The Duran Podcast - Putin's new administration & the Security Council of Russia

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Putin's new administration & the Security Council of Russia

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Russian President Putin's new administration. It has to go through the approval of the doom, I believe, tomorrow. May 14th is when they're going to look over all the names that Putin has suggested for his new administration. I imagine that they're all going to be approved. Not many changes, to be honest. It wasn't anything that was shocking or any big change. except for the defense ministry. And contrary to what the collective West is saying,

Shoygu was not fired. He wasn't sacked. He wasn't demoted. He's not in a fight with Putin. He was promoted. He was promoted to Secretary of the Security Council. And from what I understand, everything that I've read about the person taking over the defense ministry is that we're looking at a very,

intelligent and very capable manager, administrator, economist, someone who understands the Russian government very well because he was the deputy prime minister, so someone who has a very clear understanding as to how the entirety of the Russian government functions and operates. Lavrov is going to remain as foreign minister. I don't know if you want to say something quickly about that. that's good news for for Russia because I would say that Lavrov is the is the best diplomat in the world today. The one question mark that I do have is what's going to happen with Petrushchev? I think that's going to be interesting to see what happens with Patrush.

I believe Peskov said in a couple of days that will be revealed as well. So anyway, let's discuss Putin's new administration. Absolutely. Now, this is actually a very interesting reshuffling, a reshuffle, if I can say. And again, it's a good example of how Putin never does things that you can expect. And they're not, they're never quite the way they, you know, when anticipated that they would happen. And they don't look, they look different from the way some people in the way. thing. Now, the important thing to understand with this reshuffle is in order to understand what has happened to Shoygo, you have to actually go and do the one thing that, in my experience, Western commentators never do, which is actually look at the role he's been given. Firstly, he's being made Secretary of the Security Council. Now, that puts him, as you correctly say, it's an actual, technically, it is a technical promotion. It puts him in a position where he is now,

in effect, Putin's national security advisor. So he's become, he's filling the role that Jake Sullivan incompetently executes in the United States. But it's more than that, because Shogu has also been given a very important executive role. He has been, he has been, been appointed, at the same time that he's been appointed secretary of the Security Council, he's also been appointed deputy chair of the Military Industrial Commission. Now, that replaces Medvedev, who's the deputy chair of the Security Council, had that role. Shoyku has now been given it. And in addition to that, he has also been appointed head. of the Federal Service for Military Technical Coordination.

Now, that used to be an agency within the Russian Defence Ministry. And a couple of days ago, before this reshuffle, Putin transferred it from the Defense Ministry to the executive office, in other words, to the Secretariat of Russia's Security Council. So what Shoygu has been given, and it's important always to remember about Shoygoo, that he's a civilian engineer. Conti to the fact, you know, the impression many people have, the fact that he wears a uniform, that he has the rank of general. He's actually a civilian. He's never served in the military before he was appointed defense minister. He's never had a military. He doesn't have a military background.

He is a civilian engineer and technocrat and manager. What these appointments do is they put him in charge of the military industrial economy. They give him the role of coordinating military procurement and production and also development of new sales. systems for the Russian military. That's what the military technical department is about. That's what the military industrial commission is about. Now, it's actually been interesting because that's the role that Shoygu has in fact been fulfilling for some time.

Medvedev back in 2022 was appointed deputy head of the military. Industrial Commission. But over the course of the year, this year and last year, it became obvious to me that it was actually Shoygoo, not Medvedev, that was visiting the factories, meeting the engineers, discussing things with the scientists, working out the kind of weapon systems that the military needed, ensuring the uninterrupted supply of these weapon systems to the front lines. things of that kind. So what's now happened is he's been relieved of the administrative functions that come with being defence minister, which are extensive, by the way. And he's now been given the specific role of running the military industrial complex. And of course, he's now reporting

directly to Putin, which he always was, because the Russian defence minister is able to report directly to Putin. But he's also given the role of acting as Putin's major key advisor on national security issues, including, by the way, foreign and intelligence policy. So you could see what's actually happened with Shoygu. I haven't seen a single commentary anywhere in the Western media that refers to the fact that he's been appointed deputy chair of the military industrial commission or that he's also going to head the federal service for military technical cooperation. Just a second. So that's shoy go. Now, the other man that people are talking about at the moment is Belusive. Now, I want to make it very clear. I've never had any direct contacts

with Belusuf. But I have actually met people who've known him. It's the only official of the Russian government. I can say that all, by the way. And this was from a time some years ago when he was not a minister in the Russian government, but was actually Putin's economic advisor. Now, the thing I heard about from these people

is that he is an exceptionally capable man and also a very likable man. He's somebody who makes people work well and who people like working for. And that he is both extremely good at, you know, technical forecasting. We'll come to all of that in a moment. But also an outstandingly good manager. and of course the Defence Ministry, which is a sprawling organisation, always needs a good manager. Now, a number of things. Firstly, it is a misconception that in Russia the defence minister is a military officer.

If you go back all the way to the Russian Revolution of 1917, far more often than not, all the defense ministers have been civilians. All of Joseph Stalin's defense ministers were civilians. Just saying, people like Voroshilov, Bulganin, Stalin himself for a time. They've always been civilians. There was a period during the Cold War when it became accepted that they should be military officers. But then in the 1970s, a decision was made that it should be a civilian person. post again and an important

technical crack called Dimitri Osteino who was again a civilian took over and that's generally been the pattern since then it's and in Putin's case it's always been a civilian always been a civilian administrator who runs the defence ministry now people are talking about Belusuf as an economist

this is not exactly the case. What he was was for a long time he was a official at an agency called the Central Economic Mathematical Institute, which was a institution under the Russian Academy of Sciences set up in the 1960s, which was intended primarily to introduce mathematical and economic forecasting mechanisms into the planning system. And then it seems at some point, and we know about this from Putin, it was, it's not in Belusive's official bio, but I've heard it as well. at a certain point in time, he actually became an official within Gospan, which is the Soviet Union's principal planning agency. And, you know, this happened apparently sometime in the 1980s. Subsequently, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Gospelan became the economics ministry,

which is why Belusuf worked closely for a time with a man called Germen Gref, who was Putin's economics minister during the first term, the first two terms of Putin's time as president. But since then, he has been, Belusive has been, first Putin's economics advisor, and then as Deputy Prime Minister, the man in overall charge of the economy. Now, the Russian economy is booming.

it is doing extremely well. He is doing, he is done by all accounts a superb job and he is an extremely good manager as well. And as I said, his strengths are in planning and forecasting. So he's been transferred to the Defence Ministry at a time when defence procurement, the footprint of the defence industries in Russia has expanded enormously. And he's there to make sure that this situation is managed efficiently,

even as the man who's now taken over from him, as overall head of the Russian economy, is a man called Manturov, who was previously Russia's industry minister and worked, again, directly under Belusuf and is therefore in charge of civil and economic planning. So what we see basically is a strengthening of management and of planning agencies right across the government, Shoygo, acknowledged to be a very, very good manager,

put in charge of the military industrial economy. Belusuf running things at the defense ministry itself and working very closely with Shoyko, who undoubtedly he will know well. And Montourov, an industry chief, close to Belusuf in overall charge of the civilian side of the government. So it makes sense. Yeah, I think this makes sense. Absolutely.

I mean, the more you look at it, it's clear that it makes sense. You know, Shoygu for 12 years from 2012 to 2024. You've got to give him credit. He took the Ministry of Defense to a point where it is outproducing the entirety of the Collective West. Exactly. That's no small feats. Exactly. You know, I understand there's people that have a poisoned view.

I think it is a poison view of Shoygo. and I think a lot of it comes from Progoshan, to be quite honest. Absolutely. But whatever you may think of Shoygu, you can't question the fact that he has taken the Russian defense industry, the Ministry of Defense, to a point where it is outproducing the United States and Europe combined. And where there was a weakness, which was in the drone manufacturing, which we pointed out in the beginning of the special military operation, Russia quickly ramped up in that area as well.

And now they're producing more drones and all of the collective voice combined. I mean, so there's no doubt he's an effective. Shoyu has been an effective and very capable manager and administrator. And when you look at Belusive, it's clear that he's going to come in and they're going to ramp things up even more. and they're going to innovate. Yes. Even more. It's obvious.

And so you look at the team. You have a shoygu in the security council. You have Medvedev in the security council. You have Belusive at the Ministry of Defense. Patrushchev, what happens to Petrusimov is staying in place as well. Oh, absolutely. And I mean, they're also staying in place. That's important.

They made that very clear that he's not moving. I mean, he's going to, he's still chief of general staff. I mean, again, just to reiterate, and we've discussed this in programs we've done on the Tehran, with people like Jack and with others. The major military figure in Russia is the chief of the general staff. And he's the person who is in overall charge of the actual uniformed military. He heads the uniformed military. He's the one who makes the key appointments.

he's the one who plans the strategies. And, well, Gerasimov is widely considered to be extremely capable in this field. And, well, again, you could see that he's running things very effectively in the war. After all, Russia is winning. So, I mean, it is a winning team. And I think people need to understand that. And coming back to Belusive, he's not merely an economist. it's better to talk about him as a technocrat and a planner and a scientific technocrat as well.

So he will, he's someone who, because he worked in the Central Mathematical Institute for such a long time and had all these contacts, he's also somebody who will be, who's probably, whatever undoubtedly is, very close to the scientific establishment in Russia, which is very powerful. and very well organised in a body called the Academy of Sciences, of which Belusive, by the way, for which Belusive worked at one time. So he's, and apparently you mentioned drones. He's always taken a particular interest in drones. I mean, this has been a, I mean, he's played a particular role

in ramping up drone production, helping the Defence Ministry, helping Shogu to increase drone production, by making sure that the civilian economy was functioning alongside that. So it's a logical team to put together. Now, Petrushev, it's intriguing what's going to happen to him. Now, one possibility, and I think we have to float this possibility, is that he could take over Medvedev's job. Medvedev has also been around in Russian politics for a very, very long time.

There have been rumours that Medvedev wrote what he really works. He's a lawyer and his background. is in law and I have been told by several Russian lawyers that he's actually an outstanding lawyer, that he really wants to transfer to the Russian Constitutional Court and eventually to become its chair. Maybe, maybe not. So it could be that Petrushev will take over as deputy chair of Russia's Security Council. I think if that were the case, it would probably have been announced by this point already. Petrushchev is a former intelligence official.

He's coordinating, he's been coordinating intelligence matters for Putin for a long time. And I wonder whether his new post will really be the old post, which is to act again as intelligence coordinator, as some kind of director of national intelligence for Putin. but we'll just have to wait and see. The important point to say about Petrushchev is that he has not been sacked.

They say that he's going to have a new post. And I understand that his son, who's been a very successful agriculture minister, by the way, has been promoted in this reshuffle as well. So it's not as if Petrushchev is in any political trouble. I don't think anybody is in any kind of political trouble. I don't think this is a symptom of power struggle or anything like that, this reshuffle. It's simply rearranging the pieces in order to make the whole system more streamlined as the special military operation in Ukraine has imposed a whole new range of disabilities.

and requirements on the way the government works. I don't think this is much of a reshuffle or shuffle at all, to be quite honest. I mean, a couple of major positions have been changed around, but nothing major. No, nothing major. It's just interesting to see the reaction. I was going to say, it's interesting to see the reaction from the collective voice. They make it as if Putin's government is in danger. And things are falling apart because this was a huge, big reshuffle.

And you look at the positions that have been changed. And you're looking to maybe a couple of positions here and there. Most of the main people and faces are the same. Well, exactly. Lavrov is staying where he is. Yeah. And they always get the security. By the way, they always get the Security Council wrong, the collective West Media.

They misunderstand the Security Council. I wonder why that is. Is it so difficult to understand? They make it seem like the Security Council is a place where Putin dumps people that he's unhappy with. He dumps him at the Security Council. I don't understand why they have such a difficulty understanding the function of the Security Council. That's a hard concept. I completely agree, given that the Security Council is the central institution of the entire Russian political, institutional and governmental system.

I mean, it meets every Tuesday. It has, it publishes readouts. It has a, it has a significant, it has a large secretariat. It is the central decision-making body in Russia. The people who sit on it are the most important and most powerful people in Russia. And within the structure of the Security Council, Shogu has just been promoted. He's just been made its secretary.

So I don't understand that. I've written about the Security Council in the past. I don't understand why people in the West disregarded to the extent that they do. But I'm going to make a guess, which is that in the Western conception, Russia is a dictatorship with Putin as the autocrat. The idea that there is an actually very, very powerful committee,

which is an institutional reality distinct from Putin's own. And obviously he chairs it, he picks its members, but he doesn't have complete freedom to pick its members. Some of people who are members of the Security Council are members because of the positions they occupy. So the heads of the Russian Parliament, the Speaker of the Duma and the Speaker of the Federation Council, for example, are members of the Federation Council of the Security Council by, you know, simply by virtue of being that. But anyway, I think that the idea that there is an institution in Russia that Putin works with and works through and that it is this institution that collectively makes the key decisions in Russia, rather than, you know, Putin doing it all by himself talking to his cronies as, you know, people pretend. well, I think that is something that is so contrary to the whole Western narrative about Russia that they never talk about it. So this vital institution is completely ignored, which is really astonishing. By the way, just to get a sense of how important the Security Council is, its offices and its secretariat is located in a building.

on Staraia Ploschit Old Square in Moscow, near the Kremlin, which before the collapse of the Soviet Union, was where the secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee used to work from. So, I mean, given that, you know, buildings matter in the sense that, you know, if a building comes to represent power, and this building in old squares, Staraia plushet, does for many Russia, represent power. Well, the fact that the Security Council works from that building, its secretariat works

from that building, ought to be a sign that it is an institution to be taken extremely seriously, but in the West they never do. Yeah. I think you explained it well. It blows apart their put into dictator narrative. So they prefer to downplay it. Makes perfect sense. To their detriment.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely, because it means that they simply do not understand how Russia is governed. I said this many times. Contrary to what people in the West believe that it's all, you know, Putin making his decisions and making things up as he goes along and consulting with very few people. On the contrary, the governmental system in Russia is extremely structured, far more so than the system in the United States, for example.

There is no analog to the Security Council, the Russian Security Council, in the United States. The National Security Council, which was created back in the 40s, was expected when it was created to fulfil something like that role, but it never has done. It's a bureaucracy, but it's never. really a council. The Security Council is an actual committee that makes decisions on a weekly basis and where, you know, the top people in Russia come together and talk things through. And all you have to

do is go to the Kremlin's website. And you can see that. And by the way, the Security Council has its own website and very informative it is. And it's a council that's made up of officials from the military sphere, from the economic, financial sphere, from the planning sphere, the legal judicial. I mean, it covers all the bases. Exactly. I think that's the other thing. Its name is misleading. It gives the impression that it's only concerned with foreign security policy,

whereas it deals with everything. It deals with the economy. We're confused with the UN. I think it gets confusing with the UN Security Council. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead. But I mean, it covers everything.

It covers the overall direction, economic policy, domestic policies, all kinds of things. I mean, and it regularly, you know, here's reports. You know, when Putin gets, when, you know, when people want to report to Putin, even people who are not members of the Security Council, often their reports are given to the Security Council, with Putin obviously chairing. So, I mean, it's an absolutely crucial institution within the government. All right. You have any other thoughts about the new government or should we wrap it up?

Well, I mean, it is. It's an interesting change. I mean, I think the other point I would make is that it's been most interesting that the decision was made to make Dennis Mantorov first deputy prime minister in overall charge of the civilian economy. he before was in charge of Russian industry. So it again highlights the fact that the overall priority now is re-industrialization. I mean, they've put an industrial manager, a person who's been responsible for industrial

management and planning in overall charge of the civilian economy as well. So it's, I mean, that is a significant change. In all other respects, the economic team, which has been extraordinarily successful, Nebula at the Central Bank, Siluano for the Finance Ministry, Roshetly go for the economics ministry. They all remain in place as they were expected to. And why wouldn't, and why not, given that they're doing their job very well? And the same holds for the foreign ministry team as well.

And the same applies to the... Exactly. Lavrov, Lavrov apparently once upon the time a couple of years ago, Keen to retire, he's seen as indispensable at the moment. I think that the reality is

that Putin won't part with him until the special military operation is over. He needs Lavrov, the Chinese like him, the Indians like him, they want to work with Lavrov. And so Lavrov stays. And he will be there.

at least for a while. And I'm afraid he's again had to put off his retirement plans. I believe he's 74, I want to see. Yeah, yeah. And in spite of being, you know, apparently a smoker, he looks very healthy, very spry and healthy. He looks super healthy. Yeah, absolutely.

It's very healthy, very active. Okay, we will end it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, butchew, Telegraph, Rothfin and Twitter X and go to the Duran shop, pick up some limited edition merch. The link is the description box down below. Take care.