1:52

informing

2:00

security officers on duty at

2:03

the door about what had happened. By

2:06

personal order of Dmitry Kochnev, who

2:08

incidentally is the head of the Federal Protection Service,

2:10

the FSO, a room

2:13

in the presidential residence in Nvaldai,

2:15

which was converted into an intensive care ward

2:17

in which Putin died, was blocked off.

2:21

The doctors remained locked in with the president's

2:23

corpse. Security officers

2:25

ordered the doctors to calm down, not to make any

2:27

noise and wait. Dmitry

2:30

Kochnev carried out the instructions of the

2:32

Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation

2:34

Nikolai Pavloshev. Also,

2:37

by order of Kochnev, the security of

2:39

the president's double was strengthened. Now

2:42

the question, including the future fate of the doctors,

2:44

is being resolved. Negotiations

2:46

on the creation of a coalition of representatives

2:49

of the pro-Putin elites under

2:51

the leadership of Nikolai Pavloshev are

2:53

almost completed to preserve

2:55

the current regime and use Putin's

2:57

double in the image of the president. But,

3:00

there are now three exclamation

3:02

marks there, if

3:04

when Putin was alive it was possible

3:06

to use a double without any problems in extreme

3:09

cases it was possible to present the real one, then

3:12

after this Putin's death, any

3:14

attempt to pass off the double as the president

3:17

is a coup d'etat. Shortly

3:20

before the president's death, when it was

3:22

already clear that he was dying, the

3:24

option of putting Putin into a medically induced

3:27

coma was considered, thus preserving a fresh

3:29

corpse so that after a clear determination

3:32

with a successor and a smooth transfer of power

3:35

could present the freshly deceased to the

3:37

public. But this option, due to the

3:39

death that has already occurred, has disappeared.

3:42

And how his surroundings will act is also being

3:44

decided. We will inform you as

3:46

information becomes available.

3:49

So,

3:50

in what sounds frankly more like

3:52

a scene from Armando Ionucci's

3:54

brilliant Death of Stalin, we

3:57

are told that Putin is dead.

3:59

That here's corpse has been stuffed

4:01

into a fridge freezer, refrigerated

4:03

in peace. And

4:05

Patrocheff, a man with no constitutional

4:08

power, has essentially taken over, planning

4:10

to use a Putin body double to rule

4:13

through. And somehow,

4:15

whoever is behind this telegram channel

4:18

knows details to the very

4:20

minute, but no one else does.

4:24

Is it totally impossible? No.

4:27

But do I believe it? Absolutely

4:29

not. Look, this is a very,

4:32

very dubious and sensational social media

4:34

channel. It's long been

4:36

peddling a conspiratorial

4:38

line that suggests a mortally

4:41

ill Putin who periodically goes through

4:43

humiliations, such as falling down

4:45

the stairs and soiling himself, is

4:47

represented in public pretty much at all

4:50

times by a body double and

4:53

is about to be supplanted by Patrocheff.

4:57

In this, although it claims to be the account

4:59

coming from a general in the SVR,

5:01

the Foreign Intelligence Service, and

5:03

let's be perfectly honest, if anyone with

5:05

this degree of access was publicizing

5:08

it,

5:09

don't you think by now someone would have identified

5:12

the person? I mean,

5:13

there's only so many people who will be able to tell you,

5:15

for example, at exactly what time

5:17

Putin, quote unquote, died. But

5:21

still, there are very, very close similarities

5:23

between its fictions and

5:26

those of the defrocked academic Valerie

5:28

Salovey, who for years

5:31

has been predicting Putin's imminent demise

5:34

or deposition. Really?

5:36

Yep, absolutely. In 2017,

5:39

he said that Putin would stand down in two to

5:41

three years. In 2018,

5:45

he said that a major crisis would topple

5:47

Putin in 2019. In 2019, he

5:52

said that Putin would be out in 2020.

5:56

In 2020, that Putin had Parkinson's

5:58

disease and will be dead or

6:01

out of office in 2021. In 2021 he claimed that, guess what,

6:04

Putin would be

6:08

out in 2022. Are

6:11

we noticing a common theme yet?

6:14

Salovey is always predicting that

6:16

Putin is going to go any day now. And look, of

6:19

course, someday he'll be right on

6:21

the same principle that a stopped clock is

6:24

accurate two times in the day.

6:27

Salovey is also responsible, though, for some of

6:29

the more, I think it's fair to say, lurid

6:31

claims about, for example, Putin

6:33

turning to shamanistic blood

6:36

sacrifices to try and restore his health.

6:39

And also that Patrochev

6:41

is precisely this sinister eminence-grease

6:44

whom he is about to

6:46

take over, which is much more questionable.

6:49

Not least because of the health issue. Look, let's not forget

6:51

that, I mean, obviously, I had no idea whether

6:54

Putin is seriously ill on

6:57

the verge of death or whatever. But let's

7:00

imagine just for a moment that

7:02

the director of the CIA might know something

7:04

more than me. Well, just last year

7:06

CIA director Bill Burns said, as

7:09

far as we can tell, he's entirely too

7:11

healthy. So

7:13

we need to take this carefully and especially

7:16

given the rest of the rather outlandish

7:20

suggestions and apparently

7:22

exposes that general esper

7:24

also pedals. Not least by the fact that

7:26

you've given me precaution is alive

7:28

and well and living in Venezuela.

7:32

It's worth noting, first of all, since then, you know,

7:34

we have seen Putin at

7:37

nuclear exercises now again, sure, this

7:39

could be a body double. And for the record,

7:42

I think there is at least one body

7:44

double, because although on the whole,

7:46

Putin has a phenomenal security

7:48

around him, we have seen

7:50

cases where he seems to be pretty

7:53

much interacting with a genuine

7:56

crowd with with relatively

7:58

little security. whether this

8:00

was in terms of his drive around in

8:03

occupied Mariupol, or whether

8:05

it was then his post-Prigojin

8:07

coup, couple of little sort of

8:10

public events, in which again he

8:12

obviously wanted to show that he was still a man

8:15

of the people. In those cases,

8:17

I would not be surprised if it was a body double,

8:19

not least because Joe Public or, I

8:21

don't know, Yvonne Public, do

8:24

not know Putin well enough to be able to perhaps

8:26

see slight differences in his cheekbones

8:29

or whatever else. These are things that people who look at obsessively,

8:32

I would say, at some of the media

8:34

pictures, they say, oh look, this clearly is not Putin because

8:36

of the ears are different or something. I don't know. So

8:39

yes, in some cases there could be a body

8:41

double, but nonetheless, we appear

8:43

to have seen Putin out. More to the

8:45

point, I would say there's no signs of

8:48

panicked conclaves in Moscow, no

8:51

sort of big black limos

8:54

trundling to each other as dutchers and such

8:56

like, no evidence of the security

8:58

forces being brought to a precautionary alert.

9:02

And look, Petrovchev may

9:04

perhaps, and I'd stress that perhaps,

9:07

control the spook agencies. Though again,

9:09

I don't think we should be too quick

9:12

to assume that he has the kind of power that would actually

9:15

make them become participants in a coup. But

9:18

beyond that, the Embedaire, the interior

9:20

ministry, or the military.

9:23

If we're essentially talking about the arithmetic

9:26

of a coup, when it comes to

9:28

who has more guns, it's probably people

9:30

other than Petrovchev, people who indeed may well

9:32

want to ensure that Petrovchev does not become

9:35

dominant. So generally, we have absolutely

9:37

nothing to support these claims.

9:41

But as I said, that does not mean

9:43

for a moment that it does not get picked

9:45

up in all kinds of news agencies

9:47

and accounts all around the world

9:50

and retweeted and such like. Now,

9:54

why is there this willingness

9:57

to accept the most I

10:00

was going to say likely source but unsourced

10:03

gossip. Well look, in part

10:05

it's precisely because of course Putin,

10:07

his home life, his

10:09

health and so forth are very

10:12

very private. This is the blackest of black

10:14

boxes. So in some ways there is no

10:17

genuine information or credible information

10:20

given the degree to which we don't obviously trust what

10:22

Kremlin spokespeople tell us to

10:24

supplant the rumour. If

10:29

we're blunt, copy hungry western

10:32

press is very happy

10:34

to run this. And sure they will use the

10:36

get around of not saying Putin is dead

10:38

but shocking new revelations

10:41

from social media channel

10:43

claiming. But the point

10:45

is it's sexy, it fills

10:48

a bit of space, they really

10:50

should do better. But anyway, that's

10:52

my own particular pet peeve. There's

10:55

also a degree obviously of wishful thinking

10:57

that if Putin dies, well A,

11:00

does Putin dying may well be regarded

11:03

with good reason as good in its

11:05

own right but also the implications this might

11:07

have for the war in Ukraine and such like.

11:10

But most importantly because obviously Putin's

11:12

health, Putin's fate really

11:14

does matter. This

11:17

is an intensely, well at least at the top,

11:19

personalistic system. And

11:22

over the years, 23 years after all,

11:24

it has in some ways become moulded

11:27

around Putin. Instead,

11:29

I mean to go back to my usual vision

11:31

which is that this is a fairly modern

11:34

bureaucratic institutionalised state with a medieval

11:36

court perched atop it, well

11:39

that court is now shaped by

11:41

Putin,

11:42

by

11:43

people's relationships with the boss,

11:46

by people having acquired a whole variety

11:49

of habits and behaviours about

11:51

what you can and can't, should and shouldn't

11:53

do because of course you

11:55

are seeking the boss's favour and

11:57

wanting to avoid the boss's anger. Generally

12:01

speaking then, it is

12:03

like that whole medieval concept

12:06

of the health of the nation being

12:08

inextricably linked to the health

12:11

of the monarch.

12:12

And even if some kind

12:13

of a successor wants to preserve

12:16

the Putin system and all

12:18

the prejudices and policies

12:21

that go with it, well can

12:23

that person squeeze into the

12:26

Putin-shaped hole at the heart of it? And

12:28

the answer is almost certainly not, especially

12:30

because in some ways it has

12:32

evolved over time. Putin

12:35

today is not the same Putin as in the

12:37

year 2000 or indeed the year 2008. So for all of

12:39

these reasons we

12:42

cannot assume that there will be a smooth

12:45

seamless continuity when Putin

12:47

does go. Even

12:49

the most Putinistic of successors

12:52

will bring changes in terms of their

12:55

character as well as the impact of let's

12:57

say their age and their health and their vigor,

13:00

but also will be unable to

13:02

rule quite like Putin because they will not

13:04

necessarily have all the same personal relationships

13:06

and the like. So it really matters

13:08

because of the personalistic nature of this regime.

13:11

It also matters because there is no clear

13:13

successor or even a succession

13:16

mechanism. We have and I'll come to at the moment

13:18

the constitutional process,

13:21

but that presupposes that what really

13:23

matters is the constitution and the law and

13:25

of course we all know that this is Russia. It doesn't.

13:29

The elections which would follow are

13:31

not necessarily going to be, and I don't think

13:33

I'm sticking my neck out here, free and

13:35

fair. To a large extent

13:37

they will be about the ratification, the legitimation

13:41

of whoever has been chosen as a successor by

13:44

the elite. But nonetheless that

13:46

process could get quite messy.

13:49

I'm not anticipating shootouts in the center

13:51

of Moscow or warlords

13:54

mustering their forces to compete

13:56

over the throne, but we have

13:58

to acknowledge that There

14:01

is a lot of scope for conflict

14:03

and contestation below that. Of

14:05

course, the irony is also, and this is the last key point

14:07

where it matters, is that trouble

14:10

in Moscow, conflict in Moscow, could

14:13

actually also mean the prospect for ending

14:16

a much larger and much bloodier conflict, that

14:18

in Ukraine. I would say

14:20

that although I really wouldn't want to predict that

14:23

there is a high likelihood that the war

14:25

would be ended, but nonetheless I would certainly

14:27

say that the possibility that there

14:30

could be an end to the fighting is vastly

14:33

greater without Putin, without

14:36

his own personal commitment to the war that

14:38

he, after all, started on the basis of his own

14:41

ludicrous notions of Ukraine, and

14:43

his own sense of what Russia as a great

14:45

power needs. But also

14:47

if Russia now has a handy Putin's

14:51

casket-sized scapegoat

14:53

on which it can sort of dump everything

14:56

that went wrong. It's

14:58

also worth just dwelling on the question of whether or

15:01

not this is actually, this is a question I've been asked by journalists

15:03

a couple of times in the last couple of days, whether

15:05

or not in fact people like

15:07

Salovey or channels like

15:10

Teregaram Esver, sorry, General

15:12

Esver, are actually Kremlin

15:14

operations deliberately trying to

15:17

spread lurid disinformation? And

15:20

on balance I don't think so. I mean

15:22

yes, it does perhaps help

15:25

discredit critics by

15:27

putting out so much hyperbolic

15:30

nonsense. But look,

15:32

it surely cannot be good for Putin

15:35

to be seen as debilitated

15:37

and humiliated, let alone dead.

15:40

So on balance I would have thought that

15:42

the cost is greater than

15:45

the advantage. But

15:48

we shouldn't underestimate the Russians' capacity

15:50

to operate on the long game.

15:53

I'm minded to go back to, in some

15:56

ways, a very different exercise

15:58

that happened after the war. though Bolshevik

16:01

seized power in the Civil War, the

16:03

forebears of the KGB ran an operation

16:06

called the TRUST, essentially

16:08

trying to run what looked like an

16:11

anti-Bolshevik, emigre organization

16:14

committed to bringing down the new

16:17

regime, precisely as

16:19

a way of penetrating, incorporating,

16:22

taking over similar emigre

16:25

Russian anti-Bolshevik organizations, but

16:27

also using it as a way of

16:31

gaining access to information about

16:33

Western intelligence operations against

16:36

Bolshevik Russia, and it led

16:38

to all kinds of arrests, imprisonments and

16:40

killings of various people. So,

16:43

you know, I suppose one could conceivably

16:46

imagine that. But as I say, I think

16:48

it's probably unlikely. And

16:50

likewise, on balance,

16:52

I don't think this is a Western, black

16:55

propaganda operation. Again,

16:58

not impossible. There are reasons why you

17:01

actually want to present Putin

17:03

in in particularly bad light. But

17:06

if nothing else, I have a tendency to feel that everything

17:08

leaks eventually. Now, I think it's

17:10

more likely that there are people who frankly

17:14

enjoy spreading these lines, enjoy

17:16

seeing these lines being picked up all

17:19

around the world and have

17:21

established for themselves niches in presenting these

17:24

things. And that's what they do. But

17:28

it does raise the question of what

17:30

happens if and when Putin does

17:32

actually die, certainly if he dies in office. Well,

17:35

constitutionally, what happens is

17:38

unless they're going to be immediate elections, which is

17:41

one option, but otherwise, most likely is

17:43

the prime minister, currently Mikhail Mishustin,

17:46

becomes the interim president, and

17:49

they have to be presidential elections within

17:51

three months. Now,

17:53

in practice, what do I think would happen?

17:56

Well, I really would expect something very

17:59

much like the situation. situation has happened when Stalin

18:01

died in office in 1953. And it's worth noting

18:03

that frankly, General

18:05

Espier does picture of what happened to

18:08

Putin does the sound. Very

18:10

reminiscent of the Stalin situation.

18:13

So what happened? Well, first of all, I think there would

18:15

be indeed a delay in making

18:17

any announcement. While

18:20

the not so great, not so certainly

18:22

not so good behind the

18:24

scenes try and sort of hammer out what

18:26

they're going to be doing, who's going to be taking

18:29

over what the line is going to be. And while

18:31

there are security precautions, after

18:33

all, it's worth noting this extraordinary

18:36

scenes that we saw when Stalin died of,

18:38

you know, even people within the Gulag

18:40

labor camps, people who were there because

18:43

of the paranoia and malice of Stalin's

18:45

administration, nonetheless,

18:47

bursting into tears

18:48

at the news of his death. Not

18:51

necessarily because they were sorry that

18:53

the old bastard was dead, but

18:55

because in some ways they could hardly imagine

18:58

a Soviet Union without Stalin. He

19:00

had been in power so long, so

19:03

central, you know, he was he was the pull star.

19:06

Other people had come and gone once

19:08

they were heroes of the revolution. And

19:11

then they were saboteurs and

19:13

Trotskyites and non people, their

19:15

names taken out of the great Soviet encyclopedia.

19:19

And in that context, the

19:21

idea of them without the great

19:23

helmsman was difficult to imagine. Well, look, I

19:26

mean, I don't think it's going to be quite the same pitch with

19:28

Putin. But remember, 23 years,

19:31

that is an incredible length of time. There

19:34

are people who not only will not

19:36

be able to remember a pre

19:39

Putin Russia. 23

19:42

years, there are people who could have kids.

19:46

Who also can't remember Putin, it's

19:49

going to be quite quite significant psychologically

19:51

and very unpredictable. And although

19:53

again, I don't think it's going to lead to either sort

19:55

of massive genuine

19:58

mourning of Putin.

19:59

nor actually some

20:02

kind of potential collapse of the system.

20:05

But

20:05

people won't know. People will be uncertain. So I said they

20:07

will be making their security precautions. There

20:10

will be, as I say, behind-the-scenes negotiations.

20:13

And here I think it's important that there

20:15

is no one figure who, I think, in my opinion,

20:18

can muster the power and the authority

20:20

to be able to just take over. There is

20:22

no obvious successor. There is no one

20:25

who essentially can command

20:28

without horse-trading enough

20:31

support across the board. What

20:33

we will quite possibly find, though,

20:36

is, again, as happened after Stalin's

20:38

death, that perhaps some of the figures

20:40

who were regarded by the rest of the elite as

20:42

the most dangerous are marginalized

20:45

or eliminated. I mean, again, Inuchi's

20:49

film rather abbreviates the process,

20:51

but nine months after Stalin's death, Lavrenty

20:54

Beria, Stalin's

20:57

not just his secret police chief, but as he himself

21:00

described him, my Himmler, now

21:02

there's an accolade for you. Anyway, Lavrenty

21:04

Beria, by that point, nine months

21:07

later, he was arrested and killed. Well,

21:10

it won't necessarily be quite that. But

21:12

we may well see, and obviously

21:14

my nomination would, by the way, be Igor Sichid, but

21:17

anyway, we may well see some other figures

21:19

losing out precisely because the elite can

21:22

now get them out of the way. And

21:24

through that process, we will see the emergence

21:27

of probably some kind of a consensus candidate.

21:29

Again, consensus

21:31

does not have to mean universally popular. It

21:33

just means we have enough of

21:35

a support base.

21:37

And a lot of that is going

21:38

to involve not just who people are and

21:40

what institutions or interests

21:42

they represent, but also what they

21:45

promise. If we look at, again, what

21:47

happened after Stalin, there were essentially

21:49

two key figures. I mean, there was the

21:51

obvious successor, Malenkov,

21:55

and then there was Khrushchev. And

21:57

in due course, although Malenkov apparently

21:59

started, with all the the

22:03

the levers of power in his hands

22:06

he was outmaneuvered by Khrushchev who represented

22:08

the party rather than the administration

22:10

which was Marlon Kors Powerbase and

22:13

perhaps most importantly of all Khrushchev

22:15

managed to promise all things to all

22:19

whether that was in terms of continued defense spending

22:21

for the military whether it was in terms of

22:23

the virgin land scheme which is an attempt to

22:25

kind of open up areas of Siberia

22:28

which hadn't been under cultivation which

22:30

on the surface sounded very tempting because

22:32

basically it would mean a large

22:35

amount of additional agrarian revenue which

22:37

could then be exported in return for

22:39

technology and the like at

22:41

no real cost in practice it was

22:44

a ghastly flop but like so many of these

22:46

things it was an inspiring

22:49

money-for-nothing option that

22:51

got people supporting Khrushchev at the crucial moment

22:54

and by the time it was clear that it was a disaster

22:56

Khrushchev was already in power. Of

22:58

course there are some big big differences

23:01

between 1953 and

23:03

now. Most importantly

23:06

there is no Communist Party equivalent yes

23:08

there is a United Russia bloc but it is not

23:10

a powerful institution's own right like the Communist

23:13

Party was so there's no party rules or

23:15

party discipline there's no Politburo

23:17

or central committee which ultimately

23:20

becomes the locus of where

23:22

the horse trading is done you know

23:24

you have to be able to win a majority

23:26

in both the Central Committee and the Politburo

23:29

to become general secretary now

23:32

there is no such obvious structure

23:34

someone will emerge

23:37

and also it's war time that

23:39

creates all kinds of tension of its own

23:41

people will have to find some way of

23:44

addressing the question of the war and it

23:46

may be that in fact in the

23:48

immediate political

23:50

phase whoever succeeds

23:52

Putin is going to have to sound really tough

23:54

on the war if that's what it takes

23:57

to win or maybe they're going to have

23:59

to sound conciliate if that's what it takes to

24:01

win. But that doesn't necessarily mean

24:03

that it will be the policy that they adopt afterwards.

24:06

But nonetheless, the war will clearly

24:09

have to be one of these issues that

24:11

people will have to address. And part

24:13

of that may well mean making

24:16

promises to people who are intimately

24:18

involved in the invasion that

24:21

they will be kept safe. And

24:23

it may also be promises about the continuation

24:25

of the war that will constrain policy options

24:28

afterwards. So we'll have to see, remember,

24:30

whoever takes over is not going to just suddenly

24:32

become an absolute and dominant

24:35

autocrat. Yes, they

24:37

will be president. And yes, this is a highly presidentialized

24:40

system. But the point is they will

24:42

still be much weaker. In some ways,

24:44

I can't help feel that they might be in

24:46

a position a little bit like Gorbachev, when

24:49

he came to power on what was essentially an artificial

24:51

majority in the Politburo. He knew

24:54

that certainly in those early months and

24:56

years, he could not push too

24:59

far. Because if he pushed things through

25:01

to an ineffective vote of confidence, he

25:04

might well lose it. So he

25:06

had to operate a lot more cautiously than

25:08

he might otherwise have done. So and particularly when it comes to

25:10

Afghanistan, a war that he

25:13

wanted to extract the Soviet Union from

25:15

for all kinds of reasons. Nonetheless,

25:18

for his first year, he basically had to

25:20

give the generals whatever they wanted,

25:23

he had to allow them to escalate the conflict.

25:25

Because in some ways, he had to let

25:28

them fail on their own terms, so

25:30

that they too would be brought in to

25:33

the consensus that this war had to be ended.

25:36

So again, we should note the degree to

25:38

which political necessities

25:42

meant that a relative piece Nick actually

25:45

had to escalate the war in the short term. And

25:48

given that, well, we'll have to wait and see whether it will be a relative

25:50

piece Nick that actually takes over. But

25:53

still, you know, what I think might well

25:55

be peace in the longer term might

25:58

actually mean even more violence in the long

25:59

shorter term. But

26:02

still,

26:03

actually the more I think about it, the more maybe

26:05

the death of Stalin is a pretty good

26:08

guide to what could happen after

26:10

Putin's death, just in different

26:12

ways than General Eswer

26:14

may well try and tell us. Just

26:17

the usual mid-episode reminder that

26:19

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26:54

Now back to the episode. Well,

26:56

if I am talking about potentially Putin's death,

26:59

it makes sense to look at the person whose

27:01

job it is to succeed him, at least

27:03

constitutionally. So we're going to be

27:05

talking about Mikhail Vladimirovich

27:08

Mishustin. Economist, taxman,

27:10

prime minister, digitalization

27:13

champion, and I have to say

27:15

this chap who little looks a little

27:17

bit to me like what you'd get if

27:20

Humpty Dumpty became a mob boss.

27:24

I'm not sure that I'd necessarily want

27:26

to have a beer with him, but in fairness

27:28

he is a pretty impressive figure. He

27:31

was born in Lobnya outside

27:33

Moscow in 1966 of

27:35

a Russian mother and a Jewish Belarusian

27:38

father, who also happened to

27:40

be a member of the central committee of the Komsomol,

27:42

the young communist league, which can't have

27:44

hurt Mishustin's life chances. He

27:48

went to university to study system engineering,

27:50

both undergraduate and postgraduate levels,

27:53

and he graduated just in time for

27:55

the wild 90s as new

27:58

Russia was opening up. And in many

28:00

ways this was the ideal time for

28:03

someone who knew computers. And

28:05

he soon was working integrating Russian

28:07

and Western IT, which

28:09

was a big deal back in the 1990s.

28:12

And in 1998 it got him a job

28:15

as deputy head of the state tax service,

28:17

again precisely responsible for

28:20

the information systems and digitization,

28:23

and the move away from essentially a paper-based

28:26

tax structure. He

28:29

was there until 2004, had a

28:31

couple of other middling highly placed

28:33

civil service jobs until 2008. He

28:36

left for the private sector, heading an asset

28:38

management firm, making some money

28:41

before in 2010, I should have said making

28:43

some money legally, but no money. Anyway, before

28:46

in 2010 he returned to the government as director

28:48

of the federal tax service. It's

28:51

worth noting that this position was actually

28:53

within the gift, not of the president, but of the prime

28:55

minister. And at the time,

28:57

this was when Putin was prime minister, during

29:00

that sort of interregional period as he

29:03

observed term limits by making mitigator

29:05

his sock-pulpit president. I

29:08

don't question Mishustin's suitability

29:10

for the job for a moment, but I would say

29:12

it probably doesn't hurt that he's

29:14

another ice hockey fanatic, just

29:16

like the boss. As I say, it was a really

29:18

good choice. He proved to be an exceedingly

29:21

able technocrat, very much

29:23

who combined an interest in simplifying

29:26

the processes with massive

29:28

digitization to cut down

29:31

on red tape, waste, fraud and

29:33

tax evasion all at once. And this

29:35

has been very much one of the themes that

29:37

he took through, has taken through into

29:40

his role as prime minister. The

29:42

idea that acknowledging

29:45

that there are, shall we say, some human level challenges

29:48

in Russian administration. The answer

29:50

to that, obviously, ideally, you'd have a

29:52

massive army of highly dedicated,

29:55

honest civil servants. But if you can't

29:57

get that, then the next best... thing

30:00

is to actually take so much out of human

30:02

hands and to try and put it into

30:04

a whole variety of joined-up

30:07

databases and such like. This

30:10

is undeniably techno

30:12

authoritarian in that exactly it

30:15

brings a whole variety of new sources

30:17

of information and doesn't use sources of control

30:20

to the street. The point is

30:22

it works and fine so for

30:24

example you know every single cash register

30:27

has to be connected so that it can send

30:30

records of every single

30:32

commercial transaction to the government.

30:35

Now on one level that's great for

30:38

checking on VAT and VAT fraud

30:40

had been a really massive area of

30:43

abuse before Mishustin came to the state

30:45

tax service but it also again

30:47

just provides lots of kind of the

30:50

sort of big data which a modern

30:52

authoritarian regime loves to have. Certainly

30:55

most

30:57

Russians in my experience

31:00

kind of appreciated it even

31:02

if they didn't really want to be paying more tax. In

31:05

January 2020 Mishustin

31:07

replaced as Prime Minister

31:10

Dmitry Medvedev remember him? I have

31:13

to say it feels more than three

31:15

and a half years ago since Medvedev

31:18

still seemed I don't know serious

31:20

sober incredible but

31:23

anyway since then Mishustin

31:25

has very much embraced his role as

31:27

Putin's head butler the man who

31:29

keeps everything below stairs working with

31:32

a minimum of fuss. He's certainly

31:34

not pushing a high profile

31:36

I mean he's around he's doing lots of things

31:38

he's Prime Minister of course he's going to but

31:41

you know we don't get the kind of

31:43

attempts to build a sort of cult of personality

31:46

or anything like that.

31:48

No fuss. Of course

31:50

it was an interesting if not necessarily

31:53

comfortable situation that he

31:55

took over just in time for Covid

31:58

and look we can poke holes the size of

32:00

T-80 tanks through Russia's

32:02

COVID responses. But one

32:05

also has to recognize that at least

32:07

in part, and I think actually in quite large part,

32:10

many of the mistakes in the blunders were actually down

32:12

to Putin's reluctance bordering

32:15

on the outright refusal to actually

32:17

take any real responsibility for what

32:20

happened. Still, Mishelstein's

32:22

generally regarded by Russians at least to have done

32:24

an acceptable job of dealing with that. And

32:27

interestingly, in the process of

32:29

dealing with COVID, he actually found

32:32

some common ground with the other sort of

32:34

comparable high-profile, national-level

32:37

technocrat. That is Moscow

32:39

mayor Sergei Sabianin. Now up to

32:41

that point, their relationship had been, I think

32:43

it's fair

32:44

to say, cool. But apparently

32:46

they would meet up during COVID every

32:49

now and then for kind of mutual support

32:51

and bitching sessions, because in some ways there

32:53

was no one else they could really talk to. And

32:56

since then, they do seem to have built

32:59

a suitable working relationship.

33:01

So

33:02

as I say, constitutionally, he

33:05

would become the interim president in

33:08

the case of Putin dying or

33:10

suddenly being incapacitated.

33:13

And as Putin himself discovered in 1999 to 2000,

33:17

that can be quite an advantage to

33:19

actually then subsequently winning the presidency.

33:22

He does have other advantages. He

33:24

is a capable technocrat and

33:26

he absolutely would probably be regarded as a steadying

33:29

force in a time of upset

33:31

and turmoil.

33:33

He's very well known.

33:35

October of this year, the Vada Center

33:38

polling gave him a 68%

33:40

approval rating for his work as prime minister.

33:42

And it tends to basically float

33:45

between 66 and 70%, which is not at all bad. And

33:50

in August, he had an 18% trust

33:53

figure. Now that might sound really low,

33:56

but this is actually second only to

33:58

Putin's 44%. So again,

34:00

I think we have to kind of calibrate

34:02

on that. It's not that actually the vast majority

34:05

of Russians mistrust and

34:07

despise Mischaustyn or anything like that. It's

34:10

just that his rating

34:12

is not the equivalent of Putin's. He

34:15

is not directly associated

34:17

with the war party, shall we say.

34:19

I mean, at that infamous Security

34:21

Council meeting before the invasion, he

34:24

was the one who, he was one anyway, who suggested

34:26

continuing dialogue with the West about

34:29

the status of the Lugansk

34:32

and Donetsk people's republics before

34:34

deciding whether to recognize them. Again,

34:37

I mean, given that this was a situation

34:39

in which everyone was trying to, A, guess

34:41

at what Putin wanted, and

34:43

B, be very cautious in how they advanced

34:46

it. I mean, essentially Mischaustyn was

34:48

advocating not doing

34:50

anything drastic. Well,

34:53

Putin went and did something pretty drastic. And

34:55

since then, look, obviously he

34:58

has to tow the party's line, but

35:00

nonetheless, it's quite striking the degree to

35:02

which he clearly has not

35:04

in the slightest bit embraced the

35:07

kind of over the

35:09

top rhetoric of the Zed patriots or anything

35:11

like that. Instead, he very much tries

35:13

to keep his rhetoric at a pretty low

35:15

level and talks much more

35:18

about the practical situation.

35:20

I mean, for example, what back in March, I

35:23

mean, this is a group that's sort of caught my eye. We're

35:26

faced with the task of ensuring the development of the country's economy

35:29

under the restrictions imposed by unfriendly

35:31

countries. Russia is still part

35:33

of the global world, so we will continue to expand

35:36

and strengthen our trade and economic ties with

35:38

those who are interested in such cooperation.

35:41

Now, the reason I dwell on this really rather

35:43

tedious little passage is precisely

35:45

the point. A, it is fairly

35:47

tedious because Mischaustyn is a fairly tedious

35:50

speaker. But

35:52

beyond that, I think it is deliberately

35:55

tedious. None of this talk

35:57

about being in a war with the West.

35:59

He's bland things about unfriendly countries

36:02

imposing restrictions.

36:05

Real emphasis on strengthening

36:08

trade and economic ties with those who are

36:10

interested in such cooperation.

36:11

This is what he's been doing. He's essentially

36:14

trying to manage a complex, difficult

36:16

situation in which he's clearly not particularly

36:19

happy with it. He's neither

36:21

going to go out on a limb and say so, but

36:23

nor is he going to, well, for

36:26

example, take the Dmitry Medvedev route and

36:29

instead indulge in performative,

36:33

ultra-patriotic rhetoric. And

36:36

beyond that, I think it's worth noting that Myshustin

36:38

would, I think, probably be on the whole acceptable to

36:41

the oligarchs. Now, on one level,

36:43

one might think, well, so what? They're

36:45

not exactly a powerful political force. Well, it's true

36:48

that at the moment they are absolutely defanged

36:51

by their fear that if they do anything

36:53

that Putin doesn't like,

36:54

he would essentially have them removed and take

36:57

their assets.

36:59

They do still have assets. And

37:02

having money at your disposal and rich

37:04

backers is something that could be useful in the future.

37:07

So, you know, these are the reasons why we certainly can't discount

37:10

Myshustin. But,

37:11

but, but, but,

37:14

it's all very well having the oligarchs on

37:16

your side. But again, to go back to the earlier point,

37:18

how many guns do they have? One

37:20

of the questions with Myshustin would precisely

37:23

be his, his sylovic flank.

37:25

How do you get on with the so-called men of power? There

37:28

are some suggestions that Myshustin has

37:31

acceptable links with Igor Sechin. The

37:34

Rosneft boss, who after all is

37:36

also, you know, was once regarded

37:39

as one of the kind of leading

37:41

figures within the sylovic

37:43

bloc. Well, firstly, I think that Sechin

37:46

has a lot of enemies, not really

37:48

the best friend to have. Generally,

37:50

I'm not convinced that these days Sechin

37:52

actually has much traction amongst

37:54

the syloviki. So generally,

37:57

it is a question of whether he would be seen

37:59

as... not one of us

38:02

and not someone who we could deal with

38:04

ultimately by security apparatus

38:07

and the like. On

38:09

a personal level I understand he's

38:11

a bit of a git and he's a bit

38:14

of the old-style Soviet manager

38:17

that with his own underlings he

38:19

is brusque, abusive, shouts

38:22

at them etc. Now on

38:24

one level one might think well so what I mean how

38:27

many powerful people actually still manage

38:29

to retain and expand their

38:31

power base even while not being the

38:33

nicest of chaps and chapesses but

38:36

I think it might well matter in this case exactly because

38:38

of the personalistic nature of this. We don't

38:40

really know who he

38:42

may have alienated and whether

38:45

or not people will really want to subordinate

38:47

themselves to them it's different from being in

38:49

a minister in his cabinet. So

38:52

I think you know we might see that personality

38:55

faction factors have an influence not

38:57

so much in making people opposed

38:59

to him but above all

39:02

raising the question of actually who would

39:04

support him?

39:06

Him in his own right not as a compromise

39:09

candidate or whatever who actually is going to

39:11

turn around and say I will go to the barricades

39:13

for Mikhail Mishustin. I'm

39:15

honestly not sure where

39:18

his real power base would

39:20

be and I think that's

39:23

why it's uncertain

39:25

how much of a definite advantage he would have

39:27

over for example someone like Sabyanin

39:30

though one could see a Mishustin

39:33

presidency with a Sabyanin prime ministership

39:36

or even other lower profile

39:38

technocrats like Maratok Snorin

39:41

whom I've already profiled.

39:43

When it comes down to it I think really Mishustin's

39:46

greatest strength will precisely mean

39:49

that he doesn't have close allies

39:52

which means that he becomes everyone's

39:54

acceptable compromise choice.

39:57

If you can't get your own guy

39:59

the next best thing is to make sure that it's

40:01

not someone else's guy who comes

40:04

to power.

40:05

The question is really whether that's enough.

40:09

So yeah, President Myshustin, it's

40:11

possible. He has time on his side.

40:13

He's 57. He's apparently in decent health.

40:16

He's managed to keep either

40:19

most institutions kind of on side,

40:22

whether we're talking about the military or the

40:24

Russian Orthodox Church. After all, he has the

40:27

proud distinction of having both

40:29

the patriarchal badge of the temple builder

40:32

and the order of the venerable Serafim

40:35

of Sarov, albeit only of third

40:37

class. So he certainly

40:39

hasn't made enemies. He

40:43

is being a compromise candidate, the

40:46

if-no-one-else candidate enough. And

40:48

also that presumes that Putin doesn't

40:51

get to pick a successor. I

40:52

mean, it could be him. It could be someone else. That

40:55

none of the security types can force

40:57

and muscle their way to the top.

40:59

That no one with more

41:02

sparkle may not be quite

41:04

the right word for the succession of largely grey

41:06

kleptocrats with equally grey suits. But

41:08

shall I say wider appeal to the

41:11

elite, but also to the electorate. After

41:13

all, it's worth noting that yes, of course, the

41:16

elections will be rigged. But

41:18

nonetheless, whoever takes over,

41:21

it has to be credible that they can

41:24

actually win the support of

41:26

the masses. They will have to go and campaign.

41:29

And Mshustin's approval

41:32

ratings, after all, are as prime

41:34

minister, grand administrator, shall you say,

41:36

not leader of the nation.

41:38

And Mshustin has never

41:41

stood for or won an election.

41:45

And finally,

41:46

we tend to assume that everyone is after

41:48

the top job. But he may

41:50

well not want it. After

41:53

all, that's not really his thing

41:55

necessarily. He seems to actually enjoy

41:58

dealing with the minutiae rather than the than

42:00

necessarily grand strategy. His

42:02

family has something

42:04

like 50 million dollars worth of real estate

42:07

which at the current rate will be 4.7 billion

42:10

roubles. It sounds a lot more fun when it's in roubles.

42:13

So it's not just a question of

42:15

whether he could do the job or

42:18

whether he'd get the job, it's also a question of

42:20

whether he'd want the job. I'm really not certain

42:23

but if all else Mishustin

42:26

is precisely the person who could end up with

42:28

a job if no one else can get

42:30

it, if everyone else basically gets

42:32

blackballed and outmaneuvered by

42:35

their rivals. Again we're back to

42:37

one of these figures whom not enough

42:39

people dislike and that

42:41

may not be the final epitaph you'd want

42:43

on your grave, not disliked by enough

42:46

people, but actually in politics

42:48

that can sometimes be enough. Well

42:52

that's the end of another episode of the In Moscow

42:55

Shadow podcast. Just as a reminder

42:58

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