Sergei Chemezov, maker of stars?

Le grand patron du complexe militaro-industriel russe est un proche de Vladimir Poutine. Un de ses plus anciens compagnons de route, son voisin de palier lorsque tous deux servaient en RDA à la fin des années 1980. Si proche qu’il fait partie des très rares en position de peser lourd le jour où il faudra choisir un successeur au maître du Kremlin. Un personnage extrêmement puissant, à l’impressionnant réseau dans les cercles du pouvoir russe, qui peut à la fois tutoyer les pontes de la Loubianka et financer de grands médias d’opposition (sic).

The head of Russia’s military-industrial complex is a close associate of Vladimir Putin. One of his oldest comrades-in-arms, he was his flatmate when both served in the GDR in the late 1980s. So close, in fact, that he is one of the very few in a position to wield significant influence when the time comes to choose a successor to the Kremlin’s master. An extremely powerful figure, with an impressive network in the corridors of Russian power, who is equally at ease with the bigwigs at the Lubyanka and with funding major opposition media outlets (sic).

A black-and-white photo from the 1980s shows a Vladimir Putin with sideburns and hair falling over his ears, wearing a thick, thick-striped woolly jumper, sitting at a table with Sergei Chemezov. The two men look cheerful and are surrounded by friends or colleagues. Perhaps they are even singing. An accordion is part of the scene. It was during this period, whilst they were serving with the KGB in Dresden, in the GDR, that the friendship and closeness between these two men began.

No wonder that in 2004, his friend Vladimir, now president, appointed his old comrade-in-arms—born, like him, in 1952—to head RosoboronExport, the state agency responsible for exporting products from the Russian military-industrial complex. Three years later, he was ‘promoted’ to the top of the said military-industrial complex: he is now CEO of Rostec, the state-owned holding company that oversees a large part of the sector. Hundreds of companies. In Mr Putin’s bellicose Russia, heir to the no less bellicose USSR, that is no small feat!

Two decades on, the low-key Sergei Chemezov not only reigns over the sector entrusted to him by Vladimir Putin, but also wields considerable influence over the regime. He has his people everywhere, takes part in the debates raging amongst the ruling circles of the Russian Federation — from the level of the Central Bank’s key interest rates to the degree of liberalism that should be permitted within the cracks in the system — and defends his position in the dog-eat-dog world of Russian politics, from the Mayor of Moscow, rumoured to harbour presidential ambitions, to the leaders of the siloviki (security agencies: FSB, National Guard, Prosecutor General’s Office, etc.). To the point of appearing as a potential kingmaker the day Vladimir Putin leaves the Kremlin, for one reason or another. A kingmaker who, when the time comes, will find himself competing with other kingmakers, such as Yuri Kovalchuk (1), a friend of the president since their days in St Petersburg, who might attempt to install Sergei Kirienko, the current deputy head of the Presidential Administration in charge of domestic policy, in the Kremlin; such as Viktor Zolotov, the head of the National Guard, who is striving to promote one of Putin’s protégés, Alexei Dyumin, currently an adviser to the head of state; perhaps such as Igor Sechin, head of the oil giant Rosneft… Not to mention the siloviki bloc, notably the FSB, which will not stand idly …