If Putin can be convinced to arrest such an old and close acquaintance of his as Ilya Traber, then obviously the previous Kremlin rules have ceased to apply, Konstantin Eggert believes.
The arrest of the "authoritative businessman" from St. Petersburg Ilya Traber is reminiscent of Evgeny Prigozhin's rebellion. Not only and not so much because of the similarities in the life path and social environment of Ilya Ilyich and the late Evgeny Viktorovich. Not because both were close to Vladimir Putin, albeit in slightly different ways.
The similarity is that both Prigozhin's rebellion of June 24, 2023, and Traber's sudden detention seemed to lift the curtain for a few historical moments on the true state of affairs in the depths of Putin's regime.
How are Traber's case and Prigozhin's rebellion similar?
Almost three years ago, when the fighters of the private army "Wagner" without a single shot they captured Rostov-on-Don with a population of over a million people and blocked the headquarters of the Southern Military District, after which they took numerous selfies with enthusiastic citizens, it became clear: the system built by the Russian dictator is incapable of responding to emergencies and serious crises.
It turns out to be completely paralyzed, because everyone - from the post policeman to the district commander, from the station switchman to the governor - is waiting for instructions from above. The fact that Prigozhin until the last moment was considered the executor of the Kremlin's will, naturally put many in a difficult position at the time. However, this is logical: in Russia, informal unwritten rules and access to leadership are more important than formal status, not to mention the law.
The arrest of Ilya Traber also lifted the curtain on what is happening in the system. This is especially important because the current political and military context is radically different from that of June 2023. Under these circumstances, the arrest of the de facto owner of almost all of the port infrastructure in the northwestern part of Russia, who is also in close relations with Putin, could not have happened without the knowledge and approval of the president himself.
Extraordinary event
I will venture to assume: the accusation of organizing the murder of St. Petersburg businessman and municipal deputy Alexander Petrov in 2020 is the official reason, but not the real reason for Traber's arrest. After all, until this week, the FSB calmly accepted the fact that the man who controls strategic facilities such as the Ust-Luga port lives peacefully with his young wife in NATO-friendly Latvia, hated by the Kremlin. So there was an order "Do not touch". And now they have issued an arrest warrant.
Given how important Putin is to his reputation as a man loyal to his old friends, who expects the same loyalty from his entourage, the arrest and indictment of Ilya Traber seems like an extraordinary event. After all, even former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who allegedly knew nothing about the large-scale theft committed by his own deputy in the midst of the war, was removed from his post in a mild manner - by being transferred to the Security Council.
Who controls whom - Putin's FSB or Putin's FSB?
It is possible that Traber did something that Putin perceived as a personal betrayal. It is possible that he did not show disloyalty, but that the FSB convinced Putin that the businessman had betrayed him. In any case, the northwestern ports will now be headed by an FSB man.
This is a large-scale special operation to place important assets in the Baltic Sea, which also serve Russia's shadowy fleet, under the control of the Russian secret police. That is, the secret police are ready not only to receive income, but also to take all the risks associated with managing the port infrastructure in the northwestern part of the country against the backdrop of Ukrainian drone and missile attacks.
The younger generation of KGB heirs will try, under various pretexts - real and invented - to gradually remove Putin's inner circle from ownership, and then from power. If Putin is now ready to throw into prison (there is no room for doubt about this) a person whom he recently invited to his birthday party, this means that he no longer has an inviolable inner circle. The dictator, locked in his bunker and stubbornly waging a pointless war without results, has no one to rely on except the Chekists. And they take advantage of this to redistribute property, with the intention of later winning the battle for power.
The arrest of Ilya Traber is a symbol of the collapse of the old system of connections within the regime and the beginning of the struggle for who will determine the fate of Russia after Putin's resignation - whenever that happens.
This text expresses the opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and DW as a whole.