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