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Kremlin Forces Out Putin’s Former Domestic Policy Adviser Ex-Aide to Putin is Out at the Kremlin
(about 9 hours later)
MOSCOW — The Kremlin on Wednesday announced the resignation of Vladislav Y. Surkov, a longtime domestic policy adviser and architect of Russia’s highly centralized political system, now under strain from protests. MOSCOW — The Kremlin on Wednesday announced the resignation of Vladislav Y. Surkov, in recent years a close aide to Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev and one of the architects of Russia’s highly centralized political system, now under strain from protests and a slowing economy.
Mr. Surkov, a former advertising executive, had coined the phrase “sovereign democracy” to describe the Russian system under President Vladimir V. Putin, a system that preserved popular elections but stripped them of meaning by closely manipulating the process. Mr. Surkov, a former advertising executive, coined the phrase “sovereign democracy” to describe the political system under President Vladimir V. Putin, a system that preserved popular elections but stripped them of meaning by closely manipulating the process, ostensibly to protect Russia from outside meddling.
After waves of protests that began in 2011 by middle-class Muscovites angry about vote rigging, others in the Kremlin elbowed Mr. Surkov aside. “Stabilization devours its own children,” he said then. He was reassigned to a low-key position overseeing innovation in the economy. It backfired in 2011, when waves of protests began by middle-class Muscovites angry about vote rigging. Others in the Kremlin elbowed Mr. Surkov aside, something he took with a shrug then. “Stabilization devours its own children,” he said. He was reassigned to the cabinet after the protests began, a few months before Mr. Putin, then the prime minister, and Mr. Medvedev, then the president, swapped places.
The Kremlin published a statement saying Mr. Putin had signed a decree removing Mr. Surkov from his position “in accordance with his own wishes” and effective immediately. The Kremlin published a statement saying Mr. Putin had signed a decree removing Mr. Surkov from his position “by his own volition” effective immediately. However, analysts said he was almost certainly forced to leave.
The Kremlin statement offered no explanation for why Russia’s prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, who was Mr. Surkov’s direct superior, had not issued the decree. The departure highlighted Mr. Medvedev’s tenuous position, despite his having shown loyalty to Mr. Putin by declining to run for a second term as president last year and endorsing Mr. Putin instead. Today, Mr. Putin has taken to openly casting aspersions on the work of cabinet ministers, who are Mr. Medvedev’s subordinates.
It was a peculiarity, one sure to reinforce the impression lately that Mr. Medvedev is being sidelined in Russian politics, despite the loyalty he showed to Mr. Putin last year by declining to run for a second term as president and endorsing Mr. Putin to run instead. Stanislav Belkovsky, a political commentator, attributed Mr. Surkov’s resignation to conflicts with his successor as the Kremlin’s chief domestic political adviser, Vyachislav Volodin, and with Mr. Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov.
A public dispute earlier this week with a powerful law enforcement organization telegraphed Mr. Surkov’s ouster. These and other powerful lieutenants want to sideline Mr. Medvedev and “do not want to see Medvedev as a successor to Putin,” Mr. Belkovsky said.
The disagreement concerned a centerpiece project of Mr. Medvedev’s presidency, the building of the so-called innovation city of Skolkovo, on the edge of Moscow, which was supposed to attract computer programmers and scientists to work in Russia. After Mr. Medvedev’s departure from the presidency, official support for Skolkovo dried up. During Mr. Putin’s first two terms as president, Mr. Surkov created an array of political tools — Nashi, a youth movement; the United Russia political party; and total control of state television — that helped Mr. Putin consolidate power and orchestrate the Medvedev interlude to comply with a constitutional ban on serving as president for more than two consecutive terms.
Then, a branch of the prosecutor’s office, the investigative committee, this year accused executives in Skolkovo of embezzling government funds. On the side, he styled himself as a literary figure. Mr. Surkov wrote lyrics for a Russian rock group, Agata Kristi, and is widely believed to have written a novel called “Almost Zero” under a pseudonym while working as Mr. Putin’s chief political adviser.
At a speech at the London School of Economics on May 1 during what was described as a private visit to Britain, Mr. Surkov criticized the investigative committee for the crackdown in Skolkovo. Mr. Surkov’s low profile and many tentacles of influence in the Moscow business and artistic elite earned him a reputation as a puppet master of Russian politics. Even nominal opposition figures, like the billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of the Brooklyn Nets, consulted with Mr. Surkov, giving the impression that he had strings attached to all sides.
“The energy with which the investigative committee publishes their suppositions evokes the feeling among normal people that a crime took place,” Mr. Surkov said. “But it is just the investigative committee’s style. It is their energy. Let them prove it.” Still, with a few exceptions, including the imprisonment of Mr. Surkov’s former boss from the private sector, the oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, outright repression was rare during Mr. Putin’s first two terms as president.
In response, the spokesman for the investigative committee, Vladimir Markin, wrote an article published in Izvestia, a Russian newspaper, pondering whether Mr. Surkov would “hold onto his armchair” much longer. But prosecution of dissidents and the passage of laws tightly circumscribing their actitivies has characterized his third term so far.
Mr. Surkov shot back by calling Mr. Markin’s article “graphomania,” a rare public breach among the Russian elite. A public dispute earlier this week with a powerful law enforcement organization was telling of this shift.
Over his career, Mr. Surkov had created an array of political tools — Nashi, a youth movement; the United Russia political party; and total control of state television — that helped Mr. Putin consolidate power in his first two terms as president and also orchestrate the Medvedev interlude to allow Mr. Putin to get around term limits. The disagreement concerned a centerpiece project of Mr. Medvedev’s presidency, the building of the so-called innovation city of Skolkovo, on the edge of Moscow, which was supposed to attract computer programmers and scientists to work in Russia.
Mr. Surkov’s low profile and clout earned him a reputation as a puppet master of Russian politics. On the side, he styled himself a literary figure and was widely rumored to have written a novel under a pseudonym while working as Mr. Putin’s chief political adviser. As a deputy prime minister for innovation, Mr. Surkov had overseen the effort at times.
Mr. Surkov was reassigned to Mr. Medvedev’s cabinet from his previous position, deputy head of the presidential administration in the Kremlin, in December 2011, a move seen as a demotion. Asked about his transfer then, Mr. Surkov told a Russian journalist, “I am too odious for this brave new world.” Then, in April, a branch of the prosecutor’s office, the Investigative Committee, said it had found evidence that the Skolkovo Foundation, set up to finance the construction, had paid $750,000 to an opposition member of Parliament who became a street protest leader, Ilya Ponamarov.
On Wednesday, he posted a brief statement on his Facebook page saying, “I will answer everybody right away, yes it is true.” In an interview, Mr. Ponamarov confirmed that he had received the money as an honorarium for speeches and for preparing a study, but said the contract ended in November 2011, a month before the Moscow street protests began. He denied using the money from Skolkovo to finance the protests.
At a speech at the London School of Economics on May 1 during what was described as a private visit to Britain, Mr. Surkov criticized the Investigative Committee for the crackdown in Skolkovo. “The energy with which the Investigative Committee publishes their suppositions evokes the feeling among normal people that a crime took place,” Mr. Surkov said. “But it is just the Investigative Committee’s style. It is their energy. Let them prove it.”
In response, the spokesman for the Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, wrote an article published in Izvestia, a Russian newspaper, asking whether Mr. Surkov would “hold on to his armchair” much longer.
On Wednesday, Mr. Surkov posted a statement on his Facebook page, saying, “I will answer everybody right away, yes it is true.”