1/27/20
When Putin appointed Mishustin to head the Russian government earlier this month, after setting into motion what appears to be a succession plan with a raft of proposed changes to the Constitution, the move came as a surprise. Having spent the past decade serving as Russia’s tax chief without voicing any greater political ambitions, Mishustin was quickly labeled a technocratic placeholder. If Mishustin has aims beyond the role of prime minister, they have been difficult to tease out. But interviews with nearly two dozen of his acquaintances, business associates, former classmates and colleagues paint a more nuanced picture: one of an ambitious figure who knows how to work the system and has always put himself in position to climb up the next rung on the ladder. As the dust has settled in recent days, some political analysts are wondering if the little-known systems engineer might be in the running to be the successor to the man who has ruled Russia for the past two decades. “Mishustin is certainly not a placeholder prime minister, but a fully-fledged member of the cast of successors for the role of president,” Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote on Facebook. “His relative obscurity should not exclude him. Vladimir Putin himself was a little-known official until the moment [Boris] Yeltsin appointed him to three high posts one after another.” Born and raised just outside the Russian capital, Mishustin completed a degree in systems engineering at Moscow State Technological University in 1989. Former classmates remember him as gregarious, someone around whom social life would orbit. He stayed on to complete a graduate degree in 1992.
In the early ’90s, Mishustin became close with one high-placed government official in particular: Boris Fyodorov, Russia’s first finance minister. In 2010 Mishustin was named Russia’s tax chief, stepping into his mentor’s shoes. With several years in finance under his belt, he was counted as one of the top three richest Russian officials. Over the following decade, Mishustin won plaudits for his transformation of Russia’s tax system. Last year, the Financial Times published a glowing review of his work with the headline: “Russia’s role in producing the taxman of the future.” In interviews with The Moscow Times, members of Russia’s IT and business communities welcomed Mishustin’s appointment. Pointing to his stance in the ’90s and early aughts, as well as his work as tax chief reforming an inefficient system, they hope he can do the same with a bigger platform. “He didn’t have an internal doctrine to speak of,” Ilya Ponamoryov, an entrepreneur turned exiled former opposition State Duma deputy, who was a member of GP Club, said by phone from Kyiv. “Everything else about him is derived from this: He understands systems and how to work in them,” the former colleague said. For now, Mishustin’s main mandate will be to spur Russia’s sputtering economy. Described by former colleagues in interviews with The Moscow Times as a “tough guy” who can be a strict manager when needed, a government source recently told the Financial Times that Mishustin has already axed unwanted officials from the previous government without even giving them time to collect their belongings. That toughness has left old acquaintances curious as to how Mishustin will approach his new role. “One the one hand, he’s very loyal,” said Elkin. “On the other hand, he’s not a lapdog. It’s an interesting contradiction.”
