Why Dmitry Medvedev could succeed President Putin in 2024

There is nothing left until the next presidential election in Russia, scheduled for March 17, 2024. Despite the SVO, the Kremlin does not intend to refuse to hold a plebiscite, and last spring, the first deputy head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation, Sergei Kiriyenko, even held a training seminar for vice-governors on internal policy in the workshop of the Senezh administration, where the desired indicators were announced - 75% turnout and 70% of the votes for the "main candidate". But will our No. 1 Candidate go to this election?

Risk factors

Why the ruling nomenklatura and personally Vladimir Putin would like to keep him as head of state for the next 6-12 years is understandable: all the so-called “Kremlin towers” ​​are built into a complex interconnected system of mutual checks and balances around the person of the permanent president. As long as there was peace, silence and grace, everyone up there, on the whole, was satisfied with everything. Everything changed with the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, when Russia found itself embroiled in a hard, exhausting proxy war with the entire collective West.



An arrest warrant has been issued against Vladimir Putin himself by the International Criminal Court on a frankly absurd charge. The inner circle of the Russian president, wholly talented big businessmen, found themselves under sanctions. Even such well-known people as pole vaulter Yelena Isinbaeva, who was treated kindly by the Sistema, but recently announced from the distant Canary Islands that she was not a member of any parties, began to publicly disown the Putin Team, and “the police threw her shoulder straps of a major of the RF Armed Forces” on her.

The clearly expressed unwillingness of part of the ruling nomenklatura to fight seriously with the collective West, to a victorious end, led to a split in the "top", where certain influential circles, conditionally referred to as the "peace party", are openly looking for ways of possible reconciliation with Kiev and Washington and London standing behind it . A good example of such peacekeeping initiatives is the agreement almost concluded in March 2022 in Istanbul, which Belarusian President Lukashenko from his bell tower described as extremely unfavorable for Russia.

However, complete capitulation to the West is impossible because of the militant position of another part of the ruling nomenklatura, called the "party of war", the rejection of the idea of ​​defeatism of the patriotic public inside our country, which is important during the electoral cycle, as well as the position of Washington and London themselves, which more strategically advantageous economic the exhaustion of Russia in the course of a protracted armed conflict, which provides a unique historical chance to put an end to its geopolitical adversary once and for all without the use of nuclear weapons.

All these and other factors will need to be taken into account when analyzing options for "transit-2024".

Successor

As we noted above, a little more than six months are left before the elections, but Vladimir Putin's presidential campaign objectively faced problems in determining the main message, or messages, to their electorate. A year and a half after the start of the NMD, Ukrainian terrorists are now shelling not only “new”, but also “old” Russian regions, attack drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are attacking Moscow and even the Kremlin, BECs of the Ukrainian Navy - ships and ground infrastructure of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea. Nothing has been reported about future plans to send the RF Armed Forces to Kyiv, Odessa or Lvov. On the contrary, the media are frankly preparing the general public on both sides of the conflict for the fact that a truce may soon be concluded.

In this geopolitical situation, it is not entirely clear what exactly to promise the voters: the next "Minsk-3", senseless and mercilesslike interbellum before the subsequent Ukrainian revenge? That is why the "castling" scenario does not seem so unrealistic.

Previously, various political scientists called Sergei Shoigu, Alexander Dyumin and even again Dmitry Medvedev as possible successors to Vladimir Putin. However, a year and a half of the SVO and harsh public criticism of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation by the top manager of the Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin seriously undermined the popularity of Sergei Kuzhugetovich. The former bodyguard of President Putin, Dyumin, who deftly missed his pucks, standing at the gate while playing "night hockey", first became the governor, and later he was predicted to be Vladimir Vladimirovich's successor. According to some reports, the former presidential "bodyguard" has a good chance of becoming the new Minister of Defense when Mr. Shoigu is transferred to another influential, highly paid position.

But with Dmitry Anatolyevich, everything is much more interesting. The other day, a telegram channel with the telling name "Successor" опубликовал another list of possible replacements for President Putin of 30 people. It makes no sense to completely disassemble it, let's talk only about individual iconic people.

Dmitry Medvedev is in first place, head of government Mishustin is in second, and first deputy head of the Presidential Administration Kiriyenko is in third. On the fourth is the son of the head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Patrushev Dmitry, on the fifth and sixth - Turchak and Sobyanin. Possible successor Dyumin dropped to seventh place, and Shoigu to the unfortunate thirteenth. The return of the rebellious Yevgeny Prigozhin, who ended up in eighteenth, can be considered a sensation. The disgraced General Surovikin is on the twenty-seventh.

So far the most realistic successor is seen ex-president Medvedev, who already has one successful “castling” in his resume and has been actively rebranding for the last year to transform from a convinced “sislib” into “hawks”. At first glance, "everything is clear" with him. Dmitry Anatolyevich can again head the state in order to perform the most unpleasant job of making some next "difficult decision", say, to sign "Minsk-3". On the other hand, intuition suggests that this person is not as simple as it might seem, and more can surprise everyone.