Power in Moscow

Sunday 21 December 2025

Power in Moscow has rarely been simple, and in the contemporary Russian state it is deliberately complex. Authority is centralised yet diffused, personal yet institutional, formal yet dependent upon informal bargains. To understand how decisions are made in Russia’s capital one must look beyond constitutional charts and examine the relationships between individuals, security organs, economic assets and the rituals through which loyalty is signalled and enforced.

At the apex stands the presidency, embodied by Vladimir Putin. His authority rests not only on constitutional powers but on his role as arbiter between competing elites. In Moscow, power is less a matter of commanding a hierarchy than of managing a court. Rival factions exist, but they are kept in balance by a leader who rewards obedience, tolerates limited competition and punishes any sign of autonomous ambition.

The physical and symbolic centre of this system is the Kremlin. It is both a working seat of government and a theatre of continuity, designed to project permanence and inevitability. Decisions that affect millions are shaped not in open debate but in closed rooms, through consultations whose outcomes are later presented as faits accomplis. The appearance of collective governance is preserved, but real influence depends on access, trust and timing.

A defining feature of Moscow’s power dynamics is the prominence of the siloviki, the men drawn from the security, intelligence and law enforcement services. Organisations such as the Federal Security Service function not merely as instruments of state policy but as political actors in their own right. Their leaders command surveillance capacities, coercive power and prosecutorial leverage, making them indispensable to the regime’s stability. At the same time, their strength requires careful management, since no single security institution is permitted to dominate the rest.

Economic power is woven into this security architecture. Strategic industries, particularly energy, transport and defence production, are controlled by figures whose wealth depends upon political favour. Ownership is conditional rather than absolute. Assets can be redistributed through legal action, regulatory pressure, informal instruction or even murder if their holders fall out of line. This creates a class of elites who are affluent yet insecure, incentivised to demonstrate loyalty and avoid public dissent.

The events surrounding the rise and fall of the Wagner Group, a so-called "private military company" (although it had no formal legal recognition or corporate registration), illustrated both the strengths and the limits of this system. Its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accumulated influence by serving the state’s interests abroad while cultivating a populist image at home. When his ambitions appeared to exceed his assigned role, the response was swift and decisive; at some point he was murdered and his organisation assimilated into the regular armed forces. The episode reinforced a central rule of Moscow politics: power may be borrowed, but it is never owned independently of the Kremlin.

Public opinion also plays a managed role. Elections, opinion polls and media narratives are used to gauge sentiment and reinforce legitimacy, but they are tightly controlled. The population is encouraged to view the leadership as the sole guarantor of stability in a hostile world. External threats are emphasised to justify internal discipline, while economic hardship is framed as the unavoidable cost of sovereignty. In this context, passivity becomes a political asset. A society that expects little participation in decision making is easier to govern from the centre.

Yet the system is not static. Moscow’s power dynamics are shaped by constant adjustment. Failures in policy, military setbacks or economic strain lead to shifts in personnel and emphasis. Officials are promoted, sidelined or sacrificed to preserve the authority of the presidency itself. A recent example is the Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, who has been sidelined to ancillary foreign policy issues without explanation. This flexibility allows the regime to survive shocks, but it also produces an atmosphere of uncertainty that discourages initiative and fosters caution.

In essence, power in Moscow is exercised through a balance of fear and favour, tradition and improvisation. Influence is held through access to the President, and the people with access often have no formal public role at all. It relies on personal relationships as much as formal roles, and on the careful distribution of insecurity among those who serve it. The result is a state that appears monolithic from the outside but is sustained by continuous negotiation within. As long as the centre retains its capacity to arbitrate and punish, the system endures. Should that capacity weaken, the carefully managed equilibrium of Moscow’s power would be tested in unpredictable ways.