OP-ED
Mark Galeotti: Putin’s incredible shrinking circle
A pigeon flies over the Patriarch Bridge, with the Kremlin seen in the background, in central Moscow on January 25, 2016.
True to the informal tradition that August brings surprises in Russia, on the 12th it was announced that Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, was leaving his position as head of the Presidential Administration (AP) and taking up the new and rather less pivotal job of presidential representative for transport and the environment. In his place, Putin elevated one of Ivanov’s deputies, the essentially-unknown 44-year old Anton Vaino.
