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Putin's Planning for Retirement, Has Eyes on 3 Successors: Ex-Speechwriter
Russian President Vladimir Putin could opt for retirement and choose a hand-picked successor rather than run in the next election, according to a former speechwriter for the leader.
Abbas Gallyamov, a political analyst who once worked as a speechwriter for Putin, made the claims about his ex-boss during an interview on the Khodorkovsky Live YouTube channel .
Due to the growing unpopularity of the war, Gallyamov said Putin could face a greater challenge at the polls during the next election in 2024. An option for the leader could be to "rig the elections," but that could be "too big of a risk" due to a growing revolutionary mindset within Russia, Gallyamov said.
Instead, Gallyamov feels Putin could pick his heir and retire. Gallyamov said the leading choices of who Putin would trust as his successor would be Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow , Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin or his Deputy Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak.
Gallyamov said that retirement would allow Putin to spend the rest of his years in a palace in the Black Sea resort town Gelendzhik while holding the title of senator-for-life. (Current Russian laws allow former presidents to take the permanent senator distinction.)
The political analyst also said there's an increasing sense among Russian officials that Putin is no longer viewed as the "guarantor of stability" that he once was, and people in Putin's circle are not happy about the power of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group mercenaries.
Gallyamov said these Putin allies fear Prigozhin and his sledgehammer. The reference to the tool comes after an unverified video surfaced in November that allegedly showed a former Wagner mercenary being executed with a sledgehammer.
Reuters reported that Prigozhin commented about the video on Telegram by saying the man had "betrayed his people."
Despite Gallyamov's comments about Putin possibly retiring, George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government professor Mark N. Katz told Newsweek that he doesn't "think Putin trusts anyone enough" to hand over the reins.
"I don't think he would even switch places as he did with [former Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev in 2008 to 2012," Katz said. "But I imagine there are several people who hope to succeed him. It might be easier to keep them under control if they can all still hope to get the nod from Putin, while actually giving someone the nod could unleash a power struggle."
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Gallyamov said that if Putin retires, he could avoid a fate like that of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator who was killed and had his body put on public display .
"At least Putin will have guarantees of personal security" in retirement, Gallyamov said.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
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About the writer.
Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine and Russia war. Jon previously worked at The Week, the River Journal, Den of Geek and Maxim. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with honors in journalism and mass communication from New York University. Languages: English.
Russia puts Putin’s ex-speechwriter on wanted list over Ukraine
Abbas Gallyamov wrote speeches for Vladimir Putin during the Russian leader’s 2008-12 time as prime minister.
Police in Russia have placed a former speechwriter for President Vladimir Putin on a wanted list of criminal suspects because of his comments on the war in Ukraine, the latest step in Moscow’s sweeping crackdown on dissent.
Abbas Gallyamov wrote speeches for Putin during the Russian leader’s 2008-12 stint as prime minister. Gallyamov, 50, later became an outspoken political consultant and analyst who was frequently quoted by Russian and foreign media. He has lived abroad in recent years.
On Friday, Russian and international news outlets discovered that Gallyamov had been listed in the Interior Ministry’s database. The entry said he was wanted “in relation to a Criminal Code article” but did not include the law he was accused of breaking.
Russia’s Justice Ministry added Gallyamov last month to its register of foreign agents, a designation that brings additional government scrutiny and carries strong pejorative connotations aimed at undermining the recipient’s credibility.
The ministry said Gallyamov “distributed materials created by foreign agents to an unlimited circle of people, spoke out against the special military operation in Ukraine , (and) participated as an expert and respondent on information platforms provided by foreign structures”.
Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has put Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter and political scientist who now resides outside of Russia, on the federal “wanted” list. https://t.co/EJmpR2BdG3 — Meduza in English (@meduza_en) March 24, 2023
Gallyamov had recently given an interview in which he predicted that an uprising in Russia was possible over its war against Ukraine, and reflected on his time as Putin’s speech writer, saying few could have predicted “that Russia would turn into some kind of fascist state, as it is now”.
Gallyamov told the Associated Press on Friday that he learned he was on a wanted list from the media. No law enforcement agency has been in touch, so he does not know what charge he faces in Russia.
“I presume that formally it’s the offence of discrediting the army,” Gallyamov said in a phone interview.
“It is being used against anyone who refuses to amplify the Kremlin’s playbook and tries to conduct an objective, impartial analysis of what’s going on,” he said.
Discrediting the Russian armed forces became a crime in Russia under a new law adopted after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Kremlin critics have been regularly charged under the law.
Gallyamov described the move against him as part of the Russian government’s “intimidation strategy”.
“It’s not an attempt to get to me – it is impossible. It’s a message for the rest,” he said.
“As in, ‘Don’t criticise, don’t think that your independent view of what’s happening will remain unpunished’.”
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