meant that Mr Putin was still seen in Paris as a man who yields the real power in Moscow. Because the French have always been good in paying attention to the subtleties in politics and they have a good feel for guessing things like that. And one French diplomat even said in an interview before Mr Putin’s visit that everyone in Paris ‘understands that he is not just the Prime Minister’.

 

   And there were also the small things that everyone had noticed during Mr Putin’s visit to Paris. His motorcade, for example, was very impressive indeed. It did not look like a motorcade of a regular head of government, that is. And the way he has been treated by the French officials also spoke volumes in his favour.

            

   So once again the situation got rather confusing and people in Moscow started saying that President Medvedev is probably not going to stay in the Kremlin for long and that he’ll step down in the near future and let his mentor take full control of things once again. Especially as in Russia the Prime Minister is technically the Vice President and any snap presidential contest that would take place to legitimise Mr Putin would be just a formality. Considering all the support that he so deservedly enjoys.        

 

   But then another event happened that proved that no one should doubt the credentials of President Medvedev. He had chaired the meeting of Russia’s powerful Security Council where Prime Minister Putin was very visibly absent. For those people who don’t know this I would simply say this: it is a must for the Prime Minister in Russia to be present at the Security Council meetings and if it weren’t Mr Putin some people might have even concluded that the position of the head of government was rather shaky. It had been claimed that Mr Putin could not be present at the meeting because he was on a visit in France. But the thing is that Security Council meetings in the past have always been held on a Saturday but on this particular occasion it had taken place on a Friday. So that explanation did not really satisfy anyone.   

 

   And once again the view in Moscow had changed and people were thinking that Mr Medvedev is still a force to be reckoned with. Especially as in the last couple of days his wife, Mrs Svetlana Medvedeva, had been seen around town with a great big smile on her face whereas Mrs Lyudmila Putina on the contrary had appeared looking rather downbeat and gloomy. And wives usually know what is happening behind the scenes and, naturally, many people have concluded that things are going well for the current Russian President.

 

   So there you have it. An endless guessing game goes on and on because no one in Moscow seems to know for sure what the arrangement between President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin really is. Have they actually decided to run the country together – in tandem as they call it – for years to come or is it just a temporary thing and soon we will witness a disappearing act performed by the Russian head of state? It is not a good situation, of course. Uncertainty has always been bad for Russia and especially uncertainty about who is in charge. The bureaucrats feel nervous when they don’t know whom they should be demonstrating their loyalty to and powerful business groups get restless and edgy when they don’t really understand who has the final say in what. And the Russian military get confused because the man in the Kremlin is technically their commander-in-chief and yet the man in the White House, where the government resides, seems to have more power when it comes to making crucial decisions that have an impact on the armed forces. And foreign governments are confused too because they can’t really figure out what is going on in Moscow. Overall it’s not good situation whichever way you look at it. Not good at all. 

 

   If you want to know my personal opinion, I think that Mr Putin will come back at some point. The reason why it suits him to stay away from the Kremlin at the moment is because the situation in the economy is getting worse and social tension can start growing soon with all the price increases and tight restrictions on social spending. We might see the situation worsen to such a degree that Mr Medvedev would have no other choice but to fall on his sword – figuratively speaking, I hope – and let Mr Putin come back to sort out all that ‘mess’. Because the beauty of Mr Putin’s position is that although he is technically in charge of the government that is responsible for all the current problems, in the eyes of millions of Russians the buck still stops with the man in the Kremlin and he is the fall guy in any situation. So it’s a win-win situation for Mr Putin, but I seriously doubt that it is in any way beneficial for Russia.     

 

 

                   

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