Jonny Dover

Dmitry Medvedev: Figurehead or Front Man?

By Jonny Dover ⋅ and published March 3, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

 The Associated Press brings us this delightful piece of what may be loosely regarded as analysis re: Dmitry Medvedev’s resounding victory in the Russian Presidential election.

This particular “analysis” is spectacular in its failure: its attempt to avoid betraying the naivete of its writer is simply breathtaking in its catastrophic wrong-headedness and oversimplification (”Will Medevedev take the reins and leave Putin out in the cold?!” “Will Putin:Medvedev::Cheney:Bush?!?”), and then, in a way similar to that in which drunks often trip over the very thing they’ve been searching for with bleary, sodden eyes, the article ends with a tiny bit of insight (”Wait. Might Medvedev only be a placeholder until Putin is constitutionally allowed to regain power? Let’s save the only prescient quote from a participant in the political process until the last paragraph”).

 It’s transparent to even the most casual observer that Medvedev is barely even qualified to be called a pawn: he is nothing at all more than a different and slightly more youthful face on Putin. Any attempts to even define him apart from Putin fail, and he owes every shred of his success to Vladimir Vladimirovich.

Even if you do attempt to give him his own identity, you end with a younger, softer Putin:  they both hail from Leningrad,  although Medvedev is twelve years younger; they both spend a great deal of time on staying physically fit, but while Putin pursues Judo as one of his favorite physical activities and has achived a sixth-degree black belt in the martial art, Medvedev is an avid practitioner of yoga; the experience of both prior to Presidency was primarily in appointed positions rather than electoral, although Putin was chair of the FSB (one of the KGB’s successor agencies) and Medvedev proceeded almost immediately to Presidential Head of Staff.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Putin and his mouthpiece is this: even a doughy, pretty-boy version of Putin still works out for two hours a day and has a Master’s. Medvedev may be a shadow, but he is very substantial in spite of it.

Just don’t expect to see a streak of independence any time soon.