Russia: Why Vyacheslav Volodin is important to Putin

Power manager in parliament

Why Putin continues to rely on this man

Vyacheslav Volodin leads the Russian State Duma for a historic third term. There is one principle behind his political survival: demonstrative loyalty to Vladimir Putin.

Vyacheslav Volodin has been elected chairman of the Russian State Duma for the third time. 406 MPs voted for the 62-year-old, whose candidacy for president Vladimir Putin had expressly supported. Never before has a chairman of the Russian lower house served three terms.

It is no coincidence that Volodin, of all people, has been at the head of the Duma for ten years now. The independent Russian media “Meduza” also paints this picture after conversations with people close to him and political advisors – that of a man who reliably has Putin’s back. He therefore balances power groups against each other and takes care not to become a threat to the president himself.

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Volodin’s career began far from Moscow in the Saratov region. After the end of the Soviet Union, he rose from local politician to deputy governor. At the end of the 1990s he moved to the capital and entered the State Duma for the first time in 1999.

He owed his decisive rise to power to the Kremlin party “United Russia”. Volodin became general secretary of the party in 2005 and became one of the central organizers of the political operation. Former companions and political advisors describe to “Meduza” how closely he controlled regional party structures and tried to transfer successful methods from individual regions to the entire country.

At the beginning of the 2010s at the latest, Volodin moved into the immediate center of power in Russia. In October 2010 he became Deputy Prime Minister and head of the government apparatus under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. At the end of December 2011, he moved to the presidential administration: President Dmitry Medvedev appointed him first deputy head. There, Volodin supervised, among other things, the department for Domestic politics and was responsible for issues of interethnic relations.

After the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea Russia Volodin expressed his loyalty to Putin in a formula that still sticks with him today. In 2014 he declared: Without Putin there would be no Russia. Years later, Putin himself was asked about this statement at a public event.

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Volodin has been at the head of the State Duma since 2016. Before the recent parliamentary elections, however, Dmitri Medvedev, of all people, could have competed with him. However, Putin did not approve of this step, Meduza reports, citing its own sources. Medvedev did not end up on the national list, and Volodin remained in the race for the highest parliamentary office without any serious competitors. Putin then officially supported Volodin’s candidacy. “United Russia” nominated him, and he was re-elected on Wednesday. Information about Medvedev’s ambitions has not been independently confirmed.