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2021 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

3. Putin’s Autocracy: Siloviki Rule and Their Kleptocracy

verfasst von : Albrecht Rothacher

Erschienen in: Putinomics

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Putin’s autocratic rule for two decades has a discernible impact on how the Russian economy is run. The chapter starts with Putin’s political biography, his involvement with the transformation of the St. Petersburg economy and how later in Moscow he relied on his close circle of political and business friends, who now direct most of Russia’s dominant state-controlled sectors. It reviews their unique way of doing business, of controlling the judiciary and commanding the secret service. The testimonies of the late Politkovskaya and Litvinenko illustrate the ongoing abuse of power and corruption in high places. Equally the Magnitzky and Calvey cases demonstrate what happens to foreign investors crossing the Kremlin’s red lines. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the costs of endemic corruption, mismanagement and cronyism to the Russian economy and state.

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Fußnoten
1
Peter Truscott. Putin’s Progress. London: Pocket Books 2005, p. 30.
 
2
Ibid., p. 56.
 
3
Catherine Belton. Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West. London: William Collins. 2020.
 
4
Truscott. Op. cit., p. 66.
 
5
Ibid., p. 68.
 
6
Ibid., p. 77.
 
7
Ibid., p. 88.
 
8
Ibid., p. 92.
 
9
Ibid., p. 101.
 
10
Ibid., p. 220.
 
11
Ibid., p. 225.
 
12
Ibid., p. 210.
 
13
Roland Haug. Kreml AG. Stuttgart/Leipzig : .Hohenheim Verlag 2007, p. 165.
 
14
Ibid., p. 162.
 
15
Ibid., p. 173.
 
16
Ibid., p. 178.
 
17
Truscott. Op. cit., p. 344. In this he was similar to Charles de Gaulle, who equally refused to campaign and declared, he himself was to programme.
 
18
Ibid., p. 126.
 
19
Ibid., p. 127.
 
20
Ibid., p. 251.
 
21
Ibid., p. 271.
 
22
Ibid., p. 295.
 
23
Ibid., p. 274.
 
24
Ibid., p. 274.
 
25
Margareta Mommsen and Angelika Nussberger. Das System Putin. Munich: C.H. Beck 2007, p. 15.
 
26
Ibid., p. 20.
 
27
Ibid., p. 26.
 
28
If there is any similarity with the EU’s Committee of Regions (ECR) it is purely accidental.
 
29
Ibid., p. 39.
 
30
Ibid., p. 41.
 
31
Again there is no intended similarity to the EU’s Social and Economic Committee (ECSC). It is equally only consultative like the ECR, but it does not contain any sportsmen, clergy, scientists or artists!.
 
32
Ibid., p. 47.
 
33
Ibid., p. 48.
 
34
Ibid., p. 57.
 
35
Ibid., p. 68.
 
36
Ibid., p. 78.
 
37
Ibid., p. 94.
 
38
Ibid., p. 117.
 
39
Ibid., p. 125.
 
40
Thierry Wolton. Le KGB au pouvoir. Le système Poutine. Paris: Buchet Chastel. 2008, p. 19.
 
41
Ibid.,  p. 21.
 
42
Ibid., p. 25.
 
43
Ibid., p. 31.
 
44
Ibid., p. 34.
 
45
Ibid., p. 40.
 
46
Ibid., p. 46.
 
47
Ibid., p. 51.
 
48
Ibid., p. 57.
 
49
Ibid., p. 60.
 
50
Ibid., p. 68.
 
51
Ibid., p. 79.
 
52
Ibid., p. 93.
 
53
Ibid., p. 119.
 
54
Ibid., p. 134.
 
55
Ibid., p. 135.
 
56
Ibid., p. 88.
 
57
Ibid., p. 152.
 
58
Ibid., p. 203.
 
59
Ibid., p. 154.
 
60
Ibid., p. 192.
 
61
Ibid., p. 260.
 
62
Anna Politkovskaia. La Russie selon Poutine. Paris. Gallimard 2005, p. 7
 
63
Ibid., p. 339.
 
64
Ibid., p. 47.
 
65
Ibid., p. 218.
 
66
Ibid., p. 281.
 
67
Ibid., p. 365.
 
68
Ibid., p. 139 and p. 368.
 
69
Alexander Litvinenko. Blowing up Russia. The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror. London: Gibson Square. 2007, p. 3.
 
70
Ibid., p. 21.
 
71
Ibid., p. 43.
 
72
Ibid., p. 51.
 
73
Ibid., p. 80.
 
74
Ibid., p. 270.
 
75
Ibid., p. 117.
 
76
Ibid., p. 219.
 
77
Ibid., p. 150.
 
78
Ibid., p. 186.
 
79
Ibid., p. 191 and p. 222.
 
80
Jutta Sommerbauer. “Der Kreml hat zum ersten Mal Angst” Die Presse 26.9.2020.
 
81
Jutta Sommerbauer. “Die Brutalisierung des Putin Systems” Die Presse 30.8.2020; “Gerichtsfarce rund um Navalny” Die Presse 19.1.2021; “Der Kreml setzt auf Repression” Die Presse 3.2.2021. Stefan Schnell “Proteste gegen das System Putin” Kleine Zeitung 24.1.2021. Manfred Sapper”. “Der Fall Nawalny: Das Gift und die Lüge” Die Presse 20.8.2020. Klaus-Pater Schwarz. “Der KGB bereitet der Nowitschok-Demokratur von Putin den Boden” Die Presse 9.9.2020.
 
82
Prescott, Op.cit., p. 72.
 
83
Karen Dawisha. Putin’s Kleptocracy. Who owns Russia? New York. Simon & Schuster. 2014, p. 48.
 
84
Ibid., p. 56. I have met the man in Brussels during a nice Gazprom reception in Brussels in the summer of 2019. He was not a demon, but a friendly, slightly overweight person, who struggled to speak good English to his audience.
 
85
Ibid., p. 79.
 
86
Ibid., p. 83.
 
87
Ibid., p. 83.
 
88
Ibid., p. 94.
 
89
Ibid., p. 64.
 
90
Ibid., p. 6 and p. 68.
 
91
Ibid., p. 113.
 
92
Ibid., p. 143.
 
93
Ibid., p. 146.
 
94
Ibid., p. 117.
 
95
Ibid., p. 25.
 
96
Ibid., p. 125.
 
97
Ibid., p. 107.
 
98
Ibid., p. 83.
 
99
Ibid., p. 72.
 
100
Ibid., p. 93.
 
101
Ibid., p. 57.
 
102
Ibid. p 121.
 
103
Ibid., p. 94.
 
104
Ibid., p. 166.
 
105
Ibid., p. 158.
 
106
Note that this is not a Russian specialty. It also happens in high places in Western European politics.
 
107
Ibid., p. 186.
 
108
Ibid., p. 194.
 
109
One son, Dimitri, since 2018 is Minister for Agriculture, his second son, Andrei, deputy CEO of Gazprom Neft.
 
110
Ibid., p. 200.
 
111
Ibid., p. 219. Popular among the army and the general public this charismatic general died in 2002 in a helicopter crash as the governor of Krasnoyarsk after having defeated the local gangsters as well.
 
112
Ibid., p. 224.
 
113
Ibid., p. 245.
 
114
Based on: Robert Moore. A Time to Die. The Untold Story of the Kursk Tragedy. New York: Crown Publishers. 2003.
 
115
Uwe Halbach. “Chechnya’s Status within the Russian Federation” SWP Research Paper 2/May 2018. Berlin.
 
116
Dawisha. Op. cit., p. 3.
 
117
Ibid., p. 318.
 
118
Ibid., p. 331.
 
119
Ibid., p. 328.
 
120
Ibid., p. 102.
 
121
Ibid., p. 10. Also President Sarkozy, a man of a similar size, was an avid watch collector, his collection however was worth only a fraction, and in effect his almost only possession after he left office, except for a stamp collection.
 
122
Ibid., p. 38.
 
123
Anders Aslund. Russia’s Crony Capitalism. New Haven: Yale University Press 2019.
 
124
Mishistin, an economist and hockey playing friend of Putin, was a surprise appointment with a reputation as competent director of the Federal Tax Service (2010–2020), professionalizing this endemically corrupt institution. During 1999–2004 he was a deputy tax minister, a function, in which he did not get any poorer: Andrew Roth “Putin critics ask how his PM choice acquired expensive properties” The Guardian 16.1.2020.
 
125
Aslund. Op. cit., p. 9.
 
126
“Arrestation du ministre Oulioukaiev: l’ombre de Setchine” Le courrier de Russie 25.11.2016.
 
127
During the weekly bilateral EU-Russia consultations at the OSCE in Vienna sometime during 2008 the Russian ambassador, a very impressive and educated gentleman, once showed us proudly the copy of two pages of handwritten instructions he claimed to have been written by Putin himself. No other head of an OECD member state—not even from San Marino or Monaco—would have done such thing.
 
128
Aslund. Op. cit., p. 34.
 
129
Ibid., p. 49.
 
130
 “Le FSB passe à l’attaque contre les responsables politiques” Le courrier de Russie 26.11.2016.
 
131
Aslund. Op. cit., p. 60.
 
132
Browder. Op. cit., p. 175.
 
133
Ibid., p. 179.
 
134
Ibid., p. 220.
 
135
Ibid., p. 214.
 
136
Ibid., p. 229.
 
137
Ibid., p. 251.
 
138
Ibid., p. 347.
 
139
Ibid., p. 378.
 
140
 “Schockstarre nach Verhaftung” Frankfurter Allgemeine 20.2.2019; “Putins Botschaft an die Investoren” Frankfurter Allgemeine 28.3.2019; Max Seddon “Calvey fraud case casts pall over Putin summit” Financial Times 7.6.2019.
 
141
Aslund. Op. cit., p. 77.
 
142
Ibid., p. 29.
 
143
Ibid.; p. 86.
 
144
Ibid., p. 87.
 
145
Ibid., p. 97.
 
146
Ibid., p. 98.
 
147
Ibid., p. 186.
 
148
Dawisha. Op. cit., p. 321.
 
149
Ibid., p. 198.
 
150
One of my senior colleagues met Putin in Moscow, when the EU and Russia were still talking at top level. He observed that his eyes were “shifty” and judged him emotionally unstable.
 
Literatur
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Zurück zum Zitat Aslund A (2019) Russia’s crony capitalism. Yale University Press, New HavenCrossRef Aslund A (2019) Russia’s crony capitalism. Yale University Press, New HavenCrossRef
2.
Zurück zum Zitat Belton C (2020) Putin’s people. How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West. William Collins. London Belton C (2020) Putin’s people. How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West. William Collins. London
3.
Zurück zum Zitat Dawisha K (2014) Putin’s Cleptocracy. Who owns Russia? Simon & Schuster. New York Dawisha K (2014) Putin’s Cleptocracy. Who owns Russia? Simon & Schuster. New York
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Zurück zum Zitat Haug R (2007) Kreml AG. Hohenheim, Stuttgart/Leipzig Haug R (2007) Kreml AG. Hohenheim, Stuttgart/Leipzig
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Metadaten
Titel
Putin’s Autocracy: Siloviki Rule and Their Kleptocracy
verfasst von
Albrecht Rothacher
Copyright-Jahr
2021
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74077-1_3