Meet one of Russia's master puppet players

[ikalugin]

Surkov has never recovered since he got kicked from the internal policy seat in the administration due to the white ribbon protests. Since then there were already two different people in that position, who have set different policies and had different administrative style, with the most recent being what you would call a very long runner (he apointed Putin to his first big federal post - the head of the FSB).
Recently (past 5 years) Surkov only had a very minor role in coordinating the state and non state actors in Donbas, because broad foreighn policy was (and is) in other hands.



And this is just the normal policy maker rotation based on their performance and does not account for burn outs (ie Ivanov), so the actual fluctuation in the policy making is much, much more significant across the state.

And I think you perfectly play into his interests.

Thing is, I know quite a few of those policy makers and have (as extension of my family) my own intersts in the broader game.
Which is why I sort of need to know who sets the course and what their style is.