HOPENCHANGE COMES TO RUSSIA: Putinism enters a new historic phase.

At the end of July, a reshuffle of senior figures especially in Russia’s regional administration – with the promise of more to come – told us something about President Putin’s current concerns and priorities. It also hints at a new historical metaphor. Putin is a keen student of history and has repeatedly paralleled himself to tough-minded reformers, from modernising tsar Peter the Great to prime minister Peter Stolypin, perhaps the last hope of imperial Russia. Instead, though, Putin now seems to be metamorphosing into Tsar Nicholas I, the unyielding autocrat who viewed his people with disdain and suspicion, and earned the title “Gendarme of Europe” for his attempts to prevent the spread of liberal and democratic ideals.

The reshuffle, described by presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov as “the usual cyclical rotation” saw figures both retiring and being sacked, and a knock-on series of promotions and transfers. To many, the central leitmotif was “the rise of the men in epaulettes” as jobs went to veterans from the security apparatus, especially the Federal Guard Service (FSO), Putin’s personal protectors.

But he makes the troop trains run on time.