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February 21, 2020
Putin Fires His Puppet Master
Source: Foreign Policy
Journalists: Reid Standish, Amy MacKinnon
The gray cardinal. Putin’s Rasputin. The Kremlin puppet master. Vladislav Surkov, a close advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has achieved near-mythical status over the years as the self-proclaimed author of the Putin system, which flirts with democratic principles to cloak its increasing authoritarianism. But on Tuesday he was summarily sacked in the latest of a series of political shake-ups as the Kremlin prepares for what to do when Putin’s term limit expires in 2024.
Read the full story and more in Foreign Policy.