Clara Ferreira Marques, Bloomberg News Results oriented. , Photographer: Handout/Getty Images Europe
(Bloomberg Opinion) Russian prime ministers are often swiftly forgotten. Few, like Vladimir Putin himself, have gone on to greater things.
Since taking over as prime minister in January, Mikhail Mishustin has promoted himself out of the first group. The tech-savvy former tax chief became the face of the governmentâs coronavirus response after Putin, early on, faded from view. Heâs pushing through an ambitious national spending program thatâs dear to the president. His personal popularity has been rising. And, in November, he tightened his hold on the domestic agenda with a cabinet reshuffle.
Russian prime ministers are often swiftly forgotten. Few, like Vladimir Putin himself, have gone on to greater things. Since taking over as prime minister in January, Mikhail Mishustin has promoted himself out of the first group. The tech-savvy former tax chief became the face of the government’s coronavirus response after Putin, early on, faded from view. He’s pushing through an ambitious national spending program that’s dear to the president. His personal popularity has been rising. And, in November, he tightened his hold on the domestic agenda with a cabinet reshuffle. It’s far too soon to say if he’ll join the second category, with more than three years to go to the end of Putin’s current term.
The Chubais Appointment: A Possible Putin Olive Branch To Biden And The West
December 10, 2020
A Kremlin decree published December 4, 2020, announced that Anatoly Borisovich Chubais will be appointed as special representative to the President of the Russian Federation for relations with international organizations to achieve sustainable development goals.
[1] The Chubais appointment aroused controversy in Russia. Putin has consistently evoked the bitter memories of the 1990s when following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia experienced severe economic privation and was seen by many Russians to have been reduced to a vassal state of the West. In successive elections, Putin and his supporters have recalled the bad times as a major reason for keeping him in power. Now Putin was appointing Chubais, a figure who was demonized for his prominent role in these bad times. Chubais was in charge of privatizing the economy a process that resulted in massive layoffs and the wiping ou