Russia Insider — Putin Starts Fourth Term by Sacking Several Senior Ministers

No post for the liberal Kudrin, but the fiscal hawk Siluanov heading the treasury is promoted to First Deputy Prime Minister

Russia Insider
Putin Starts Fourth Term by Sacking Several Senior Ministers

Leonid Bershidsky — Putin Wants to Run Russia Like a Corporation

Sour grapes article by a Russian ex-pat who is a Putin-hater, but interesting between the lines. Putin is modernizing government by appointing young well-educated people that have already demonstrated success to prominent positions.

This isn't new news but it is the first instance I have seen in the Western press, suitably dismissive, of course, based quite clearly on bias (Putin is a bad person so he can't do anything right) instead of evidence. We'll see. The skeptics believed that the sanctions would already have sunk Russia and ripen it for regime change.

Bloomberg View
Putin Wants to Run Russia Like a Corporation

Leonid Bershidsky | Bloomberg View columnist and formerly founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti.

See also

On Friday, popular Russian daily Izvestia published the results of a poll conducted by the Laboratory of Political Research of one of country’s leading economic institutions – the Higher School of Economics*. The poll was conducted among students of higher education establishments across the country – both state-sponsored and private.

A little over 47 percent said they would vote for current Russian President Vladimir Putin if the presidential election was held next weekend and, of course, if the incumbent president decides to run again. None of the other potential candidates managed to receive six percent support, while 12 percent of the respondents said they would not vote at all, and 15.4 percent said they had not yet decided who to vote for....

A nationwide public opinion poll released by state-run research agency VTSIOM earlier this month showed that the president’s approval rating was at 82.2 percent – slightly down from 85.3 percent in early September, but still very high and exceeding the approval ratings of the Russian government and both chambers of parliament.

* The Higher School of Economics is a liberal institution not partial to Putin.

RussiaFeed
PUTIN GENERATION: Students vote for Vladimir Putin
RussiaFeed

Also

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  Matthew 6:21 (NRSV)
VLADIMIR PUTIN: “I am the wealthiest man”

Anna

Paul Robinson — Large and complicated [Putin's Q & A]

In my opinion, the most significant thing Putin said was the following: ‘Our country is large and complicated’. That’s exactly right. The Russian leader is often portrayed as an all-powerful and all-knowing dictator. If anything happens within Russia, or in any way connected with Russia, it must be because Putin has personally ordered it. But in today’s show, we heard numerous complaints that laws weren’t being enforced, that compensation promised after natural disasters hadn’t been delivered, and the like. ‘It’s strange’, Putin said more than once, ‘It’s strange.’ Instructions have been been delivered, but nothing has been done. Putin may be boss in the Kremlin, but in a country as large and complicated as Russia, the Kremlin’s writ doesn’t always reach the provinces. 

We need ‘social control’ to hold local authorities to account, noted Putin, mentioning the All-Russian Popular Front, a large collection of non-governmental organizations founded by him as a means of mobilizing civil society to support government initiatives. It’s not civil society as many Western critics might imagine it, as it works with the state rather than opposes it, but it’s civil society nonetheless.

Simplistic models which portray Russia as a brutal dictatorship are hardly compatible with this, let alone with an event like the ‘Direct Line’. As Putin said, Russia is ‘large and complicated’. Indeed.

Western leaders, analysts and pundits seem to have conjured up an idea of a tradition of all-powerful Russian tsars and the Putin governs the same way, similar in style to Stalin, where his orders are instantly carried out or else, and he is therefore responsible for everything. That's just delusional.

Irrussianality
Large and complicated
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Alexei Lossan — Medvedev: Russian government to work on a project basis

At the plenary session of the Sochi 2016 International Investment Forum on Sept. 30, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced that the Russian government will change its way of working and begin administering exclusively on a project basis, something that usually occurs in business.

"Experience with project management in other countries bears witness to the fact that this system functions throughout the world," Medvedev said in his speech. The prime minister said the government will focus on 11 priority targets, covering all economic and social spheres.…

Getting down to business.

Russia Beyond the Headlines
Medvedev: Russian government to work on a project basis
Alexei Lossan

Patrick Armstrong — Today’s Putin Quotation

Only a strong – effective, in case someone does not like the word strong – effective democratic state is able to protect civil, political and economic freedoms and to create the conditions for a good life for the people and the prospering of our native land.

(только сильное, эффективное, если кому-то не нравится слово “сильное”, скажем эффективное государство и демократическое государство в состоянии защитить гражданские, политические, экономические свободы, способно создать условия для благополучной жизни людей и для процветания нашей Родины.) 

— Putin address to Federal Assembly, 8 July 2000

Russian Observer
Today’s Putin Quotation

Patrick Armstrong