On March 25th 2004 Viktor Ivanov became less powerful in the administration, since from deputy head of the administration he was appointed president’s assistant. According to some V. Ivanov started to head a serious opposition (inside the PA) to Voloshin-Surkov group and although later Voloshin left the PA himself, Surkov’s group prevailed.
Igor Ivanovich Shuvalov is considered to be very promising in the administration; he keeps increasing his power. Here is how the Center of Political Information Nevsky-Lubyanka-Kremlin characterizes him: “Former Kasyanov’s friend; oriented on V. Putin, provides the president on issues of “all-national projects”, manages the execution of the messages of the federal Council’s president, the Expert department and the commissions on issues of federative relations and local self-government.” Shuvalov was born in 1967. In 1992 he graduated from the juridical faculty of Moscow’s State University specialized as jurist. Shuvalov has the perfect career of a bureaucrat and a financier, but we do not need its stages. He is a professional, so to speak, “member of the board of directors”. In 1999, for example, he was part of Gazprom’s and in the Russian Development Bank’s board of directors. Now he is doing a quite ungrateful work on his post – he “doubles the GDP” and is responsible for social transformations. They affirm that now Shuvalov “has grown out” of his old contacts and apparently has joined the new “Piter” team. “Sources note, The President’s Samurais (Moscow, 2005, A. Mukhin) writes, in particular Shuvalov’s successes in fixing the work of the government’s apparatus. For example they say that he led a successful re-attestation among the employees, which resulted in the majority of the pensioners losing their job. Also Shuvalov managed to fix the system of document circulation, which did not work well before him. In particular each Monday he holds consultations about legislative activities, which contributed to the normalization of the system of documents’ passing.” Igor Ivanovich Shuvalov’s heroic deeds on the front of document circulation are naturally impressive, but more impressive is the financial size of the companies, which Shuvalov controls as member of the board of directors. This is Sovkomflot (sea transportation, including transportation of liquefied natural gas and oil products) and Russian Railways (freight and passenger railway transportation). The total weight of these companies is 31,4 billion dollars.
The president’s assistant Sergey Edwardovich Prikhodko was born in 1957; in 1980 he graduated from Moscow’s State University of International Relations. Until 1997 he made a good career in the Ministry of Interior. Now he is the president’s adviser on issues of external policy and international relations. Besides he is chairman of the board of directors of the TVEL Corporation; the corporation produces nuclear fuel for the reactors of nuclear plants. TVEL’s value is estimated at 1,1 billion dollars. I cannot say for sure what is the estimated value of the Tactical Rocket Weapons Corporation, whose board of directors is also presided by this man with multiple chins; I did not find it in reference books or in the media.
I have named here only six of the 43 most famous leaders of the president’s administration. But the thirty-seven that are left are not fools either. The president’s administrators are politically powerful people – they manipulate the federation Council, the State Duma, the State Duma elections and the appointment to the Federation Council (Sochin and Surkov); they appoint and (more rarely) dismiss ministers. They are like the overseers of the government and therefore there are above it. At the same time the leaders of the president’s administration are in essence new oligarchs. Therefore the nazbols are a thousand times right when they go out on meetings with the slogan “The oligarchs are in the Kremlin!” They are in the Kremlin and on Old Square. Thus, the president’s administration is a concentration of political and financial power in the country. Even those six that I mentioned: D. Medvedev, I. Sechin, V. Surkov, V. Ivanov, I. Shuvalov and S. Prikhodko control directly or indirectly a major part of the main financial flows in the country; these flows are comparable with half of Russia’s annual budget. You should realize that the post of chairman of the board of directors (or member of the board) of the largest State Company is not ceremonial; this is a real financial power; in many cases it is a monopolistic power.
In contrary to Yeltsin’s times of banal embezzlement, Putin, by putting trusted people on key businesses, has made the power to become a business. It privatized key branches of the economy for itself: oil, gas, transport, and nuclear energy. In other words basic branches that bring the main profits into the budget. The new oligarchs, leaders of the president’s administration, have a consolidated budget and one boss – the president (since the assignment of posts is in his power).
The new oligarchs are fantastically rich. “The gross profit of the companies controlled by the Administration in 2003 was about 45 billion dollars. In 2004 it was 89,828 billion dollars,” Novaya Gazeta writes in issue 8 for 2005. In 2005 Gazprom acquired Sibneft, which by the end of the year will give a minimal increase of the total profit of 8,9 billion dollars. Obviously Rosneft, which obtained Yuganskneftegaz, will also improve its indicators. If to this wealth we add the fact that it is the president’s administration that establishes the tariffs on the production of the natural resources sector, then they have unlimited possibilities for enrichment. The RF government becomes an increasingly technical body that serves the Administration.
After it took over the financial power, the president’s Administration did not reject the political power. Moreover, it is not only the president who formulates the State’s policy but the gentlemen from the president’s Administration. On September 29th 2004 Komsomolskaya Pravda published an interview with the deputy head of the president’s Administration Vladislav Surkov, entitled “Putin strengthens the State and not himself”, which is the Kremlin’s program document. In essence it is not an interview; it is known that this text was proposed by the president’s Administration first in other national newspapers, however one or two publications demanded to add at least a couple live questions to the text and were answered a firm “no”. So they put the text in Komsomolskaya Pravda, which, apparently, does not ask questions to the president’s Administration.
In the text “Putin strengthens…” Surkov is mostly justifying himself. For Beslan: “Question: – In the days of Beslan’s tragedy again we heard calls to negotiate with the terrorists… The answer: – Yes, like someone gave a signal to them… Maybe I missed something but all these years I never had the chance to hear clear proposals to regulate the crisis. Everything the power does is declared wrong. But what is right? Negotiations? Go ahead! About what? With whom? What are the negotiation positions? What has to be the result? I don’t hear you!”