Political groups under Vladimir Putin's presidency

In contrast to the Yeltsin years, Putin's regime was marked by personnel stability, a gradual elevation of trusted associates and coalition-building across competing interests both within the presidential administration and with other political actors.

[1] As President Vladimir Putin, a former employee of the Leningrad and Leningrad Oblast KGB Directorate and former Chief of the Committee for External Relations of Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office, had come to the presidency in 2000, many political observers noticed quick career promotion of bureaucrats and businesspeople from Saint Petersburg to the federal power bodies (especially the Presidential Executive Office, a very influential institution that has always been totally controlled by the presidential authority) and large state-controlled companies (such as Gazprom and Rosneft) and their struggle against old Moscow elites loyal to Boris Yeltsin's family, known as Family group, as well as against influential media tycoon Boris Berezovsky and his allies, who helped Putin on his way to power in 1999–2000.

[1] According to Associate Professor of Political Science John P. Willerton of the University of Arizona in the United States, reformist St. Petersburg economists and lawyers constitute a prominent group in the Putin team.

[1] The St Petersburg lawyers focus on constitutional-legal-administrative arrangements to bolster an efficient democratic system, favouring reforms that strengthen simultaneously the market economy and political stability.

Although other institutions became largely irrelevant, disputes and clashes between Kremlin factions, rather than the president's will, became more and more important in determining major policy outcomes, Bremmer and Charap write.

[7] During the final years of Boris Yeltsin's presidency, Alexander Voloshin, chief of the Presidential Executive Office, was considered to be the most influential figure within the Family group.

Vladislav Surkov, initially being an aide to Voloshin, gained much influence, as well as Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov, who had leaned towards new Saint Petersburg elites and whose son had become Igor Sechin's son-in-law.

As the Family group had lost its influence, especially during Vladimir Putin's second four-year presidential term (since 7 May 2004), some conflicts between parts of the new elites of Saint Petersburg origin became evident, as witnessed e.g. by the disputes over the fate of YUKOS, failed project of merging Rosneft and Gazprom, struggle for Sibneft and upcoming 2008 presidential election, some appointments and dismissals in Mikhail Fradkov's Second Cabinet and consequences of the Three Whales Corruption Scandal, but the exact configuration of these new groups still remains unclear.