Putin has Gelded Regional Elites but Could Face Serious Challenges from Them in 2026-2028, Kynyev Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 22 – Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has transformed regional elites from being the competitors or even opponents of Moscow they were in the 1990a into executors of his will, gelding not only governors but lower-ranking officials and their business allies as well, Aleksandr Kynyev says.
    The Kremlin leader has appointed ever more outsiders to these positions, cut the time they are in office and thus limiting their ability to form groups loyal to themselves, and made them into what are now reliable implementors of his orders, the HSE scholar says (re-russia.net/expertise/0224/ reposted at region.expert/regional-elites/).
    Those who think otherwise and believe that regional elites can pose a threat to Putin and the Russian Federation in general continue to have an image of regional elites in Russia that is no longer true, Kynyev says, and believe that these regional elites will be able to take action against Moscow as their predecessors did in the 1990s.
    But that is unlikely to happen, he continues; and in succinct but comprehensive fashion, Kynyev documents the steps Putin has taken over the past two decades and why even a weakened Moscow may not face the kind of challenge from regional elites that many analysts still expect.
    That conclusion does not mean that Moscow doesn’t have a regional problem or that it may not be intensifying. Instead, the HSE analyst suggests, the actions of the regime itself may lead to a new set of regionalist challenges that Putin and his regime may have problems in coping with.
    Kynyev points to two near-term developments that could have that result: the 2026 Duma elections and the need for a major change in the composition of political and business leaders in 2027 and 2028 when many of those now in positions of power will have been there for ten years or more and can be expected to have formed their own clientelist alliances.
    Given Kremlin policy regarding political parties, the Duma elections are the less important of these; but if there are problems in some parts of the country, it is at least possible that some enterprising political and business leaders may be in a position to exploit them by presenting themselves as opponents of Moscow and seeing what they can get away with.
    The need for a wholesale replacement of gubernatorial and regional business elites in 2027 and 2028 is likely to be a far more significant source of problems for the Kremlin, Kynyev continues.  In those two years, Putin will have to choose between “preserving the system as it is or initiating a new wave of technocratic recruitment.”
    “The first scenario would mean a 'Brezhnevization' of the system, essentially returning to a structure of entrenched governors and their teams,” he suggests. “The second scenario would involve mass rotation and rejuvenation, steps that could prove quite contentious – not least including raising the question of what to do with such a large number of retired officials.”  
    Depending on which course Putin chooses or feels compelled to choose, this will have serious consequences for center-periphery relations, albeit for different age groups.  The first will hit those born in the 1980s who will see their upward mobility sharply decline, while the second will anger those born in the 1970s who will see their ouster as rank ingratitude.
    Either will be able to create serious problems for the Kremlin; and consequently, even though Putin has set up a system that for the time being is very stable, he may have unwittingly laid a delayed action mine within it that could blow the whole thing apart not because of exogenous factors but because of its own policies.