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Notes
1. See, e.g., Aleksashenko, S.; P. Baev, A. Kynev; N. Petrov; and K. Rogov (Ed. K. Rogov), http://www.liberal.ru/upload/files/krepost.pdf; Politicheskoe razvitie Rossii. 2014–2016: Instituty i praktiki avtoritarnoi konsolidatsii,” http://www.liberal.ru/upload/files/Prakticheskoe_razivitie_Rossii.pdf
2. On the other hand, when the leader-dominant legitimacy weakened, the elections of autumn 2018 caused some absolutely logical glitches.
3. Russia 2025: Scenarios for the Future. Eds. Maria Lipman, Nikolay Petrov. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
4. Guriev, S., and D. Treisman. “How Modern Dictators Survive: An Informational Theory of the New Authoritarianism.” https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/sem2016/development/guriev.pdf
5. Old major cases continued to be expanded (the case of Mikhal’chenko, the Federal Customs Service, the Federal Protective Service, and builders; the case of the Culture Ministry; the case of the Federal Penitentiary Service and Rostekhnadzor; the case of Summa and the Magomedovs; the case of the Moscow SKR; RUSNANO, and Spetsstroi), and new ones were initiated (cases involving Dagestan; the Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation and I. Chuian; Rosimushchestvo and E. Patkina; Voentelekom and the Defense Ministry; and the Central Sports Club of the Army). At the start of 2019 another one was added: the case of the Arashukovs, Mezhregiongaz, and the Karachay-Cherkess Republic.
6. See, e.g., Treisman, D., ed. The New Autocracy. Information, Politics, and Policy in Putin’s Russia, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/book/the-new-autocracy.
7. A rough translation of the Russian phrase “Byl by chelovek, a stat’ia naidetsia,” usually attributed to Stalin’s chief prosecutor Andrei Vyshinskii.—Trans.
8. Stanovaia, T. “Politicheskaia divergentsiia. Pochemu opory putinskogo rezhima stali borot’sia drug s drugom.” May 14, 2019. https://carnegie.ru/commentary/79112.
9. At one time, even before the current spiral of repressions ramped up, the main position in the political elite on the “hit list” was the mayor. M. Tul’skii, in his article “During the period of Medvedev’s thaw 50 opposition mayors were repressed,” 11/2/2011 (http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/ tulsky/826429-echo), cites data showing that in total more than fifty mayors were repressed during Medvedev’s thaw (2008–2011) for daring to defeat the United Russia (UR) official candidate; furthermore, 90 percent of the people who were elected mayor against UR’s wishes were jailed and ousted, while only 10 percent of those who were elected and backed by UR received the same treatment.
10. In the few weeks that followed the arrest of the Arashukovs, Gazprom went through a “personnel revolution”—the most radical revamping of top management in the past twenty years. Three of the five vice-chairmen of the executive board and seven of the fifteen board members left the company, including K. Seleznev, the head of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz, who was close to Aleksei Miller.
11. The reader will recall that a radical reshuffle took place in the leadership of the security-agency and law-enforcement blocs, as a result of which the siloviki who had political weight and ambitions, such as FSB chief N. Patrushev; V. Cherkesov, head of the FSKN [Federal Drug Control Service]; and in part Justice Minister V. Ustinov found themselves bereft of his security-agency resource, and they were replaced by silovik-technocrats, who did not have and never have developed political resources. At the same time, conversely, the “gray cardinal,” presidential aide V. Ivanov, received a security-agency resource (the FSKN) but lost his political resource.
12. According to V. Surkov, the Western “system of checks and balances is a dynamic equilibrium of baseness, a balance of greed, a harmony of trickery,” while in our country “the most brutal structural elements of its security-based framework run right along the façade, unconcealed by any architectural frills” (Surkov, V. “Dolgoe gosudarstvo Putina. O tom, chto zdes’ voobshche proiskhodit,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, February 11, 2019, p. 5).
13. See “Otkhodnaia spetsoperatsiia. V naznachenie rukovodstva ‘Rossiiskogo ekologicheskogo operatora’ vmeshalis’ siloviki,” Kommersant, February 13, 2019,. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3882121.
14. The trial in the case of Studio Seven began in October 2018 and as of the time this article was prepared, March 1, 2019, it had not yet concluded.
15. Here, for example, is what V. Byzov, the head of the administration and right-hand man of the leader of Khakassia, and until recently deputy chief of the regional directorate of the FSB, said in court (he had been detained in December 2016 and sentenced in February 2018 to nine years for taking a bribe): “Colonel Shavronskii, deputy chief of the FSB, had multiple conversations with me in which he proposed that I slander the head of Khakassia, Zimin. On February 17 he showed me a daily planner and said: ‘Here is a list of names. You will get twenty years. Considering your health, you will never go free. So make a deal,’ he told me.” http://abakan.bezformata.com/listnews/bizov-mne-predlagali-dat/57406874, accessed 03/01/2019.
16. The oprichnina was a repressive policy that targeted members of the boyar elite under Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century. “Oprichnina” also refers to the special police force that implemented the policy, carrying out mass executions and confiscating the boyars’ property.—Trans.
17. O. Feoktistov, who came out of the shadows into the light in connection with the Uliukaev case, was ousted, while I. Tkachev, who in his own words “worked on all the governors, all the chiefs, all the krais,” currently heads Directorate K of the FSB’s Economic Security Service.
18. It is appropriate here to recall Putin’s infamous “Why isn’t anybody going to jail?,” which he directed at the siloviki in the middle of 2009.
19. In Russian police slang, a “check mark” [palka] is earned by clearing a case, which is a key measure of job performance and a determinant of potential awards.—Trans.
20. Reshetnikov emphasized: “Having encountered this kind of treatment from pseudo corruption fighters in the person of prosecutor (Aleksei) Kiselev, the leadership of the oblast prosecutor’s office, investigator Kondrat’ev, his manager (Petr) Krupenia, and FSB chief (Dmitrii) Sivak, I have to say I am extremely disillusioned with my government. Disillusioned that these individuals are taking the very opportunity to use the law in their own interests.” https://ura.news/news/1052282454.
21. In December 2017 the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to twelve years.
23. Oboronservis (Defense Service) was an open joint-stock holding company that coordinated Russian defense contractors. It was renamed Garnizon (Garrison) in 2015.—Trans.
24. The trial in the Studio Seven case is currently under way.
25. See Petrov, N. “Putin’s Neo-Nomenklatura System and Its Evolution.” Stubborn Structures: Study in Reconceptualizing Post-Communist Regimes. New York, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2018, Ch. 5, pp. 179–215.