Russia & executive power, elites, digital authoritarianism | @laenderanalysen, Russian Analytical Digest | @faburkhardt.bsky.social | Own views
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Glad to see that our recent @cedarus_io report on asset redistribution among Russian Forbes billionaires and largest companies is also cited in Ukrainian media.
babel.ua/texts/130504-u-rosi…
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
Putin’s call for a “new elite” of war veterans is often dismissed as mere PR. My brief for @ecfr shows a more complex picture.Kremlin builds a recruitment pool to gradually bring veterans into bureaucracy as a distinct group like technocrats or siloviki
ecfr.eu/publication/booted-t…
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Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
New paper by the Cedar research group (@cedarus_io) on Russia's ongoing anti-corruption campaign that aligns nicely with our recent report on removals in the Russian armed forces. They identify:
- a 500% increase in arrests of high-ranking officials between 2022-2025
- the trigger is the Fall 2022 state response to war failure
- it ramps up in practice in 2023 due to bureaucratic-prosecutorial timelines
- and the military only sees it in 2024
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
🚨 Massive new report out from your friendly CNA Russia Studies Program - an unprecedented, data-heavy look at the career patterns of Russia's generals and admirals. A quarter century of promotion dynamics, predictive career paths, wartime removals, and more. 🪖 ⚓
Our forthcoming study with @cedarus_io confirms this:
The FSB has emerged as the driving force behind the nationwide "anti-corruption" campaign targeting senior Russian officials. The FSB is initiating more cases, which are being handled more swiftly at the pre-trial stage.
Many of Russia’s elite increasingly fear the FSB is out of control as President Vladimir Putin tasks the agency with maintaining his grip on power amid growing unease over the war in Ukraine bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
I analyzed dozens of reports from Russian municipalities and found a lot of fascinating insights about how Russian recruitment actually works. At the core, the recruitment machine is a multilayered system of quotas, going all the way from the Kremlin down to the smallest village.
I provided some comments for this piece on the confiscation of Russian state officials' property. Together with Cedar, we will soon publish a detailed report on the motivations and scope of anti-corruption campaigns against bureaucrats in wartime Russia.
novayagazeta.eu/articles/202…
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
NEW: Despite mounting pressure at home, Putin believes he can seize the whole of the Donbas by the end of the year. Moscow also no longer believes Trump can force Kyiv into territorial concessions. Our long read on the mood in Russia. With @shaunwalker7
theguardian.com/world/ng-int…
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
The key question people have to address is what is the mechanism of change inside Russia. People / oligarchs / one tower of the Kremlin being frustrated with a man they usually don't even dare name isn't enough. The repressive dial has a long way to go.
This article by @baunov on the changing mood in Russia and Putin's seeming loss of his special touch is your must-read this weekend carnegieendowment.org/russia…
Ausführlicher @dekoder_org-Artikel über Nepotismus in Russland, der auch unsere Studie über d. russische Nomenklatura zitiert. Diese zweite Riege ist wichtig für staatliche Herrschaft, funktioniert aber nach anderen Rekrutierungslogiken als die Top-Elite.
dekoder.org/de/gnose/nepotis…
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
For more on why you should treat regime functionalism more often as a research question, rather than a generic assumption, see our book:
a.co/d/0hEkKvyv
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
Great new report out with granular data on nationalization processes in wartime Russia. They very appropriately do not assume regime functionalism (i.e., 'this is all about Putin staying in power') but actually test it along with other possible explanations for the pattern.
A new Cedar analysis maps wave of wartime nationalisation in RU. Its findings reinforce point I’ve argued for some time: this process reflects the heterogeneity of Russian elites, and as a result its limited controllability, including from the Kremlin.
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cedarus.io/research/asset-re…
Thank you for the endorsement! This was truly a team effort, and I'm glad our assessments align. 👇
A new Cedar analysis maps wave of wartime nationalisation in RU. Its findings reinforce point I’ve argued for some time: this process reflects the heterogeneity of Russian elites, and as a result its limited controllability, including from the Kremlin.
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cedarus.io/research/asset-re…
State-controlled pollster VTsIOM has just published Putin's lowest trust rating (open question!) since the full-scale invasion. This is not terrible for Putin so far, but it is getting closer to the all-time low 2021-08. No connection to the incidental video of Putin coughing.
No conspiracy needed to explain why VTsIOM published the data now. In 2019, they changed from publishing weekly data to monthly data, but it will be crucial to watch if they stop publishing it altogether when things turn really bad. It is still useful to take a closer look at the
The arrest of former Russian Deputy Minister of Defence Ruslan Tsalikov is significant because of his close ties to Shoigu. This is already the fourth former deputy of Shoigu to be arrested. However, it also sheds light on the broader increase in elite repression since 2024.
Business weekly Vedomosti leads on a different story: the arrest of Ruslan Tsalikov, a former first deputy defence minister, whom the paper describes as “one of the closest comrades of [former defence minister] Sergei Shoigu…”
“It’s the first time a former military official of this rank has been accused of creating an organised criminal group,” it reports. The 69-year-old stands accused of embezzling public funds, money laundering and large-scale bribe-taking.
Tsalikov is not, however, the first ally of Sergei Shoigu – sacked by Vladimir Putin as defence minister in 2024 in favour of Andrei Belousov and moved to the Security Council – to be accused of corruption. It appears he could be the latest “victim” in the ongoing purge of Shoigu associates from Russia’s security ranks.
“Of all of the military head’s [Shoigu’s] deputies, Tsalikov was the closest,” the paper quotes a former colleague as saying, noting Tsalikov gave evidence against another deputy defence minister who also came under fire for corruption: Timur Ivanov was later convicted and sent to prison for 13 years.
Here is a link to the full report of our Russian Elites Lab, in which we tracked criminal cases against deputy ministers. Another report exclusively focused on criminal charges against Russian officials will follow soon. cedarus.io/research/how-puti…
Fabian Burkhardt retweeted
“When Russia says they’re ‘deporting’ someone, they’re not deporting them back to Ukraine.”
My story on how Putin’s latest attempt to force Russian passports on Ukrainians paves the way for more war crimes in the occupied territories. meduza.io/en/feature/2025/06… @meduza_en
Kirienko's empire in the presidential administration to grow: As usual, formal structural changes will follow earlier informal power shifts. Kirienko has already dealt with post-Soviet space (especially the occupied territories) and foreign policy, including hybrid interference.
he formally retained his position in the presidential administration. But as a decades-long Putin confidant, Kozak's fate will send an important signal to the elite about how Putin deals with (former) close associates (Kozak has been a key team member
since Putin's 2000 presidential campaign).
Reporting on these yet to be confirmed developments in the redistribution of responsibilities from Kozak to Kirienko: vedomosti.ru/politics/articl…
