Executive Summary:
- At Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence, Russia has only one president. Since his war against Ukraine began in 2022, the number of federal subjects with prime ministers in addition to Moscow-appointed “heads” has risen from 10 to 39 and is likely to continue to rise.
- This change, which has largely been under the radar, reflects the increasing burdens Putin’s policies have shifted to the federal subjects and the desire of their heads to share these and the challenges anger about them now pose.
- As a result, the governments of the federal subjects are looking like self-standing institutions even though Moscow appoints their heads and thus may have a greater capacity to act as independent actors in the course of the looming succession struggle.
At Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence, Russia has only one president. After some resistance, the federal subjects were forced to stop calling their leaders presidents and instead refer to them as “heads” (Window on Eurasia, February 12, 2021). Since Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2022, the number of federal subjects with their own prime ministers, in addition to Moscow-appointed “heads,” has risen from 10 to 39 and is projected to rise further in the coming months (Klub Regionov, September 30). This latter change is taking place largely under the radar. It reflects both the burdens Putin’s policies have shifted to the federal subjects—such as raising troops and handling crises such as the current gas shortage—and the desire of their heads to share these burdens and deflect the rising tide of popular anger about some policies from themselves (Telegram/@thegraschenkov, September 30). As a result, regional governments are looking like self-standing institutions, even though Moscow still appoints their heads, and thus may have greater capacity to act as independent actors in the looming succession struggle. That is especially likely because prime minister offices in the federal subjects now affect more predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krais than non-Russian republics, reversing the earlier pattern in which the latter subjects with prime ministers outnumbered the former in holding such positions.
Putin’s elimination of the office of president in Russia’s federal subjects symbolizes his drive to centralize power in his own person. Despite resistance in some places, the Kremlin leader succeeded. Now, no federal subject has a president, only a governor or a head. That has not been the end of the story, however. As that was happening, and especially after Putin shifted more burdens onto the federal subjects, the latter responded by adding the position of prime minister to their leadership teams, with the number of such oblasts, krais, and republics having a prime minister increasing from fewer than a dozen in 2022 to 39 now. Under Russian law, this office has always been optional for federal subjects (Klub Regionov, September 30). At the same time, the people appointed to such positions largely shifted from technocrats put in place to handle specific projects to politicians capable of interacting with the public and thus taking pressure off the republic heads (Klub Regionov; Telegram/@thegraschenkov, September 30). For now, these innovations and their spread from non-Russian republics to predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krais do not challenge Moscow. In some future succession struggle, however, it means that leadership teams of these federal subjects will look more like independent states than they have since Putin began to geld them two decades ago. This places them in a better position to act on their own than either he or most others suspect—even if many of these people were appointed by Moscow or named with the center’s approval.
For all these reasons, these regional prime ministers are now attracting ever more attention from the expert community in the Russian Federation. One example is a new report by the Moscow Center for the Development of Regional Policy entitled The Chairmen of Regional Governments in the Subjects of Russia: Their Administrative Profile and Media Activity (Telegram/@thegraschenkov, September 30). That study draws seven major conclusions:
- First, the most successful of these new premiers have been able to win support in Moscow and among regional elites simultaneously at a time when challenges to regional administrations are increasing.
- Second, over the last six months, there has been “a qualitative change” in who is being recruited to these positions. Earlier, they were almost exclusively technicians, “now the heads of the regions ever more often seek figures capable not only of administering but also sharing public responsibility.”
- Third, that change in turn has meant that “the media activity of the prime ministers has undergone a significant transformation.” As regional heads have lost their audiences, many prime ministers have stepped into the breach and become active media players.
- Fourth, because of this success, the number of regions likely to choose to introduce prime ministers will grow over the next 12 to 18 months and affect “in the first instance” not just smaller ones but “major subjects with populations of more than one million each where governors physically are not able to handle the full extent of administrative tasks.”
- Fifth, “the role of prime ministers in issues connected with the Special Military Operation” in Ukraine will “intensify.” This is a major reason why Putin has not and will not move to block this change even if, as he can see, it may present problems for him or his successors later.
- Sixth, according to the report, “the key criterion of the effectiveness of prime ministers in 2026 and next year will be the ability to work in a regime of constant reactions to crises.” Those who succeed are likely to be promoted either within their own regions or elsewhere, reducing Moscow’s influence in at least some cases.
- Seventh, the rise of regional prime ministers almost certainly will “intensify” differences in how the federal subjects are run, with some of these premiers opening up the political system to win support and others choosing to try to close things down further. Both approaches are logical, the report concludes, “but the first gives greater chances for political growth while the second helps preserve stability in the shadows of the governors.”
Commenting on this report, the Club of the Regions portal adds some important details. It notes that in some places, the position of prime minister has been introduced where it had never existed before (the Jewish Autonomy and Chelyabinsk oblast among them), and in others, it has been restored after a post that had existed earlier (Tomsk and Kherson oblasts). At the same time, the portal observes that “there are no prime ministers in any of the cities of federal importance,” one reason this trend has attracted little attention so far. It says that while most premiers remain “in the information shadow of governors and do not form their own media agendas, the importance of such people, and by implication, their independence, “is growing not only helping their governor bosses and Moscow but their own careers as well.” If, as some predict, regional heads who failed to attract enough votes for United Russia in the recent Duma elections are replaced, these prime ministers could become a more important source of their replacements than those usually considered (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 1).
For all these reasons, the prime ministers in the regions are politicians to be watched not only because they are changing the political scene in the federal subjects now but also because they, perhaps even more than governors parachuted in by Moscow from the outside, are likely to become major players during the upcoming succession struggle.
The post Having Lost ‘Presidents,’ Ever More Russian Federal Subjects Now Have Prime Ministers appeared first on Jamestown.