Council of Elders.
Putin’s pensioners with Cold War experience gathered at the “dormant institute” under the Security Council

Vladimir Putin updat­ed and expand­ed sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil at the Security Council of the Russian Federation. T-invari­ant ana­lyzed the biogra­phies of all its 174 mem­bers. The medi­an age of the coun­cil is pre-retire­ment, 63.5 years. The old­est mem­ber is 94 years old. Proven fight­ers of the Cold War and post-Soviet nos­tal­gia for impe­r­i­al pow­er are once again called to the front of ide­o­log­i­cal work and infor­ma­tion sab­o­tage. Their expe­ri­ence of fifty years ago is again in demand, as well as the pub­li­ca­tions of doc­tors of mil­i­tary sci­ences in pub­li­ca­tions of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces and mar­gin­al mil­i­tary jour­nals. The vast major­i­ty of the coun­cil are experts in “future war­fare”, “sixth gen­er­a­tion war­fare” and “Anglo-Saxon mil­i­tary doc­trine” cat­e­go­ry 70+. Nikolai Patrushev (72 years old) did not include a sin­gle spe­cial­ist in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence or unmanned sys­tems in such a rep­re­sen­ta­tive body. Against this back­ground, sev­er­al aca­d­e­m­ic func­tionar­ies or sci­en­tists work­ing in cur­rent mod­ern sci­ence (36-45 years old) look some­thing foreign. 

The list of the sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil has increased by 20 posi­tions and the edi­tors of T-invari­ant are forced to state that this Meeting has no ana­logues: it is more than twice as wide as the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and three times wider than the Council for Science and Education under the President of the Russian Federation. Although it is believed that it is there that rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all avail­able sci­en­tif­ic and tech­ni­cal areas are gath­ered. Experts inter­viewed by T-invari­ant believe that both the com­po­si­tion of the coun­cil and its expan­sion “reflect the trend toward the secu­ri­ti­za­tion of all life in the coun­try, includ­ing sci­ence.” But what its true func­tion is in wartime, whether such a rep­re­sen­ta­tive body will become a key think tank for the country’s lead­er­ship is not yet clear: “this is a dor­mant institution.”

Group 80-90

The coun­cil includes one per­son over 90 years old - soci­ol­o­gist Gennady Osipov, born in 1929, mem­ber of the CPSU since 1955, in his youth he entered the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy, but quick­ly reori­ent­ed to the study of “mod­ern bour­geois soci­ol­o­gy.” In this same, most mature age group, there are six more peo­ple over 80 years old. These are Afghanistan spe­cial­ist Vyacheslav Belokrenitsky (82), Latinist Vladimir Davydov (80), Indologist Tatyana Shaumyan (86), and agri­cul­tur­al econ­o­mist Ivan Ushachev (86). Standing apart are Yuri Koptev from Rostec (84), who is on most sanc­tions lists, and Vladislav Sherstnyuk (84), who has been involved in elec­tron­ic intel­li­gence for many years. 

Generation of Putin and Patrushev

The foun­da­tion of the coun­cil is the same age as Patrushev and Putin - 70-year-old peo­ple who gov­ern the coun­try at all lev­els. Patrushev him­self, the Secretary of the Security Council, also head­ed his own sci­en­tist Areopagus. 

In this group there are key edu­ca­tion­al and sci­en­tif­ic lead­ers of mil­i­tary-tech­no­log­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion: the rec­tor of MSTU. Bauman Anatoly Alexandrov (73), vice-pres­i­dent of the National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute” Vladimir Betelin (77). Note that Mikhail Kovalchuk (77) is not on the coun­cil, but in addi­tion to Betelin from Kurchatnik there are sev­er­al more of his rep­re­sen­ta­tives. In the same row are Viktor Misnik (75) from the Kometa cor­po­ra­tion (space recon­nais­sance, mis­sile weapons), long-term rec­tor and pres­i­dent of MIREA Alexander Sigov (79), Grigory Elkin (71), gen­er­al design­er of the Instrument-Making Corporation.

Here are key state social sci­en­tists, econ­o­mists and ide­ol­o­gists: President of IMEMO RAS Alexander Dynkin (75), per­ma­nent rec­tor of MGIMO Anatoly Torkunov (73), aca­d­e­mi­cian and for­mer vice-pres­i­dent of the RAS Alexander Nekipelov (72) and a num­ber of their less­er-known col­leagues of this age from MGIMO, HSE, MSU and RAS. 

But prob­a­bly the most influ­en­tial com­bat unit of the coun­cil is peo­ple with 70+ shoul­der straps. People like Andrei Kokoshin (78), a man with a rich biog­ra­phy and a large num­ber of dif­fer­ent posi­tions: from key lead­er­ship in mil­i­tary depart­ments to deputy sci­en­tif­ic direc­tor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (still under Kuzminov and Yasin, in 2019). For exam­ple, the heads of the Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Maksimovich (75), Vladimir Nazarov (74) or the FSB Border Academy - Mikhail Sorokin (75)

Or like Vitaly Davydov (71), with a long career in the mil­i­tary inspec­tion, the Security Council and Roscosmos. Now he works as deputy head of the Foundation for Advanced Study. State agen­cies reg­u­lar­ly inter­view him as the per­son in charge of the “Russian ana­logue of the American DARPA,” but he does not stayin­debt­ed and gen­er­ous­ly promis­es that “liv­ing fight­ers will be replaced by ter­mi­na­tors” and “a per­son will be able to breathe in water”.

But retired Major General Sergei Pechurov (73) is a spe­cial­ist in Anglo-Saxon mil­i­tary intel­li­gence. Here is the sub­head­ing one from the lat­est arti­cles: “The col­lec­tive or “white” West is bend­ing over back­wards, try­ing to take total con­trol of life on the plan­et in all its spheres and manifestations.”

In anoth­er arti­cle, “Why do the Anglo-Saxons kneel” he writes: “Armed with the racist the­o­ry of supe­ri­or­i­ty, the descen­dants of the Germanic tribes, includ­ing the Anglo-Saxons, have com­mit­ted so many crimes on our unfor­tu­nate plan­et that demon­stra­tive kneel­ing before the descen­dants of their vic­tims, as is now prac­ticed in the West, is unlike­ly to be accept­ed as atone­ment by the peo­ples of all the earth’s continents.”

And his young col­league - Major General Sergeantov (63) - is respon­si­ble in the sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil for the para­me­ters of future wars, in the Ministry of Defense - for an expert assess­ment of the threats to Russia’s nation­al secu­ri­ty asso­ci­at­ed with the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of his­to­ry Great Patriotic War, and in the pub­li­ca­tion “Military Analytics” fix­es “the dis­ap­pear­ance of the nuclear mis­sile threat from Iran.”

Note that the ten­den­cy towards mar­gin­al the­o­ries among mem­bers of the sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil has no age lim­it. If Sergei Turko (78) from the Academy of Military Sciences explores “sixth gen­er­a­tion wars”, then Sergey Grinyaev (52) from the Center for Strategic Assessments and Forecasts respon­si­ble in the Council for the “war in the fourth sphere.” 

“Second gen­er­a­tion infor­ma­tion war­fare pro­vides for the cre­ation of an atmos­phere of lack of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and immoral­i­ty, a neg­a­tive atti­tude towards the cul­tur­al her­itage of the ene­my…” he notes in his analy­sis on infor­ma­tion weapons USA.

Power pensioners

A sig­nif­i­cant group of fig­ures are peo­ple of ear­ly retire­ment and pre-retire­ment age. There are the largest num­ber of peo­ple from the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs here. Led by Patrushev’s deputy on the sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil, Rashid Nurgaliev (67), ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (list­ed on all sanc­tions lists). 

Several peo­ple are on the sanc­tions list for Navalny’s poi­son­ing. Here are FSB Major General Vladimir Bogdanov (65) and Yuri Vlasovfrom the FSUE GosNIIOKhT (where Novichok is manufactured). 

This is prac­ti­cal­ly the stan­dard FSB Major General Dmitry Ivanov (60), who in turn head­ed the Siberian FSB Directorates (Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk), and now has been pro­mot­ed and head­ed a cer­tain “cen­ter” » The FSB is already in the capital’s head­quar­ters (ordi­nary peo­ple don’t need to know any more infor­ma­tion, appar­ent­ly, the depart­ment believes). Let us note that it was these FSB depart­ments that par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­tin­guished them­selves in the land­ings of hyper­son­ic sci­en­tists in local sci­en­tif­ic insti­tutes on charges of “in trea­son”.

A career (since 1980) intel­li­gence offi­cer is respon­si­ble for encrypt­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the Council Igor Kachalin (66) from the National Center for Cryptography and Andrey Kovalenko (68), head of the Institute cryptographerII of the FSB and vice-pres­i­dent of the Academy of Cryptography of the Russian Federation. State and mil­i­tary secrets are pro­fes­sion­al­ly pro­tect­ed by Andrei Kolovanov (60) from the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces (8th con­trol).

In addi­tion to the FSB, the SVR is well rep­re­sent­ed on the sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil (we have already men­tioned sev­er­al peo­ple above), but not always direct­ly. Three rep­re­sen­ta­tives, for exam­ple, were del­e­gat­ed by the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI), leav­ing behind (pos­si­bly for con­spir­a­cy pur­pos­es) only its boss, the ex-head of the SVR Mikhail Fradkov (75). Let us remind you that US offi­cials accused RISI in inter­fer­ence in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. This is the most high-pro­file “case” of the orga­ni­za­tion, but track record quite wide. 

RISI was actu­al­ly part of the SVR for many years until 2009. Also, for some rea­son, the first direc­tor of RISI, Lieutenant General of the SVR, was left behind the sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil Leonida Reshetnikova (77), now a per­ma­nent speak­er on the Tsargrad TV chan­nel, cre­ator and leader of the Double-Headed Eagle and Heritage of the Empire soci­eties. But there is no need to wor­ry about the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of impe­r­i­al ide­ol­o­gy in the coun­cil: the lists include Reshetnikov’s con­stant co-authors - Messrs. Tishchenko (70), Kosarev (70) Kholodkov (73).

Successors

Despite the out­stand­ing numer­i­cal com­po­si­tion of the coun­cil (174 peo­ple), the new list did not find a place for sev­er­al fig­ures who seemed to fit per­fect­ly into this mono­chrome age and ide­o­log­i­cal palette. In addi­tion to the already men­tioned Mikhail Kovalchuk (77), the absence of Viktor Sadovnichy (85) and sup­port­er of the use of a nuclear bomb Sergei Karaganov (71) from the Higher School of Economics is sur­pris­ing. The lat­ter, how­ev­er, is rep­re­sent­ed by his stu­dent and the suc­ces­sor at the Facultyof World Economy and International Politics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics - the youngest mem­ber of the coun­cil - Anastasia Likhacheva (36).

In addi­tion to Likhacheva (she became the dean of the fac­ul­ty at the Higher School of Economics at the age of 33), Kirill Babaev (45), lin­guist, ori­en­tal­ist, direc­tor of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, stands out for her age and cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic achieve­ments RAS and Vladimir Nazarov (41), direc­tor of the Research Institute under the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. And also forty-year-old Oleg Pichkov and Andrey Sushentsov, deans of two key fac­ul­ties at MGIMO. Dmitry Rosenthal, direc­tor of the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is 40 years old. 

Standing apart in the younger cohort of the sci­en­tif­ic coun­cil is the rec­tor of the University of Justice under the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation Olga Alexandrova (50), also known as the wife of Alexander Bastrykin (70), head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (him­self the head of the coun­cil absent). 

“In gen­er­al, the for­ma­tion of a new com­po­si­tion of the Scientific Council under the Russian Security Council is an event that has lit­tle to do with sci­ence, but seems to have a cer­tain sig­nif­i­cance for the domes­tic pol­i­cy of Russia,” notes the doc­tor of eco­nom­ics Sciences, Professor Igor Lipsits. — Such a large Council, formed pri­mar­i­ly of very mid­dle-aged sci­en­tists, looks like prepa­ra­tion for fil­ing a claim for sci­en­tif­ic valid­i­tyappear­ance the new President of Russia. Political sci­en­tists have long been talk­ing about claims to this posi­tion either by Nikolai Patrushev him­self, or by the prepa­ra­tion of his son, Patrushev Jr., for this posi­tion. For such a maneu­ver, you need to have at least min­i­mal sup­port from the state appa­ra­tus, which should be shown that this is not just a mat­ter of chang­ing the first per­son, but also a new pol­i­cy. And then in this rowthe fact of the arrest of the Deputy Minister of Defense is framed, as well as extreme­ly mali­cious slan­der against the head of the Bank of Russia E.S. Nabiullin, which seem to come from the Presidential Administration or the Security Council appa­ra­tus. She is direct­ly accused of dis­rupt­ing, through an inflat­ed key rate, the Government’s efforts to ensure eco­nom­ic growth in the coun­try. And the fact that the new com­po­si­tion of the Council under the Security Council includ­ed the younger broth­er of Deputy Prime Minister Belousov, whose projects are being ham­pered by the high cost of loans in Russia, allows us to believe that the doc­u­ments men­tioned were appar­ent­ly gen­er­at­ed in the Security Council.” 

Securitization trend

The edi­tors of T-invari­ant do not aim to present the biog­ra­phy of each mem­ber of the Council, espe­cial­ly since a num­ber of sci­en­tif­ic fig­ures (as a rule, from among assis­tants and advis­ers to the lead­ers of the Security Council and employ­ees of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces) is not rep­re­sent­ed in the pub­lic space by any kind of biography. 

For exam­ple, with­out know­ing the exact age of Pyotr Zhurilo from the Main Center for Scientific Research of the Federal Service of the National Guard Troops of the Russian Federation, we can assess his intel­lec­tu­al poten­tial by mono­graphs “Material and tech­ni­cal sup­port for inter­nal affairs bod­ies as a fac­tor in increas­ing the eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty of Russia.” And the poten­tial of Dmitry Gribkov from the Security Council “accord­ing to him inter­view.

“This advice was com­plete­ly invis­i­ble until recent years. But now its expan­sion appears to reflect the gen­er­al direc­tion of secu­ri­ti­za­tion of all life. Including sci­ence. People there are most­ly unre­lat­ed to mod­ern research, but appar­ent­ly they are con­fi­dent that they can set prob­lems for sci­ence and edu­ca­tion. This is a gath­er­ing of secu­ri­ty offi­cials and their sup­port­ers from the acad­e­my,” a promi­nent uni­ver­si­ty fig­ure who recent­ly worked at one of the lead­ing uni­ver­si­ties, whose employ­ees are wide­ly rep­re­sent­ed on the coun­cil, told T-invariant. 

“I’ve nev­er encoun­tered it in my work. This is, I would say, a dor­mant insti­tu­tion. Lots of odi­ous char­ac­ters. On the oth­er hand, if it sud­den­ly turns out that the Scientific Council of the Security Council begins to play an inde­pen­dent sig­nif­i­cant role, among its mem­bers I see a num­ber of peo­ple who could intel­lec­tu­al­ly sup­port such a role,” says T-invariant’s inter­locu­tor, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked in the space indus­try industry. 

The edi­tors of T-invari­ant specif­i­cal­ly clar­i­fied with the inter­locu­tor that in his com­ment he used the phrase “dor­mant insti­tu­tion” as a social sci­ence term, and not as a descrip­tion of a typ­i­cal meet­ing with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of elder­ly func­tionar­ies from times of stagnation. 

Editors  25.04.2024

education, Russia, Russian Academy of Science, war, Владимир Путин