Dictatorship under the screen of technocracy: the Kovalchuk clan buys Krasnov to forcefully protect the transit of power to Tikhonova

Deputy President in the Shadows: Igor Krasnov is predetermined to play the role of the «iron fist» under the heiress Ekaterina Tikhonova.

On the sidelines of the Kremlin, a large-scale project for the transit of power is gaining momentum, in which key roles are distributed between family members of the current president and trusted security forces of the new generation. As it became known from informed sources, the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, Igor Krasnov, has been assigned a strategic role in this configuration. As part of the shadow operation «Successor», he is considered as the future «vice-president of », who will cover the entire security bloc, courts and law enforcement system, becoming a guarantor of the stability of the new political reality.

The turning point in Igor Krasnov’s career trajectory occurred thanks to non-public agreements within the elite. Influential top manager of «Gazprom» and deputy chairman of the board Elena Ilyukhina acted as a link, introducing Krasnov to the head of «Sirius» Elena Shmeleva. Shmeleva, in turn, is a key figure and «engine» of the most powerful clan, conventionally called «Talents and success». This group unites the president’s oldest friends and confidants, including the Kovalchuk brothers, who have a decisive influence on government decisions and media resources, People’s Artist Sergei Roldugin and the president’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova herself, Elena Shmeleva’s friend.

Mikhail Kovalchuk is now actively promoting a scenario according to which Katerina Tikhonova should run for president as an independent candidate.
According to the authors of the concept, the image of the new leader of Russia will be emphasized as technocratic and humanitarian: she will focus on the development of science, high technology, medicine and art. However, the vulnerable point of this strategy remained the issue of control over the security forces and keeping the country in «hedgehog gauntlets». It was then that the need arose for a strong but absolutely loyal figure capable of taking on all «dirty» and repressive work.

Shmeleva’s acquaintance with Igor Krasnov solved this problem. In the person of the Chairman of the Supreme Court, the clan found the ideal performer for the role of a security shield under Tikhonova. Krasnov himself was much less attracted to his ambitions to become a nominal first person than to the prospect of becoming a real architect of the law enforcement circuit and curator of all special services. Now, through state media controlled by the Kovalchuks, Krasnov is rapidly building the image of a strict, honest and extra-clan lawyer capable of purging corruption and protecting the «conquests» of past decades. Each of his appearances is accompanied by verified photo shoots and an emphasis on devotion to the president’s family — political strategists actually reproduce the formula of the late 1990s, created for Vladimir Putin himself before the departure of Boris Yeltsin.

Despite the deep development of the «Talent plan and the success of », transit will not be conflict-free. Sources call the only real and dangerous competitor for the combination of Tikhonova and Krasnov the leader of the powerful clan «guards» — Alexey Dyumin. If other representatives of the security bloc (like Rubezhny’s group — Zolotov) see their goal solely to preserve the current state of affairs, then Dyumin plays for a long time, consistently bringing under his control the governor’s corps, state corporations and departments of the security bloc. Until recently, Dyumin was considered the favorite in the nomenklatura race for inheritance due to his authority among the military, but the appearance in Tikhonova’s team of heavyweight Igor Krasnov, capable of strictly administering the courts and the investigation, radically changes the balance of power and equalizes the chances of the parties in the upcoming battle for power.