The reality about Vladimir Putin's shrinking circle of trust

One month after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as repudiations grow inside and outside the country, questions about the core of decision-making power in Russia are on the rise. Who accompanies President Vladimir Putin in his most reckless actions?

Ten years ago, when his long term was averaging, the secret service agent's circle of trust consisted of several dozen people, to whom he listened carefully on different issues.

According to a recent article in New Yorker magazine, based on an interview by journalist Isaac Chotiner with Russian intelligence expert Andrei Soldatov, that circle of trust was made up of people so varied that they ranged from a film director with crazy ideas about the Russian imperial past to a journalist a fan of Chilean Augusto Pinochet, passing by some priests.

However, since 2016 that group of trusted people has begun to shrink to a select team of three or four people who surround Putin today and whom he is willing to listen to.

Among them is Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, whom he trusts, and who has played the main role in this invasion. There is also Nikolai Patrushev, his head of the Security Council and one of his oldest friends, who is still in his environment, and who was his successor as director of the secret service, or F.S.B., and probably one or two other friends from St. Petersburg. That's all.

With regard to the enlarged circle, or even to Putin's support base linked to the group of oligarchs, the relationship seems to be going through a period of tension and coldness. On March 16, Putin issued a chilling warning against disobedience to the Kremlin line, saying that the West was betting “on a fifth column, on traitors to the nation” to weaken Russia.

It is that not many of his most faithful allies had been informed of the president's plans to invade Ukraine, nor were they prepared for sanctions. Several Russian sources spoke to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in Kiev: “Those who for years had built a reputation and empire at home or had cultivated a sweet life abroad between villages in the West and huge hidden accounts, today see their castles crumbling like sand under the hard blow of the Western sanctions”.

And as Putin escalates his war, he becomes more and more isolated, according to reports from US and European intelligence officials. Businessmen and politicians who were once part of Putin's inner circle now seem to not want or be able to pressure him to change course.

The danger of isolation

The loneliness that the Russian president has fallen into could, however, be a danger to the development of war events and, in general, to the global future. Andrei Soldatov is one of the people who believes that “when you are surrounded by people who only listen to you, you come to believe that you are the smartest guy in the place, the one who knows the most about anything”.

“I think that was the biggest challenge for security and intelligence agencies in informing you about what was happening in Ukraine, because everyone knows that Putin has his own strong opinions on the subject. He is even writing articles on the history of Ukraine and talks incessantly about Ukraine. Who could challenge it?” , asks the expert.

On whether the military is an alternative center of power that could take on developing and challenging Putin, Soldatov believes that it is an unknown territory from which it is difficult to know for sure what might happen.

“On the one hand, Shoigu, the Minister of Defense, is a very astute politician. He's been in office for thirty years. He became Minister of Emergency and Disaster Relief in the 1990s, and is still a minister. He now has a much more powerful ministry, but nevertheless he is still the same type. And although we have had so many changes, so many political crises for thirty years, Shoigu always survived. But his thing was always to show his total loyalty to Putin. It may be a game, but Putin believes and trusts him and believes that Shoigu is absolutely loyal to him,” he said.

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