Russia was plunged into a deep crisis on Saturday after the head of the Wagner Group, a private army of mercenaries who have been fighting on the side of Russian forces in the conflict with Kyiv, rebelled against top Russian military commanders and advanced in the direction of Moscow.
The crisis came to an end when Yevgeni Prigozhin – leader of the Wagner Group and a former ally of President Vladimir Putin – announced that his troops would turn around and return to their bases, after reaching an agreement with the President of Belarus, who acted as mediator.
The measures initially taken by Prighozin were a direct challenge to the two men tasked with leading the war in Ukrainewho are part of the Russian president’s inner circle: Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the head of the armed forces Valery Gerasimov.
Here we tell you who are the other members of the select group that has remained faithful to the president for years and to whom Putin listens at this crucial moment that the country is going through.
For months, two men have been in Prigozhin’s crosshairs: Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the head of the armed forces Valery Gerasimov.
The head of the Wagner mercenary group has accused both of being responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Russians in the war in Ukraine. And what was a long and bitter dispute turned this weekend into a national crisis.
If there is one person Putin pays attention to, it is his confidant Sergei Shoigu, who has touted Putin’s line of demilitarizing Ukraine and protecting Russia from the so-called “military threat from the West.”
This man takes hunting and fishing trips with President Putin to Siberia, and in the past has been seen as a possible successor.
But if you look at this extraordinary image of him down here at the end of this table, sitting awkwardly next to the head of the Armed Forces, you will wonder if what he says is actually reaching Putin’s ears.
The photo was taken three days after the invasion in February 2022, in the midst of a military campaign that faced unexpected Ukrainian resistance and low military morale.
“Shoigu was supposed to leave for kyiv; he is defense minister and he was supposed to succeed, ”Vera Mironova, a specialist in armed conflicts, explained to the BBC.
And yet he continues to play a vital role in the war, even though Prigozhin accuses him of lying to the president about the reality on the ground in Ukraine.
Shoigu is credited with the military takeover of Crimea in 2014.
He was also in charge of the GRU military intelligence agencyand was charged with two nerve agent poisonings: the deadly 2018 attack in Salisbury in the UK and the near-fatal attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Siberia in 2020.
The snapshot of Shoigu’s meeting with Putin looks even worse if we zoom in on it. “It looks like someone just died, like they’re at a funeral,” says Mironova.
It may seem strange, but Russian security expert and writer Andrei Soldatov believes that the defense minister remains the most influential voice of those the president listens to.
“Shoigu is not only in charge of the Army, he is also partially in charge of ideology; in Russia, the ideology is mostly about history, and he is in control of the narrative.”
As chief of staff, his job was to invade the Ukraine and complete the mission quickly, and by that standard, he’s done it poorly.
Valery Gerasimov has played a significant role in Vladimir Putin’s military campaigns since he commanded an army in the 1999 Chechen war, and also led the military planning for Ukrainesupervising military exercises in Belarus in advance of the start of the conflict.
Described as a “tough, no-nonsense thug” by Russia specialist Mark Galeotti, General Gerasimov also played a key role in the military’s drive to annex Crimea.
Some reports suggest that it has now been sidelined due to the faltering start to the invasion of Ukraine and reports of low morale among the troops.
Gerasimov did not appear at the annual military parade in Moscow in May 2022. Still, in January of this year, he was named commander of the forces in Ukrainereplacing General Sergei Surovikin, who now seconded him.
“Putin cannot control every road and every battalion, and that is his role,” says Andrei Soldatov.
“Patrushev is the most aggressive hawkand he thinks the West has been trying to get Russia for years,” says Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London.
He is one of the three men most loyal to Putin who have served with him since the 1970s in St. Petersburg, when Russia’s second city was still known as Leningrad.
The other two stalwarts are the head of the security service, Alexander Bortnikov, and the head of foreign intelligence, Sergei Naryshkin.
The president’s entire inner circle is known as siloviki, or “the executioners”but these three men are even closer.
Few have as much influence over the president as Nikolai Patrushev.
He not only worked with him in the old KGBthe Russian intelligence service, during the communist era, but replaced him as head of its successor organization, the FSB, between 1999 and 2008.
It was during a rare meeting of the Russian Security Council, three days before the invasion, that Patrushev put forward his view that America’s “specific goal” was the disintegration of Russia.
The session was an extraordinary scene of theater that showed the president seated behind a desk while his security team approached a lectern and expressed their opinion on recognizing the independence of the Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine.
Nikolai Patrushev passed the test. “He’s the main rallying cry, and it feels like Putin has moved to the more extreme position of him,” says Ben Noble.
Experts in the Kremlin say the president trusts the information he receives from the security services more than any other source, and Alexander Bortnikov is seen as part of Putin’s inner sanctum.
Alexander Bortnikov, other KGB veteran from Leningrad, he took over the leadership of the FSB, replacing Nikolai Patrushev.
The FSB has considerable influence over other police services and even has its own special forces.
Bortnikov is important, but he is not there to challenge the Russian leader or give him advice like others do, Andrei Soldatov believes.
Completing the trio of old Leningrad spiesSergei Naryshkin has stayed with the president for much of his career.
That didn’t stop President Putin from berating him on television when he hesitated to respond on the pre-war situation.
The lengthy session was edited out, so the Kremlin deliberately chose to show that tense moment in front of a huge television audience.
“Putin loves to play games with his inner circle and make a fool of him (Naryshkin),” Soldatov says.
Sergei Naryshkin has long followed Putin, in St. Petersburg in the 1990s, then in the president’s office in 2004, and finally becoming speaker of parliament.
But he also runs the Russian Historical Society and, in Soldatov’s view, has proven to be very important in providing the president with ideological rationales for his actions.
Also, in an interview with BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg, denied that Russia had carried out poisonings and cyberattacks or interfered in the elections of other countries.
For 19 years, he has been Russia’s highest-ranking diplomat, presenting Russia’s case to the world even if he is not seen as having a major decision-making role.
Sergei Lavrov, 73, is further proof that Vladimir Putin relies heavily on figures from his past.
It is unlikely that he cared that the majority of the UN Human Rights Council withdrew while trying to defend the invasion of Russia just days before it began.
Although he is loyal to Putin from the beginning, it is not believed to have any role in decision-making on Ukraine.
His task is to shore up support for Russia in Africa, Latin America and other parts of the world, promoting his country as a decolonizer.
A rare female face in Putin’s entourage, she oversaw the upper house vote to approve the deployment of Russian forces abroad, paving the way for the invasion.
Valentina Matviyenko is another Putin supporter from St. Petersburg who also helped carry out the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
But she is not considered a major decision-maker. That being said, few people can say with absolute certainty who is in charge and makes the important decisions.
A former bodyguard for the president, he now heads Russia’s National Guard, Rosgvardia, created by President Putin just six years ago as a sort of personal army in the style of a Praetorian guard similar to the Roman Empire.
By choosing his own personal security guard to lead it, he ensured their loyalty, and Viktor Zolotov has increased their number to 400,000.
Although it has no military experience, the national guard has been assigned a series of tasks to control the occupied areas of Ukraine behind the front line, and is said to have suffered heavy losses.
The United Kingdom pointed out that Russia’s security forces “and especially the national guard” would be key in the development of the crisis with Prigozhin.
Who else does Putin listen to?
The first Minister Mikhail Mishustin it has the unenviable task of rescuing the economy, but has little to say about the war.
The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyaninand the head of the state oil giant Rosneft, Igor Sechinare also close to the president, according to political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko.
The Billionaire Brothers Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, who were childhood friends of the president, have also been close confidantes for a long time. In 2020, Forbes magazine named them “Russia’s richest family.”
With reporting additional by Olga Ivshin ay Kateryina Khinkulova of the BBC Russian Service.
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