In Moscow's Shadows 242: Igor Sechin, Sharpening Putin's Pencils for 30 Years

Putin reportedly gathered top oligarchs behind closed doors and asked them to chip in to help fill the budget, with the war in Ukraine sitting unmistakably in the background. The idea seems to have been initiated by Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s gravel-voiced boss and one of the most polarising figures in Putin’s circle. After keeping a low profile since 2022, why is he coming back into the news? Because of the 'Prigozhin Syndrome': if you are a crony, not a friend, if you want something from the boss, you also need to demonstrate your utility.

That early podcast from 2022, by the way, In Moscow's Shadows 2: Mishustin, Sechin, Institutional vs Personal Power, is here.

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Transcript

Sechin Back In The News

MG 0:00

Eagle searching, the foul mouth, gravel voiced, trolling change of Rosneft, is back in the news. So let's take a look at him and let's see how he's dealt with what we could call pygmian syndrome. Hello, I'm Mark Galeotti, and welcome to my view of Russia in Moscow Shadows. This podcast of varying length, frequency and format, yet always reassuringly low production values, is supported by generous and perspicacious patrons like you, and also by the Crisis Exercise software company Conductor. Before I get started, shortly I'm going to be starting some travels, which will actually mean that I'll be away for not one but two Sundays in a row. At least one of those I will try to have a pre-recorded episode ready to roll, but it is possible that there will be a little interruption in normal services. We'll just have to wait and see. Anyway, this was very much prompted by a scoop in the economics focused on online source The Bell, which reported, and this was picked up much more widely afterwards, that on Thursday Putin gathered together a collection of oligarchs behind closed doors during a meeting of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and apparently asked them to pitch in for the national budget, particularly specifically rather for the war in Ukraine, saying we will keep fighting and we will push to the borders of Donbass, which again really is reaffirming his determination to get hold of that remaining 20 or so per cent of Danetsk region. And it seems that the heavily sanctioned tycoon Suleiman Kerimov promised on the spot to contribute 100 billion rubles, that's$1.23 billion, and that at least one other major businessman present at the meeting also backed the idea, though we haven't had a name, we haven't had a sense of the amount of contribution, and the smart money seems to be, excuse the expression, that it was Ayek Deripaska, the metals magnate, who contributed that. Now, inevitably something of a big deal has been made of this in the West, and in particular those who want to claim that it demonstrates that the Russian economy is in crisis and so forth have been to the fore. I think we need to be a little bit cautious. First of all, look, the notion of windfall taxes, which is in effect what this is, is hardly unfamiliar in the West, as indeed it isn't to Russia. I mean that very same day, Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said that he was considering another windfall tax if the ruble continues to weaken, because there are particularly certain companies which benefit quite dramatically as a result. And back in 2023, the Russians raised 320 billion rubles, which at the time was just under 3 billion pounds, through a one of 10% windfall levy on some of the larger companies. So this is nothing necessarily new. And in many ways, it also is uh an appropriately feudal kind of tax. This is Putin essentially saying to these people, you have all been beneficiaries of the Kremlin's support, largesse, and tolerance in the past. Well now the bill is coming due. You're not exactly impoverished, you can afford to chip in. And it also is faintly reminiscent of back in 2005, there was this passing round the hat to various oligarchs and corporations to provide monies notionally for the national project health, which obviously sounds like a very good cause, though in practice a large chunk of this money was actually diverted, with everyone's knowledge, to build Putin's palace at Gilinchik on the Black Sea coast. So, you know, there is a something of a tradition of these points when actually everyone's expected to chip in. And it doesn't necessarily demonstrate that the economy is in crisis, it is rather that this is a good time to raise funds because Russian businesses are cashing in on surging prices for oil, for gas, for fertilizer, for various other commodities, courtesy of the war in the Middle East. In the open part of the meeting with the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Putin actually warned business people against getting been too carried away by the immediate opportunities, saying we need to keep our heads. If markets swing one way today, they may swing the other way tomorrow. And in fact, it's perfectly true. I mean the Russians are treating this as a short-term bonus rather than the new economic normal. But of course, from Putin's point of view, yes, of course he wants money. I mean, point one, name me one government that says we have quite enough revenue at the moment, thanks very much. It would be greedy to ask for more. Of course, governments want money. But also, in particular, from Putin's point of view, the key thing is not that the economy is about to collapse. It is rather that the more spare cash available in the Treasury, not only the greater the chance of staving off cuts in public spending that might breed political disenchantment, but also it delays the point at which he can no longer afford to recruit for the special military operation by offering volunteers huge sums of money. And that's when you have to make the really tough decisions about maybe having to use conscripts or mobilize reservists, which again will have a huge political price tag. So, you know, this is just simply taking advantage of the opportunity to extend a certain window of opportunity to avoid making the war genuinely Russia's war. Significant then, but not signs of a crisis. However, one particular aspect that did catch my eye was that, according to the Bell sources, and on the whole the Bell has very good sources, it's worth noting, the whole idea of this uh quote unquote voluntary donation originated with Igor Sechin, Putin's longtime ally, the CEO of Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft. But why that was quite striking for me is since 2022 Sechin has been keeping a surprisingly low profile. So I thought it was a good opportunity to take a look at the man, the myth, and the miceily unpleasant stories around this fellow. And doing so, I was thinking I I thought I had covered Setchin in a podcast. And I look back and it turns out it was actually in the second ever issue, edition, call them what you will, of In Moscow Shadows back in 2020, in which I was comparing him with Prime Minister Mikhail Mushustin as case studies of institutional versus personal power. Um you might want to go back and listen if you want. It's only just over half an hour. Uh interesting for me, actually, how the style and pace of the podcast has changed over that time, because it's not like I tend to go back and re-listen to old episodes. But anyway, there it is. So I I think I can safely uh retread this territory. And well, one of the things you'll immediately encounter when you start looking at Sjechin is this claim that he's known not only as the Grey Cardinal, but also as Russia's Darth Vader. And I mean I was tempted uh to to dub over on this point the Imperial March. But the trouble is that I can't help thinking that this is one of these nicknames that are generated by journalists. And other ones, other people think, well, I hadn't heard that, but still that's interesting, and that that's a good bit of copy, and it gets used, and then it gets picked up by the Russians themselves and used. I I have a feeling, for example, that uh general apocalypse for General Surovikin is another one of these things that yes, now you'll find Russian outlets using it, but I honestly don't think they were. But anyway, Russia's Darth Vader, and it's really quite appropriate if Putin is the the wizened emperor figure, Darth Vader is this large, burly, imposing and powerful henchman. But well look, this is certainly what Sechin was, but I'm not sure if it's really what Sechin is. He is certainly, it has to be said, not a nice chap. Sycophantic to his boss, a bully to everyone below him, known for also his extraordinarily foul mouth. But he is also presenting a case study in how it can be advantageous to be or to have been, Putin's literal bag carrier. We have this footage and photos of him back in the days when Putin was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and and Sechin was his aide, of absolutely it was Sechin who was carrying his bags and doing everything else. Sechin was indeed the man who sharpened Putin's pencils, which as I say that I really feel I should stress that I meant that literally and not as some kind of ribbled and dirty euphemism, because that does bring a terrible image to mind. So let's look at his career in very broad terms. I mean his early career, he studied at Leningrad State University, again Putin's alma mater, but not uh in Putin's class or anything like that. In fact, he then worked, he was a linguist, and he then worked as a Soviet interpreter in Mozambique and Angola. And the pretty substantial suggestions are some people say he was KGB, I don't think so. I think it was more likely that he was GRU, because it's very much the kind of classic pattern of GRU officers that they they're often military interpreters. Anyway, then civilian life, he served at the Office of the St. Petersburg Mayoralty. He was Putin, became Putin's chief of staff in 1994, still carrying Putin's bags. And then when Putin's patron, Mayor Subchak, lost the elections and Putin went to Moscow, well, Sechin went with him, became his deputy, for example, 1997 to 8, as head of the General Department in the Main Control Directorate, which is what Putin was doing within the presidential administration before he went on to become director of the FSB, and then following that Prime Minister, heir apparent and acting president. And in that time, I mean there was this fascinating and I think quite telling little anecdote that Putin and Sechin were both allocated apartments by the government administration, and apparently Putin's nose was very much put out of joint by the fact that his his deputy had received an apartment which was four square metres, yes, four whole square metres larger than his own. Still, Putin was nonetheless perfectly willing to use Sechin's apartment, it seems, for assignations with his mistress. And what seems to have happened, 'cause this was happening during the the day, Sechin's wife, his first wife, realized that there had been another woman present in the apartment and clearly suspicious, interrogated Sechin about this, and he broke and admitted that in fact it was that the flat was being used by Putin for this purpose. And in fact Sechin's wife then told Putin's wife, Ludmilla, and that was one more uh fracture in what doesn't seem to have been a very happy relationship. Anyway, Sechin continued to be Putin's loyal factotum, and when Putin went to the presidency, then Sechin went with him, he would serve as Deputy Chief of Staff, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, 2000 to 2008. Then when Midvedev came in in that period of the so-called castling, in which Putin was technically Prime Minister Medvedev President, well, he became Deputy Prime Minister, overseeing energy policy. He was overseeing energy policy because he was essentially wearing two hats, appropriate for his two faces, some might say, because in 2004 he had also been made chair of Rosneft, the Oil Corporation. And he was then playing a crucial role in the persecution of Mikhail Kodakovsky and then the subsequent breakup and confiscation of his Yukos oil empire. And frankly, I mean it is clear that that had been one of Sechin's key goals to be able to plunder Yukos. Khodokovsky himself said the second as well as the first case, legal cases against him, were organized by Sechin. He orchestrated the first case against me out of greed and the second out of cowardice. Now, in twenty eleven, when Midvedev, still president, said that senior officials had to resign from roles in large companies, which I mean, A, I think makes sense, and B speaks actually to Medvedev's credit. Anyway, he resigned from Rosneft, but then when Putin became president in 2012, he was no longer needed to keep an eye on Medvedev, so he abandoned his position as Deputy Prime Minister, returned to Rosneft as CEO and chair of the board, and that's been his role ever since. So is he, as some would say, kind of the grey cardinal behind Putin? Not really. Maybe once upon a time he had a lot more influence than he does now, but nor is he, as some would suggest, a so-called Sylovark sort of compound of oligarch and silovic, you know, these oligarchs who came from the security apparatus. Yeah, he he once did seem to stand as in some ways the kind of representative of the Tribune of the Security and Intelligence Services. But to be honest, that was a long, long time ago, and it was never that critical. And certainly in my own conversations since then with people from the security world, I never got the sense from them that they felt that Sechin was their guy. They really regarded him as having just simply become an oil baron. And that's that. You also occasionally get his name raised as a potential successor to Putin. That was never in the frame. He was never really a political appointee. He was an administrative crony and then a businessman. But of course, a very, very privileged crony. We can see this, for example, about his whole business approach. You know, there's there's some debate about how good he is as actually a CEO. I have a suspicion that he's not very good, because what he can do is he can, if need be, rely on his political clout in order sort of to be a pretty cannibalistic actor within the Russian economy, using this clout to absorb other entities when he needs the money. And we saw this particularly in the acquisition of a rival oil corporation, Bashneft. And why that's particularly significant is well that led to the rather extraordinary case in 2016 of the arrest of Alexei Ulyukaiev. Now, Alexei Ulyukieev was the Minister for Economic Development, and in November 2016 he was arrested and charged with having demanded and extorted a$2 million bribe from Sechin in order to lift his opposition to the Bashnev takeover. Now, Ulyukaiev himself says he was invited to go and meet Sechin in his offices, and Sechin gave him a basket as a sort of gift, which is not that unusual within Russian business etiquette. Frankly, just as it probably wouldn't be that unusual to accept some kind expect rather some kind of gift for, again, allowing something through. How many Russian officials, let's say, let's face it, see, especially senior ones, live on their salaries alone. I think we have a very round number, because, frankly, 0% is as round a number as you can get. But anyway, he thought really it was just a basket with kind of token gifts, like sort of Sechin is a is an infamously passionate hunter. Doesn't that come as a surprise? And he often gives, for example, you know, sausages made from animals that he has butchered and the like as gifts, and that's what Ilyukaiev claims that he thought he was getting. But anyway, he was then arrested. It's fairly obvious that he was framed, particularly by the use of the so-called the six, which was a team within the FSB's internal security service, under General Alyeg Fyotistov, who then coincidentally became head of security for guess what, Rosneft. Anyway, Ulyukieev was arrested, a fairly transparent frame had been arranged in order to punish Ulyukieev by Sechin, who didn't even then bother, despite repeatedly being summoned, to actually give evidence in court. But nonetheless, Ulyukieev, and this is ultimately because Putin was uncomfortable with the case, but nonetheless backed his guy Siechin, was then sentenced to eight years in prison. Though he was paroled in in 2022. So it's it's a real case of personal vendetta. By that stage the Bashnev deal was going through. But Ulyukhaev had stood against it, and therefore Ulyukieev had to be made to suffer, and to be made to suffer in a really demonstrable way that showed that Sechin really didn't have to worry about even preserving the appearance of following the laws. So that is this charming fellow. But the interesting thing is, since 2022, since the invasion, he's been surprisingly quiet, very much just simply focusing on Rosneft and only really commenting on the very immediate business dealings of his corporation, which again is is out of character for Setin beforehand. He was even actually relatively quiet over the kidnap of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela. And why that's significant is remember the way that the Russian ad hocracy works is that formal responsibilities are often not the same as real responsibilities. And certainly the foreign ministry has lost control of certain certain sort of areas of policy. Syria essentially became a defense ministry, hold out, for example, when he was Secretary of the Security Council, Patrushev dominated policy over the Balkans. And Sechin, given the oil factor, was essentially dominating policy over Venezuela. But nonetheless, when you have Maduro taken, when you have Trump trying to sort of build a new relationship with Venezuela, what does Sechin say about it? Very, very little. But nonetheless, bit by bit, he's been returning to the news in the past year. And I think that tells us something about the situation, but also about how Russia works. So I'll talk about that after the break. Just the usual mid-episode reminder that you're listening to the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conducto, which provides software for crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counterterrorism, civil affairs and the like. But you can also support the podcast yourself by going to patreon.com slash InMoscow Shadows. And remember that patrons get a variety of additional perks depending on their tier, as well as knowing that they're supporting this peerless source on all things Russian. And you can also follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or on Facebook, MarkGaleotti on Russia. Now back to the episode. One of the things you soon learn looking at Serchin is the degree to which he has become something of a folk devil to so many, not just within the liberal opposition, such that they are prepared to listen to, recount, and amplify pretty much any rumour that paints him as this dark and baleful force behind everything that's going on. So for example, we've had recently this wild claim that Sechin now effectively runs the military. First of all, that's rooted in the supposed and I think entirely mythical role that he's meant to have played in Shoigu's removal as defence minister. So the claim is that there was an alliance between Chemizov, Bortnikov, Karalyov, Kovalchuk, Sechin, Krasnov, and Tkachov. Now, let's unpick that for a moment. Chemizov, head of the Rostek Arms Corporation. Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service, Karalyov, First deputy director and heir apparent. Kovalchuk. Well, we're talking about Yuri Kovalchuk, not the ice hockey player. Yuri Kovalchuk, the chairman and largest shareholder of Bank Russia. Sechin himself, Krasnov, Prosecutor General turned chairman of the Supreme Court, and Tkachov, of whom more in a moment, but senior FSB officer. So the idea that all of them somehow formed an alliance against an even wilder claim, a Shoiguv, Pathrushev, Medvedev, and Tymchenko, Gennady Tymchenko, the oligarch alliance. I mean, there is absolutely no evidence, but still you will find this claim circulating all sorts of places in social media in particular. And then particularly, this was given an even greater form, with the news of the appointment of Lieutenant General Ivan Tkachev, who I mentioned, as head of the Federal Security Services Military Counterintelligence Department, the DVKR, in September of last year. Now, back in December of 2024, the previous head, Colonel General Nikolai Yuriev, had been dismissed following the murder of, if you remember, General Igor Kirillov, who had been head of the radiation, chemical, and biological, I always forget the order of those, defence troops in Moscow in what seems to have been a Ukrainian intelligence hit. So Yuriev was forced to go down, and then there was a dispute over who was going to replace him. And originally it seems as if the job was simply going to go to his deputy, Vice Admiral Pavel Boyko. In fact, though, it ended up going to Tkachev, who up to that point had been head of the Economic Security Services Directorate K. And this is all framed as Setchin's work, because Tkachev was originally one of the so-called Setchin Spetsnas, this essentially suborned group of people within the FSB's internal security directorate, who, amongst other things, had arranged the framing of Ulyukhayev. But the point is that, well, first of all, that was then, I mean, ten years ago, Thachev was one of the senior figures within this group, the so-called the sixth. But look, a lot can happen in ten years. Most of these kind of patron-client relationships are very transactional and often really quite temporary. And there's very little evidence that Sechin had been doing much for Tkachev in the intervening ten years. So, first of all, again, the fact that once there was a connection does not necessarily prove that there is now. That's a very, very common problem we find with criminology, along with the idea that if people sort of served or studied or whatever together, they have some kind of alliance. Often they can actually end up hating each other. But perhaps more important, the DVKR is quite important as a sort of role, it's quite a large directorate, but it is neither lucrative nor prestigious. Indeed, actually, to be head is quite a perilous position, if, as is quite likely, these assassinations of senior Russian military figures continue because you are basically the one who's going to be primarily blamed for it. On the other hand, any economic security service position, well, I mean kaching, that's where the real money is to be made. And actually, Directorate K was particularly that's particularly true of that. Because Directorate K was is technically responsible for counterintelligence in the financial sector. So in other words, it gets to oversee banks, the tax agencies, the custom service. This is where the chances for all kinds of major payouts can be found. Because you can tilt the outcomes of raiding operations, or you can just simply extort people who have a lot of money to be extorted in the guise of investigating high-profile economic crimes. And also because it's one of the key instruments that the state can use to bring pressure to bear on business, it's also actually quite politically important. So arguably, Takhachev gets a technical bump up but loses a much prized plum job. So, you know, if if that was the the gift of of Sechin's patronage, then I'm not quite sure whether or not Takhachev actually would appreciate it. But anyway, the point is that because of that, people assume that somehow Sechin can now reach in and control the generals. As I say, see, people seeing his baleful hand everywhere. And even the very fact that it was Belusov, Andrey Belusov, who became Minister of Defence, is seen as somehow a Sechin factor because Belusov was a while on the Rozneft board. People forget that actually Belusov was very critical of Sechin's policies and actually left the board as a result. So let's be careful about that. Then we also had the journalist Mikhail Segar in his opinion column for the New York Times suggesting that Sechin could actually replace Kirill Dmitriev in as lead economic negotiator in the team talking to the Americans. I'm really not convinced about that. I mean it could well happen. Ziegar often has extraordinarily good sources, but on the other hand, we are relying on anonymous sources, and frankly, a process which for the moment seems to have run into the ground, so we'll wait and see. Also, in summer of 2025, we saw Sechin making some, for him, new overtures about rare earth metals. Because after all, you know, Russia holds about 10% of the world's rare earth metal reserves, and this is increasingly important as a geopolitical factor given their use in high-tech gadgets from cell phones to fighter planes. Indeed, actually, when he was talking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last year, he framed it in these very geopolitical terms, noting that the West was trying to now bring together control over these key resources, though actually it's China who's doing that. More on that in a moment. And he very, very explicitly noted that the production production of one F-35 fighter, this new all-singing, dancing, all-stealthy fighter that we're seeing currently in use over Iran. Anyway, one of these jets requires 417 kilograms of rare earth metals. Okay, that's fair enough. The reason why that is significant though, as I say, apart from the China factor, of which more in a moment, is that again it was Setchin spreading his spreading his wings, I think of them as rather bat-like ones. Anyway, in ways that he hadn't for a while, and coming out more, again if I can mix my metaphors, of the shadows. And now we have claims about this uh well, let's say shakedown, having been his suggestion. Now, Peskov, Dmitry Peskov, the presidential spokesman, has denied this, has said it's not true that it came from Igor Sechin, it's not true that it was said that the money would go to the special military operation. It was not true that Putin made such a request. Instead, one of the participants argued that the overwhelming majority of those at the meeting started their businesses in the 1990s, and these businesses were primarily connected in one way or another to the state. Therefore, many now consider it their duty to make such contributions. One of the participants said this. It was absolutely his initiative. I kinda have feeling that you're protesting a little bit too much there, Dima. Anyway, continues, it was not President Putin's initiative, although of course the head of state welcomed such an initiative. I bet he did. Anyway, though it it may be true, it may not be, but the point is clearly in one way or another Sechin is back. So why is this? Well, a key element of that rests in how you how you define Sechin's relationship with Putin. Some people will, for example, describe him in very neutral terms as an associate, but others suggest that he's a friend of Putin's. That I would question. I've been going back trying to, for example, find evidence of friendly activities, by which I don't mean as a counterpart to hostile ones, but signs that Setchin actually is in Putin's social circle. That he was invited into Putin's sort of group at night league hockey games, that he was partying with Putin, that he was dining with him in anything other than a formal setting, or like Shoigu was taking him hiking, anything like that. I've not been able to find it. And I think it represents the fact that Putin has, we can almost call it a kind of class division, that he very much draws a line between friends and cronies. And clearly friends also get all the perks of cronies, all the impunities, all the economic opportunities, but nonetheless they also are in a very special case. I don't think Sechin is a friend, I think he's a crony, and as a crony, you have to keep working that much harder, especially at times when you have particular problems and opportunities, and therefore need to demonstrate your continued utility to the boss. Now, problems, well, actually Rosneft is like the rest of the Russian oil industry, actually having something of a problem, and he's been lobbying quite hard for government support or at least a lessening of some of the burdens on it. I mean Rosneft produces about 40% of the country's oil and a quarter of its gas. And well, it's seen its profits plummet really quite hard, threefold. First half of 2024, 773 billion rubles. First half of last year, 245. So down from 773 to 245. That's really quite a substantial fall. And in fact, by the middle of last year, 45% of all the oil and gas companies in Russia were actually unprofitable, according to data from Rostadt. And their total losses amounted to about 750 billion rubles. And Sechin, in many ways, I mean, you know, basically, because Rosneft and Luckoil are really the two big beasts in this, and then Gazprom, more in the gas sector, Sechin is one of the figures who is kind of expected to stand up for the industry. And he certainly has. He's obviously to a degree noted the international situation. But in particular, he's been picking fights, first of all, with the central bank, which he says basically that their actions have been hurting Rosneft and the oil industry as a whole. But also transport monopolies like Transneft, which do pipelines, and Ergeder, the railways, because apparently, according to him, their fee structure and their monopolistic positions also treat the oil industry unfairly, because obviously the oil oil has to be moved around one way or the other. So, you know, essentially he's fighting his industry's corner, both for Rostneft's sake, but also for the industry as a whole, and doing so by essentially challenging other sectors of the economy and the government system. But it's not just a negative thing that actually he finds his his back against the wall to a degree. He can also spot some opportunities that are emerging. I mean, back in November, for example, the Financial Times reported that the collapse of a deal to sell Look Oil's foreign assets to Gunvor, which is the company owned by the aforementioned Gennady Tymchenka. Or sorry, formerly owned. Anyway, that sparked a whole new wave of rumours that actually Rosneft might try and take Luke oil or at least as parts of Look Oil over, something that Putin had previously blocked. Not sure if it's going to happen, but still watch this space. Because if nothing else, Sechin can use these this kind of pressure as a bargaining chip to try and get something else somewhere, you know, some other benefit somewhere else. And in fact, maybe he's already cashed that in in part, because according to Comessant, he has actually convinced Putin to reverse his position and revive a project to build a huge petrochemical plant in Primoria, way over the far east of the Russian Federation. Now, this is a project that was shelved in 2019 because of its unprofitability. And Roznev's been trying to push it ever since. I mean, frankly, Rosnev started pushing this project back in 2009. And Putin was reluctant, not least because we're talking about something which would cost 1.5 trillion rubles. So it's a big deal. The idea being it would create a facility with oil refining capacity, able to handle about 12 million tonnes per year, as part of a wider petrochemical complex. This is admittedly an area that does tend to suffer from a severe shortage of domestic oil refining capacity. And also, because it's candidly over in the Russian Far East, it can more easily in due course service Asian markets and is further away from pesky westerners and their special forces teams and helicopters that have been of late intercepting shadow fleet tankers. So there's also potentially a geopolitical dimension. But the point is, having been resistant for so long, despite the condition of the national budget, nonetheless Putin has now given the green light, which again does suggest that Sechin has had some success in his lobbying efforts. And in part it's also because he's benefiting from the current crisis in the Gulf. Again, back in the middle of 2025, his he said that Rosnev was essentially basing its estimates on an oil price of$45 per barrel in 2025 and a little bit less 42 to 43 in 2026. Now at one point that seemed to be frankly overoptimistic. But now with oil prices heading up above$100, at least for the moment, well, for the moment Sechin seems to have more opportunities to throw his weight around. But as I say, the point is he has to throw his weight around because he has to demonstrate utility. Now, in part, obviously, this whole point about the shakedown. If it was Sechin, was presumably to try and trap his peers. He came up with the idea and he hopes that that's his contribution, and it's other oligarchs who are actually going to have to stump up the cash. It's a chance to undercut his rivals, and maybe it's a chance to get that bigger piece of the shrinking treasury pie. But we've also seen this over China policy. Now it's interesting because obviously China is a major buyer of Russian oil and indeed gas, but it also gets it at one hell of a discount. Often, frankly, a almost ruinous discount. So you find this generally across the hydrocarbon sector in Russia, a certain ambivalence towards China, a desire to, if we're putting it bluntly, to suck up to the Chinese, but also resentment at the degree to which the Chinese know that full well and use it to drive very, very hard bargains. And bear that in mind when next time you hear talk about this uh close, almost lockstep alliance between Moscow and Beijing. Anyway, so on the one hand, he has been trying to play the China card in November again at the Russia-China Energy Business Forum. He very much presented sort of Russia as being, I wouldn't say open for business, but basically open for plunder, saying that Russia with its unique resource base can guarantee energy security for all of Eurasia. The total value of our country's natural resources is is nearly$100 trillion, almost twice that of the United States. And so he was essentially presenting Russia as being willing to provide whatever natural resources China wanted. So on one case, it's looking frankly as if it's almost uh prostrating China before the China uh Russia before the Chinese economy. But at the same time, let's go back to that issue about rare earths and the way Sechin has been hyping it. Because that actually fits in with a wider current of concern within the Russian government about the degree to which Russia itself is becoming dependent upon China. The thing is, Russia produces a lot of rare earths, but processing it is expensive, but above all it is environmentally catastrophic. So what the Russians have been doing up to now is they dig the stuff up, they sell it to the Chinese, the Chinese who seem to have fewer concerns about quite how disastrous and toxic the industry is, does all the processing, and the Russians buy back what they need. But the point is that leaves the Russians entirely dependent upon the Chinese for access to these rare earths, which are themselves crucial for advanced technological developments of the sort that Russia would like to move further into. So what we have seen is last year, and it was done very, very quietly, the decision was made to expand the processing of rare earth metals within Russia 55-0-fold. Now, again, that is significant. Firstly, because it means major investment at a time when, as I say, there are already more pressures on the budget than the budget can truly bear. And secondly, the fact that nonetheless this was done so quietly. We didn't have a big announcement from Putin. Not even convinced Putin was necessarily in the loop. I think this was framed as a purely technical administrative decision. But it clearly represents those people within the administration who are concerned about the current drift of Russia into China's orbit and are doing what they can, given that Putin himself doesn't seem to be that concerned about it. As far as he's concerned, he needs China for his war in Ukraine and that takes precedence over everything else. So they've been doing it, and in that respect, Sechin has been playing to them as well. His talk about rare Earths has very much was raised in support of the argument that this was a necessary process. So again, here we have Sechin in classic form, essentially playing both sides. He's playing the we need to do more business with China card, and also the but we need to be careful of China card. So he is being busy, and he's trying to make sure that he actually shores up his support in a variety of different constituencies, not just with Putin, though clearly Putin is the important man. And exactly this is because he is a crony and he needs to continue to demonstrate his value, and in some ways, the more he's gonna want, such as, for example, permission to take over look oil assets or some kind of more favorable deal in terms of the payments to the state treasury that are required from the oil in general hydrocarbon sector, well, the more he wants, the more he's gonna have to show that he's useful. And in this respect, it is an interesting parallel. This is what I talked about, the Prigozin syndrome, is that ultimately he is never going to become Putin's friend. He's always going to just simply become a useful crony, and all useful cronies, however useful, can be discarded if they no longer become quite so useful. So there is a glass ceiling of sorts, though it is a very, very high one, a very ornate one, it's thoroughly gilded, maybe even it's a diamond ceiling. The thing is that Sechin, unlike Prigojin, seems perfectly willing to accept this. So anyway, one shouldn't feel too sorry for the rasp voiced troll. I mean he's twice married, but also according to FPK, Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, he also has a virtual harem of escort mistresses, at least one of whom was actually for a long time on the Rosneft payroll. I wouldn't want to see the contract for that. In 2016, he built a sort of massive mansion estate in the exclusive Moscow suburb of Barvika in Rublyovka region, very close to Putin's own. We actually have some insight into his income thanks to State Duma Deputy Dmitry Gusev, from who's a just Russia deputy. Anyway, he proposed a bill, I think it was last year, that would limit executive compensation so that the maximum salary in an organization cannot be more than five times the minimum salary. I mean, very progressive, and well, I know you'll be shocked to hear that they didn't actually pass. But nonetheless, it did generate a certain amount of discussion about the disparities in salaries. And from that, we know that Sechin's annual income in 2024 exceeded 4.6 billion rubles. That's something like 42 and a half million UK pounds. Now that's equivalent to 382.5 million rubles a month, or over 12.6 million rubles, that's£116,000 every day. He earns in one day what an inexperienced employee would earn in 30 years. Or to put it another way, his monthly income is equivalent to that newcomer's salary for almost six hundred and thirty eight years. There you go. Then what in January of this year, his holy Patriarch Kirill presented Setchin with the Order of St. Sergius of Radolesh, first class, nothing but first class for him, as a reward for all your good deeds, both for the good of the church and for the good of our fatherland. Ah bless. He's also a man of, as I've mentioned, legendary malice and a passion for vendettas. And it's not just the Ulyukieev case. Consider Plios what you're saying. Plios is this really quite scenic little town in Ivanovo region, on the right bank of the Volga River. And in 2008, Medvedev visited. And after that, apparently he was blown away by how lovely a little place he was, and after that, apparently he said Plios is awesome. I want a residence here. And indeed, so it became. As Navalny reported in 2016, Medvedev was restoring what Navalny called his Secret Dacia, which is the eighteenth century Milovka estate with an infamous duck house, amongst other things. Anyway, on the outskirts of Pilos, which has been renovated at an estimated cost of twenty five to thirty billion rubles. Okay, fair enough. And with this patronage, as you'd imagine, Pilos developed. And in particular, it was part of this movement that, in a classic sort of new Russian way, takes a Russian word and adds an English language or form to it. It's been called Izbing. Isbeing. Now that's from Izba, which is a traditional Russian peasant hut. And it's essentially this process of an often rather chintzy, but also, I've got to be honest, rather picturesque, I think, way of essentially trying to recreate the aesthetics, idealised aesthetics of the 19th century Russian town. Particular example being Rybinsk in Yaroslavl region, which not only has a centre that is, you know, where every every shop has to be in that format, but on particular sort of special days you have even like the uh the local food couriers wearing 19th century style uniforms and the like. Anyway, so it went through this process of economic development, very much as a tourist hub on the Golden Ring, and playing to this is being factor, under the auspices of Mayor Alexei Shevtsov and Regional Governor Mikhail Men, both of whom, in fairness, also did exceedingly well making a pile of money in the process for themselves. But anyway, after he had stood down, Chevtsov suddenly found himself foreign agented and slapped with a bunch of lawsuits, essentially demanding that he hand over property. And this was happening in the tenure of his successor, one Timerbulat Karimov. Who? Well, it just so happens that Timirbulat is Setchin's son-in-law, having married Setchin's daughter Inga. And the couple had begun buying up property in the city, ten buildings, houses, the o they become the owner of the Plyos Shipping Company, which runs uh tourist cruises along the Volga, then bought the Fortress Hotel on the banks of the Volga, adjacent to Medvedev's estate. And that actually may be a clue to what's happening, because under normal circumstances, one wouldn't have thought that if you were Sechin's son-in-law, your first thought is, I really need to build myself a little empire in a small provincial tourist town. Now remember, it may have been years before, but nonetheless, Medvedev and Sechin had been really fighting quite a bitter rivalry over who was going to be Putin's crony in chief. And also it had been Medvedev who had forced Sechin to give up, if only for a little while, his control of Rosneft. These are not the kind of things that Sechin forgets. And according to a for a former official, foreign official, former official, how did Timer Bulat even end up there? It's actually quite strange, a small town not particularly resource rich, and Sechin's son-in-law is heading there. Why? Medvedev had a historic conflict with Sechin. So they decided to make sure Medvedev didn't feel like it was his territory. They didn't want him to feel like, oh, I've arrived at my estate and I've got everything under control. And this official was also noting that at the same time, back in 2019, another of Sechin's people, Stanislav Vaskrasinsky, was appointed governor of Ivanova region after Mien. So this is how Sechin rolls. I mean, look, he has had a long rivalry with Medvedev. At one point, the two of them, after all, were vying to be Putin's crony in chief. And he clearly didn't forget, and even after the point when Medvedev had long since lost his role, lost his plot, some would say, he was still determined that he was going to ruin his little Pios ideal. That's how Sechin rolls. Find out what brings joy to a rival, and then step on it heavily and repeatedly. Now look, as the Putin regime, well, some might say matures, some might say approaches senescence, I'm thinking probably I'm more on the latter side of things. One that prioritizes loyalty over competence, and particularly performative displays of loyalty, making the system more brittle, less willing to tolerate dissenting advice in the process. It's okay for Sechin right now, but that's the point. That is the life of the crony. You are constantly remembering that you have this extraordinarily privileged life so long as the boss finds you useful, so long as the boss doesn't have to choose between you and one of his friends, or you and someone who is more useful. So far Sechin's done a bloody good job of that. He is, nonetheless, still having to sharpen Putin's pencils. Well, that's the end of another episode of the In Moscow Shadow Podcast. Just as a reminder, beyond this, you can follow my blog, also called In Moscow Shadows. Follow me on Twitter at MarkGaleotti or Facebook, MarkGaleotti on Russia. This podcast is made possible by generous and enlightened patrons, and you too can be one. Just go along to my Patreon page, that's patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows, and decide which tier you want to join, getting access to exclusive materials and other perks. However, whether or not you contribute, thank you very much indeed for listening. Until next time, keep well.