Presidential Succession in Russia: Political Cycles and Intra-Elite Conflicts
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Russian Politics 8 (2023) 97-121
brill.com/rupo
Presidential Succession in Russia: Political Cycles
and Intra-Elite Conflicts
Ilja Viktorov | ORCID: 0000-0002-3557-1298
Research Fellow, Department of Economic History and International
Relations, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University,
Huddinge, Sweden
Corresponding Author
ilja.viktorov@ekohist.su.se
Olga Kryshtanovskaya | ORCID: 0000-0001-5278-0940
Professor, Department of Sociology, Russian State University for the
Humanities, Moscow, Russian Federation
olgakrysht@ya.ru
Abstract
This article examines the issue of Putin’s presidential successor from a historical per-
spective of long-term political cycles. Contemporary Russia still shows considerable
similarities to the polities, characteristic of old agrarian empires in Asia. Based on the
thesis on the origins of the monocentric political system in Russia, our article analyses
how the transition of presidential power takes place in Russia, who might be the next
president of Russia and whether we will see a new ‘time of troubles’, or smuta, after
Putin’s departure. A generational change in Putin’s elite cohort will require a specific
candidate to ensure a successful transition as a long-term solution. This will involve
balancing clashing interests between key informal power networks. In all likelihood, a
repeat of a political cycle of empires will happen in Russia again, resulting in a contin-
ued consolidation of its monocentric political system.
Published with license by Brill Schöningh | doi:10.30965/24518921-00801005
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Keywords
Russia – power networks – elites – presidential succession – political cycles –
empires – siloviki
1 Introduction
The future presidential succession after Vladimir Putin has been the great-
est political concern for Russian decision-makers. It very much defines the
country’s political agenda. The issue of succession has, surprisingly, not been
properly addressed in academic research, although some foreign policy think
tanks have produced a few accounts.1 We intend to discuss the issue of a future
presidential successor from the perspective of the internal logic of Russian
power and the long-term institutional constraints that define this logic. This
approach allows us to frame the general conditions under which succession
will take place, even though it is currently impossible to predict who will be
the future presidential successor or to say exactly when this event will happen.
What distinguishes Russia’s political system from polities in electoral
democracies of advanced capitalist economies (ACE s)? And how will this dif-
ference affect the presidential succession in Russia? These questions can be
addressed within a broader context. Historically, Russia’s political system can
be characterized as monocentric, with one center for strategic political lead-
ership.2 For Russia, where big business and politics are closely intertwined,
this applies equally to the distribution of key economic resources. This cen-
ter, whether it is officially institutionalized or heavily influenced by informal
decision-making, can be found at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy. It
comprises elite power networks surrounding the formal political leadership.3
Political regimes of different ideological hues come and go, yet the same pat-
tern of monocentric power re-emerges under different labels as more or less
1 Herman Pirchner, Jr., Post Putin: Succession, Stability, and Russia’s Future (Lanham, MA:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); John Francis Tefft, Understanding the Factors That Will Impact
the Succession to Vladimir Putin as Russian President (Santa Monica: RAND, 2020).
2 Alexei Zudin pioneered the concept of the monocentric political system regarding the
transformation of Russia during the early years of Putin’s presidency. Within the context
of the 1990s, he focused more on relations between the federal-level power holders and
regional elites. See Alexei Zudin, Rezhim Vladimira Putina: kontury novoi politicheskoi sistemy
(Moscow: Carnegie Center, 2002).
3 Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White, “The Formation of Russia’s Network Directorate”,
in Vadim Kononenko and Arkady Moshes, eds. Russia as a Network State: What Works in
Russia When State Institutions Do Not? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 19-38.
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institutionalized. In this respect, Russia has had more in common with the
polities characteristic of centralized Asian empires, such as China and Iran. By
empire, we mean here a polity that controls a large geographical space with a
diverse multi-ethnic population through a complex bureaucratic and military
apparatus, and with geopolitical aspirations that go beyond the borders of this
polity.4 The ability of the imperial power holders to create free resources with
supportive institutions and actors, including a central bureaucracy, not tied to
traditional elites such as the aristocracy and local institutions has been identi-
fied as the main characteristic of the political systems of empires.5 While the
concentration of power within such centralized empires seems strong, in real-
ity these polities can be extremely fragile during times of distress. The ability to
meet the challenges imposed by external and internal shocks depends on the
ability of a particular ruling elite network to control and mobilize the bureau-
cratic and military apparatus to handle crises. In the Russian case, neither the
elites of the Romanov Empire nor those at the top of the Communist Party’s
nomenklatura could prevent their societies from suffering a systemic collapse.
It remains to be seen if Putin’s ruling elites can avoid the same fate.
This monocentric pattern for the organization of political power has been
more common throughout human history than its alternative, a genuine poly-
centric system. For Western electoral democracies in ACE s, elite groups reached
an intra-elite compromise regarding the use of violence, the division of political
power and access to economic rents, leading to the institutionalization of the
rule of law and the emergence of impersonal rules. These achievements were
accomplished, first and foremost, to benefit the ruling elites, which, at first,
consisted of a limited number of powerful families, either initially represent-
ing the traditional nobility or the new bourgeoisie. Eventually they had a posi-
tive impact for the whole of society since the ability and willingness of leading
elite groups to follow common impersonal rules were gradually extended to
include the rest of society. An independent judiciary, the separation of pow-
ers, consolidated public control over law enforcement agencies including the
military and the police, the institutionalization of property rights, and the
professionalization of the bureaucracy are just some of the benefits brought
about by this historic transformation. This, expressed in rather simple terms, is
how we interpret the main thesis of the transition from a limited-access order
4 Our definition of empire corresponds largely to the definition of great land empires discussed
in Dominic Lieven, “Russian Empires”, in Sally N. Cummings and Raymond Hinnebusch, eds.
Sovereignty After Empire: Comparing the Middle East and Central Asia, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2012): 25-43.
5 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 2nd ed., 2017).
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(LAO) to an open-access order (OAO).6 Contemporary Russia has not seen such
a transition and lacks a corresponding intra-elite compromise. The elite consen-
sus that helped Vladimir Putin become president in 2000 was situational and
rested on the conflicting interests of a number of elite power networks with
diverse political and economic preferences.7 This ‘social contract’ with the
former elites inherited from Yeltsin’s presidency and, increasingly, between
new power networks represented by the St Petersburg siloviki8 created severe
constraints. It hindered a developmental agenda during the challenges of the
2008-09 global crisis, the economic stagnation after 2012, and the ensuing geopo-
litical tensions.9 The relative stability of the Russian sistema has depended more
on Putin’s personal qualities as a leader and an intra-elite mediator rather than
on his ability to create a self-sustainable system of impersonal rules comparable
to those that emerged under the OAO regime.10
These considerations have been addressed by previous research. Of rel-
evance to the aim of this article is how the presidential succession is con-
ditioned by the monocentric Russian power structure. The role played by
informal power networks, sometimes defined in previous research as ‘clans’
or ‘cliques’, can be critical in such societies. The power network that takes con-
trol over the strategic center of political decision-making may impose its will
on which candidate will succeed the supreme power. The leader’s personality
and individual preferences may in turn be crucial to the future composition of
the elites and, consequently, to the stability and the subsequent evolution of
the Russian sistema. Since the main networks consisting of Putin’s siloviki are
now entitled to exert a decisive influence over the choice of successor, we will
primarily focus on this factor.
6 Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis and Barry R. Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A
Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009).
7 Kirill Petrov, Andrei Kazantsev, Evgeny Minchenko and Ivan Loshkariov, “Putin’s Rise to
Power: Russian Roulette or Elite Pact?,” Russian Politics 7, no. 3 (2022): 422-449.
8 Siloviki, literally “people of power”, denotes decision-makers in politics and business with
a background in the security services, the military or other law enforcement agencies.
9 Andrei Melville, “A Neoconservative Consensus in Russia?,” Russian Politics and Law 55,
no. 4-5 (2017): 315-335; Andrei Yakovlev, “Composition of the Ruling Elite, Incentives for
Productive Usage of Rents, and Prospects for Russia’s Limited Access Order”, Post-Soviet
Affairs 37, no. 5 (2021): 417-434.
10 Alena Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Nikolai Petrov, “The Elite: New Wine into
Old Bottles”, Russian Politics and Law 55, no. 2 (2017): 115-132.
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The next section of this article puts the origins of Russia’s monocentric
power structure in a broader historical context and discusses why there might
be a new smuta (‘time of troubles’) in Russia. The third section provides a brief
insight into the role played in Russian polity by informal power networks that
we define as oboimas. This section also problematizes the risks posed by Putin’s
aging ruling cohort of associates. The fourth section is devoted to the issue of
choosing a new presidential successor. The final section concludes by looking
at how the transition of presidential power will affect the future evolution of
the Russian monocentric system of power.
2 The Origins of Russia’s Monocentric Political System and
Its Cycles. Might a New Smuta Occur?
Russia’s modernization in the twentieth century meant that its technologi-
cal catch up with the West was not accompanied by a political transition to
an OAO. This outcome is not unique to Russia. In fact, it is quite common in
newly industrialized countries in Asia and Latin America. However, this dis-
crepancy presents political scientists and mainstream economists with a puz-
zle in terms of how to describe Russia’s current political reality.11 The reason
is that the latter, including the composition of elites and the way elite power
networks influence political developments, is different from seemingly mod-
ern formal institutions of electoral democracy introduced in these countries.
According to the dominant view among specialists in the field who share the
same international (mainly Anglo-Saxon) political discourse, Russia, like the
majority of post-communist societies, should undergo a systemic transfor-
mation into an electoral democracy and market economy, yet, in reality, this
has failed to materialize. Russian ‘authoritarian’ elites, usually personified by
Vladimir Putin, are blamed for this outcome; they represent an ‘evil force’ that,
in pursuit of power and personal greed, impedes more progressive reforms.
Multiple definitions have been coined to classify the political and economic
system of today’s Russia, including patrimonial/neopatrimonial state,12 dual
11 Markku Kivinen and Mikhail Maslovskiy, “Russian Modernization: A New Paradigm,” in
Markku Kivinen and Brendan Humphreys (eds.), Russian Modernization: A New Paradigm
(London: Routledge, 2021): 6-9.
12 Pavel Skigin, “Neopatrimonialism: The Russian Regime through a Weberian Lens”, in
Mykhailo Minakov and Alexander Etkind, eds., Ideology after Union. Political Doctrines,
Discourses, and Debates in Post-Soviet Societies (Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2020): 93-110.
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state,13 militocracy14 and chekistocracy,15 or simply a hybrid regime.16 The
limitation of such approaches to understanding post-Communist societies has
been pointed out in a recent study on the classification of political regimes in
the region.17
Instead of adding to such definitions, we suggest acknowledging the fact
that the monocentric system of power in Russia retains fundamental features
of its pre-modernity, even though its ruling elites and the source of their legiti-
mation are no longer of a traditional origin. It should also be recognized that
the historical legacy of a monocentric political system hampers contempo-
rary Russia’s ability to cope with the complex challenges of globalization. An
economic breakthrough is just as hard to achieve for Russian leaders today as
it was ten or thirty years ago.18 Yet, and despite Russia’s relative technologi-
cal and economic backwardness, the logic of the power of a traditional Asian
empire enables the ruling elite networks to consolidate their political power
and prevent the disintegration of the country. Moreover, it brings about a cer-
tain degree of limited developmental capacity.19 As Eisenstadt explains, this
is because such empires can mobilize resources for a limited number of large
projects, projects that would have been beyond the capability of Russia’s tra-
ditional elites, or today’s kleptocratic post-communist elite, without the cor-
rective of power of imperial monocentrism. For example, Putin’s Russia has
recently been able to rearm its military, a political priority of Russia’s leader-
ship. It has also brought off some large infrastructural projects, such as the
redevelopment of Moscow and Sochi, and the launch of a Russian COVID-19
vaccine. Traditional empires coped with such narrow tasks in the past, and
the same mechanism of limited resource consolidation under monocentrism
works in contemporary Russia.
13 Richard Sakwa, “The Dual State in Russia,” Post-Soviet Affairs 26, no. 3 (2010): 185-206.
14 Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White, “Putin’s Militocracy”, Post-Soviet Affairs 19,
no. 4 (2003): 289-306.
15 Nikolay Petrov, “Putin’s Neo-nomenklatura System and Its Evolution,” in Balint Magyar,
ed., Stubborn Structures: Reconceptualizing Post-Communist Regimes (Budapest: Central
European University Press, 2019): 197.
16 Nikolay Petrov, Maria Lipman and Henry E. Hale, “Three Dilemmas of Hybrid Regime
Governance: Russia from Putin to Putin,” Post-Soviet Affairs 30, no. 1 (2014): 1-26.
17 Balint Magyar and Balint Madlovics, The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes: A Concep-
tual Framework (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2020).
18 Yakovlev, “Composition of the Ruling Elite”.
19 Pami Aalto and Anna Lowry, “Modernization of the Russian Economy: Fossil Fuels,
Diversification, and the Shackles of International Political Economy,” in Kivinen and
Humphreys, (eds.), Russian Modernization: 30-70.
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One crucial aspect of the pre-modern polity that Russia inherited from its
imperial past should be considered closely. A pattern of a systemic political
break-up has repeated itself in Russia since early-modern times. After the long
reign of rulers such as Ivan the Terrible, Nicholas II or Leonid Brezhnev, Russia
entered times of troubles (smuta) due to a failed power succession. The death
or abdication of a long-reigning ruler was followed by short-lived political lead-
ers, including Boris Godunov and Vasily Shuisky in the early seventeenth cen-
tury, Georgy L’vov and Alexander Kerensky in 1917, Yury Andropov, Konstantin
Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev between 1982 and 91. Irrespective of their
talents and qualities, these successors were incapable of securing political
leadership and failed to prevent systemic collapse. A large rotation of ruling
elites took place each time, resulting in the prosecution, imprisonment or even
liquidation of some key decision-makers from the former elites. The increased
risk of civil wars due to the succession of power is not unique to Russia but
instead is characteristic of other LAO political systems. In pre-modern heredi-
tary monarchies, such risks decreased substantially with the introduction of
the principle of primogeniture, i.e., when the oldest son inherited the throne.20
This solution is generally not an option in modern polities with a republican
rule, even though, in practice, such cases can be found in some autocracies on
the periphery.21
‘Great’ smutas should be distinguished from minor smutas. The latter pri-
marily affected political elites but did not entail the immediate systemic col-
lapse of the Russian polity. For a minor smuta to become a great one, it would
require the death or resignation of a strong ruler to coincide with deeper soci-
etal tensions, including economic problems and social unrest, or with external
challenges, such as participation in large-scale conflicts. In those instances,
competing elite groups could appeal to and manipulate broad societal forces
as a part of their struggle for supreme power or political survival. The death or
deposition of a long-reigning ruler is therefore a prerequisite for a systemic col-
lapse, yet under favorable circumstances, the end of such a reign can also only
lead to temporary tensions within the upper echelons of the elites.
To gain a greater insight into why the Russian sistema displays a high level
of instability during political upheavals, referred to by contemporary observ-
ers as a smuta, we need to look closely at the contradictions distinctive for
the monocentric political system of empires. Such societies tend to develop
20 See Andrej Kokkonen and Anders Sundell, “Leader Succession and Civil War,” Comparative
Political Studies 53, no. 3-4 (2020): 434-468.
21 Jason Brownlee, “Hereditary Succession in Modern Autocracies,” World Politics 59, no. 4
(2007): 595-628.
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in cycles. An initial consolidation of political power creates the precondition
for the concentration of economic and military resources, population growth
and a rise in income, the territorial expansion of the empire and the culmina-
tion of the cycle. This is followed, however, by a subsequent decline, growing
intra-elite conflicts and finally the ultimate collapse of the imperial political
regime, with its coercive apparatus, disposable economic resources and ide-
ological base.22 In pre-modern empires with slow technological innovation,
such cycles are closely interconnected to long agrarian cycles conditioned by
the limited availability of arable land, the main source for rent extraction by
ruling elites and the central imperial power. During the ascending phase of the
cycle, the supply of arable land is commensurable with the available peasantry
to cultivate this land, which paves the way for expansion and economic growth
as both the agrarian population and the amount of arable land gradually
increase. This enables imperial elites to use rent and tax extraction for large
political and economic projects and for patronizing culture and arts. When
the peak of the cycle has passed, an ever-increasing agrarian overpopulation,
elite overproduction, a fiscal crisis of the state, and, consequently, a peasant
famine and a diversion of the food supply to large urban centers create a broad
social base for uprisings. The bureaucratic apparatus becomes increasingly
ineffective and corrupt. During the descending phase of the cycle, this desta-
bilizing factor is used by some traditional elites (‘opposition’), represented
by members of the extended imperial family or military lords, or emerging
counter-elites, against the central imperial power. Following a domestic civil
war and a population decline, a seemingly stable empire collapses falling vic-
tim to an external invader. At best, a new political and agrarian cycle under a
new dynasty and ideological legitimation begin, with a weakened bureaucratic
apparatus and a loss of territory and population as the starting conditions of
this re-emergence.23 Imperial China with its dynastic cycles provides a striking
illustration of such a pattern of development.24
Russia was a relative newcomer to this world of traditional empires with
dynastic cycles.25 The cyclicality of Russia’s long-term political development,
with periods of political disintegration and spectacular resurgences that
22 See Peter Turchin, Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2018); Eugene N. Anderson, The East Asian World-System: Climate and
Dynastic Change (Cham: Springer, 2019).
23 David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley, Ca: University
of California Press, 2004): 304-332; Peter Turchin and Sergey A. Nefedov, Secular Cycles
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009): 303-314.
24 Anderson, The East Asian World-System.
25 Turchin and Nefedov, Secular Cycles: 241-302.
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followed, has been recurrently theorized by Russian philosophers and histori-
ans.26 The agrarian crisis of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,
as well as the agrarian overpopulation in the late nineteenth and early twenti-
eth centuries, have been identified by Russian historians as two key factors that
triggered, respectively, the (original) Smuta that followed the death of Ivan
the Terrible and the Russian revolution. However, very few of these histori-
ans juxtaposed those structural factors with a long-term background of agrar-
ian cycles or compared the collapses of the Russian statehood with Chinese
dynastic crises. In some cases, the territorial expansion of traditional empires
delayed a systemic crisis and prolonged a dynastic cycle, as illustrated by
imperial Russia. The colonization of the arable Black Earth region in southern
Russia, which started under Catherine the Great, helped the Romanov Empire
to avoid a systemic collapse in the late eighteenth century ‘Age of Revolutions’.
A ‘great’ smuta, with a new peak of agrarian overpopulation that would put an
end to the Romanov Empire, was postponed by a century.27
The industrialization and urbanization that came about due to the
increased pace of technological innovation created conditions for accelerated
economic growth in terms of per capita income (‘the modern revolution’). This
removed the main precondition for the agrarian overpopulation as a contrib-
uting factor in the emergence of ‘times of trouble’ and ended the vicious circle
of centuries-long agrarian and political cycles of traditional empires. At the
same time, upheavals in technology and the productive sphere do not neces-
sarily entail a transformation of the monocentric political system, even where
there is the elimination of traditional imperial elites. The transition to an OAO,
with a new elite consensus and the gradual creation of a genuine polycentric
system of power under an electoral democracy, has been difficult to achieve
outside non-Western societies and Japan.28 Technological and economic mod-
ernization did not automatically bring about political modernization. Instead
of an enduring elite compromise that formed part of the transition to an
OAO, non-Western societies often saw the removal of previous elites and the
re-emergence of what is popularly labelled today in Russia as a ‘power vertical’
26 For a review of this literature, see Kåre Johan Mjør, “A Morphology of Russia? The Russian
Civilisational Turn and Its Cyclical Idea of History,” in Arto S. Mustajoki, ed., Philosophical
and Cultural Interpretations of Russian Modernization (London: Routledge, 2016): 56-70.
27 Turchin and Nefedov, Secular Cycles: 299-300; David Moon, The Plough That Broke the
Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700-1914 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013).
28 Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, Steven B. Webb and Barry R. Weingast (eds.), In
the Shadow of Violence: Politics, Economics, and the Problems of Development (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013).
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under different ideological umbrellas and composed of new ruling elites. From
that perspective, Russia under Putin’s rule, even though it can by no means be
characterized as a traditional dynastic empire, remains trapped in the logic
of a monocentric political system. The agrarian empire has disappeared, but
the mechanism of consolidation and centralization of the vast Eurasian geo-
graphical space, with the center in Moscow, has survived.
We suggest that the issue of presidential power succession in Russia should
consider this grand history context. The room for maneuver for Putin and his
siloviki associates is limited by the logic of a monocentric power system, and
this should shape discussion of what kind of person will probably succeed Putin.
The alternative is to fall into the trap of Kremlinology and use rumors to discuss
‘palace intrigues’ among factions in the Putinite elite.29 Reliable information on
a particular person chosen as Putin’s successor is simply non-existent. A better
understanding of how informal power networks interact within the Russian
polity with its strong pre-modern path dependence can, however, help us to
analyze transition of the presidential power in Russia.
3 Oboimas within the Russian Network Directorate and the
Generational Change in Putin’s Ageing Elite
The presence of informal power networks within the upper echelons of
the Soviet and post-Soviet power systems has been addressed by previous
research.30 The role they have played has been ambivalent. During the 1990s
market reforms, such networks both contributed to the break-up of the gover-
nance of the Russian state and the institutional disarray. At the same time, they
mobilized resources for the institutional reforms that paved the way for Russia’s
emerging capitalism. As Alena Ledeneva concludes, while the presence of such
networks can be observed even in societies with more-developed institutions –
what we define as OAO countries with polycentric power systems – there is
29 Among the more insightful examples of such an approach are Peter Reddaway, Russia’s
Domestic Security Wars: Putin’s Use of Divide and Rule against His Hardline Allies (Cham:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and Catherine Belton, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back
Russia and Then Took on the West (London: William Collins, 2020).
30 Mikhail Afanasiev, Klientelizm i rossiiskaya gosudarstvennost’ (Moscow: Moscow Public
Science Foundation, 2000); Kryshtanovskaya and White, “The Formation of Russia’s
Network Directorate”; Ilja Viktorov, “The State, Informal Networks, and Financial Market
Regulation in Post-Soviet Russia, 1990-2008”, Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 42, no. 1 (2015):
5-38.
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a crucial difference between such societies and Russia.31 In ACE s, networks’
activities are constrained by checks and balances, thus enabling the network
members to make profit but without destroying the framework of formal insti-
tutions and legal procedures. In LAO societies such as Russia, these networks
themselves can transform, adjust, or even eliminate the formal rules and insti-
tutions that politicians, bureaucrats, and the business world are supposed
to abide by. In a monocentric political system, a supreme leader’s survival
depends on their ability to master and control informal power networks that
penetrate political and bureaucratic institutions and that compete for power
and resources.
For Russia, we define such networks as oboimas, which literally means ‘car-
tridge magazines’, a definition used by the Soviet nomenklatura to describe
informal power groups.32 Each oboima consists of hierarchical relations
between patrons and clients, commonly under the strategic leadership of a
supreme patron. The latter occupies, or occupied in the past, an important
position in the state apparatus or large business entity, although the ability of
such a patron to exercise informal power does not necessarily depend on the
official status. Their ability to advocate for the appointment of their clients to
key positions inside the state apparatus and to mobilize subordinates within
unofficial networks for various political tasks is more crucial. Russian journal-
ists and popular writers usually describe this as the ‘informal bureaucratic
weight’ (apparatnyi ves) of a particular official. Recruitment to networks is pri-
marily based on a client’s personal commitment to a patron, while the former’s
professional qualities and ideological beliefs are of secondary importance.
However, religious and ethnic factors may at times play a role in strengthen-
ing the cohesiveness of a specific network. Like in the final years of the Soviet
nomenklatura or in the traditional Romanov Empire, kinship and intermar-
riages within or between members of power networks are common in Putin’s
Russia.33 At the same time, unlike in specific ethnic Russian republics in the
North Caucasus and southern Siberia, the factors of kinship and pre-modern
clan relationships have not gained the upper hand in the central Moscow-based
Russian polity.34 Under the post-Soviet conditions of the merger between poli-
tics and the economy, private business conglomerates and large state
31 Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? 242-243.
32 Mikhail Voselensky, Nomenklatura: Gospodstvuyushchii klass Sovetskogo Soyuza (Moscow:
Sovetskaya Rossiya with MP – Oktyabr’, 1991): 126.
33 Fabian Burkhardt, Kinship Networks and Russia’s Bureaucratic Elites, (Berlin: SWP, 2018,
mimeo).
34 Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernize?, 32-34.
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corporations can also serve as sources of assets for particular power networks,
and are used as channels to access mainly state-originated resources.
Since 2000, Putin’s entrusted people, including, but not exclusively made up
of, his siloviki, populate the power pyramid. By the latter, we mean a hierarchy
of officials who spanned the top of the state bureaucracy and law enforcement
agencies, but also including the most important state-controlled corporations
and development banks. The appointments of regional governors after 2000
have been increasingly influenced by Moscow-based power networks, which
install their clients to control regions, especially resource-rich ones. Each mem-
ber of Putin’s old guard controls his own oboima, an informal network of clients
whose members, in turn, control their own clients positioned throughout the
state apparatus. Figure 1 visually represents the workings of this system. The
light-colored figures indicate Putin’s old guard who still occupy official posi-
tions at the top of the Russian bureaucracy, as they did in previous decades.
Each person represents an associate of Putin and who controls their own infor-
mal power network as a patron. Figure 1 also shows the trend in recent years,
namely a gradual shift in the old guard’s positions due to the natural ageing of
Putin’s associates, some of whom have moved outside the power pyramid and
exchanged political power for property to retain their status after retiring from
public office. Here the roots of a future ‘hereditary aristocracy’, Russia’s emer-
gent upper class, are forming. These small figures are dark-colored. However,
being outside the pyramid does not automatically mean that these people
have lost influence. Some remain patrons of influential informal power net-
works, thus keeping control over their clients in the ladder (Figure 2).
Figure 1
Power pyramid and the transformation of
Putin’s team
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One important difference between Putin’s era and Yeltsin’s presidency is the
degree of institutionalization of elite interaction at the very top of the hier-
archy. In the 1990s, this interaction around a sick and increasingly incapable
Boris Yeltsin became highly personalized, with his former bodyguards, associ-
ates from his native Sverdlovsk, and subsequently his daughter and affiliated
businessmen playing a leading role as the main channels for access to the
president. Under Putin, this ‘Latin Americanization’ of Russian politics char-
acteristic of a textbook patrimonial state paved the way for a more formalized
approach. Putin’s adherence to principles of legalism, i.e., following the let-
ter but not necessarily the spirit of the law, has been frequently discussed.35
The growing importance of the Security Council (SC), which gradually under-
took the role played by the old Politburo of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, has therefore reflected Putin’s personal preferences for political
decision-making. This has also manifested itself in the increased role played by
the siloviki in Russian polity since the SC is per se the highest formal political
decision-making body in the sphere of national security and foreign policy,
and not regarding the economy, ideology or social issues. What is the most
important is that the SC has been a concentration of patrons of the most pow-
erful elite groups. Within the Russian system, characterized by a high degree of
formalized bureaucratization, this directly reflects the securitization of politics
in Russia. An analysis of the rotation of SC membership – those who remained
permanent members and those who remained non-permanent members of
the Council – enables us to draw some conclusions regarding the actual impor-
tance of a certain person within the informal power hierarchy that emerged
around Putin. Some SC members are automatically appointed simply by dint
of their positions within the formal state hierarchy. They usually leave the
SC as soon as they leave their formal high-ranking positions. However, some
important exclusions have been observed in recent years. Boris Gryzlov was
the first such case. A close associate of Putin, between 2003 and 2011, he was
elected the Chairman of the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian
parliament, making him the person with the fourth-highest position in the for-
mal state hierarchy. After leaving his position, he disappeared largely from the
media and public spotlight. However, between 2011 and 2016, contrary to the
usual praxis, Gryzlov continued to sit as a permanent SC member. We are now
well aware of his active involvement during the Crimean events in 2014 and the
subsequent unfolding of the conflict in Ukraine. Sergei Ivanov, another close
35 Håvard Bækken, Law and Power in Russia: Making Sense of Quasi-Legal Practices (London:
Routledge, 2019): 4-5.
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associate of Putin, represents a similar case. After his resignation as the head
of the Presidential Administration of Russia in 2016, he remains a permanent
member of the SC. This means that both Gryzlov and Ivanov became invisible
only to outside observers while, in reality, remaining important players.
In the case of the SC, we see the same trend as shown in Figure 1. In 2018,
only five of eleven permanent members of the SC were representatives of
Putin’s old guard. Such formal status as being a member of the SC or occupy-
ing another high-ranking official position also matters for Putin’s close associ-
ates. For example, Igor Sechin, CEO of the state-owned oil company Rosneft,
may have direct access to Putin as his devoted subordinate. He may also exer-
cise some, and, at times, very important influence in politics and business.
Yet he is not a member of the SC. Nor do private businessmen like Gennadii
Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg and Boris Koval’chuk, now highly publicized tar-
gets of anti-Putin media outlets, occupy this official status. They may be, or
were, Putin’s entrusted personal friends, but the lack of a high-ranking official
status limits their influence since it restricts the relative impact of the informal
power networks they have created and patronized.
Figure 2 visualizes the influential network patrons who have already have
left their official positions but can still control their clients, who remain inside
the hierarchical power pyramid. This mirrors the trend that became evident
during Putin’s third presidency, namely a gradual change in the elites due
to the ageing of Putin’s old guard, whom he brought to the power in 2000.
Although Putin never proclaimed this rotation officially, its actual outcome
bears witness that there is a conscious strategy to achieve this purpose. Table 1
and Figure 3 show that by 2022 the age cohort of people born in the 1960s has
become the dominant one in the federal top elite, while generations born in
Figure 2
The oboimas of Putin’s associates inside
the power pyramid
Note: The network patrons (white, black,
grey, and two striped) are inside the ovals.
They also control five oboimas dispersed inside
the power pyramid.
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Table 1 Age cohort of the federal elite in 2022, by state institution and number of people
State institution Generation Generation Generation Generation Total
born in the born in the born in the born in the
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s and
younger
State Duma of 101 142 129 74 446
the 8th convoca-
tion (lower house
of the Parliament)
Federation 67 62 31 7 167
Council (upper
house of the
Parliament)
Presidential 11 17 5 2 35
Administration
Government 7 12 8 4 31
Total 186 233 173 87 679
Sources: Data collected by the authors and Ivan Lavrov
Figure 3 Age cohort of the federal elite in 2022 (number of people)
Sources: Data collected by the authors and Ivan Lavrov
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the 1970s and 1980s together have outnumbered the cohort of Putin’s genera-
tion born in the 1950s. It is not difficult to understand why such a rotation has
taken place. Today, Putin has been in power for 23 years (if we count his four
years as prime minister between 2008 and 2012). The average age of the old
guard will be 74 years in 2024 if Putin steps down as a president. In a mono-
centric political system, the ageing of the top elite members is dangerous
since they can die very quickly one by one due to the natural deterioration of
their health or mental condition, with negative consequences for the family
members of these leaders. Putin and his associates are familiar with the cata-
strophic fates suffered by Stalin’s and Brezhnev’s leader cohorts when previous
lengthy reigns ended.
Most of Putin’s associates either have received sinecures (Boris Gryzlov,
Sergei Ivanov, Andrei Bel’yaninov, Viktor Cherkesov, Vladimir Kozhin) or were
shunted off to state corporations or banks (Igor Sechin, German Gref, Sergei
Chemezov). Very few have retired (Vladimir Yakunin, Yevgenii Murov) or were
pushed to the periphery of the political process (Georgii Poltavchenko, Rashid
Nurgaliev, Viktor Ivanov). Some have retained their key positions and status
(Nikolai Patrushev, Dmitry Medvedev, Sergei Naryshkin, Alexander Bortnikov,
Alexei Kudrin, Dmitry Kozak). Unlike Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Putin has been
reluctant to fire his subordinates without providing carrots in exchange for
retained loyalty. He does not stop to befriend his old guard but instead care-
fully puts his members aside one by one. Meanwhile, as Figure 2 illustrates,
removing a patron of a powerful oboima and putting them outside the formal
hierarchy jeopardizes the career prospects of the members of their network.
As a rule, clients of an oboima can only be promoted if their patron advances
or at least remains in power. While these clients want to continue to climb the
ladder and make career progress, the entire oboima’s prospects may deterio-
rate if its patron stops being a real heavyweight influencer. This means that a
generational shift is not confined to how colleagues in Putin’s old guard relate
to each other. It is also a struggle between the main oboimas inside the state
apparatus over influence and control over resources. The issue of the transi-
tion of supreme presidential power from Putin to a younger person exacer-
bates these risks in terms of the stability of the networks in Russia.
4 Who Is Next after Mr. Putin? Choosing a New Presidential
Successor
The appointment of a presidential successor with vast formal powers can
potentially result in a zero-sum game outcome for leading informal power
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networks. Choosing a ‘wrong’ successor may have fatal consequences for
patrons and their oboimas, which will lose this game. A fierce intra-elite con-
flict may threaten the entire stability of the Russian polity and potentially lead
to the break-up of the Russian Federation in its current political formation and
within its current geographical borders. The oboimas would obviously prefer
to minimize such risks.
The first risk minimization is that a successor should be a weak player
recruited from a relatively weak elite network. Such a president can distance
himself from the most powerful oboimas and function as an arbiter in future
intra-elite conflicts over political power and the distribution of resources. In
other words, he should perform a similar function to Putin during his early
years as president. To avoid having the majority of the oboimas against him,
such a candidate needs the networks’ patrons to accept him. Otherwise, the
latter can mobilize resources for destructive purposes, including supporting
counter-elites and the opposition, blackmailing members of competing net-
works and arresting junior members of these networks, which would discredit
and weaken their patrons. A similar war between the siloviki took place in
2007-08, albeit on a relatively small scale, when the first successor to Putin
was to be selected.36 It was no accidental that Putin finally opted for Dmitry
Medvedev, who, having distanced himself from the major siloviki networks
and demonstrated a weak ability to create his own cohesive team, in com-
bination with the trust that Putin had in him, turned out to be a suitable
temporary successor. Even so, Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 was
far from unproblematic, since an alternative elite network had started to
coalesce around Medvedev.
Second, the siloviki continue to constitute the core of the network director-
ate around Putin. Table 2 and Figure 4 show that this concentration is particu-
larly high in the key state institutions crucial to the upper echelons of the elites
in Russia, the Presidential Administration and the Government. Between 2019
and 2022, their share of the strategic administrative entity, the Presidential
Administration, increased from 55 to 62.9 per cent. This means that a successor
should be on good personal terms with the siloviki and the leaders of their main
oboimas. For good reason, he should probably have a certain background in, or
experience from, law enforcement agencies. Without an acceptable degree of
trust from the siloviki and sharing at least the basic beliefs of their corporative
ethos, such a successor has very little prospect of securing the support of the
core of the Russian elite. The ethos of the post-Soviet siloviki includes a num-
ber of key principles and values inherited from the Soviet past and cultivated
36 See Reddaway, Russia’s Domestic Security Wars.
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Table 2 Share of siloviki in the top Russian elite in 2019 and 2022 (numbers and
percentages)
State Number of Number of persons The siloviki in
institution persons (total) (including the the total number
siloviki) of the top elite in
each institution
(percentage)
2019 2022 2019 2022 2019 2022
Presidential 40 35 22 22 55.0 62.9
Administration
Government 86 80 38 30 44.2 37.5
Governors 85 85 22 19 25.9 22.4
Federation 170 167 28 45 16.5 26.9
Council
State Duma 447 446 86 93 19.2 20.9
Sources: Data collected by the authors and Ivan Lavrov
Figure 4 The siloviki in the top Russian elite in 2019 and 2022 (percentages)
Sources: Data collected by the authors and Ivan Lavrov
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as part of their education and training, such as military discipline, unity of
command, the primacy of collective action over individual initiative, mutual
assistance, the sense of military brotherhood, and the ideology of patriotism,
through which Russia is viewed as a great power. Most of these qualities are
characteristic of authoritarian environments such as military organizations
and contradict the democratic principles of governance and administration.
However, compared to the Soviet past, this ethos underwent a considerable
transformation during the 1990s and now includes acceptance of the market
economy and Western living standards. This is because Putin’s siloviki have
tasted the fruits of personal wealth and, at least for the upper echelons, the
sense of global embeddedness. To a certain degree, they were accepted into
wealthy political, business and aristocratic circles in the West. Ascetic values
are no longer an integral part of this stratum.37 There are strong reasons to con-
clude that Putin and his associates are seriously intending to ensure a gradual
transition of the presidential power, the outcome of which would endure for
the next decades. For this to succeed, they need to have great trust in a selected
successor. This means that the future president cannot be recruited from the
power networks of so-called system liberals, who represent bureaucratic tech-
nocrats or the business community, i.e. someone not fostered in the military
ethos of the siloviki.
Third, the candidate’s capabilities as an administrator, an elite player and a
loyal team member will be tested multiple times by moving him between dif-
ferent positions within the official power pyramid. This happened to Putin in
the 1990s and later, in the 2000s, to Medvedev. It is highly probable that several
prospective candidates have already been subjected to such testing in the late
2010s. These moves can include positions such as deputy minister or governor
at the beginning of the career, and later as minister, deputy prime minister
or a position within the Presidential Administration. There should not be any
compromising material (kompromat), real or fabricated, on the future candi-
date. It is highly probable that the future president’s personal data has already
been corrected, with harmful information on ‘wrong’ relatives, educational
achievements, and employment, dubious contacts or a worrying health con-
dition being deleted from archives and databases. This was the case for Putin
and Medvedev, and before them, for Soviet supreme leaders (Yuri Andropov’s
half-invented biography, for example). This is another factor that makes it
undesirable to reveal a successor too early.
Fourth, because Vladimir Putin will decide his future successor, the cur-
rent president’s personal qualities will also play an important role in risk
37 For more on the ethos of the Russian siloviki, see Olga Kryshtanovskaya, “Rezhim Putina:
liberal’naya militokratiya?” Pro et Contra 7, no. 4 (2002): 158-180.
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minimization. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin will not entrust his life and his fam-
ily’s future to his successor alone. Neither will having people in key positions
around a new president provide sufficient guarantees for Putin, although this
will certainly be done, as the Yeltsin Family network did to Putin during the
first years of his presidency. Informal mechanisms of control over Putin’s suc-
cessor will be supported by formalized constraints. The recent amendments to
the Russian constitution in 2020 introduced a number of legal guarantees for
former presidents, including lifelong membership of the Federation Council –
the Russian parliament’s upper chamber – and legal immunity.38 These moves
indicate that Putin has prepared his departure from the presidency. However,
such guarantees will not be enough for Putin. After his presidency, he may wish
to continue occupying a number of key formal positions in order to create a
system of checks and balances. This would constrain the future presidential
successor from pursuing an independent policy at the expense of Putin and
the network directorate of his ‘old guard’. So far, this solution has not been
implemented through constitutional amendments, except for the introduc-
tion in the Constitution of the State Council, previously a quasi-constitutional,
quasi-parliamentary body that has been running alongside the official par-
liament, the Federal Assembly, for 20 years. Putin can principally become its
chair after stepping down as president.
If we take this consideration of risk minimization for elite networks, for the
siloviki oboimas in particular, as our starting point, we can logically arrive at
some conclusions about what kind of person will be selected as Putin’s suc-
cessor. First, it should be a man who was born in the 1970s. By 2024, even
people of Medvedev’s generation born in the 1960s will be too old to solve
the already-discussed task of carrying out a generational rotation of Russian
elites. Opting for someone younger is necessary for the long-term horizon of
planning. Someone born in the 1980s will not be able to assume this position
because the 1980s elite cohort has not acquired experience yet. Second, this
person should be an ethnic Russian with a Russian surname. The latter is not
exactly the same as just being a Russian. Representing the largest national-
ity is an important precondition since, under current conditions, the majority
of the population will not welcome a non-Russian as supreme leader. After
2014, a person with a Ukrainian surname cannot be considered for the presi-
dency, even if this person might be an ethnic Russian. Third, this person should
be recruited from the ruling elite and be able to demonstrate that they are,
or present themselves as, a universal politician with experience in holding a
38 Fabian Burkhardt, “Institutionalizing Personalism: The Russian Presidency after Consti-
tutional Changes,” Russian Politics 6, no. 1 (2021): 50-70.
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variety of positions inside the power pyramid. Fourth, this candidate should
appeal to the population, possess good communication skills, and be persua-
sive. Although the Russian presidential election is a façade, ruling elites cannot
propose any old candidate just because they find a certain person suitable for
their particular purposes. It was no coincidence that Anatoly Chubais, Boris
Nemtsov and Nikolay Aksenenko were not suggested as Yeltsin’s successor. The
communication between a supreme leader and the population must work, as
it did in the case of Putin.
The list of prospective candidates who would satisfy these criteria is rela-
tively short. One possible successor is Gleb Nikitin, governor of the Nizhniy
Novgorod region. Born in 1977 in St Petersburg, Nikitin was in the 1990s Dmitry
Medvedev’s doctoral law student (aspirant in Russian). In the 2000s, the rise of
Medvedev boosted Nikitin’s career. In the 2010s, alongside his official positions
within the state hierarchy, Nikitin sat on about twenty-five boards of the larg-
est Russian companies, an indicator of a particular bureaucrat’s future career
advancement prospects. Other possible candidates include Denis Manturov,
born in 1969 and minister of industry and trade, and Alexey Vorob’ev, born in
1970 and governor of the Moscow region. However, both have already received
negative media publicity, which is no coincidence. Aleksey Dyumin, born in
1972 and governor of Tula, also meets the criteria for a future successor. He
had a professional background in the Russian security services and worked
in Putin’s presidential security service in the 2000s.39 Igor Babushkin, born
in 1970 and governor of Astrakhan, and former governor of Yaroslavl Dmitry
Mironov, born in 1968 and presidential aide, both represent the siloviki faction
of the Russian elite. At the same time, which particular person will be the next
president is less important. A successor will be appointed an arbiter between
the system’s main oboimas, and the room for him to act independently will
be restricted. A formalized and, more importantly, informal system of checks
and balances distributed between the key oboimas that control the real power
centers will limit his ability to pursue an independent policy.
Besides the oboimas with roots in the law enforcement agencies, alternative
informal power networks will attempt to influence the transition process. The
most powerful are the ‘Family’ network that arose around Yeltsin during his
second presidency in 1996-99, the so-called system liberals and the Moscow
group. The last-mentioned is headed by the mayor Sergei Sobyanin but has
39 For a rare interview (one not connected to his duties as governor of Tula oblast’) with
Dyumin by a Kremlin-affiliated journalist, see Aleksey Dyumin, interview by Andrei
Kolesnikov, “V kontse kontsov, zhizn’ ne raz kruto menyalas”, Kommersant, 9 February
(2016), https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2911780 (accessed 28 October 2022).
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