The circle of Vladimir Putin has changed. Many a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/mundo/2022/03/11/todos-contra-putin-sus-funcionarios-mas-leales-se-sienten-enganados-por-el-ataque-a-ucrania/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"bof his most loyal allies were not aware of the President's plans to invade Ukraine and were not ready for punishment. Several Russian sources told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in Kiev: “Those who have built fame and empire for many years, or who have grown a sweet life abroad between Western villages and huge hidden accounts, today see the castle collapsing like sand. Western sanctions”.
According to reports from US and European intelligence officials, as Putin escalated the war, the president became more and more isolated. It seems that businessmen and politicians who belong to Putin's inner world now do not want or can not put pressure on them to change their course.
More and more advisors and ex-kicks, including industrialist bOleg Deripaska and billionaire banker Mikhail Friedman
The Washington Post has successfully identified some key players in an extensive network of political and economic elites surrounding Russian leaders. Many of these individuals have been punished by the United States, the United Kingdom, or the European Union, while others are out of restrictions.
In the context of Russia, few are very wealthy business elites with unbalanced political power, which appeared in two distinct waves.
The first privatization group of the 1990s came out, especially since 1995, from cash sales to the largest state-owned enterprises. This process was undermined by severe corruption and culminated in the notorious “stock lending” scheme, which opted for poles by transferring shares of 12 large natural resources companies from the government in exchange for loans to increase the federal budget.
The government deliberately repaid loans, so few people auctioned off future creditors and shares of giants.
After Putin came to power in 2000, he promoted a second wave of oligarchy through a state agreement. Private service providers from many sectors, such as infrastructure, defense and healthcare, will overcharge the government at a price several times higher than the market and offer bribes to relevant state officials. Thus, Putin has enriched a new minority who owes enormous wealth.
In essence, Putin proposed a deal - the oligarchy will move away from politics, and the Kremlin will stop doing business and often leave illegal interests alone.
Few people have helped Putin stay in power through a political stalemate and financial support for the Kremlin's internal initiatives. These people have a huge share in industries such as metals, banking, technology, petrochemicals, and luxury real estate.
According to media reports, there have been government statements, leaks of financial statements, and, in some cases, interviews with men, several old friends or partners of the president, including Arkady Rotenberg, Putin's childhood friend and former judo partner.
In the Premier League, some such as Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea football club, have long denied direct financial relations with Putin. In the case of Abramovich, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week that “clear evidence” appears to link Abramovich with Putin's regime.
However, others, such as bPeter Avin, acknowledged his relationship with Putin. Robert S. Muller III, who investigated Russia's intervention in the 2016 presidential election in an interview with an American university, said he was one of the 50 wealthy Russian businessmen who regularly met Putin, but he and his business partner Mikhail Friedman (Mikhail Friedman) said in a statement earlier this month that “lies about imposing EU sanctions are unfounded. I'm going to challenge it.”
In Russia,a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/mundo/2022/03/12/la-verdad-como-victima-de-guerra-vladimir-putin-utiliza-rt-y-sputnik-para-generar-contenidos-toxicos-y-desinformacion/" rel="noopener noreferrer" most of the media is directly or indirectly controlled by the state or by entities related to President Putin. The remaining few independent media face many restrictions in their work, many of which are classified as “foreign agents”.
Today, due to the threat of web blocking and economic fines, words such as “war”, “Ukrainian army” or “aggression” are not allowed to be used in the media. Audio-visual media do not broadcast photos of Russian hospitals during the pandemic, so they do not broadcast photos of Ukraine. This invasion was presented as a “military operation” to open parts of Ukraine and protect the Russian-speaking population from “genocide”. However, many Russian journalists were at war. I was against it. They encouraged a declaration of condemnation and What conflicts in Russia can mean cultural, economic and social It blamed corruption.
Misinformation is an ancient method that has been systematically used in armed conflicts. Russia has developed a large electronic capacity capable of generating fraud and misinformation abroad, known as “Internet Research Institute”, RT and Sputnik Media, etc. Media creates content, trolls work on social networks, generates many confusing narratives, creates doubts, facts, and confusing opinions.The main goal of such operations is to build and spread claims in favor of the Russian government and foreign policy.
In order to avoid misinformation and toxic content generated by it, the EU stated last month that it imposed sanctions against a large number of media figures and declared restrictions on the use of Russian platforms to support “actions or policies” by all those included in official magazines that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”
This includes editors, writers, journalists and talk show organizers of the most important television networks in the United States.Each of them is described as spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda by the European Union.
Critics of Russia said that sanctions on energy exports would be the best way to force Moscow to withdraw.
Russia is an energy-rich country with the largest gas reserves in the world.Europe relies heavily on energy imported from Russia, the second largest exporter of crude oil in the world after Saudi Arabia. Exports of oil and natural gas are essential for the Kremlin economy, but it is also one of Putin's most important geopolitical weapons.
The United States has banned all imports of energy from Russia, including oil. Germany also stated that it will suspend its approval for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.However, since Western leaders are wary of measures that could harm consumers, these products have largely spared no sanctions. After the invasion of Russia, oil prices have already risen.
The state-owned oil company Rosneft is one of the largest listed oil companies in the world, and its CEO and President Igor Sechen has been contributing and loyal to Putin for a long time. bNikolai Tokarev, the chief general of the Russian intelligence service, who worked with Putin in the 1980s, is currently the president of Transneft, a state-owned company that carries most of the oil extracted from Russia.
Putin's government includes Defense Minister, fishery and fishery partner Sergei Shoigu, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The United States and the European Union have targeted sanctions against two men in recent weeks. Both of them have not publicly commented on the punishment.
However, according to Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borugan, a politician with no combat experience, Shoigu said that he was “one of the most ambitious members of Putin's inner world.” He received Putin from his home in the Siberian Mountains, and local media reports collected in a ipost/i newspaper describe him as a “close ally” and “friend” of the president..
However, according to Lieutenant General Scott D. Perrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Service, the fierce resistance to Ukraine's aggression caused the loss of up to 4000 Russian soldiers.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin (Sergei Sobyanin) are not necessarily key advisers, but are responsible for implementing Putin's internal policies. That is why Switzerland and the European Union chose Mishustin to impose sanctions, and Canada included Sobyanin on the list.
Experts say that since Putin is a former intelligence officer, he trusts military and security officials more. Some have been around for many years - from Chechnya to Syria to Crimea.
Among the most important reported in the Washington Post are the head of the Federal Security Service Alexander Portnikov, Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patruhev, and Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin. Valery Gerasimov is the Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and is partially responsible for the war plan.
According to US and European intelligence officials, Putin's close advisers may not tell the truth about how difficult and expensive the war is. It is not known who will make the decision. The fact is that for three weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, despite the presence of an advanced air force, it has not yet managed to control the Ukrainian sky and suffered huge military losses.
Infographic: Marcelo Regalado
(Includes information from AP)
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