Anne-Gaëlle Amiot

Isolated wartime leader, withdrawn into his convictions, Vladimir Putin moves about in a traveling bunker. An armored limousine, a convoy of vehicles packed with weapons, offices replicated identically in his residences – these themselves transformed into cloned shelters across the country – ubiquitous air defense systems, heavily armed bodyguards and soldiers in camouflage: This is the world of the Russian president who, before the parliamentary elections held from Friday, September 18, to Sunday, September 20, resumed his travels across Russia this summer, after nearly six months without venturing into the country. Out of fear of Ukrainian drones, a fortress accompanies him on his journeys, both within Russia and during his rare trips to so-called “friendly countries,” such as India, where he traveled from September 11 to 13 for the BRICS summit.

The more the “special military operation” in Ukraine has become bogged down, the more Putin, 73 years old, fixates on his own security. Four and a half years after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the stalemate of this endless war has become a dead end for the Kremlin and could threaten to shake its authority. Ukrainian drones are not the only danger Putin fears. “They will hang me,” he confided to associates, according to a source quoted by the British weekly The Economist on September 1. He did not specify whether the enemy he feared was external or internal. “One thing is certain: Putin ties his fate to the outcome of the war in Ukraine. He fears what might happen to him if he fails,” warned a political scientist, an expert on Putin’s elites and clan rivalries. Reached by secure messaging in Moscow, she wished to remain anonymous.

A quarter of a century after Putin took power in Russia, the siloviki – members of the security apparatus, a neologism derived from the Russian word sila, meaning “force” – have seized control. At the top sits the FSB, successor to the KGB. At the same time, the Kremlin has steadily increased the ranks of the presidential guard, the Federal Protective Service (FSO). Since 2022, four decrees have raised the number of agents at the central headquarters to more than 800, including drone operators and even presidential food tasters. Overall, this guard is enormous: While the exact figure is classified, it is believed to number more than 50,000.

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