Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 25 – To save money,
Vladimir Putin reportedly is planning to slash the number of siloviki and other
federal agencies attached to the offices of the presidential plenipotentiaries
in the federal districts he created during his first term, a step that will
dramatically change relations between Moscow and the regions and republics of the
country.
Anna Skalkina and Mariya Glebova of
URA.ru reported yesterday that a Kremlin source has told them that Putin has
decided that the country is stable enough to allow him to reduce or even eliminate
the presence of force structures in the federal districts, thus saving money
and allowing for direct Moscow rule (ura.ru/content/svrd/24-04-2014/articles/1036261946.html).
According
to the URA.ru journalists, the Presidential Administration has decided to
reduce by 30 percent the number of security personnel in the federal district
bureaucracies. The decision was taken because of falling state revenues and
because Russia’s activities in Crimea and Ukraine require a shift in resources.
The
decision to cut the number of siloviki was taken some time ago, the journalists
say, but a related decision to “liquidate” other federal structures in the
federal districts was taken only on Wednesday.
They report that Aleksandr Khinshteyn, a United Russia Duma deputy, has
confirmed this on the record.
URA.ru
says that these changes will be announced in six to eight weeks and that at
that time, those employed in these structures will have to move elsewhere, quit
the federal service or retire.
The
agency’s unnamed Kremlin source said there were two reasons for this change
now. On the one hand, the federal districts have succeeded in suppressing
regional separatism “which was left to us after Yeltsin, making the presence of
the siloviki in them unnecessary. He
noted that the FSB had already made this change. And on the other, budgets are
now much tighter.
This
week’s decision, the source continued, will result in staff cuts of
approximately 30 percent not only among interior ministry employees but also in
the procuracy, magistracy, and emergency situations ministry. Some of those whose jobs are being eliminated
will be sent to work in Crimea.
The
representatives in federal districts of other federal agencies, including those
supervising property, are also likely to be cut, the Kremlin source said,
although he added that no decision on this has yet been taken. But one thing is
clear: the federal districts and the presidential plenipotentiaries are going
to face ever more staff cuts not growth.
As
a result, experts told URA.ru, the regions will bear increasing responsibility
for things that the federal districts had been involved in, and the Kremlin
will intervene more frequently and more directly in their affairs. With time,
that could make the federal districts superfluous, even though they continue to
be presented as a major Putin innovation.
In
the near term, some Moscow experts say, the presidential plenipotentiaries themselves
may gain in influence in the center. They will now be Moscow’s exclusive eyes
and ears in the regions and thus able to serve as a check and corrective to
whatever the regions are reporting, URA.ru says, but it is unclear how well
they will be able to do that with fewer staff.
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