kravietz 🦇An excellent long read describing the internal workings of #Russia system of governance since 1999 until now. The author focuses a lot on depoliticisation, a mechanism through which Russian elites (not to mention the whole society) gradually lost any agency and became cogs in the wheel, ready to comply with any Kremlin demands, regardless how absurd they are or how often they change. I recommend the whole article, even through an auto-translator, here’s just a few conclusions about today’s state of Russian administration:
This administrative ‘efficiency’ comes at a high institutional cost. Firstly, the scope for deviating from standard procedures is expanding. Decisions are taken at the top, often in an arbitrary manner, and are then simply formalised in accordance with procedure. This is what happens, for example, with the scheme to send ‘volunteers’ to the front line.
Secondly, state policy is being replaced by a series of improvisations aimed at immediate results. This includes, for example, the government’s fight against rising egg prices, which led to overproduction and losses for producers.
Thirdly, the distortion of information has reached such depths that even the highest levels of the bureaucracy are working with an incomplete or biased picture of reality. Since the start of the war, a significant portion of economic and judicial statistics in Russia has been withheld. But whilst inaccessible to external observers, this information is also withheld from the bureaucracy and the business sector themselves.
As a result of the combination of these three factors, members of the elite, who are supposed to act as a counterweight to the autocrat, lose their agency and become mere executors of the president’s will — sycophants and lackeys, sensitive to the autocrat’s mood and prioritising his comfort above all else.
Full article: https://carnegieendowment.org/ru/russia-eurasia/research/2026/06/russia-elites-political-overview (in Russian)
Элита без агентности: правящий слой России и логика лояльности
Современный правящий слой в России — не политический класс, а управленческое сообщество, выведенное за пределы конкуренции и публичной подотчетности. Государство в таком виде не обладает собственной волей или стратегией — оно становится операционным аппаратом без внутренней автономии. Пустой оболочкой, способной выполнять функции, но не формировать смыслы.
MAKS 26 👀🇺🇦
Randahl Fink
Hanse Mina
Ukrainska Pravda
Ulrike Franke
NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦