War in Ukraine: these Russian fanatics who want to go further than Putin

They are the hardliners of the regime, the exacerbated nationalists, the diehards. They are politicians, intellectuals or journalists, but above all they constitute the essential relays that the Kremlin needs to shape consciences. Faced with the difficulties that the Russian army is currently encountering in Ukraine, these hawks sometimes seem to be free spirits, not hesitating to criticize the army - which is criminally reprehensible in Russia - or to propose extremist ideas. They thus sometimes seem more fanatical than Putin himself. Unless the latter uses them to spread ideas, denounce attitudes and probe reactions. Listening to or reading the daily ramblings of Vladimir Solovyov, the warlike eructations of Ramzan Kadyrov, the civilizational analyzes of Nikolai Patrushev, the administrative justifications of Sergei Kirienko and the nationalist injunctions of Egor Kholmogorov is interesting in that they represent all the feelings of Kremlin, in its certainties and in its doubts.

Vladimir Solovyov, the Kremlin's chief propagandist, hosts the Rossiya-1 channel's flagship talk show.

Russian Media Monitor

Vladimir Soloviev is a pragmatic man who changed his mind at the right time. While in 2007 he criticized, in the book The Love of Power, members of United Russia, the party of Vladimir Putin, he returned, in 2019, to the Guinness World Records for having stayed for twenty-five hours, fifty - three minutes and fifty-seven seconds following the presentation of a program on Rossiya-1, the Kremlin channel. Power, he ended up loving it, going so far as to sell his soul for not so expensive: beautiful apartments in Moscow, a huge dacha on the outskirts of the city and a villa near the Italian Lake Como. Today the host of a television program entitled Evening with Vladimir Soloviev, this former professor of economics at the University of Alabama in the United States spits an increasingly bitter nationalist venom daily in the face of the difficulties encountered by the Russian army in Ukraine.

In early September, he called for a purge of the Russian command, which he said was responsible for the current situation. "What is said about Rossiya-1 is never foreign to what is said in the Kremlin. If military officials are targeted, it is because Putin himself is unhappy about it", explains Galia Ackerman, specialist in Post-Soviet Russia. Like his master, he also regularly evokes nuclear weapons, presented as a completely serious alternative. The man is fanatical, inviting the most radical intellectual figures in Russia to his talk show and belching out his hatred of the West, which has the permanent project of destroying his country. A sign of his importance, or rather of his reliability, he is one of the few journalists authorized to interview Vladimir Putin. And for Russians who do not watch television, it is always possible to find him on the radio, on the state station Vesti FM. Soloviev is everywhere, as must be the spirit of the Kremlin.

Along with Margarita Simonian, editor-in-chief of Sputnik and Russia Today, Dmitri Kisselev, head of the Rossia Segodnya news agency, and Olga Skabeïeva, presenter of the program 60 minutes on Rossiya 1, Soloviev is part of this team of chief propagandists, sort of modern information hydras whose mission is to legitimize government action by making it pass not only as their own, but above all as the only possible one.

In this file photo taken August 31, 2019, Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov talks to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow.

Alexey NIKOLSKY / SPUTNIK / AFP

If we had to sum up the personality of Ramzan Kadyrov in one word, it is not really the qualifier "emotional" that would come to mind. But, after all, the Kremlin knows him better than anyone. It is indeed by this character trait that Moscow has tried to justify the statements of the Chechen leader, who this Saturday called on Russia to use "low-power nuclear weapons" so that the difficulties of the Russian army in Ukraine are just a bad memory. By an astonishing process of reversal, it was therefore Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, who made himself the voice of reason: "In difficult times, emotions must be excluded. We prefer to make measured assessments and objectives". Kadyrov's excessive enthusiasm was channeled, but not snubbed, Peskov not forgetting to recall the "heroic contribution" of the head of the Chechen Republic since the start of the invasion.

First supporter of Vladimir Putin, Kadirov is, in fact, fully committed to the war. He often stages himself in combat gear, broadcasts videos of his men going to the front and has even sent three of his children, aged 14, 15 and 16, to fight. "Chechen soldiers are widely publicized, because they are reputed to be very violent, but they represent only 100 to 200 new fighters per week", tempers Galia Ackerman. Nevertheless, Kadyrov is a very useful personality for the regime. When he attacks the general staff of the army and calls the general in charge of operations "incapable", it must be seen, according to the specialist in Russian geopolitics, Luka Aubin, interviewed by France Info , "an open attack against the army and not against Vladimir Putin". As in the Solovyov case, the criticism against the "special operation" in Ukraine therefore has every chance of having been validated by the Kremlin, which hides its annoyance less and less vis-à-vis the senior military officers. army. It is hard to see why Kadyrov - who owes all his power to Putin and has always supported him - would take the risk of turning away from him at such a critical moment. And as proof that the two still get along just as well, Kadyrov announced on Wednesday that he had been promoted to colonel-general by a decree from Putin, the third highest rank in the Russian military hierarchy.

Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council and eminence grise of Vladimir Putin, on May 26, 2015, in Moscow.

AFP

Unlike the other personalities presented here, Nikolai Patrushev is much more a thinker than an executor. The fact is that he is a long-time friend of Putin, that he followed a professional career quite similar to this one in the intelligence services, and that he sees himself "as a servant of the state whose mission is to preserve Russia and its interests", in the words of journalist Elena Tchernenko, who interviewed him for the Moscow newspaper Kommersant. As Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Patrushev knows everything, and if he is not the constitutional successor in case Putin is impeded - it is Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin - he is his Eminence. grey. His word, as rare as it is informed, is golden. In the only interview he has given since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, to the state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, he explained the need for intervention: "Using their henchmen in kyiv, the Americans, in an attempt to suppress Russia, decided to create an antipode of our country, cynically choosing Ukraine for this, trying to essentially divide one people".

In an interview with L'Express, the former Financial Times correspondent in Moscow, Catherine Belton, even puts forward the idea that "it was Patrushev who convinced Putin that the United States was using Ukraine to weaken Russia", before describing him as "intransigent". His country fighting, according to him, to save its cultural identity in the face of the decline advocated by the West, he recommends to intensify the efforts so that the Ukrainian State bursts. With the declaration of partial mobilization of the reservists, this is what Putin is doing.

Sergei Kirienko shaking hands with Vladimir Putin.

AFP

Of all the nicknames he has been given throughout his political career - such as "Kinder Suprise" after being appointed Prime Minister by Boris Yeltsin in 1998 - it is indeed that of "Viceroy of Donbass" which gives an idea of ​​the strategic importance currently occupied by Sergei Kirienko in the organization chart of the Kremlin. As deputy head of the presidential administration, he was responsible for organizing and supervising the proper conduct of the referendums decided by Russia in the four occupied regions of Ukraine: Kherson, Zaporijia, Luhansk and Donetsk. The results lived up to expectations, and Kirienko can at least brag to Putin about the administrative success of the "denazification" mission in eastern Ukraine.

Today convinced of the merits of an intervention in Ukraine, Kirienko was nevertheless, at the end of the 1990s, the representative of the liberal political wing of Russia. But the terrible economic crisis which struck the country at this time - put on the account of the opening to economic liberalism - will have been right of its convictions. Above all, he should have disappeared from the political landscape if Putin had not saved him as soon as he came to power. Between 2005 and 2016, he notably charged him with developing Russia's nuclear fleet. This collaborator without a specific portfolio and without a clear ideology sees his "influence grow", according to Catherine Belton, who cited him first when asked who were the key men in Putin's entourage.

Egor Kholmogorov exposes in his galleries an ultranationalist vision of Russian patriotism.

Wikimedia Commons

Intellectual of blogs and philosopher of TV shows, Yegor Kholmogorov gives the Kremlin the intellectual legitimacy of its actions. Columnist on Russia Today, presenter on Radio Sputnik and columnist in a plethora of nationalist newspapers and sites, this Muscovite trained at the Faculty of Biblical and Patristic Studies of the capital's university is the defender of an exacerbated nationalism that he founded on the sacred principles of Orthodoxy. A time close to the ideas of Boris Yeltsin, he quickly rallied to Putin's political project, seduced by the idea of ​​an imminent return to Russian greatness. In 2007, he became the main author of the United Russia party website and was repeatedly received by President Putin to discuss the thorny subject of what Russian nationalism is, and should be.

Sharing the same vision, the two men understood each other, and it was with enthusiasm that Kholmogorov welcomed the annexation of Crimea in February 2014, even theorizing the expression "Russian Spring", with the aim that History remember the strength of this people, who always end up taking back what belongs to them. Because Kholmogorov is also a historian, as a member of the Society for the Development of Russian Historical Education. This "revisitor" of History therefore possesses, in the eyes of those in power, the great quality of justifying the political choices of the present in the light of an analysis of the past. Let's not forget that Putin has created an institution "responsible for controlling the writing of History", which requires the assistance of very specific intellectuals. A great enemy of the idea of ​​a sovereign Ukraine - kyiv placed him in 2015 on the list of cultural personalities whose actions constitute a threat to its national security - Kholmogorov has, since last April, presented his own broadcast on Radio Sputnik. At a time when the polls show a growing exasperation of the Russian people about the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin needs him more than ever to remobilize it.