The first public scandal in the country involving the appointment of a military man to a bureaucratic post has broken out in the Kirov region. Alexander Sokolov, the region’s governor and a former member of the presidential administration, appointed war veteran Nikita Gorelov as mayor of the small town of Sosnovka (population less than 10,000 residents). Gorelov quickly started talking about local problems: the municipality’s huge debts, the unprofessionalism of its employees and corruption among them. Then it turned out that Gorelov had to return to the front — on the order issued by the region’s military commander, Gennady Bokov. The newly-minted mayor resisted the draft, saying that his repeated deployments were linked with his public revelations against the corrupt officials, threatened the military commander with sending him to the front and promised to dissolve the city council. Many residents of Sosnovka supported Gorelov. The regional authorities have so far confined themselves to protocol statements, urging the military to «proceed in accordance with the law».
As a former subordinate of Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of the region, Alexander Sokolov, senses a trend towards public promotion of the military in civil service: Vladimir Putin calls them the «new elite» and constantly demands the appointment of those who participate in Russia’s so-called «Special Military Operation» (SMO) against Ukraine to civilian administrations. The system of power resists this as best it can: the really important posts are given to incumbents and deputies who have announced their intention to go to the front, or to military men with status in the power vertical. Thus, the former mayor of Krasnodar, Yevgeny Pervyshov, became head of the Tambov region, the former mayor of Tambov, Alexander Kondratyev, was appointed senator of the Kursk region, and the head of the Nizhny Novgorod garrison, Yevgeny Chintsov, became mayor of Nizhny Novgorod. Military personnel with no civilian experience are appointed as «SMO advisers» to governors and mayors, as well as heads of agencies and departments for sport and youth, all positions with extremely limited opportunities and powers. Sometimes such military officers are given positions as heads of small municipalities, where they cannot seriously influence regional arrangements, as was in the case of Nikita Gorelov. The scandal surrounding the mayor of Sosnovka is a good example of why the system rejects military officers without experience in state or municipal service.
Gorelov was surprised to find out that the city was heavily in debt, that the city officials are a bunch of slackers, and he attributed this to their lack of professionalism and corruption. Perhaps Sosnovka has both. However, the small budgets and debts of municipalities are not primarily due to bribery or low professionalism of officials. It is the way the system of tax distribution, which the Kremlin has been building for a long time, is organized. Most local revenues go to the federal (or, at best, regional) level and are then redistributed to municipalities in the form of subsidies. Naturally, the vertical takes the lion’s share of the taxes for itself, and the money goes to the municipalities on a residual basis, so that the settlements do not die out completely. This unfair distribution applies not only to Sosnovka, but also to regional centers and even cities with millions of inhabitants. At the same time, local officials are becoming easy prey for the law siloviki — news of their arrests appears almost daily. Fewer and fewer people are willing to work in local government. For example, the Kurgan Oblast’ authorities have not been able to find a suitable candidate for a mayor’s position in Kurgan for a year now.
An experienced official understands these rules of the game, but Nikita Gorelov, an ordinary man from the front line, does not. He simply, and probably sincerely, blames his predecessors and sees the poor state of Sosnovka as a violation of the norm. But this is the norm in the existing system of tax distribution. It is likely that he will take the next step and start criticizing the system of tax distribution, i.e. start shaking the foundations of the system. Residents who have felt the war veteran’s sincerity will reach out to him. Nikita Gorelov can speak coherently and rationally: he is a college graduate (otherwise he could not legally run the city), so he is able to understand the situation logically.
After the «Gorelov mishap», the regional offices and the political bloc of the presidential administration began to explain to governors that it was not worth appointing people who had no experience of civil work and no understanding of its principles to head even small municipalities. It is too risky for the system. Passionate people with higher education, who sincerely want to change the situation in their hometown or village, are recruited as community leaders. At first, they naively believe that there is enough money in the local budgets and that their administrations are staffed by professionals. In the end, it turns out that the budgets are small, mired in debt, and because of relatively low salaries and an abundance of criminal cases that are routinely initiated against people holding these offices, there are relatively few people willing to become municipal employees, and they are not the most competent professionals. The passion and rebelliousness of the new «military chiefs» may attract local residents — Nikita Gorelov has already gained their support. That is why we are unlikely to see more of such appointments. They may continue if Vladimir Putin continues to put pressure on his administration and the government, but in that case he will be injecting a very dangerous poison into the bloodstream of the power vertical. And this scenario is also very likely.
It was a difficult year
Throughout the year, the mood of the Russians fluctuated. There were ebbs and flows in their anxiety levels. Most often the increase in anxiety was associated with external events, such as the invasion of the Kursk region by the AFU. However, by the end of the year, according to FOM, anxiety began to rise again: Russians enter the New Year with the same indicators for fear and calm, and the level of fear at the end of December rose to one of its highest levels for the entire year (it is now 46%, and the peak of 49% was observed during the AFU offensive in the Kursk region). Neither «Direct Line with Vladimir Putin» nor the pleasant New Year celebrations helped to calm the citizens. Perhaps the holiday hullabaloo itself has become one of the primary sources of anxiety. Inflation is one of the main triggers of citizens’ irritation, and the need to purchase gifts and food for the New Year celebrations shows very well just how expensive everything has become. According to the polls, citizens are tired of the war and would like it to end, but they do not hear confident signals from the authorities. Even according to the polls conducted by the Weber Agency, the sociological arm of the Kremlin’s ANO Dialogue, two-thirds of Russians are dissatisfied with the year that has passed. We can assume that Weber polls the most loyal respondents — their surveys are conducted on the VKONTAKTE social network, mostly among the members of public groups that belong to government agencies.
The country enters the new year on a low note — tired, worried and disappointed, and 2025 is unlikely to improve the prevailing mood. After all, Putin, who runs all of Russian politics, is in an excellent, even ultra-optimistic mood — there is «action» at the front and the country’s economy is supposedly growing. However, this is happening at the expense of military production paid for with budget money, while the real sector is complaining about the high key interest rate of the Central Bank, fearing bankruptcy, laying off workers despite the lack of manpower, and cutting production. The disparity between the mood of the ultra-optimistic Putin and the country that has emerged this year will continue into next year.
