Veterans Returning from Ukraine May Want to Change the Russian Elite but Won’t Be Able to Do So, Zhuravlyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 25 – Veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine are accustomed to making decisions on their own in response to the situations they find themselves in and thus those who enter by one means or another the Putin-era Russian elite will try to act in the same way; but I they do, they will be expelled from the elite which will not change, Dmitry Zhuravlyev says.

            The senior researcher at the Moscow Institute of Regional Problems argues that the reason for that is that the current Russian elite grew out of the Soviet elite and like its predecessor is defined by the relationship of its members to the state (realtribune.ru/specifika-rossijskoj-elity-proshloe-nastoyashhee-i-budushhee/).

            The Soviet elite was dissatisfied with its position in which the state defined everything because that precluded the possibility of their handing down to their children their wealth and position. Its members hoped that the creation of a market economy would solve their problem in that regard. That did lead to the collapse of the USSR but not to a fundamental change at the top.

            Because even after 1991, the state remained “sacred,” sharing of power and wealth with it was impossible; and once again, the state shared out wealth in order to protect itself. Yeltsin began that process and Putin has continued it to its completion.  Under Yeltsin, the state apparatus became paramount; but under Putin, it has been destroyed as an independent actor.

            Putin didn’t fear the state apparatus because he understood that the latter didn’t want a return to the USSR; and thus the current “configuration of the elite” emerged – “at the center, the president and his closest comrades in arms, thn he state apparatus, and on the periphery, business.  

            According to Zhuravlyev, “this system has proven effective and corresponds to the structure of the economy; but it didn’t solve the key problem of the inheritance of power.” Putin has tried to solve that by isolating all but the largest corporations from any political power, and they remain totally dependent on his good will.

            Under Putin, decisions are made according to a definite system; and anyone who ; violates that by going beyond its limits is “excluded” from having any influence. That of course means that it is “almost impossible” for the state to take any move in a new direction.

Some have suggested that the inclusion of veterans into the elite will change that, the analyst says; but they are wrong because the power of the current occupants of the senior elite will quickly move against the veterans seeking entrance lest the entire system come crashing down as it did three decades ago.