Russia’s personnel policy is no longer built around a stable balance between competing elites. Under Vladimir Putin, appointments and dismissals have become instruments for managing rivalry, redistributing resources and preventing any one Kremlin faction from securing uncontested influence.
The Kremlin’s power structure remains outwardly monolithic, but its internal competition is intensifying across regional government, state corporations, ministries, the defence industry and the occupied territories of Ukraine. Putin is using controlled competition and mutual restraint to keep his own elites fighting to preserve their positions, rather than allowing them to form an independent centre of power.
A new centre around the security bloc
The rapid promotion of Alexei Dyumin to secretary of Russia’s State Council illustrates the growing influence of figures drawn from Putin’s security apparatus and personal protection service. The advancement of Dyumin’s allies into key state positions is creating a new centre of influence that seeks an arbitrating role in priority sectors.
That development restricts the ability of traditional bureaucratic groupings to participate directly in decision-making. Influence is increasingly determined not simply by formal office, but by access to the president, control of appointments and the ability to direct resources through state institutions.
Sergei Kiriyenko’s internal-politics bloc had for a long period maintained dominant influence over the selection of regional governors through the so-called School of Governors. But the rising ambitions of the security bloc have forced Kiriyenko on to the defensive, as he attempts to protect his network of personnel and political influence.
The result is sharper competition between civilian technocrats and security structures for control of Russia’s regions. Governorships have ceased to be merely administrative posts. They are now valuable assets in the struggle between Kremlin factions because control of a governor can bring influence over local budgets, logistics and state contracts.
Governors, corporations and ministries as political assets
Each new regional appointment therefore carries significance beyond the individual candidate. It can alter the distribution of money, administrative authority and future opportunities for the group that secured the post. The same logic applies to senior positions in major state corporations, where the appointment of loyal top managers allows factions to accumulate both formal and informal financial resources.
Control of a large state company can support further expansion into the public administration. Losing that control, by contrast, weakens a group’s position at federal level. Competition over corporate leadership is consequently a central element in maintaining the influence of any Kremlin faction.
Appointments in civilian ministries and agencies provide another route for rival groups to extend their regulatory reach. A loyal minister or deputy can help redirect subsidies and markets, while obstructing initiatives associated with opponents. In this system, institutions that should serve the state risk operating instead in the interests of particular clan and oligarchic groups.
The defence-industrial complex and the occupied territories of Ukraine have become especially important arenas. They combine major infrastructure projects, defence orders and extensive administrative responsibilities. The groups associated with Dyumin and Kiriyenko, alongside security officials, are competing to place their representatives in civilian and military posts there, creating a concealed struggle over substantial financial and political resources.
Arrests and elections lose independent meaning
Traditional political institutions in Russia have lost their independent agency and become instruments of competing Kremlin groups. There is no systematic, independent opposition. Party lists and seats in the State Duma are distributed according to quotas between factions, reflecting their current weight. Political activity is therefore largely a public expression of behind-the-scenes personnel agreements and shifts in influence.
Arrests of senior officials, regional administrators and generals have also acquired a wider political function. Investigations into corruption and cases involving alleged treason are no longer solely presented as efforts to enforce accountability; they are used to remove the personnel of rival groups and open positions for loyal candidates.
This constant contest damages the quality and efficiency of government. Officials at lower and middle levels are encouraged to focus less on carrying out their formal duties than on protecting their own positions. Decisions from higher authorities may be delayed, ignored locally or quietly obstructed when they threaten a faction’s interests.
A system held together by fear
The regional apparatus has consequently become an inert system shaped by fear of personnel purges and the need to navigate several competing Kremlin ‘towers’. Its officials’ principal concerns are preserving their positions, shifting responsibility and informally blocking risky or contradictory directives. The apparent vertical of power is therefore less cohesive than it looks.
The danger is that escalating competition may destabilise the system if it encounters a serious internal or external shock. With no transparent rules and a high cost attached to losing access to resources, the factions have an incentive to keep raising the stakes. In a critical moment, a struggle conducted through appointments and arrests could become an open confrontation involving the security services.
How far can Putin use rivalry to control Russia’s elites before the competition begins to weaken the system he depends on?
