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Smotryashchie, kuratory (Russia) (view source)
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According to one of the leading architects of the original Putin system, Gleb Pavlovsky (2016<ref>Pavlovsky, G. 2016. ‘Russian Politics Under Putin. The System Will Outlast the Master’, '' Foreign Affairs'', May/June: 10-17. Available at: www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2016-04-18/russian-politics-under-putin</ref>), '' kuratory'' exist because the Kremlin has always relied on informal practices and twenty years of political technology. But '' kuratory'' were increasingly prominent after Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012, reflecting the development of a ‘new governance style’ that ‘relies on indirection and interpretation rather than command and control’. In this system, ‘curators’ are ‘semi-official figures through whom state governance flows. A curator is a political bureaucrat, a project manager authorized by the Kremlin to operate through personal agents’ (11-13). | According to one of the leading architects of the original Putin system, Gleb Pavlovsky (2016<ref>Pavlovsky, G. 2016. ‘Russian Politics Under Putin. The System Will Outlast the Master’, '' Foreign Affairs'', May/June: 10-17. Available at: www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2016-04-18/russian-politics-under-putin</ref>), '' kuratory'' exist because the Kremlin has always relied on informal practices and twenty years of political technology. But '' kuratory'' were increasingly prominent after Putin’s return to the Presidency in 2012, reflecting the development of a ‘new governance style’ that ‘relies on indirection and interpretation rather than command and control’. In this system, ‘curators’ are ‘semi-official figures through whom state governance flows. A curator is a political bureaucrat, a project manager authorized by the Kremlin to operate through personal agents’ (11-13). | ||
But with the aggression against Ukraine taking the form of so-called ‘hybrid war’ from 2014 '' kuratory'' were perfect agents for disguise and deniability. According to Pavlovsky, '' kuratory'' do not leave much of a paper trail: ‘Approval for any particular proposal takes the form of '' otmashka'', which can be translated as “go-ahead”, implying not so much an order as a license to act in a desired direction’. '' Kuratory'' were behind the operations in Crimea and the Donbas. Though, as Pavlovsky stresses, ‘The trouble with curators is that it’s far easier to set them loose than to rein them back in’ (11-13). In Crimea, Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu was at the top of the pyramid. His main curator in Crimea was Oleg Belaventsev, an alleged former spy expelled from the UK in 1985 (Zygar’ 2016: 338<ref>Zygar’, M. 2016. '' Vsya kremlevskaya rat’: Kratkaya istoriya sovremennoi Rossii''. Moscow: Intellektual’naya literatura. </ref>). Belaventsev oversaw the ‘choice’ of leaders for the coup d’état in February 2014; and, unusually perhaps, emerged out of the shadows to be appointed Putin’s special envoy in Crimea after the annexation. Another Shoigu protégé Frants Klintsevich, head of the Union of Veterans of Afghanistan, organised the flight of ‘170 former soldiers, veterans of Afghanistan and Chechnya, and also sportsmen, bikers and participants of patriotic clubs’ to Sevastopol on 28 February 2014. ‘They were portrayed as demonstrators, flurried Crimeans, who demanded the joining of Crimea to Russia. This was an improvised Maidan, just as earnest as the Kiev one. With the only difference that the majority of participants were Russian, that is at that moment citizens of another state’ (Zygar’ 2016: 341<ref>Zygar’, M. 2016. '' Vsya kremlevskaya rat’: Kratkaya istoriya sovremennoi Rossii''. Moscow: Intellektual’naya literatura. </ref>; Kanev 2014<ref>Kanev, S. 2014. ‘Spetsturisty’ and ‘Geroi pod grifom “Sekretno”’, '' Novaya gazeta'', no. 71, 2 July, and no. 64, 16 June</ref>). | But with the aggression against Ukraine taking the form of so-called ‘hybrid war’ from 2014 ''kuratory'' were perfect agents for disguise and deniability. According to Pavlovsky, '' kuratory'' do not leave much of a paper trail: ‘Approval for any particular proposal takes the form of '' otmashka'', which can be translated as “go-ahead”, implying not so much an order as a license to act in a desired direction’. '' Kuratory'' were behind the operations in Crimea and the Donbas. Though, as Pavlovsky stresses, ‘The trouble with curators is that it’s far easier to set them loose than to rein them back in’ (11-13). In Crimea, Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu was at the top of the pyramid. His main curator in Crimea was Oleg Belaventsev, an alleged former spy expelled from the UK in 1985 (Zygar’ 2016: 338<ref>Zygar’, M. 2016. '' Vsya kremlevskaya rat’: Kratkaya istoriya sovremennoi Rossii''. Moscow: Intellektual’naya literatura. </ref>). Belaventsev oversaw the ‘choice’ of leaders for the coup d’état in February 2014; and, unusually perhaps, emerged out of the shadows to be appointed Putin’s special envoy in Crimea after the annexation. Another Shoigu protégé Frants Klintsevich, head of the Union of Veterans of Afghanistan, organised the flight of ‘170 former soldiers, veterans of Afghanistan and Chechnya, and also sportsmen, bikers and participants of patriotic clubs’ to Sevastopol on 28 February 2014. ‘They were portrayed as demonstrators, flurried Crimeans, who demanded the joining of Crimea to Russia. This was an improvised Maidan, just as earnest as the Kiev one. With the only difference that the majority of participants were Russian, that is at that moment citizens of another state’ (Zygar’ 2016: 341<ref>Zygar’, M. 2016. '' Vsya kremlevskaya rat’: Kratkaya istoriya sovremennoi Rossii''. Moscow: Intellektual’naya literatura. </ref>; Kanev 2014<ref>Kanev, S. 2014. ‘Spetsturisty’ and ‘Geroi pod grifom “Sekretno”’, '' Novaya gazeta'', no. 71, 2 July, and no. 64, 16 June</ref>). | ||
Vladislav Surkov represented another line of influence. Two Ukrainian sources paint a different picture: one implies Belaventsev was just a stooge for Surkov (Koshkina, 2015<ref>Koshkina, S. 2015. '' Maidan: Nerasskazannaya istoriya''. Kyiv: CreateSpace</ref>); another stresses demand as well as supply, with the chair of the Crimean assembly Vladimir Konstantinov making the key trips to Moscow in December 2013 to ask for support (Berezovets 2015: 65-9; Zygar’ 2016: 337<ref>Berezovets, T. 2015, '' Aneksiya: Ostriv Krym. Khroniky “hybrydnoï viiny” ''. Kyiv: Bright Star Publishing</ref>). | Vladislav Surkov represented another line of influence. Two Ukrainian sources paint a different picture: one implies Belaventsev was just a stooge for Surkov (Koshkina, 2015<ref>Koshkina, S. 2015. '' Maidan: Nerasskazannaya istoriya''. Kyiv: CreateSpace</ref>); another stresses demand as well as supply, with the chair of the Crimean assembly Vladimir Konstantinov making the key trips to Moscow in December 2013 to ask for support (Berezovets 2015: 65-9; Zygar’ 2016: 337<ref>Berezovets, T. 2015, '' Aneksiya: Ostriv Krym. Khroniky “hybrydnoï viiny” ''. Kyiv: Bright Star Publishing</ref>). | ||