What is happening in the Kremlin and what is Putin's plan
Anyone who wants to understand what is happening in the Presidential Administration of Russia, in the Kremlin, should watch the series 17 Moments of Spring
What are the current moods in the most “elite” apparatus of power. I think that there is no elite in Russia. Over the past 20 years, this elite has been purged of those who even had a shadow of an independent opinion. It has been several campaigns. The most important, of course, was the campaign to tame the elite at the beginning of Putin's rule, when the nomenklatura was essentially consolidated.
Many do not remember that there was a nomenklatura opposition to Putin in the form of the Fatherland-All Russia party. And certainly no one remembers that the leader of this opposition parliamentary faction in the State Duma of the Russian Federation was the current speaker of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin. And it was this Volodin who later became the first deputy head of the presidential administration of Russia, built the regime that we see, the regime of sole power.
At the same time, against the backdrop of the Yukos case, the elite was purged of those who had claims to an independent role in Russian rule, people who could be more or less strong managers. These are, first of all, the then head of the government, Mikhail Kasyanov, and the head of the presidential administration, Alexander Voloshin. This was the first stage.