Russian President Vladimir Putin is a solitary figure leading a dangerous war. Days before invading Ukraine, the Russian TV broadcasted sessions of Putin’s inner circle, his security council, with him sitting at a distance.
Who’s in the Putin’s inner circle
The Russian president is also the commander in chief of the Russian military, making him ultimately responsible for the invasion. However, he has always relied on his loyal circle containing many who also started their careers in the nation’s security services. In the security council, Sergei Shoigu, Putin’s longtime confidant and a minister of Defence takes an important stand. Shoigu also repeated Putin’s statement of demilitarising Ukraine to protect Russia from the military threat the West is posing. In addition to going on fishing and hunting trips with Putin, he is also likely to be next in line for the presidency. He is one of the few holding a lot of influence on the Russian president.
Shoigu holds the credit for taking control of Crimea in 2014. Additionally, he is also the head of GRU military intelligence. The group is accused of two major nerve agent poisoning. It includes the recent and almost fatal attack on Alexie Navalny, the leader of the opposition in 2020. “Shoigu was supposed to be marching to Kyiv. He’s the minister of defense and was supposed to win it,” stated Vera Mironova. Mironova is a specialist in armed conflict. However, the images of Putin on one end of a very large table and his advisors huddling together on the other end makes us question everything. However, “Shoigu is not only in charge of the military, but he’s also partly in charge of ideology – and in Russia’s ideology is mostly about history and he’s in control of the narrative,” she added.
Other people who hold Putin’s attention
Apart from Shoigu, Putin is also close to a few more selected people in the group. Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of General Staff of the Russian Armed forces is also one of them. His job was mainly for invading Ukraine and completing the job at the latest. Since commanding the army in the 1999’s Chechen War he has been at the forefront, playing a major role. The secretary of the security council, Nikolai’s Patrushev is another major influence on Putin. “Patrushev is the most hawkish hawk, thinking the West has been out to get Russia for years,” described Ben Noble. Nobel is an associate professor at the University College London and teaches Russian Politics. He has been a Putin loyalist since the 1970s and also worked with Putin in his KGB days.
Patrushev, foreign intelligence head Sergei Naryshkin and the security service chief Alexander Bortnikov make his innermost circle or siloviki as they are known. Additionally, according to Kremlin watchers, the president trusts information from Bortnikov and the security services more than any outlets. As both men are close to Putin, it is difficult to say who holds more confidence or who is calling the shots. Additionally, Naryshkin has remained by the president’s side for most of his career since the 1990s. However, he also received a dressing down by Putin