10 avril 2025 |
https://samizdat2.org/la-guerre-change-lelite-russe-ksenia-kirillova-en-russie-il-y-a-des-processus-qui-menent-au-reformatage-naturel-des-elites/
By Kirillova, Ksenia, April 10, 2025
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Update: 08-04-025 (20:35)
The Kremlin does everything so as not to leave the veterans of the war with Ukraine entering power. However, the economic, military and cultural elites of Russia at war are naturally transformed, and their influence on the country’s leadership did not contribute to the rapid end of hostilities.
Last month, we already mentioned that the management of the pro-Kremlin parties deliberately sabothed the call of Vladimir Putin to make war veterans “a new Russian elite”. Officials do their best so as not to leave new “hawks” generated by war take their place. However, processes take place in Russia which lead to the “natural” reformatting of the elites.
first of all, this is the redistribution of property, which largely revises the results of the privatization of the 1990s. Independent experts have identified several stages and directions of this redistribution since February 2022. In the first step, it was the nationalization and redistribution of assets of Western companies that left the Russian market. The assets seized were distributed as a reward to loyal businessmen and groups of companies close to power: the Kadyrov, Rotenberg, Rosneft and the security forces.
The second direction of “deprivatization” was the nationalization of companies in the industrial defense complex and other “strategic” companies. Unlike the previous program, these companies were not foreign companies. The researchers note that even if their owners have shown loyalty to the authorities and got rid of assets abroad, such a company could still be withdrawn if it interested the state. To do this, it was only necessary to declare it “strategic” and, on this basis, to retroactively cancel the decision to privatize it. It is the system used to nationalize the largest main producer in Russia “Dalpolietal”.
However, to understand the elite reformatting process, two subsequent areas of deputy are the most interesting. The third direction can be described as a revenge for disloyalty. Last year, the deputy chief of the Ministry of Finance, Alexei Moiseev, directly recognized the seizure of goods from the owners in the event that the current owner “cannot carry out effective property management” or “directs the funds won in Russia to support the Ukrainian armed forces”.
-Most often, these goods do not go to the state, but are transferred to more loyal businessmen who, according to the oligarch Vladimir Potanin, “follow the fairway of state policy”, that is to say, in words and acts, demonstrate their support for war.
The “NEMBAR” telegram channel, linked to the presidential administration, wrote in the fall on the return under the control of the state of industrial assets privatized in 1990-2010 for an amount of approximately 1.2 Billion of Roubles. According to him, the property seized “belonged to” displacement on “SVO” (as the Russian authorities call war against Ukraine – KR), which, as a rule, speaks negatively of the current state policy “and” will be used for the benefit of residents faithful to the government “.
The fourth area of privatization is the seizure of companies not only of “unfair” Russian businessmen, but also of those who have a foreign nationality or a residence permit. In April 2023, amendments to the legislation were adopted, recognizing these people as “foreign investors” and facilitating the transformation of “strategically important” companies that they manage in income for the State. At the same time, we attended a consolidation of the sectoral mega-holdings managed by the most reliable people and beneficiaries of the regime: Roskhim, the mega-agroholding supervised by the Deputy Prime Minister
These processes considerably change the business environment of Putin. Those who, on the contrary, prove to be the beneficiaries of the war and are interested in its prosecution take their place.
Changes take place not only in the business elite, but also in the Russian army officers. We have already mentioned how his officers send soldiers to “assaults of meat” hopeless to survive at the slightest guilt, and force the wounded to return to the front line without appropriate treatment. However, this is only a small part of what is happening in the armed forces.
Increasingly, the army records videos of the front becoming an organized crime leader, where drug trafficking, looting and theft of equipment purchased are flourishing. After that, the authors of the video are predictably transferred to assault units and sent to death, and Bloggers Z confirm that such cases occur everywhere.
In addition, independent journalists reported that the main office of the military prosecutor had prohibited the examination of complaints against front line commanders. At the same time, they note that the soldiers and their loved ones complain in mass, shots, criminal orders and extortion. Soldiers often receive a grenade under their bulletproof vest and are forced to explode. They can be beaten, placed in cold pits without water or food, or even slaughtered at close range. At the same time, the prosecutor’s office received the order to “bury” any complaint of this type and not to follow it up.
Consequently, the “truths” are simply liquidated, while the sadistic and the murderers with impunity remain as a command post. This practice leads to the replacement of the body of officers, who had not been distinguished by moral standards previously high, by absolute criminals. The continuation of war time is beneficial for these people, because it gives them full indulgence to any illegal action.
Another area where elites are reformatted is the field of culture. From the very beginning of the large -scale war, the authorities clearly indicated that they were ready to punish celebrities even for inappropriate appearances “during a special operation”.
Unwanted writers have been declared “foreign agents”, and some even, terrorists and extremists. But after the former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky became at the head of the Union of Writers in February of this year, the Union finally turned into another tool to build a “vertical consensus”.
The greetings at the extraordinary congress of the Union of Writers at the end of February were sent personally by Vladimir Putin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and the first deputy of the presidential administration Sergei Kirienko. At that time, Medinsky announced the consolidation of all the creative forces on the basis of pro-Russian views, and other participants in the congress called to abandon dissent and to “return to the positive which was in the USSR”.
Judging by the behavior of Russia on the Ukrainian front, the Kremlin, not having the resources to intensify hostilities, nevertheless feels quite comfortable with the current intensity of the war. Now there are more and more people in the entourage of Vladimir Putin who have a personal interest in continuing the war, and it is important to take it into account when evaluating the degree of preparation of the Kremlin for peace.
https://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=67F4D54339E4B
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