The Russia Conundrum

Sympathy for Medvedev was short-lived. In 2017, Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation released video evidence that suggested the ‘simpleton’ was also involved in crooked schemes. ‘Even this incompetent,’ Navalny alleged, had been able to pilfer millions of dollars from the country’s coffers. ‘Far from being a simpleton who falls asleep during important events, [Medvedev] is one of our country’s richest people and one of its most corrupt politicians’, Navalny claimed. Money that should have been spent on improving living standards and urgently needed infrastructure projects had gone instead, it was said, to help Medvedev and his associates accumulate real estate at home and abroad, funding luxurious lifestyles unimaginable to the millions forced to survive on threadbare state pensions. ‘They have palaces, residences and country estates, yachts and vineyards in Russia and abroad,’ said Navalny, ‘not to mention smartphones, gadgets and personalised Nike trainers.’ The photos of Medvedev’s interior- designed homes with one-of-a-kind architectural features were accompanied by screenshots of receipts, all of which were printed in someone else’s name, and evidence shown of vast wealth secretly held for him by fake charities and willing pals from his schooldays. Such is the nature of Putin’s inner circle that there is simply no place in it for anyone who is alleged to be mired in corruption.

Despite its devastating effect on his reputation, Medvedev responded to Navalny’s exposé by saying that the corruption evidence was ‘from weird stuff, nonsense and some pieces of paper’.⁷ Others have been less restrained. In 2018, Putin’s bodyguard, Viktor Zolotov, announced that he was challenging Navalny to a duel, with the intention of ‘pounding him into a nice, juicy cutlet’. ‘You know what your problem is?’ Zolotov asked Navalny rhetorically. ‘No one’s ever given you the beating you deserve. But now you’re going to find out! You libelled me in your internet report, so you and I are going to fight it out – in the ring, on the mat or wherever you choose. An officer doesn’t forgive that sort of insult; his honour demands he slap down the scoundrel who insulted him.’

A screengrab of Viktor Zolotov making a speech, during which he threatens Alexei Navalny

Like Sechin and Medvedev, Zolotov’s friendship with Putin began in 1990s St Petersburg. He was serving as a bodyguard to Mayor Sobchak, then transferred his services to Putin, and has accompanied him across the globe ever since. In 2016 it was announced that Zolotov would take charge of a new army unit that would answer directly to the president. The unit, known as Rosgvardiya, has subsequently grown to several hundred thousand troops, meaning that Putin now commands his own Praetorian Guard. When asked about the constitutionality of such an arrangement, the Kremlin maintained that the unit’s purpose is to provide a defence against terrorists – but the real motivation seems to be Putin’s fears for himself. Ever since Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004 and the overthrow of the corrupt Kremlin-ally Viktor Yanukovych a decade later, Putin has fretted that the same fate may lie in store for him. Images of angry demonstrators breaking into Yanukovych’s palatial residence provided a chilling foretaste of what could happen. Videos uploaded by the protestors showed them swarming through Yanukovych’s private golf course, his ostrich farm, the museum he had built for his luxury automobiles and his full-scale mock galleon decorated with marble, crystal and gold leaf. The thought of the Russian public invading the palaces and mansions that Putin and his associates have constructed for themselves at the expense of the Russian people is one he dares not countenance. It is no coincidence that Zolotov’s troops have controversially been given express permission to fire into any crowds that threaten ‘important state facilities’.

The number of top Kremlin officials who are former members of – or have connections with – the KGB has reached alarming proportions. Putin’s close advisers since he came to power in 2000 have included Viktor Ivanov, a former KGB agent and long-time Putin associate; Sergei Ivanov, one of Putin’s oldest friends since their days as KGB officers in Leningrad; Mikhail Fradkov, who reportedly served in the KGB while working at the Soviet embassy in India in the 1970s; Viktor Cherkesov, another former KGB officer who specialised in persecuting Soviet-era dissidents; Sergei Chemezov, who lived in the same KGB apartment block with Putin in Dresden; Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee and a former Putin classmate; Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service and a contemporary of Putin’s at the Dzerzhinsky KGB Higher School; and the career KGB-man, Nikolai Patrushev.