The topic of the meeting cannot be changed – Kommersant

Almost all of the current regional leaders, whose terms expire in September, have already enlisted the support of Vladimir Putin to be nominated for another term. Traditionally, this happens during a personal meeting: the governors report on their successes and ask for approval of their plans, and the president draws attention to problem areas and admonishes for the elections. According to Kommersant’s calculations, only the heads of Yakutia, the Magadan and Oryol regions, as well as the communist Valentin Konovalov, who heads Khakassia, have not yet received an audience with the head of state, who, however, can hardly count on her.

Like last year, in most of the regions listed, incumbent governors will run for a new term. The spring rotation of the first person on the eve of the next elections took place only in Chukotka, in the Omsk Region and the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In the Smolensk region, the president replaced the head ahead of schedule: instead of the liberal democrat Alexei Ostrovsky, whose powers expired in 2025, Vasily Anokhin, an employee of the government apparatus of the Russian Federation, was appointed.

Vladimir Putin held his first actual pre-election meeting on February 7 with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. The President and the Mayor discussed the results of 2022, investment projects, development of transport infrastructure and much more. And although the transcript published on the Kremlin website does not mention the nomination of Mr. Sobyanin for a new term, according to Kommersant, he intends to run again for his post, and this time from United Russia (previously, the mayor twice participated in direct elections as self-nominated).

Also, without mentioning the upcoming elections on March 23, the Kremlin website published a transcript of the meeting between Vladimir Putin and the governor of Kuzbass, Sergei Tsivilev. But the report of the head of the Samara region Dmitry Azarov, which took place on March 28, was preceded by a remark on the website, according to which the governor informed the president that “given the large-scale tasks facing the region, and in connection with the expiration of his tenure in office,” he intends to nominate himself for a second term. “Vladimir Putin wished Dmitry Azarov success,” the statement said.

Two more pre-election meetings followed – with the governor of the Moscow Region Andrei Vorobyov and the head of Primorye Oleg Kozhemyako (April 3 and 10, respectively), in the public part of which the elections did not appear. But since the end of April, some regional leaders themselves began to ask Vladimir Putin to agree to their new term. “If you trust and people support, we are ready to have a single voting day and continue this work in the interests of the residents of our Pskov region,” Governor Mikhail Vedernikov addressed the president on April 18. “There are a lot of problems, but on the whole the pace has been good, so I wish you success,” Vladimir Putin replied.

On April 25, he spoke with the governor of Yamal, Dmitry Artyukhov, whose nomination for a second term was again mentioned in a note on the Kremlin website, on May 2, with the heads of the Altai Territory and Voronezh Region, Viktor Tomenko and Alexander Gusev (without mentioning the elections). Finally, all subsequent meetings – with the governor of Nizhny Novgorod Gleb Nikitin (May 3), Ivanovo Stanislav Voskresensky (May 10), Tyumen Alexander Moor (May 11), Amur Vasily Orlov and Novosibirsk Andrey Travnikov (May 16) – ended with a request from the heads of the subjects to support them nomination. The heads of the regions invariably emphasized that they were guided by the position of Mr. Putin in this matter, and he, approving their plans, replied that everything would depend on the position of the inhabitants.

It should be noted that the President met with the acting governors of the “old” regions at the time of their appointment, and he received the acting heads of all new regions in the Kremlin on April 6. Of the current governors, only four have not yet received a public audience: Sergey Nosov (Magadan Region), Aisen Nikolaev (Yakutia), Andrey Klychkov (Oryol Region) and Valentin Konovalov (Khakassia). The first two are United Russia members, Messrs. Klychkov and Konovalov are communists.

However, according to a Kommersant source in the leadership of Yakutia, the meeting of the head of the republic with Vladimir Putin allegedly took place at the beginning of the year and was “successful” for him, but for some reason this event was not made public. And a source close to the communist Andrei Klychkov assured Kommersant that he would still see the president, but found it difficult to specify when this meeting could take place (recall, the election campaign starts in the first half of June).

Vladimir Putin does receive heads from among the representatives of the opposition: for example, in 2020 he admonished the same Liberal Democrat Alexei Ostrovsky for a new term. But the head of state is unlikely to meet with the second representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation among the current governors, the winner of the 2018 protest elections, Valentin Konovalov, because State Duma deputy Sergei Sokol will apply for this post from United Russia. “The President meets only with agreed applicants for the next term. In this logic of “United Russia” it would not make sense to invest in the campaign and put forward a strong resource candidate with personal support (secretary of the party’s general council.— “b”) Andrei Turchak,” a source in the republican branch of United Russia told Kommersant. Let us add that during the entire period of Mr. Konovalov’s tenure in power, neither the president himself nor the prime ministers have ever honored him with an audience.

Andrey Ashes; Nikolay Borisov, Yakutsk; Sergei Tolmachev, Voronezh; Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk