Then — so the hypothesis goes — as these oligarchs experience economic hardship and losses, they will place pressure on Putin to stop the war in Ukraine and renew cooperation with the West, which is good for business.

The theory behind Western sanctions has been that they will put pressure will on Russia’s tycoons, upon whom Putin relies for projects from the overly-expensive $50 billion Sochi Olympics to construction of the Kerch Straits Bridge to the forcibly-annexed Crimea.

Bloomberg has an interesting article showing evidence for a “fallout” between President Vladimir Putin and his main oligarch cronies.

So far, the theory hasn’t quite worked, as if anything, the oligarchs

have only drawn closer to Putin and circled the wagons against a

hostile West, as Putin promises to make up their losses from Western

sanctions with lucrative domestic contracts (like the Kerch Straits Bridge for Rotenberg).

Chief among those supporting Putin has been Igor Sechin, head of

Rosneft, upon whom Putin in turn relies for negotiations with China and

the Strength of Siberia pipeline which is supposed to be Russia’s

bulwark against the West.

That deal has been described as less than meets the eye and not as advantageous to Russia as it first seemed, and has even led to an oped in the New York Times by Frank Jacobs saying China Will Reclaim Siberia (and its counterpoint by pro-Moscow blogger Vineyard of the Saker).

Bloomberg finds some evidence of influential figures in Russia cooling on Putin, however:

Yevgeny Primakov, a former premier, foreign minister and spymaster,

said Russia must avoid “self-isolation” over Ukraine and keep the door

open to cooperation with the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization. “We lose our country as a great power” without such collaboration, Primakov said in an article

published last week in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the state newspaper.

Primakov, who was born in Kiev in 1929, said that while Crimea is

non-negotiable, Putin should now respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity

and avoid sending troops to support pro-Russia militias. Another

longtime Putin ally, Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister who sits

on the president’s Economic Council, an advisory body, said last month

that Russia faces a “full-fledged” economic crisis if it doesn’t repair

ties with the U.S. and Europe. Such comments show “a very high level of concern among a fairly wide circle of people,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst in Moscow who advised the Kremlin during Putin’s first two terms as president. “There

is a group of people in the upper echelons trying to protect themselves

from losses,” Pavlovsky said. “They are critical of Putin but they

can’t challenge him because he can easily crush them. That makes them

even more unhappy.”

These unnamed people may be influential, but they are not oligarchs. Do they matter?

Bloomberg mentions Gennady Timchenko, who managed to sell his

shares in Gunvor before sanctions were placed on him by the US over Russia’s war

against Ukraine.

Timchenko is quoted as saying earlier “he was ‘suffering’ for the

president and his policies” although he continued to support him. Yet he

declined to comment for Bloomberg’s current article. No evidence for

any pressure he might be putting on the president has been presented.

The brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, Putin’s childhood friends

and judo sparring partners, are also mentioned as sanctioned by the US and EU —

which even seized their luxury properties in Italy worth $28 million.

But the article doesn’t say that now they are complaining or putting

any pressure on Putin. There’s no evidence that they are.

Arkady Rotenberg’s spokesman, Andrei Baturin, even said “it would be untrue

to suggest Rotenberg is critical of the president’s policies,” reports Bloomberg.

The only evidence for possible pressure comes from some anonymous sources about anonymous people:

Businessmen close to Putin realize their debt to the president and will

avoid publicly criticizing him, but they don’t want his personal

ambitions to destroy their fortunes, one of the two people familiar with

the matter said.

Bloomberg cites an interesting development with Putin’s

cronies in St. Petersburg, where he went to law school and served on the

city council with Mayor Anatoly Sobchak in the 1990s. Putin fired

Vladimir Kozhin, described as a “close confidante” who has run the

Kremlin’s powerful property department since Putin came to power.

This

department is often overlooked as a seat of power, but to give an idea

of its importance, we can recall what happened to the official who held

this position under Gorbachev — he committed suicide after the coup was defeated.

Kozhin hasn’t defenestrated, but he has been demoted to aide for

military cooperation, which means he’s a “nobody” according to

Bloomberg’s source — and that makes sense in the current sanctions

climate. Kozhin was replaced by Alexander Kolpakov, a department head in

Russia’s presidential security service — yet another example of the

personalization of former state institutions to bring them under Putin’s

personal control, a la Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

When he gave an influential speech at the Mercury Club last week, former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov appeared critical of the war in Ukraine.

Bloomberg‘s summary of Primakov’s speech indicated that he believed

that while return of the Crimea was non-negotiable, “Putin should now

respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and avoid sending troops to

support pro-Russia militias.