THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING
TENSIONS WERE RUNNING HIGH INSIDE the Kremlin. There were only weeks to go before Russians voted in the March 18 election, and federal ministers were worried about keeping their positions. During a meeting, one turned to President Vladimir Putin and asked, “Vladimir Vladimirovich, well, what will happen to me after March 18?”
Everyone present understood that the minister had made a terrible mistake. Inside this Kremlin you cannot publicly demonstrate weakness, and you cannot ask Putin about your future. Not that he would give a straight answer; according to my sources, Putin gave a sly smile and replied, “Well, why, even I do not know what will happen to me after March 18.”
Of course, Putin’s re-election for a fourth term was a given—and the electorate duly delivered it, with 77% backing the incumbent. But still the Russian political elite waited in horror for the day of the election—not because they had doubts about the result but because they were terrified of what would come next. Even following the poisoning of former military intelligence agent Sergei Skripal in the U.K. on March 4, the ministers were not particularly afraid of rising tensions with the West. The fundamental changes to come were far more serious.
Under the current Russian constitution, this should be Putin’s last six-year term in office. But virtually nobody in the bureaucratic elite of Russia believes Putin
