KTAF NEWS

Vladimir Putin has often cut a solitary figure as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine drags on, but his position is bolstered by a deeply loyal entourage that has hardly changed in years.

As commander in chief, ultimate responsibility for the invasion rests with him, but he is reliant on an inner circle, many of whom began their careers in Russia’s security services.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was once a close and powerful ally, but never part of that circle. So who does have the president’s ear at this defining moment of the war?

For months, two men have been in Prigozhin’s crosshairs, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the head of the armed forces, Valery Gerasimov.

He has accused both of responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of Russians in the war in Ukraine. What was a bitter and long-running feud has turned into a national crisis.

If anyone has the president’s ear, it is his defence minister, a long-time confidant who has in the past gone with him on hunting and fishing trips to Siberia and was once viewed as a potential successor.

He has dutifully toed the Putin line, first that Russia was demilitarising Ukraine and then that it was the “collective West” that had launched the war, not Russia.

Sometimes you wonder how much of President Putin’s ear he is able to reach. This extraordinary photo was taken three days into the invasion in February 2022.

Barely had Russia’s military campaign begun and it was struggling with unexpected Ukrainian resistance and low military morale.

“Shoigu was supposed to be marching to Kyiv; he’s minister of defence and was supposed to win it,” said Vera Mironova, a specialist in armed conflict.

And yet he is still playing a vital role in the war, although Prigozhin accuses him of lying to the president about the reality on the ground in Ukraine.

He was credited with the military seizure of Crimea in 2014. He was also in charge of the GRU military intelligence agency, accused of two nerve agent poisonings – the deadly 2018 attack in Salisbury in the UK and the near-fatal attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Siberia in 2020.

The picture looks even worse as a close-up. “It looks like a funeral,” says Ms Mironova.

It may look awkward, but Russian security expert and writer Andrei Soldatov has suggested the defence minister is the most influential voice the president hears.

“Shoigu is not only in charge of the military, he’s also partly in charge of ideology – and in Russia, ideology is mostly about history and he’s in control of the narrative.”

As chief of staff, it was his job to invade Ukraine and complete the job fast – and by that standard, he was found wanting.

But there is a reason he is the longest-serving chief of staff since the Soviet era. Vladimir Putin clearly has faith in him.

He has played a major role in Russian military campaigns ever since he commanded an army in the Chechen War of 1999, and he was at the forefront of military planning for Ukraine too, overseeing pre-war military drills in Belarus.

Described as an “unsmiling, craggy bruiser” by Russia specialist Mark Galeotti, Gen Gerasimov also played a key role in the military campaign to annexe Crimea.

Initially there was talk of him being sidelined, because of the stuttering start to the invasion of Ukraine and reports of poor morale among the troops.

He failed to appear in the annual Moscow military parade in May 2022. And yet in January this year, he was appointed commander of forces in Ukraine, replacing Gen Sergei Surovikin, who is now his deputy.

“Putin cannot control every road and every battalion, and that is his role,” said Andrei Soldatov.

“Patrushev is the most hawkish hawk, thinking the West has been out to get Russia for years,” says Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London.

He is one of three Putin loyalists who have served with him ever since the 1970s in St Petersburg, when Russia’s second city was still known as Leningrad.

The other two stalwarts are security service chief Alexander Bortnikov and foreign intelligence head Sergei Naryshkin. All the president’s inner circle are known as siloviki, or enforcers, but this trio are closer still.

Few hold as much influence over the president as Nikolai Patrushev. Not only did he work with him in the old KGB during the communist era, he replaced him as head of its successor organisation, the FSB, from 1999 to 2008.

It was during a bizarre meeting of Russia’s security council, three days before the invasion, that Mr Patrushev pushed his view that the US’s “concrete goal” was the break-up of Russia.

He has since accused the US of preparing “biological war”, and Washington and London of leading the West in the hope of defeating Russia.

When the Kakhovka dam was blown up in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine in a suspected Russian attack, he blamed Ukraine, backed up by the US, UK and their Nato allies.

“He’s the one who has the chief battle cry, and there’s a sense in which Putin has moved towards his more extreme position,” says Ben Noble.

Kremlin watchers say the president trusts information he receives from the security services more than any other source, and Alexander Bortnikov is seen as being part of the Putin inner sanctum.

Another old hand from the Leningrad KGB, he took over the leadership of its replacement FSB when Nikolai Patrushev moved on.

The FSB has considerable influence over other law enforcement services and even has its own special forces.

He’s important, but he’s not there to challenge the Russian leader or give advice in the same way as others, believes Andrei Soldatov.

Completing the trio of old Leningrad spooks, Sergei Naryshkin has remained alongside the president for much of his career.

That has not stopped President Putin giving him a televised dressing-down when he fluffed his lines on being asked for his assessment of the situation before the war.

The lengthy session was edited, so the Kremlin had clearly decided to show his discomfort in front of a big television audience.

“Putin loves playing games with his inner circle, making [Naryshkin] look a fool,” said Andrei Soldatov.

Sergei Naryshkin has long shadowed the president, in St Petersburg in the 1990s, then in Mr Putin’s office in 2004 and eventually becoming speaker of parliament. But he also heads the Russian Historical Society and has proved important in providing the president with ideological grounds for his actions.

He once denied in an interview with BBC Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg that Russia had carried out poisonings and cyber-attacks or had interfered in other countries’ elections.