The new emperor of the Kremlin?

The new emperor of the Kremlin?

In daily announcements and speeches, Volodin condemned public figures who oppose the war as "traitors", demanded that Russia be paid for natural gas and other goods in rubles, and described the U.S. President as "sick and miserable". All these statements had one purpose - to please the president, reports the independent Russian portal Meduza.

Volodin has been politically active for over 20 years and has been considered a loyal Putin player since entering the scene.

Meduza reminds that the idea of ​​annexing the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics to Russia came from the Communist Party, whose proposals the Kremlin almost never adopts, but now there is an exception. Namely, it was Volodin who insisted on going to the end with that idea, reports Jutarnji list. Also, it is further stated, Volodin did not coordinate his work with the Kremlin at all, but worked "independently".

It happened that the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, changed his position and decided to recognize the self-proclaimed republics of Donbas. On February 24, Russian troops attacked Ukraine, and Vyacheslav Volodin became one of the first Russian politicians to publicly support the war, and in the first month of the war he actively spoke in favor of a "special military operation."

He also made several claims about the whereabouts of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, including that he was not in Kyiv, but in Lviv or Poland (which was false information). People close to Volodin say that he understands Putin very well and that he is doing exactly what the Russian leader likes in order to please him.

Then other Russian politicians began to follow Volodin's example - they began to spread propaganda.

Sources from the Kremlin claim that from the start, Volodin was only interested in advancing in the chain of power, and he also had ambitions to become the mayor of Moscow. But he ended up in the Duma, from which, as it is stated, he made a machine that can be controlled, in fact an addition to the presidential administration, depriving it of any independence that it had before.

MPs had to attend all sessions, and whoever skipped them without a valid excuse would be punished. Voting through proxies is also prohibited... According to sources close to Volodin himself, all this was done in order to leave a strong impression on one person - President Vladimir Putin.

Moreover, people close to Volodin say that he behaves in such a way that he "expects people to crawl in front of him" and that he demands absolute loyalty from everyone. All that was reported to Putin, who, according to some sources, planned to remove Volodin from his seat in the State Duma, but the coronavirus pandemic prevented him from doing so.

Volodin thus continued to meet with Putin through the meetings of the Security Council of Russia, and thus constantly presented his ideas to him. According to Meduza's source, Volodin's unwavering support for Putin and his ideas boils down to him knowing "in which direction the wind is blowing". So, he allegedly listens first to what Putin has to say, and then he enters the scene. Political scientist Preobrazhensky points out that in all this that is happening, Putin himself is to some extent destroying the entire political system that has been operating for the last few years "because it limits his absolute power".

"Volodin gladly supports him in this - as was the case with the law banning foreigners from adopting children. Then the anti-sanctions followed, that hit the Russian economy, which many technocrats opposed. Volodin immediately accepted these things and proposed to double them", said Preobrazhensky. In his opinion, the attempt to guess Putin's wishes is "the most rational strategy for cooperation with Putin in a situation when he has become secretive and prone to deliberately deceiving even his own environment."

All sources who spoke for Meduza news portal stated that in private conversations, Volodin never tried to hide his aspirations to become Vladimir Putin's successor one day and to "work" for it. "When he says 'Putin after Putin', he is either consciously or subconsciously suggesting himself for that position", says one source. "The next Putin will be called Volodin - even his name implies that", the text concludes.