NEWSLINK Oxford University Press Blog/Andrew Monaghan: “Putin and beyond: a Q&A on Russian politics”

When he came to power in 1999, Vladimir Putin was asked whom he trusted, and whose advice he took. He named Sergei Ivanov, Dmitri Medvedev, Nikolai Patrushev and Alexei Kudrin. Fifteen years later, these people still form Putin’s core group and dominate the strategic heights of Russian policy making, occupying respectively the key posts in the presidential administration, government and Russian national security council. There are other important figures, too, who can be considered to be allies, such as Igor Sechin, Gennadiy Timchenko, and Arkadiy Rotenberg, who are trusted to implement major projects.