JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin’s Favorite ‘Project Managers’ Could Become a Risk to the Regime” – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/ Andrey Pertsev
“New favorites have appeared in … Putin’s inner circle in recent years. Using their access … they come up with new projects to manage, promote themselves in the media, and try to impress everyone with their professionalism … distinguish[ing] them[selves] from veteran members of Putin’s entourage … [and] help[ing] shore up the system. … [T]hey are … starting to overshadow … previous … Putin favorites, most of whom worked with him in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s. … [The latter] were never elevated because of … professionalism, and they don’t create value — they guard it. … [T]he new favorites have to earn their place [and] [i]ncreasingly[] [are] becoming the regime’s engine. But when they eventually demand a reward, the system won’t be able to give it to them. … [A] court filled with project managers is not necessarily a boon to the regime. Unlike the ‘guardians,’ the ‘builders’ owe their rise as much to their own merits as to [Putin]. They set up new initiatives, defy sanctions, and nourish the illusion that there are lots of causes for celebration in modern Russia. … [T]hey tend to do more for the system than it does for them. They are even starting to accumulate resources: raising money for their own projects, setting up pet companies, and lobbying for the appointment of regional governors. … [T]heir appetites will only increase …. [T]hey are the regime’s benefactors, not its beneficiaries. … If we end up … [with] Putin and his St. Petersburg friends … unwilling to meet the demands of the new favorites, we could see sabotage[] or … open discontent. Enterprising … competent officials know … they can survive without Putin. Whether the regime can survive without them, though, is another matter. …”
The article argues that the project management skills of those it dubs “the new favorites” facilitate their entry into Putin’s inner circle, yet that the same skills would prove useful in a post-Putin Russia.