In his 2024 state-of-the-nation address, Vladimir Putin declared that the word “elite” had lost much of its credibility. “Those who have done nothing for society and consider themselves a caste with special rights and privileges […] are definitely not the elite,” he said. “The genuine, real elite are those who serve Russia, the workers and warriors, reliable, trustworthy people, who have proven their loyalty to Russia by deeds.”

It’s safe to assume that these words sent a chill through Russia’s elite circles, where top officials, businessmen, and military figures have been jockeying to hold on to their positions for almost four years of war. With Putin laser-focused on winning the war against Ukraine, anyone who impedes that goal is at risk of finding themselves on the chopping block. Long-serving officials have fallen out of favor, while ultra-patriotic hardliners are rising to the top, leaving Putin surrounded by sycophants. At the same time, concentrating so much power in one 73-year-old man poses some obvious risks for Russia’s political system.

On a recent episode of The Naked Pravda, independent journalist Farida Rustamova, the author of the Substack newsletter Faridaily, explained how Putin’s war effort has changed the rules of the game for Russia’s “old elites,” who are now as fearful of being replaced as they are of the prospect of peace. The following Q&A, based on that interview, has been edited for length and clarity.

Listen to The Naked Pravda’s full interview with Farida Rustamova here.

— After Putin launched the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it was widely reported that this came as a shock to many Russian officials, including those in high-level positions. But by the end of March, you reported that even those elites who opposed the invasion were rallying around Putin. Why did this happen?

— I think the major thing for Russian elites — the highest ranking officials, state businessmen, and people around Putin — is that most of them realized this was a major turning point and a completely new chapter in Russian history. I think the most telling example that shows us what’s going on in the heads of those who were genuinely against the war but were unable or decided not to express this position is how the public behavior of Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev has changed. To me, it’s very clear that the people who, before 2022, had more pro-democratic or generally more liberal views than Putin, his inner circle, and the siloviki (law enforcement and the army) realized that their era had come to an end. This was a U-turn to a new era of these hardliners and hawks, who are against any freedoms, are ultra-loyal to Putin, have pro-war views, are against the West, and are in favor of Russia’s isolation.

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Russia wasn’t a democracy before 2022; there weren’t very many freedoms left. Still, the war was the culmination of this movement in an authoritarian or even a totalitarian direction. And I think that’s the main thing many of these [elites] realized. Not all of them are expressing their loyalty to the regime publicly to save their skin like Dmitry Medvedev. But many of them do this in private. And a lot of them decided to change their interests and values — to order their families to stop going to the West and being educated there, and so on. This was a major change for many of these people.

Read more about Medvedev’s transformation

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It’s important to understand that apart from fear, many of the people who work for the system [are driven by] other interests. Working for, with, or around the system is a major source of income, and they won’t get that rich anywhere else. And for them to step up and say they’re against the war or to resign is a form of suicide. Some [sources] who I spoke to at the very beginning of the war used these exact words.

— What stands out to you as the biggest changes in the Russian political elite since the start of the full-scale war?

— I’ve reported on this extreme level of fear, even more so than before. The suicide of Federal [Transport] Minister [Roman Starovoit] last summer was the most telling demonstration of this. People in the system basically found themselves in a trap. They’re not welcome in the West, and their lives have changed dramatically. They used to be able to travel, their families spent a lot of time abroad, and the world was open to them. And, importantly, they had this opportunity to escape. Not in a radical way, where they’d break up with Putin or the system itself and say something critical publicly, but just to quit and go live in some Western country. Now, they don’t have any of these opportunities. They know that they cannot go anywhere because the Russian security services would consider them traitors, and they are scared of the consequences.

The security services have also increased their pressure on Russian officials. They need to show that they’re fighting corruption and the “traitors” inside [the system] — and they themselves are never held accountable. For example, this minister [Starovoit], who decided to take his own life, used to be the governor of the Kursk region, which was invaded by the Ukrainian army last year. Protecting the region was the responsibility of the military and the security services, who failed in their duty. The security services are never punished because they [hold] the real power in Russia. But they needed to punish someone. Civil servants often become scapegoats, and that’s exactly what happened to Starovoit.

read more about Roman Starovoit

• ‘The Rotenbergs invested heavily in him’ Anti-corruption expert Ilya Shumanov unpacks the political rise and sudden demise of Russia’s ex-Transportation Minister Roman Starovoit

— We’ve seen multiple shakeups in various branches of the state apparatus during the full-scale war — from the reappointment of former Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu back in 2024 to the resignation of Putin’s longtime aide Dmitry Kozak in September 2025. At the same time, it’s believed that Putin prizes political loyalty above all else. If that’s the case, why are such long-serving political figures falling out of favor?

— These are two very different cases.

Sergey Shoigu, the former defense minister, did not exactly fall out of favor; he’s still in the system and holds a high-level position as the Security Council secretary. But he was punished, and I would say this was the greatest wave of elite repression in modern Russia’s history because they crushed his entire clan. The reason for it was that Putin wanted to punish the army for failing to win this war quickly. But we know from observing his 25-year rule that he usually doesn’t punish people immediately. He prefers not to fire people and not to link something they did to direct consequences. That’s his management style.

The other case with Dmitry Kozak is different because he did not have a clan. He is a rare example of a longtime Putin ally — they’ve known each other for 30 years — who did not have a team, let alone a clan. He’s a rare example of an independent manager in the system whom Putin trusts a lot. (Another example is Andrey Belousov, who replaced Shoigu as defense minister. The logic was exactly this: Putin crushed Shoigu’s clan and replaced him with someone who has no team, no clan, no people behind him. So this was sort of Putin’s style of checks and balances.)

read more about Dmitry Kozak

• The fall of ‘Putin’s point man’ Meduza’s Andrey Pertsev charts the political demise of Dmitry Kozak, the only senior Russian official believed to oppose the war against Ukraine

Kozak found there was no use for him after the war began. He wasn’t eager to join the war effort and didn’t want to find himself a position in this new reality. (Compared to other high-ranking officials who joined in gladly.) His own personal traits also influenced his decision to leave the system. There are a lot of officials in Putin’s administration who are useless, who don’t have any particular responsibilities but hold the same position as Kozak (deputy chief of staff). But Kozak didn’t want to continue being useless. As far as we know from our sources, he wanted to become a “defender” of businessmen’s rights and, in a way, to oppose the security services and law enforcement in their efforts to nationalize assets or confiscate businesses in the interests of various clients. He wanted to create this job for himself, and when this [idea] got rejected, he decided to leave. It was perhaps a question of pride more than anything else.

— The Economist’s sister magazine, 1843, published an article last month titled “How to Get Ahead in Wartime Russia,” which said that today, the main thing Putin values in people is their ability to help him win the war. Do you agree with that assessment?

— I agree with this conclusion, but I think things are just more complicated than that. There are people in the system who do not express their pro-war views and who are not directly linked to the fighting on the battlefield. There are people like Russian Central Bank Head Elvira Nabiullina, who just continue doing their job, who aren’t particularly pro-war but still help Putin maintain his war [effort]. I’m sure they frame their choices differently for themselves, as helping keep the country’s entire economy from falling apart, which is something the Russian people have experienced in the past.

It’s very [true] that Putin praises and values people who publicly support the war, dedicate their careers to the war effort, and help him directly. He calls war veterans the “new elite.” In my opinion, that’s because he is not very content with the old elite, who did not show any enthusiasm when he started this war. But I think the reality is that Putin himself realizes that the old elite are very powerful and he cannot easily get rid of them.

These old elites aren’t very welcoming towards those who are now considered the “new elites.” This is an interesting clash that I think we’re going to see more of in the future. But the current trend in politics, at least, is to force the old elites to embrace people coming from the military and recruit them into the political system.

read more about the ‘new elite’

• ‘He kissed up well’ Artyom Zhoga was supposed to embody Putin’s new model of veterans in high places. So far, his performance has fallen flat.

— You told 1843 that the elite and the government in Russia are preoccupied with how the war will end. Why is this such a big concern for them?

— Part of the reason is that a lot of them have adapted to this new reality over the past four years. They don’t know what the new rules are, but they have adapted to the situation in Russia, which has become more chaotic and unpredictable. From conversations with my sources, I’ve gathered that no one knows how the war will end, and they are afraid of it bringing more chaos.

For example, the people who work in the Russian government are very anxious about the return of the hundreds of thousands of people who are currently fighting on the battlefield. Generally, they’re afraid of how the war will end (on what terms) and how Russian society will react. What if those ultra-conservatives — who are more pro-war than Putin himself — plot a mutiny like [Yevgeny] Prigozhin? They are a minority in Russian society, but there are still a lot of them. The [people in the] Russian system remember Prigozhin’s mutiny very well: it was literally a traumatic moment when they [realized] that Putin doesn’t control everything and chaos is very close.

read more about the war’s consequences

• The plunder and violence unleashed in occupied Ukraine has reached Russia’s own towns

A lot of them also fear losing their position after the war ends. What if there’s a search for scapegoats? What if they decided to punish people for the failures on the battlefield? The list goes on. The fact is that they’ve already adapted to the circumstances of the war, and its end is another new reality that might bring a lot of unexpected consequences.

— One recurring theme in your reporting is that Russian elites are skeptical about peace talks and inclined to believe that Putin will escalate. Is this still the prevailing attitude among your sources at this juncture in the war?

— Yes, I would say so. People who work with Putin and know him very well know that the main thing for him is always his image, and that in an effort to save face, he — the leader of a nuclear power — won’t stop at anything. This is the major argument.

People whom I talk to about peace talks are convinced that there should be a negotiation and some sort of compromise with Putin. While a lot of people in the West think there should be no compromise with Putin, they are convinced that he will not end this war [unless] at least some of his requests are satisfied. This is the main point I try to [convey] in my reporting. It’s not my personal view, but it’s what people inside the system say. They think the war cannot be stopped without some substantial negotiations with Putin and a substantial rethinking of the global security system.

— During the war, political power in Russia has become more concentrated in Putin than ever. However, he is 73 years old, and it seems as though having so much power concentrated in one old man creates a huge vulnerability. Is Putin building a system that can outlast him?

— The main thing to understand here is that Putin is not a great strategist, and he’s not really a hardworking dictator. He is very skillful at holding onto power, and the rest is details. Still, I would say that what he’s doing to Russian society — even if it’s not literally planned by him or any of the people around him — isn’t going to go away completely if he dies tomorrow.

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For example, millions of people are working in Russian law enforcement, the infamous siloviki, and the army. This is a giant part of Russian society; together with their families and other people close to them, [they number] tens of millions of people. Not all of them are going to disappear if Putin dies. I think this is one of the most tragic things about Putin’s legacy, and it’s part of the reason why I’m not super optimistic about Russia’s future after Putin. There are just too many people who benefited from Putin’s rule and, more importantly, who are used to violence as the only way of doing things. The rest of Russian society will face the major challenge of dealing with these people, and you cannot be sure who will prevail.

There are other things the current Russian regime is doing to make the system outlast Putin (for example, youth indoctrination). And even though they’re doing these things for their current goals rather than future goals, all of this will have consequences.

Listen to the full interview

Interview by Eilish Hart