In 1975, Russian President Vladimir Putin was beginning his public service career as an intelligence officer for the KGB. Naturally, as president, he has surrounded himself with other “securocrats.”
In Putin’s ministry, one security official has taken credit for Russian victories in Syria and Crimea… but he may take the blame for Russia’s blunders in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.
Meet Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Shoigu may not have the name recognition of Putin, but he has helped to shape much of Putin’s foreign policy.
“When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s nuclear forces to go on high alert last week, he looked down a long table at his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, who nodded in assent,” Thomas Grove, a Middle East correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, wrote on Thursday.
A photo of Shoigu went viral on Twitter after this meeting, with Shoigu looking deeply sad at Putin’s long table.
Take a look —
Naturally Putin was sitting a healthy 15 feet away from Shoigu and Gerasimov at the end of a ridiculously long table when he told them to get the nukes out pic.twitter.com/xmNUn21Aa1
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 27, 2022
The international community has recognized Shoigu’s role in molding Russia’s foreign policy. For that reason, Shoigu is facing sanctions from both the U.S. and the European Union.
Shoigu himself has been appearing on television to defend Putin’s war.
“The most important thing for us is to protect the Russian Federation from the military threat created by the West, which is trying to use the Ukrainian people in the fight against our country,” he said in front of a televised audience, according to the Journal. “The grouping of the armed forces of the Russian Federation will continue to carry out the special military operation until the mission put forth has been completed.”
Russia watchers have been stressing Shoigu’s increasing risk of becoming Putin’s scapegoat.
“It all depends on how this all ends for Putin,” Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at a Washington-area nonprofit, told the Journal. “Beyond Putin, this is very damning for one person in particular, and that is Sergei Shoigu… By agreeing to these assumptions and this type of operation, he has essentially thrown the Russian military into a disaster.”
“Shoigu was supposed to be marching to Kyiv; he’s minister of defence and was supposed to win it,” Vera Mironova, an armed services specialist, told the BBC on Friday.
Shoigu was born in East Siberia to a Ukrainian-born Russian mother. He became minister of emergencies during the Soviet era, and he rose to the Defense Ministry in 2012.
Shoigu planned Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, a Ukrainian territory. He earned a medal “For the Return of Crimea.”
In the past, Putin has enjoyed high approval ratings, even in times of war. Now, that may change, and he may try to pin it on Shoigu.
The Horn editorial team