We cannot know if there is some conspiracy around Vladimir Putin.
But this is not the point.
The important thing is that this conspiracy can really exist, and its probability is measured by quite real numbers.
Putin changed the lives of almost his entire entourage for the worse in one day:
rich and very powerful people lose billions of dollars and hope for the future every day,
and they can be very alarmed about this.
And the solution to all problems – here it is – the life of one particular elderly man.
Putin is now like a fat wallet forgotten in the subway.
Not the fact that it will be stolen or is about to be stolen, but it certainly attracts everyone's attention on this issue.
And in a situation where the existence of a conspiracy becomes realistic,
and when everyone can be dissatisfied and no one can be trusted,
in such a situation, the entire volume of real power passes to the special services.
To people whose job is to find and expose conspiracies.
And they will find and expose them, that's how the bureaucracy works – it cannot just exist,
it will always look for and find work for itself.
Purges are inevitable in the higher bureaucracy.
Not because someone wants it or not, but because the special services are put on
the search system for a conspiracy and they will definitely find it, because great fear breeds great aggression.
Pay attention to how the repressions and the omnipotence of the special services
have changed the mood in the active part of Russian society.
A leaden atmosphere of fear hung over it.
People are leaving, cleaning up their social networks, they are afraid to speak even in allegorical language.
Almost every opponent of the war remaining in Russia
has tried on the prospect of criminal prosecution, which can happen at any moment.
But, if we take real numbers, then we are talking about
only two hundred cases in two months in which opponents of the war are officially persecuted.
Two hundred criminal cases for millions of pieces of anti-war content.
Even if in the future we are talking not about hundreds, but about thousands,
even in this case, the chance of falling under a criminal case
for one single ordinary person will remain completely illusory – like a big win in the lottery, for example.
It is obvious that they will not reach everyone –
they will not reach the majority, they will not be able to reach even 1% of the protesters
But single criminal sentences in the general mass are enough to shut people up:
so that they are afraid of even loudly discussing their views in a restaurant,
so that they are afraid of a knock on the door.
This is how people feel today, the real chance for which to be subjected
to criminal repression is much lower than to die in a car accident.
Now imagine the state of people whose livestock is measured in hundreds,
and whom Putin knows personally.
Who is threatened not by some random arrival of tragedy, like an ordinary citizen,
but who is personally looked after.
These people live every day in a system where the walls have ears.
Where whatever is not heard, will likely be reported.
Where any awkward phrase said at a friendly gathering can be reported,
and in a distorted and most compromising form for the author.
And if an ordinary person has a family, has his own close circle in which he can speak freely,
that same Soviet “kitchen”, then for ministers, oligarchs, for the Security Council, for the entire political elite –
there is nothing at all, no outlet for them.
Their way of life is not only great comfort, life surrounded by servants just for every case possible:
drivers, security guards, maids, waiters, gardeners, personal massage therapists and hairdressers –
it is literally a life surrounded by a million eyes and ears.
And any of your conversation on the phone not just «can be tapped», but will definitely be.
I do not at all want to arouse any sympathy for all these characters who inhabit the highest levels of Russian power.
Nothing of the kind, it was they themselves who built this system, supported it themselves and continue to support it.
I don't feel sorry for them whatsoever:
let them enjoy their dystopia, they deserve it like no other.
You just need to understand what kind of world these people live in.
In a world where secret services are looking for a conspiracy and are thirsty for victims.
And these victims will certainly be found, and in the near future.
And if you are not the victim, then it will be a person close to you
Absolutely any words, deeds, current and former connections – literally anything can ruin you.
After understanding this, it becomes very easy for us to explain the festival of loyalty,
which is arranged by people who have not previously been noticed in some kind of initiative cannibalism.
Where do these “Sobyanin regiments” come from?
Why does the mayor, who put so much effort
into the public image of an «effective manager», organize mobilization?
Why do top bureaucrats like Sergei Kiriyenko suddenly change their jacket
and tie for a tracksuit or military tunic and go to the occupied territories?
It is literally a game of «musical chairs».
But only their stake is their life.
Where by the end of the song you can not be the last, because then you will not get a chair.
In the current situation, it is incorrect to speak about the absence of conflicts among the elites,
judging by public speeches and publications of the highest nomenklatura.
This is just as incorrect as talking about almost universal support for the war, looking at the results of opinion polls.
In both cases, we do not hear the voices of those who are against, since this position is outlawed.
At the same time, an ordinary Russian, if he receives a call from an unknown number and is asked to tell about
his attitude to a special military operation, has the option of dropping the call.
It's harder for the elite.
They cannot remain silent when asked by a journalist, pretending
that they do not know about such country-Ukraine.
They must provide an answer.
And it doesn’t really matter who you called yourself before the war, a systemic liberal, statesman or imperial –
if you don’t want to quickly leave Russia or fall asleep on the bunk,
then you will be talking about denazification and demilitarization.
And even if you were Sardana Avksentieva, who built her public image on independence from United Russia,
who publicly voted against the zeroing of Putin and called from the rostrum of the State Duma
not to recognize the LDNR in order to preserve the opportunity to resolve the conflict peacefully.
Since the war has begun, you will have to talk about the accumulation of weapons
near our borders and quote Vladimir Vladimirovich.
In today's Russia, the position of such so-called systemic liberals is the most unenviable.
It is they who will become the first victims of the intra-elite struggle, which will unfold in full force
as soon as the guns subside – and, perhaps, even before that.
We already see many signs of this process – it all starts with the defeat of the near-liberal education.
RANEPA Rector Vladimir Mau is under house arrest.
Mau, although he worked in the team of Yegor Gaidar, is an absolutely loyal person to the current authorities.
And his university has been working for many years as a forge of personnel
for the government and for large state corporations.
The rector of another liberal university, Shaninka, is in jail.
The leadership at the Higher School of Economics has also changed.
It would be a mistake to consider all these educational institutions breeding grounds
for the opposition and a threat to the regime.
But the situation is such that even they become targets.
As well as systemic liberals in power.
We must immediately make a reservation that the very term “systemic liberals” is a rather arbitrary thing.
To a lesser extent, we mean economic views and political views.
Rather, we are talking about representatives of the power elite, a little more humanoid than Nikolai Patrushev.
About people who never publicly supported the bloodshed and created an image
for themselves of respected professors, businessmen and reformers.
The most famous of this group is Anatoly Chubais.
Again, not because he is some great liberal.
All the accomplishments of Chubais on the basis of liberalism date back to the 1990s.
In the Putin years, he worked excellently for many years as a state manager.
Chubais was lucky to some extent.
He left his only serious post at that time – the head of Rosnano – back in 2020.
After that, he was listed as the presidential representative for relations with
international organizations to achieve the goals of sustainable development.
It is clear that this was a form of honorable resignation.
And what kind of sustainable development can we talk about now.
Anatoly Chubais managed to leave Russia in a way
that did not look like desertion in the eyes of the Putin elite.
Perhaps the historical role of Chubais in Putin's career also had an effect:
it was he who, in the mid-90s, invited a little-known St. Petersburg officia
to work in the presidential administration, which Chubais then headed.
Given his background and reputation, Chubais would be the first candidate for a showy reprisal
for all the suffering Russia has endured.
He risked becoming the headliner of a kind of historical process over the perpetrators of the collapse
USSR and the authors of the dashing nineties – fortunately, there are almost no other direct participants
in those events left, except perhaps ex-president Mikhail Gorbachev,
but he is already too old to be seriously used for propaganda purposes.
Other so-called systemic liberals were less fortunate than Chubais.
As of February 24, 2022, all of them ended up in government positions
and now they cannot just leave them without special permission from the Kremlin.
And voluntary dismissal in military conditions may well be equated with treason.
First of all, this applies to Alexei Kudrin, Elvira Nabiullina and German Gref.
Kudrin and Gref are old friends of Putin, they worked together in the St. Petersburg mayor's office.
Both can be considered the architects of the current Russian economy.
It was Kudrin who at one time pushed through the idea not to spend oil windfalls when fuel prices skyrocketed,
but to put aside in a special reserve fund for a rainy day.
Now we see what was meant by this rainy day:
not the development of infrastructure, not helping the Russians
in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, but waging war.
In fairness, it is unlikely that Kudrin and Gref assumed and supported such a development of events.
Gref has been the head of Sberbank for many years, for example.
It is unlikely that he is happy to see his life's work turn to dust.
But he cannot drop everything and just leave –
Sberbank is too important for the stability of the remnants of the Russian economy,
and Gref can only exchange the chair of the bank's president for a prison cell,
following the example of another systemic liberal, Alexei Ulyukaev.
At the same time, Kudrin and Gref have always been among the most criticized officials –
they got it mainly for their supposedly liberal views.
With a further shift of the agenda to the left,
which is already happening, and with the impossibility of disappearing like Chubais,
Kudrin and Gref are now perhaps in the most vulnerable position.
As well as the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina.
After the start of the war, stories about her attempts to leave her post numbered almost dozens.
However, then the materials acquired a different shade.
Like, Nabiullina cannot leave the Central Bank, because as soon as she does,
Glazyev will be appointed there, which would be very fun.
Professional economists speak positively about the work of Nabiullina's team –
even Sergei Guriev, who cannot be suspected of sympathy for the Russian authorities.
But there are few officials in our country who cause the same wave of criticism.
Nabiullina gets it from oligarchs like Deripaska, and from supporters of movements like the NOD,
who consider her a protege of the State Department, and from populists who want to print more money.
Any mistake can cost Nabiullina dearly, and what she should do about it is not very clear.
But Dmitry Medvedev came up with a way out of a similar situation.
He just started drinking a lot.
But Dmitry Medvedev came up with a way out of a similar situation.
He simply changed his shoes, and from a dove decided to become the most severe among the hawks.
This is a man who once talked about freedom, which is better than lack of freedom.
But now he is very similar to Ramzan Kadyrov.
Thus, when we try to think about what these people do or do not do, we must remember the main thing:
the entire Putin entourage, no matter what positions they take, no matter what views they hold, is in absolute horror.
These people are literally in an altered state of consciousness,
because the probability of a knock on their door is not only several times higher,
it is orders of magnitude higher than the same probability in relation to an ordinary citizen,
even if he firest against the war from all guns and all social networks.
It seems to me that in order to adequately assess their condition,
we need to remember each of us in the first days after February 24:
when fear and stress are so strong that they manifest themselves physiologically,
when the horror is so strong that sores forgotten many years ago suddenly break out.
And it is impossible to sleep without a break without checking the news for more than 2 hours.
so you don't miss any news.
But at least we had families and friends.
They dont have anybody.
They can't trust anyone.
They are face to face with fear.
Moreover, if each of us could fantasize that someone would knock on the door,
they know exactly who can knock and what sins there are in their souls.
Right now, nothing but symptoms of fear should be expected from all these people.
In addition to extreme loyalty and attempts to run ahead of the locomotive, to show that no, not they,
not this particular bureaucratic unit can become a potential traitor, and therefore a victim.
The good news is that fear is an uncomfortable feeling.
Just as much as it paralyzes at first – it demands to get rid of itself a little later at any cost
And the problem is, we return to the beginning, in one person.
And if not today, then tomorrow this idea will begin to form in the minds of those
who can really achieve the removal of Vladimir Putin from power.
See you tomorrow.