Putin needs not smart and independent people, but loyal people. And he has found a way to provide them - if their hands are stained with blood in the war, writes Ivan Preobrazhensky.
The Kremlin has replaced the governors of two of the regions close to the front - Bryansk and Belgorod. At the head of both regions were people connected to Russian crimes on Ukrainian territory - participants in the war and in the administration of the occupied regions.
Change of scenery
Rumors about the resignations of the current head of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, and his colleague in Bryansk, Alexander Bogomaz, have been circulating for several weeks - until they learned about their dismissals from the media.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that in the Russian power system, dismissal without transfer to another position is like death - you are doomed to immediate oblivion.
This applies especially to Gladkov. It has long been said that he irritates the security forces with his excessive public activity, as well as with his statements that the Internet and Telegram shutdowns increase the danger to people in areas close to the front.
In any case, when the Kremlin decided to create a sense of positive changes among the population, it did not occur to it to apply to the two regions any other scheme than the well-known - reshuffling of the staff. Putin does not intend to end the war. The economic situation is only getting worse, even if there is no way to change living conditions, at least not to change the leaders.
The training of the elite
That is, from a practical point of view, an improvement in the situation in both regions can hardly be expected. But for Moscow now, the symbolic moment is more important. Vladimir Putin firmly holds the course of forced militarization of the ruling class. Very soon after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, the Russian dictator began to demand as many of the so-called "participants in the war" as possible to occupy positions of power.
At the same time, it was clear that he did not insist that these be people who had actually killed at the front - "experience" in the occupied Ukrainian territories or in the headquarters behind the front line was sufficient. What was important was participation in the "special military operation", i.e. in the aggression against Ukraine.
Accelerating militarization
Why did Putin accept the second option? Obviously, it was important for him that the ruling class as a whole had “blood on its hands“ – to bear “collective guilt“. Because if everyone is a criminal, there is almost no chance that someone will commit treason or escape. There can be no split in the elite if it is infiltrated with conditional “war criminals”, and even if someone did not personally kill, he still collaborated with the killers.
The Russian elites, by the way, often responded to this coercion with imitation. But the dictator does not give up. And there are already rumors that in the new State Duma with 450 deputies, about a hundred will definitely be associated with the war started by Putin. And in the regions where the leadership changes, "militarized" satraps are appointed. Putin is definitely not giving up on his idea.