An official who spent twelve years in charge of industrial cooperation with the West took four years to become one of the loudest voices explaining why cooperation with the West is impossible.
Andrey Belousov came to the Defence Ministry as an economist whom Vladimir Putin had tasked with making the Russian war machine more efficient — with fitting enormous military spending into the country’s economy. Two years on, another question arises: might the Kremlin need the same man if Moscow has to solve the reverse problem — how to leave the war while minimising the economic consequences for Russia?
Alexander Dugin was never the brain of the system. He was its affect — the resentment kept on staff. And affects get written off the moment cold calculation is required.
The words about a “cult of personality” capable of destroying a country came not from some émigré oppositionist — but from Putin’s own foreign minister. And they may cost him far more than his career.
How Igor Sechin subjugated Russian oil, why the war became his business model — and why his time is running out.
The West has a habit of quoting Nikolai Patrushev as the voice of deep Russia. The best proof that the caption under the portrait is wrong has been supplied by Putin himself.
