The man who has Putin’s ear

When Russian President Vladimir Putin held the final meeting of his Security Council before launching the invasion of Ukraine, one Kremlin hawk seemed to dominate the room.

Nikolai Patrushev, the powerful Security Council secretary and close Putin ally from their days together at the KGB in St. Petersburg, told the Russian president that the United States was behind tensions in eastern Ukraine and seeking to orchestrate Russia’s collapse. “Our task is to defend the territorial integrity of our country and defend its sovereignty,” Patrushev said in broadcast remarks.

While Putin seemed to flounder in the first three months of the conflict — angry, on the defensive and almost disappearing from view — Patrushev stepped forward to justify the invasion and promote Russia’s war aims. In a series of interviews with Russian newspapers, he predicted Europe would collapse under the weight of a global food and refugee crisis, while Ukraine would disintegrate into several states. He called for a revival of “historic traditions” in Russia’s education system to create “genuine patriots.” He even ventured into economic policy, calling for a “structural perestroika” — a reference to Soviet-era reform — that in part would include a new sovereign system for determining the ruble’s exchange rate.

Patrushev’s sudden emergence after more than two decades as a behind-the-scenes power broker has underlined his role as a driving force in the Kremlin. For a while, it even prompted questions about whether he was seeking to position himself to take over from Putin, amid persistent speculation about the president’s health and Russia’s retreat from Kyiv.