Who benefits from information about the possible merger of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Russian Defense Ministry?
Last week, a number of media outlets, citing sources in the government lobby, published information that Sergei Shoigu allegedly offered to unite the two ministries: the Emergencies Ministry and the Ministry of Defense. The reasons were different. From the fact that servicemen of the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation often have to participate in confronting emergency situations and eliminating their consequences (flooding in the Amur region as one example), to the fact that such a union can lead to personnel optimization and allow the government to save a lot. It would seem that there really is something in this sentence, but ...After a short period of time, a certain, naturally unnamed, source from the Ministry of Defense stated that the idea of combining the Emergencies Ministry and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation was an invention of the media, and Sergei Shoigu did not offer anything like that.
After such contradictory information flows, the impression was created that the first was far from being a simple informational stuffing, and the second was not exactly the kind of refutation that should appear at the official level in such cases. In principle, the Ministry of Defense might have thought that if the media published data on the aspirations of combining the two departments, citing some secret sources, then the information should be refuted in about the same vein.
On the other hand, the appearance of information about the possible merger of the main defense and chief emergency agencies of the Russian Federation is somewhat like the sounding of the soil. Recently, the option of preliminary monitoring of public opinion through statements of "unnamed sources" in the media is actively used. Often there is a situation in which the source is quite well-known person, but not included in the circle of representatives of the power elite. We can recall several episodes with the expression of proposals from Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Dmitry Rogozin (when he was not yet a member of the government), in which (the proposals) public opinion was run-in. The most interesting thing is that the semi-intrusions today are actively working and bring quite real results to the organizers: nobody seemed to be offering anything officially, but you can make a judgment about how all this can be perceived in certain circles.
How is it perceived? Well, if we talk about the perception of the Russian people, we have somehow managed to get used to the fact that no one has asked us for a long time about the attitude to the need to carry out or not to carry out any perturbations at the federal government level ... They say if someone is there at the top he decided, which means it remains to accept this as an objective blessing ... Sovereign democracy, - as a man once said, information about a possible return to the Kremlin, which also took place at the same level as information about the unification of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Defense.
If we talk about a possible association seriously, then it is worth looking for those people to whom it could be profitable. For obvious reasons, Sergei Shoigu could be the first to win. Why? Because he would have got a super ministry in his hands, in one of the segments of which he is generally like a fish in water, and the other has truly impressive strategic opportunities. Obviously, a super-power structure would appear in Russian reality, well-equipped and allowing its possible head to consolidate their political positions. And in the event that Sergei Shoigu would head this impressive structure, he would have a chance to declare himself politically as clearly as it is possible under current conditions.
Is it beneficial for anyone else on the Russian political Olympus? We can assume that Vladimir Putin would have supported this idea. His sympathy for the current head of the defense department is hard to miss. Far from every minister happens to be fishing with the president ...
True, there is also at least one person who is still “glowing” on such fishing trips. This is the head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Dmitry Medvedev, who seems to be an integral half of the “tandem”. However, the very word “tandem” is used today, if not in an abusive context, then obviously with less enthusiasm than it was, say, four years ago. And if you take into account the hypothetical post of Shoigu as the head of the united ministry, this appointment would be a significant blow to the positions of Dmitry Medvedev. Today, Shoigu’s growing popularity is under pressure on the prime minister’s position, well, if the defense minister got access to the Emergencies Ministry, and in the context of domestic realities, there is also an opportunity to appear more often in media reports and on television screens, then Medvedev has a chance to stay in tandem "would remain negligible.
By the way, analyzing news reports of major Russian television channels, we can conclude that Dmitry Anatolyevich often doesn’t have a place in them at all, but Sergei Kuzhugetovich’s broadcast, as they say, is all right. What is it for? If we assume that this is a simple coincidence, then we must admit that the natural naivety of the admitter is extremely high ...
However, the same information (exactly the information itself) about the possible unification of the Ministry of Emergency Situations with the Ministry of Defense could benefit to Dmitry Medvedev. Which one? Well, if we assume that the Ministry of Defense didn’t really talk about any integration of the two ministries, it turns out that someone decided to expose Shoigu as an official who wants to get more power to his hands. What was the purpose of such a move? For example, in order to draw the president’s attention to the growing appetites of a single minister. Perhaps the president will decide that these very growing appetites are capable of striking a built-up vertical, and will stop their joint fishing with Sergei Kuzhugetovich ...
Well, it remains to wait for the next informational stage (if there will be one at all) dedicated to the relationship between the Emergency Situations Ministry and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in order to make a final conclusion about who actually the words about their association were beneficial in the first place.
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