All of Vladimir Putin’s men: A look inside the inner circle of the Russian president

It’s Day 8 and Russian troops have pressed their war on Ukraine, shelling a nuclear power station even as the two sides negotiated safe corridors to safely evacuate citizens.

Even as the Western countries continue their condemnation of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman has refused to back down and has ordered his troops further into Ukraine — all the way to Kyiv.

Follow all LIVE updates on the Russia-Ukraine conflict here

In fact, on Thursday, Vladimir Putin, as per an Associated Press report, told French president Emmanuel Macron he was determined to press on with his attack “until the end.”

As the invasion continues, wreaking destruction, causing loss of lives and also changing the face of Europe, let’s take a look at Putin’s inner circle and the men who are advising him on this offensive.

Sergei Lavrov
Minister of Foreign Affairs

The 71-year-old has been part of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle for years now and has served as Russia’s foreign minister for the past 18 years.

A seasoned diplomat, he is known as a wily, tough operator and has been the face of Russia’s diplomatic efforts throughout the Ukraine crisis.

Lavrov’s tenure as foreign minister is second only to that of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who was in office for 28 years. Like Gromyko, who was nicknamed Mr Nyet {Mr No}, Lavrov has come to represent the uncompromising face of Kremlin foreign policy vis-a-vis the West.

The Associated Press in a report on Lavrov said: He doesn’t mince words when defending what he sees as Moscow’s interests, and that style must appeal to the tough-talking Russian president.

He has vented anger at the West, depicting the US as arrogant, conceited, treacherous and determined to dominate the world. He has contemptuously dismissed Western allies as stooges obediently toeing Washington’s line to deter Russia.

Lavrov doesn’t bother to hide his irritation from the media at what he perceives as their naive or provocative questions, often responding with an air of contempt or plain mockery.

When a CNN reporter in a video call from the Ukrainian capital asked Lavrov whether Moscow wanted to topple the Ukrainian leadership, an angry Lavrov weighed in: “He’s discourteous. He’s working in Ukraine now. He’s got infected with discourtesy.”

On Thursday, he accused Western politicians of fixating on nuclear war. “I would like to point out that it’s in the heads of Western politicians that the idea of a nuclear war is spinning constantly, and not in the heads of Russians,” he said.

“Therefore I assure you that we will not allow any provocations to throw us off balance,” Lavrov added.

He also compared the United States to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and German dictator Adolf Hitler.
“In their time, both Napoleon and Hitler set themselves the task of subjugating Europe. Now the Americans have subdued it,” Lavrov said.

Vladimir Medinsky
Russian Presidential Aide

Russia’s former culture minister and currently Putin’s presidential aide, Vladimir Medinsky is the head of the Russian delegation holding talks with Ukraine in Belarus.

Ahead of the second round of talks on Thursday, Medinsky was quoted telling Russia’s state agency RIA-Novosti, “We definitely want to reach some kind of agreement as quickly as possible, though it has to be in the interests of both sides.”

Appointed as Russia’s cultural minister in 2012, he was ousted in 2020 and replaced by Olga Lyubimova.

According to the Radio Free Europe website, Medinsky “helped lead the charge against art that, in the eyes of conservative activists, touches on so-called ‘gay propaganda’.”

In 2017, he came under fire after being accused of plagiarism when a Russian academic council recommended revoking his 2011 doctorate that focused on “problems of objectivity” in covering Russian history from the 15th to the 17th century. He was later cleared of the charge.

When asked why he had been appointed to head the Russian delegation on the Ukraine matter, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, told TASS, that he possessed certain business-like qualities and is proficient in the most profound expert analysis.

This statement is proof of Putin’s trust in his aide and his abilities, despite him being ousted from the government.

Sergei Shoigu
Minister of Defence

Sergei Shoigu, from the Tuva region of Russia, was appointed as the minister of defence in 2012. It was a surprising choice, as he had no military background or combat experience.

He has been 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 2020.

Shoigu is a close associate of Putin; they go on widely-publicised hunting and shooting expeditions to Siberia together.

He is also one of the people sanctioned by the European Union since the offensive began. The EU said under Shoigu’s “command and orders, Russian troops have held military drills in the illegally annexed Crimea and have been positioned at the border. He is ultimately responsible for any military action against Ukraine.”

Valery Gerasimov
Chief of General Staff of Russian Armed Forces

Gerasimov was appointed Chief of General Staff following the dismissal of Defence Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov on 6 November 2012.

He has played a major role in Vladimir Putin’s 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 military drills in Belarus last month.

He also is credited with coming up with the Gerasimov Doctrine — which is a blend of tactics developed by the Soviets, along with strategic military thinking about total war, leading to a new theory of modern warfare — one that looks more like hacking an enemy’s society than attacking it head-on.

In February 2013, he had published a 2,000-word article, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight,” in the weekly Russian trade paper Military-Industrial Kurier in which he had written, “The very ‘rules of war’ have changed. The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness… All this is supplemented by military means of a concealed character.”

Nikolai Patrushev
Head of Russia’s Security Council

Patrushev has been Secretary of the Security Council of Russia since 2008. He is a Putin loyalist and has been with him since 1970s in St Petersburg.

Patrushev served in the KGB along with Vladimir Putin and also served as the head of its successor organisation, the FSB, from 1999 to 2008.

He told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper in 2015 that “the US would prefer Russia not to exist at all as a country”.

Alexander Bortnikov
Director of Federal Security Service {FSB}

Bortnikov has been a long-time head of Russia’s all-powerful Federal Security Service {FSB}.

Reports say that Bortnikov is one of the most loyal and trustworthy of Putin’s aides among the siloviki, or strongmen, atop the power ministries. He has turned the FSB into the “punishing {and deadly} sword” of Putin’s regime.

Sky News reports that Bortnikov is responsible for the tens of thousands of detentions and the dramatic tightening of restrictions on civil society which has gathered pace over the past year.

Sergei Naryshkin
Director of Foreign Intelligence Service {SVR}

Naryshkin has served as the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service since 2016. Naryshkin, Russia’s foreign spy chief, has remained alongside the president for much of his career.

Naryshkin met Putin during their spy training days and was deployed to Brussels as a diplomat at the same time as Putin was sent as a young spy to Dresden.

However, it seems that the ties with Putin are on rocky ground at present.

Recently, a video had emerged showing Putin snapping at Naryshkin, telling him twice to “speak directly” when discussing whether he supported the decision to recognize two Kremlin-backed separatist regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent states, rather than as part of Ukraine as they are internationally recognised.

With inputs from agencies

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