The Sechin and Medvedev clans clashed on the Volga. Investigation of the "Interlocutor". Biography and early years

An old Soviet joke: dear comrade L.I. Brezhnev at the next party congress: “The Chinese orthodox claim that there will be no money under communism. And the Euro-revisionists say they will. We, as true Marxist-Leninists, approach the question dialectically. Under communism, who will have money, and who will not ... ”.

If you believe the above, then now we live under the very, that is, developed communism. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev does not get tired to repeat about the fact that "there is no money" and encourages "to hold on". On the other hand, there are enough of those who do not need to "hold on" at all, but they have more than "have" money. More so that they are spent on absolutely insane luxury. What is it worth, for example, eating truffle by Vladimir Potanin worth $ 95,000. However, the classics of the oligarchic genre were not mushrooms at all, but yachts. In this area, Russian millionaires have long been ahead of the rest. Is that a little inferior to the Arab sheikhs.

More recently, for example, in the midst of the crisis and sanctions, billionaire Alisher Usmanov acquired the most spacious yacht in the world, which cost him only $ 600 million. “The Russian people will not give in. Sanctions, there, norms, rights, what? We always had a norm - 125 grams of bread per day, and the right to win, ”the yacht owner previously said pathetically.

However, not all Russian billionaires like to show off their yachts. Among them there are also modest ones, who do not show off their treasures. For example, long time the owner of the 85.6-meter beauty, launched in 2013, remained unknown. Appearance this yacht was developed by the Russian designer Igor Lobanov (who previously worked on Deripaska's yacht), and the interiors were designed by the elite Italian designer Alberto Pinto. There is a swimming pool at the stern of the yacht, which, if necessary, turns into a helipad. The yacht was originally codenamed Y708. But after the transfer to the owner, the name was changed to St. Princess Olga ("Holy Princess Olga"). Today "Princess Olga" ranks 72nd in the ranking of the 100 largest yachts in the world.

Until recently, the owner of St. Princess Olga remained unknown until “Novaya Gazeta” discovered on social networks photos from the yacht “Holy Princess Olga”, published by Olga Sechina, his wife Igor Sechin- one of the most influential people in Russia. Opening right there became public... The response was lightning fast.

Igor Sechin

According to Vedomosti, Olga Sechina filed a lawsuit against Novaya Gazeta. Sechina's claims were raised by the article "The Secret of" Princess Olga ". How is the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin connected with one of the most luxurious yachts in the world? " Sechina is sure that the article violates her right to privacy and demands that the publication remove this text from the Novaya Gazeta website, as well as destroy all issues in which the article was published.

Representative Rosneft confirmed the fact of filing a claim and the fact that Sechina is the wife of the head of this oil company.

An article by journalist Roman Anin about the yacht St. Princess Olga editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Dmitry Muratov published in early August. The vessel was launched in 2013 and its size is “the size of a football field (85.6 m)”. The alleged yacht Sechina sails under the flag of the Cayman Islands and formally belongs to the offshore Serlio Shipping Ltd.

According to experts, such a yacht is worth "at least $ 100 million." At the same time, in the fall of 2015, Rosneft published documents on payments to members of its board of directors. Of these, as well as on the basis of the Standard on payments and compensations to top managers of the company, it follows that, taking into account the premiums, Sechin's annual income could be 471 million rubles. (about $ 7.4 million at the exchange rate of the Central Bank on Monday, August 15).

Sergey and Anita Tsoi

Today it became known that the former press secretary of the mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, Sergei Tsoi, has been appointed vice president for economic activities of Rosneft. According to a RBC source close to the Kremlin, Sechin has known Tsoi since those times.

Anita Tsoi and Olga Sechina-Rozhkova

Sergei Tsoi is the husband of singer Anita Tsoi, a close friend of Olga Sechina-Rozhkova. The wives of two state top managers regularly go on joint sea vacations outside Russia.

A financial-industrial-power groups of the Kremlin
(2007)

A certain Oleg Shvartsman, a 36-year-old businessman who works in the system of "state racketeering", became a real newsmaker on the eve of the elections to the State Duma. He gave an interview to the Kommersant newspaper correspondent, in which he described in detail how the system of "cleansing" ineffective businesses, functioning under the roof of the Kremlin security official Igor Sechin, works.
The system is supported by a semi-legal racketeering employing 600,000 law enforcement retirees, who are united through non-profit partnerships and organizations working with law enforcement veterans.
Shvartsman stressed that these 600 thousand healthy and young men still do not know how to do anything but extort. We have to use their skills as intended.
At the same time, Oleg Shvartsman admitted that the organization in which he works, although it is called the Union of Social Justice, focuses not on the "aunt beckoning", not on the social block in the government, but quite on himself to Putin's assistant - Igor Sechin and as a "messenger" uses the retired GKCh-ist General Varennikov.
To top it all off, Oleg Shvartsman was a member of the Supreme Council of the Civil Power party, as if organized by a government official - Mikhail Barshchevsky.
However, immediately after the publication, Oleg Shvartsman was urgently expelled from the party leadership.
http://stringer-news.com/publication.mhtml?Part=48&PubID=8503

Provocation with Shvartsman and financial-industrial-power groups (FPS) Conversation between Viktor Zorin and “Vaisman”

NB (Natasha Barch). Shortly after the publication of an interview with the head of Finansgroup Oleg Shvartsman in Kommersant, Viktor Zaitsev (VZ) had a conversation about this interview with our source working in the security service of a very large state-owned company, let's call him Vaisman (V). Below are the most interesting passages from Weisman's story, in our opinion. The style of the source has been changed.
OT. How true is the situation with state-owned companies described by Shvartsman and his own role?
V. Shvartsman is half right about his role, half exaggerated his significance. But he described the scheme correctly. Such as Shvartsman at Sechin Bortnikov - Kupryazhkin - about 30 - 40 people.
OT. How do financial-industrial-power groups (FSP) of the Sechin type differ politically? How do they work?
C. Financial - industrial - power groups (FPS) were created not on the basis of a common political and ideological views, but on a momentary pragmatic commercial and bureaucratic basis, the groups are de-ideologized, any of them can and do include liberals, anti-liberals, and nationalists. , and fascists and separatists. It's like the fans of both CSKA and Spartak and Dynamo - political views (if any) play almost as insignificant role in FPS groups as football addictions.
Any FPS has a small core and a large periphery. They, especially the periphery, are unstable, poorly disciplined, poorly consolidated, tend to constantly disintegrate and be re-created in a different composition. It is not only Chubais who runs into Sechin through Shvartsman. The division into security officials, oligarchs and liberals is incorrect and distorted. There are clans, each of which includes security officials and businessmen and liberals. For example, the Sechin clan includes the same Shvartsman with Finansgroup and connections in Israel and the United States, Surgutneftegaz Bogdanov (a major Yeltsin oligarch), the oligarch Mordashov (Severstal), Kantor (Arkon), partly includes Alpha. On the other hand, the Kudrin clan (on whose behalf Chubais is acting in the case of Shvartsman) includes ALROSA and Eurofinance Bank, in whose affairs the interests of a part of the FSB are strongly represented. In one of the Gazprom groups, whose representative Usmanov is also FSB people, disloyal to Sechin and Bortnikov. In a corrupt bureaucratic state, nationalization and the status of a state-owned enterprise are illusory. What is now in the Russian Federation is not state-owned enterprises and not a planned economy under state control as in the USSR, but some feudal estates given for feeding. Sechin took Yukos away from Khodorkovsky and gave it to state-owned Rosneft, which he himself also heads. Now Rosneft sells oil for export to the private Swiss trader Gunvor, owned by Timchenko, at one - a cheap price, and Timchenko sells it in the West at a completely different price - expensive. The difference remains abroad, partly divided between the main stakeholders, partly goes to the common fund.
OT. Who manages this common fund, what is it called?
V. Timchenko and Kovalchuk are sitting on the common fund, they spend large amounts - more than 100 million - on behalf of the president, smaller ones - at their discretion or at the request of Sechin. The common fund has no name, but it is that around Gunvor and Raiffeisen - a bank in Austria and Switzerland.
OT. Interestingly, that's why the branches of Likhvintsev's special department are located there. How corrupt are state-owned companies?
Q. Now in Rosneft managers feel like temporary workers, they can be fired at any time. Therefore, in the company at all levels there is a massive theft, which did not exist even under Khodorkovsky, and there was zero investment.
The same is with Gazprom, only the scale of theft is even greater than in Rosneft, and Kovalchuk switched all financial flows to himself, pumping money through Gazprombank to Raiffeisen Bank in Austria. Investments in new deposits are also zero. Worse, Gazprom has several hostile clans fighting to the death among themselves, going so far as to expose the hostile clan by leaking inside information abroad. During the gas war with Ukraine, Filin and Likhvintsev recognized the internal Gazprom insider almost in real time. The same with Nord Stream - all internal information about Schroeder and Waring immediately flows to Ukraine, and from there to the USA and to Schroeder's enemies in Germany. The same with the Caspian pipeline, etc. Relatives and friends of the heads of administration and special services work in all state-owned companies, they do nothing, they only receive fantastic salaries and steal more. The management of state-owned companies - everyone there is like Shvartsman.
OT. What is the approximate average size of their salaries in state-owned companies. What are the most common forms of theft?
Q. At the intermediate level, the most common theft is to give a construction or other contract or contract to friendly merchants for a kickback. Salaries in state-owned companies can officially be several hundred thousand dollars a year, bonuses and bonuses - even more.
Q. The external debt of Gazprom and Rosneft is huge, it exceeds the national debt and the size of the stabilization fund, it is not clear how these debts will then be repaid. The debts of the two state-owned companies account for more than half of all foreign investments in Russia. Other state-owned companies are no better, for example, AvtoVAZ. After the transfer of AvtoVAZ to Rosoboronexport's control, losses and costs grow several times faster than before, everyone is being stolen. Theoretically, it is easier to appoint normal, uncorrupted management to a state-owned enterprise than to a private enterprise, if the political will of the state ever does so. In practice, there is no such will now, when it will not be known, and it is not clear whether by that time the state-owned companies will be completely plundered and entangled in unaffordable external debts. Everything in Gazprom and Rosneft is moving towards this.
OT. You said that FPS groups or clans also have their own newspapers, journalists, "political scientists"? Which clan does Latynina or Prokhanov or Echo of Moscow belong to?
B. These circles belong to the periphery of the FPS groups. As a rule, their affiliation changes frequently. Latynina now secretly adjoins Sechin, but tomorrow it may be the other way around. Ekho Moskvy and the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta are adjacent to Abramovich, but only yesterday they were adjacent to Gusinsky and Luzhkov. Prokhanov is Farvest. DPNI (Belov) - now the FSB (Patrushev), although Surkov was there yesterday. Podberezkin is Surkov, although Gusinsky was there recently. Etc.
OT. You said that there are 30-40 managers like Shvartsman in the Sechin FPS. Can you name any specific names?
Q. On the Sechin periphery, and even close to the core of Rosneft, there are many managers, under-roof merchants, conducting financial affairs in the West. But their names are stamped, that is, they become state secrets. To do this, they are issued by agents or intelligence officers in charge of corporations such as ALROSA. Therefore, I cannot name them without the risk of being caught in disclosing state secrets.
OT. Okay, but what about audits, Stepashin's Accounts Chamber? And Schroeder, the Germans? How do they feel about it? And what about investors, individuals and companies? After all, it is their money that is being stolen.
V. The Accounts Chamber and the cowardly Stepashin are afraid to deal with the strong. It is formally legal to sell oil to a trader Timchenko. 40% of Russian oil exports go through Timchenko. Nobody asks smaller investors in Russia, while large investors in Rosneft and Gazprom - from Malaysia, China, Germany - solve geoeconomic rather than commercial problems. Auditors? Remember how Price Waterhouse Kupper first audited Yukos at the request of Khodorkovsky and said that everything was fine, and then, when they threatened to close their work in Russia, withdrew his opinion and said that he was wrong and that everything was bad. Western companies deliberately put Gazprom and Rosneft in debt, especially the Germans and the British. As for Schroeder, he probably understands everything and behaves carefully, money is only official. But Waring and his managers steal, which sets the stage for attacks on the NEGP project. In Europe, serious people turn a blind eye to the operations of Gazprom's management for political reasons and to collect compromising evidence.
* * *
NB. What are the opinions on Farvest's attitude to the provocation with Schwartzman?
OT. Now we do not exclude that Farvest could also have something to do with Shvartsman's article, that in this case they somehow interacted with Kudrin and the Golubevsko-Kovalchuk part of Gazprom. Moreover, Shvartsman's revelations started in the USA. In addition, the editor-in-chief of Kommersant; Andrey Vasiliev - old friend Baranov on joint PR 90s and earlier edited "Kommersant - Ukraine" under the wing of Filin and GUR. Vasiliev also published an article by Sidorov based on Kuchins - this is very serious. 12 Only Kuchins is not a player here. The players are Ermart, who has long been taking care of Sidorov, and Surikov, who, through Filin and Baranov, influences Vasiliev. It was from Ermart Sidorov that I received information about Kuchins' text before the report was published. And Sidorov, instead of first contacting Kuchins and asking him for the text of the report and permission to tell about it, as required by journalistic ethics, immediately leaked Ermart-Surikov's activists to Vasiliev. So Farvest's paw prints are evident on these publications.
For the provocation with Schwartzman, Farvest had a serious motive: if we assume that Sechin, bypassing them, wants to go out or has already gone to Cheney directly (both would not be prevented by the Cold War by agreement), according to Filin, he could only do this reliably for himself through business contacts between structures controlled by him, such as Shvartsman's, with American or Israeli partners. If these contacts begin to shine on the whole world - Gates, Rice, Ermart in America, Sechin's enemies in Russia such as Kudrin, Sobyanin, Zolotov, etc. communication is invalid.
RG. This version is confirmed by reports from Kiev. It is reported that Owl is jealous of Sechin's attempts to negotiate with Cheney directly, bypassing Farvest.
NB. If I were Filin, I would not be jealous, but afraid of Sechin. If he has a direct connection with the right-wing Republicans, the first thing he does is deal with the Farvest people. So what? Our "political scientists" will go to the next "general meeting" in Istanbul, and there a short circuit or the gas burner deteriorated. This is Turkey. And the business is over. As they say in such cases, the memory of comrades in arms will forever remain in our hearts.
RG. Sechin may try to get rid of Filin, Likhvintsev or Saidov. But it may be the other way around. It is a myth that now the special services of the Russian Federation in the matter of physical liquidation are better than the GUR or the Kadyrovtsy, the opposite is true. We did not immediately, but now we have already understood, and the majority continues to think in old stereotypes that the FSB is the KGB of the USSR, and the GRU of the Russian Federation is the GRU of the USSR. All this is not entirely true, and the GUR and UI MO CRI Saidova are very serious. Second. It is clear from Vaisman's story that the Russian special services are actually fragmented into pieces that are part of the various FSP groups. And Farvest includes entire special services of states: Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Baltic states, Georgia, the quasi-states of Chechnya and international conspiratorial organizations - Qadiriya, Hizb ut-Tahrir and others, and behind them are the Anglo-Saxons, Turks and Saudis.
NB. By the way, with this you answered those readers of our articles, and there are a lot of them, who are haphazardly referring to our statements about the danger of Farvest's power fist. Say, some Ukrainians, but Chechens, we will spit and rub ... Say, Burtsev.ru smokes strong grass.
Now this is the question. What role did Shvartsman's provocation play in the general scheme of the decision on a successor?
OT. Kommersant published an interview with Shvartsman at a time when not only Sechin's group, but also Kovalchuk and Timchenko were intimidated by criminal prosecution in the West. The frightened Sechin was provoked to hit everyone and twitched - he arrested Bulbov, it was a blow to the FSKN and Zolotov, then Storchak was arrested - a blow to Kudrin. In this extremely tense situation, Shvartsman's provocation served as a command to all the other FPS groups. As a result, everyone - Kovalchuk and Timchenko, who do not want problems in the West, Kudrin, Zolotov, Abramovich, Voloshin, Sobyanin - united against Sechin under the ideological umbrella of Kurginyan. All of them together immediately after the elections came to the president and demanded to make Medvedev or Ivanov the heir. Patrushev immediately jumped away from Sechin and Bortnikov. In parallel, the West pressed for Medvedev. This is how we imagine it.

Russian Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev threatened to extort a bribe from Rosneft for assistance in the privatization of Bashneft, and Rosneft complained about the minister to the FSB. This is how we are presented with what is happening. The largest oil company in Russia as a victim of a corrupt minister who changes his position depending, probably, on the size of the offered bribes. The problem is that it is possible to believe in the existence of a corrupt minister, but extorting money from Rosneft is much more difficult. Why Sechin needs Ulyukaev's head - the main intrigue of what is happening.

Liberators versus managers

Throughout 2016, we observed how the work of the FSB's Internal Security Directorate was being rebuilt, at whose initiative high-profile cases were launched against governors, mayors and investigations directly or indirectly affecting such heavyweights as Yevgeny Murov and Andrei Belyaninov (both lost their posts). The media actively wrote about the work of the mysterious sixth department of the FSB's CSS, whose head until July 2016 was Ivan Tkachev.

Igor Sechin

In May, the process of absorption by the leadership of the CSS of the FSB Economic Security Service began - a unit with which the CSS was allegedly in a competitive relationship. The former head of the CSS, Sergei Korolev, became the head of the SEB. And the same Tkachev, who is credited with the role of a new demiurge - a fighter against corruption, regardless of rank and merit, headed the department "K" of the SEB (banks and finance).

However, then the unexpected happened: the deputy chief of the CSS, an influential general Oleg Feoktistov, was dismissed, although he was the one who was expected to become the head of the CSS - the most influential and, in fact, accountable structure to no one. Soon it became known that Feoktistov had moved on to work as Vice President for Security at Rosneft. Both Feoktistov and Tkachev were called "Sechin special forces" - security officials, especially close to the head of "Rosneft". Feoktistov's appointment indirectly confirmed this.

Now Novaya Gazeta, citing its sources (and the TFR confirms this), reports that it was Rosneft that initiated the case against Ulyukaev. Feoktistov collected data, the newspaper wrote. At the same time, Tkachev, as a curator in the field of finance and banking, led the investigation.

Thus, the list of cases of this group grew by the Ulyukaevs - from the point of view of the status of the accused, this is the largest case of the FSB. What is common between the processes in which Alexander Khoroshavin, Vyacheslav Gaizer, Nikita Belykh, Andrey Belyaninov are involved? Only that their affairs are being handled by the FSB, and Igor Tkachev is the initiator of the persecution.

Perhaps the reasons for Ulyukaev's arrest should be sought not in his own actions, but in the actions of those who achieved his arrest. Within the power vertical, there is a demarcation between two spaces: power and civil. The Chekists, having offered their services to Putin and received the conditional approval for the purges, began to form a political superstructure, an organ of informal supervision over the civilian administrative vertical.

News agencies, citing sources, reported that the FSB began the development of Ulyukayev more than a year ago, permission to wiretap his conversations was obtained in the summer. There were also reports that the FSB was listening to the leadership of the TFR and chiefs from the Economic Security Service. This is quite enough to suggest that not only Ulyukayev is being tapped, but also other ministers, heads of state corporations, rival siloviki, and the leadership of the Presidential Administration.

After the outbreak of wars in Ukraine and Syria, the “power elite” in Russia began to take over the main levers of governance in the security sector. The military has become entrenched in foreign policy, displacing diplomats. In domestic policy the security function in the broadest sense is monopolized by FSB generals who are politically connected with Sechin: first, intracorporate competition was neutralized, then the TFR was suppressed.

Sechin and the FSB can be compared with a cable and an electric current: the Chekists are charge, energy; Sechin is a conductor that also determines the direction of current movement. Wartime and the logic of a besieged fortress feed the legitimacy of the topic of security and its beneficiaries, which systematically and almost uncontrollably raises the tension in the network, and those who manage to channel it correctly receive new dividends. The power superstructure, as a kind of protector of the regime from internal vulnerability and provocations, is legitimized at the highest level and is especially in demand in conditions when Putin cannot handle domestic politics. The scale is not the same. What price is he willing to pay for the effectiveness of this fuse? The same as for the stability of their power.

Was Putin

It is against this background that the interaction of the weakest government in modern Russia with the most powerful and politically influential corporation, the Rosneft company, is being built. Now let's assume something that is difficult to imagine: what if Putin did not give direct and unequivocal consent to the sale of Bashneft to Rosneft? It seems that this scenario was a priori ruled out as impossible. The sale of Bashneft is a political decision, and only one person makes political decisions in the country - the president.

But the sale of Bashneft is lame precisely because the deal did not receive a public guarantee from the head of state. In public space, Putin distanced himself from her in every possible way. Let us recall that the presidential position was that it was “on the one hand” (Rosneft has no right to take part in privatization) and “on the other hand” (formally, this is still not a state-owned company). The president himself, if one reads between the lines, was inclined to allow Rosneft to be admitted to the sale, but left this issue for consideration by the Cabinet of Ministers. The deliberate and, it seems, provocative detachment of the president could be something of a test for the ministers.

At the end of September, the government unexpectedly changes its position. After a month since the refusal to privatize, preparations for the sale of Bashneft have been unfrozen, and Rosneft has been allowed to participate. In less than two weeks, Igor Sechin's company will complete the deal. A deal that "surprises a little" Putin, who bluntly admitted this at the VTB Capital forum on October 12.

Suppose the government did not receive a direct and unambiguous instruction from Putin to sell Bashneft to Rosneft, but was forced to be content with an abstract recommendation in the spirit of “do what is best for the budget”. Medvedev's cabinet did as it understood. Putin was quite satisfied with this decision, but the subject of the experiment, it seems, was not Bashneft, but the government, which was given a ride on a merry-go-round, allowing first to defend "normal privatization" and then pushing to de facto nationalize Bashneft in the interests of Rosneft, if nevertheless, consider the latter a state-owned company. The striking flexibility and weakness of the ministers in the Bashneft case, their readiness to instantly abandon their previous position - this was one of the main results of the deal, a mechanism of self-humiliation.

Windage

What is Rosneft's main problem in relations with the government today? It would seem that the company achieved its goal even before the arrest of Ulyukaev. Bashneft was purchased in a spectacular and efficient special operation mode, and a decision is being prepared to buy out its own shares from Rosneftegaz by Rosneft. There was resistance, but it was broken.

Now let's look at the situation from the other side. It took Rosneft almost a year to get the deal done. Putin, who does not want to directly and toughly lobby for the interests of Rosneft in the government, left Sechin alone with the ministers, who were not shy in expressions. Belousov called the sale of Bashneft to Rosneft "stupidity", the same Ulyukaev said that Rosneft was an "inappropriate buyer."

And this is just one plot of the strained relationship between the state and the oil company. Before that, there were a lot of other problem areas: the admission of private oil companies to the development of the shelf, the withdrawal of dividends from Rosneftegaz, tax reform, the transfer of stakes in energy companies to Rosneftegaz, and so on. For four years Sechin accumulated dissatisfaction with the ministers, irritated, probably not so much by their stubbornness as by their impotence.

Rosneft, burdened with gigantic debts and at the same time a special statist mission, regularly met resistance from people with ministerial suitcases. There is no ideology, no desire to conquer something. Rosneft's motives are to reduce air resistance - an integral part of the habitat, where the government appears to be a club of dimwitted idlers.

It is he, Igor Ivanovich Sechin, who saves the Russian budget by overpaying with a 50% premium for Bashneft. It is he who for months breaks through the virtual walls erected by ministerial bureaucrats talking about the market and reforms. Constant shallow and annoying resistance could not but cause a desire to knock once, so that it was discouraging. Now that the minister is detained at the Rosneft office, the company acquires a special status.

In Rosneft's understanding, Ulyukaev could turn out to be the personification of annoying government officials, whom Sechin was tired of brushing off. Let us now combine his power resource with the desire to end this resistance once and for all. Right now, when Bashneft has been sold, when very few people are in the way. And then there is the crisis, exacerbating intra-government confrontations.

Ulyukaev's arrest is a consequence, not an end in itself. Moreover, it is a consequence of a process that is far from being as well managed as it might seem at first glance. The gaining power privileged superstructure over the civilian vertical has accumulated too much energy, under the weight of which it can collapse like a roof under the weight of snow. Power overhang puts pressure on civil institutions of management, and here and there there will be local collapses. They will take the governor, then the minister. But the Kremlin must understand that without new props, sooner or later it can cover everyone, which means that in the medium term, a major reform of the power structures can be expected.

Tatiana Stanovaya

In a word, under the military-Chekist rule, liberal economists are simply not appropriate and will soon be gone at all.

Almost exactly 10 years ago (less than 18 days), on June 20, 1996, Yeltsin unexpectedly fired three of the most powerful people from his entourage: Korzhakov, Barsukov and Soskovets. The president told shocked reporters that the generals were "taking too much and giving too little." The 2006 staff reshuffles have something in common with the event a decade ago. As the 2008 presidential elections approach, the key players in the political system created by Putin are thinking more and more about their future destiny and less and less about the GDP itself.

Most of all, this applies to the most powerful clan in the presidential entourage - a group that until yesterday was commonly referred to as the Sechin-Ustinov team. This tandem of relatives (the children of two dignitaries are linked by legal marriage) has always been particularly aggressive. But lately, the clan began to resemble a bulldozer at all. The most recent victim of this group was, in particular, German Gref. For the past two years, the minister has fought with the remnants of the Yeltsin clan for real control over the customs that formally subordinate to him. But a few weeks ago, both rival players were bitten in the teeth, and the real control over this department passed to Sechin's group. According to some estimates, up to a third of Russia's budget flows pass through customs. During the pre-election period, the importance of this factor cannot be overestimated.

But even the episode with the customs, for all its importance, is just a detail. In the past years, the Prosecutor General's Office has become a kind of political super-agency, with which no one is able to compete. Moreover, the tightening of the nuts was increasing. They crushed everyone: business, non-governmental organizations, regional leaders ...

The concentration of power in one hand reached such a degree that it began to affect the interests of the president himself. The GDP has more than once made it clear that it is dissatisfied with the situation within the administrative and power structures. It was not for nothing that a few weeks ago he demonstratively fired “a couple of each creature”: several officials from each power department. But the signal was not received. Sechin and Co. continued their battle to clear the political field. The protégé of this group, Prime Minister Fradkov, decided to crush even more the already almost destroyed Gref. How else can one interpret the mocking public proposal of the head of government to divide the department of German Oskarovich into two parts?

In these conditions, the GDP had to make a knight's move. And he did it. Until further appointments are made, the new alignment of forces within the Kremlin will not become completely clear. But most likely the obvious bias towards Sechin's team will be eliminated.

But all this, unfortunately, does not change the main thing. The fundamental problems of the vertical of power remain in place. The procedure for the resignation of the previous Prosecutor General, the politically weak Yuri Skuratov, dragged on for almost a year and a half. The special operation to fire the powerful Ustinov took several hours. This means that the system of power prescribed in the Constitution exists only on paper. Parliament and other organs of control over the executive branch have finally degenerated. All leverage is concentrated in the hands of only one person. There can be no question of any balance and a real system of checks and balances in such conditions. We are doomed to live from one political special operation to another.