“I remember well our agreement about the fact you had asked not to be in this area of work as the head of the presidential administration for more than four years”, Putin said at the meeting with Ivanov and his successor.
Advertisement
“I’m happy with how you handle tasks”, Putin said.
Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister turned economic advisor who was rumored to be elevated to the position of “alternative prime minister” in charge of working out an economic reform plan with the help of Ivanov and German Gref, the head of Sberbank, quickly found out that certain aspects of the economy were off limits as regards these reforms. On the day of Mr Ivanov’s firing, Russian Federation deployed powerful S-400 air-defence systems to Crimea and warned that diplomatic relations with Ukraine could be severed. No-one knows yet. But the official claim – that a man once touted as a potential president, suddenly wanted to run Russia’s environmental policy – has been met with great scepticism.
The Kremlin and Ivanov himself offered little explanation for why he was departing.
Stanislav Belkovsky, a political consultant who once advised the Kremlin, said Putin prefers younger people who were never his peers and who see him as the country’s supreme authority.
Ivanov, who served with Putin in the Soviet-era KGB spy agency, was Russia’s defense minister for six years before being appointed Kremlin chief of staff in 2011 – months before Putin’s 2012 re-election. Mr Putin became prime minister, before returning to the presidency just three-and-a-half years later.
“Psychologically, it’s more comfortable for Putin these days to deal with the people, who always thought of him as the great leader and can not recall the times when Putin was not great leader yet”, Belkovsky said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
“Well, it turns out that I’ve been presidential chief of staff for four years and eight months”. All are men in their 60s who studied or made their careers in St. Petersburg alongside Putin. The stern statement was followed by footage of a meeting between Putin, Ivanov and the new chief of staff, Anton Vayno, Ivanov’s former deputy.
These people may come from the security services, for instance the Federal Protective Service, like Viktor Zolotov, or Putin’s immediate diplomatic entourage, like Anton Vaino. They showed Vaino shadowing Putin and even carrying an umbrella to protect the president from the rain.
He will now take up a powerful post that involves drafting laws for the president to submit to parliament, monitoring the enforcement of those laws, and conducting analyses of domestic and foreign affairs for the president.
Vaino’s grandfather, Karl Vaino, headed the Communist Party in Soviet-ruled Estonia between 1978 and 1988.
Advertisement
It was once thought that Mr Ivanov might become president of Russian Federation after Mr Putin’s second term, as a third term for Mr Putin would have been unconstitutional. He had been in senior positions since Putin won his first presidential term in 2000.
