Military special operation extinguished intra-elite conflicts in the regions

The military special operation in Ukraine not only contributed to the development of some trends in regional policy set during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also provoked the emergence of fundamentally new tasks for the leadership of the subjects, follows from the analytical report of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications (APEC), which was reviewed “Vedomosti”. Among the main trends are a request for publicity of governors, building new feedback channels with citizens, supporting strategically important enterprises, as well as ensuring the security of their region, the document says.

The report notes that the most effective response to new challenges will be those entrenched in the region politicians who carried out regular work with local communities before the announcement of a special military operation (SVO). At the same time, neither the public and political experience of the head of the subject, nor the positive financial and economic indicators of the region guarantee the absence of mistakes and miscalculations. Given this, as well as the special significance of neutralizing protest moods, the Kremlin will be interested in building “additional contours for ensuring social stability.”

“Such a course involves the development of feedback channels to reach the federal level, not only ordinary citizens (relatives of mobilized, possibly initiative groups of residents of key industrial centers), but also representatives of regional business (primarily related to the provision of the Russian military group in the NVO zone) ”, the APEC report says. The NWO has become a serious challenge for the regional authorities in terms of building communication with the population, primarily with the families of the mobilized, says APEC Director General Dmitry Orlov. “At the initial stage, this communication was frankly difficult, obvious public mistakes were made. Gradually, the situation has improved significantly, today communication can be considered generally adequate,” he said.

The authors of the report predict a trend towards training officials from among the so-called technocrats to work in the regions. This will allow the regions to reach new economic indicators and attract investors, as well as to work effectively with the information agenda and quickly solve economic mobilization tasks in the face of limited finances through interaction with active citizens and local communities on the ground.

The introduction by decrees of the President of martial law in four new subjects of the Russian Federation and a special legal regime of three different levels in other regions (medium response level, high alert level and basic alert level) significantly strengthened the role of the governor’s corps in solving economic mobilization tasks, as well as in the field of security of your region. “As a result, the formation of operational headquarters headed by governors can help strengthen the apparatus influence of vice-governors and vice-premiers of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation who oversee interaction with law enforcement agencies, as well as heads of municipalities where enterprises important for supplying the Armed Forces are located,” they emphasize APEC experts.

The main challenges, the authors of the report note, will concern not only the subjects bordering the NWO zone, but also key industrial regions, as well as transport hubs.

Economic tasks to meet the needs of the Armed Forces in the NMD zone will stimulate interregional cooperation to provide key strategic enterprises with the necessary raw materials and a range of logistics services, experts say. This, in turn, will further strengthen the position of the leaders of the leading industrial regions. “At the same time, in the context of the need for the government to search for additional financial resources to solve problems within the framework of the SVO, as well as the impact of the sanctions crisis, the importance of the lobbying opportunities of the heads of regions for obtaining federal support increases, but also the image vulnerability of governors when promoting projects that are significant to them,” the statement says. report.

Simultaneously with the strengthening of the role of the heads of subjects, the authors of the study note a decrease in the intensity of public intra-elite conflicts in a number of subjects of the Russian Federation after the start of the SVO in February, as well as after the announcement of partial mobilization in September. This trend, in particular, is facilitated by the sending of some deputies and officials of the regional and local levels to the zone of the NWO as volunteers, the authors of the report note. But this phenomenon is temporary, says Orlov: where there are elites, conflicts develop between them. “The level of elite conflict (including public) is expected to increase in those regions where regional elections will be held in 2023,” he believes.

In 2022, work with topics related to the NWO helped maintain the dominance of United Russia, Orlov believes. APEC experts expect from the party more active interaction of the party with public activists and experts from the regions, as well as combatants and their families. At the same time, attempts by the systemic opposition to intercept the topics of work with mobilized and new regions will hardly be successful. “Given the limited informational and financial capabilities of these parties, work on such topics may be the focus of attention of their permanent supporters, but not of a wider audience,” the authors of the report emphasize.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Alexander Yushchenko did not agree with the conclusions of the APEC regarding the strong electoral positions of United Russia compared to other parties. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has been supporting Donbass since 2014, doing it “constantly”, “systematically” and without taking into account “any PR tasks,” Yushchenko stressed. United Russia has at its disposal a “bureaucratic apparatus” with large resources, which the Communist Party does not have, the deputy noted.