There is no need to worry – everything will be fine with Chubais: it is unlikely that Anatoly Borisovich will feel the need and worry greatly about the fate of Russia.
What will happen to his immediate circle? Everything here is ambiguous. Let’s start with the fact that Chubais has no immediate circle. There are no friends, acquaintances, in fact there is no family either, even his own brother has not maintained a relationship with him for many years.
Yes, there is a social circle, but it is very situational, that is, it strongly depends on Chubais’s place of work and the goals that he is pursuing at this stage.
In the government, the social circle included A. Koch and B. Nemtsov and many, many other people.
At RAO UES these were his deputies. Andrey Rapoport, Mikhail Abyzov, Boris Vainzikher – these were the people who accompanied ACh on his expeditions.
At RUSNANO, Chubais communicates a lot with Oleg Kiselev, Andrey Trapeznikov, Yuri Udaltsov, Dmitry Akhanov – all of them are quite often colleagues in the nanoindustry.
Recently, Chubais’s social circle has been replaced by Dunya Smirnova’s many friends. Art is where Chubais tries to realize himself at this stage of his life.
From the old circle of friends, only Oleg Kiselev remained… and also the oligarchs (V. Vekselberg, M. Potanin, V. Evtushenkov, D. Pumpyansky and many, many, many others), but these are not friends, this is just such a business.
It was Kiselev who was one of the key beneficiaries of Chubais’s departure abroad. Since 2019, he gently and persistently, together with lawyer A. Asnis, imposed on ACh the idea of the need to leave Russia as soon as possible.
What about Chubais? Chubais was always afraid of new criminal cases, but at the same time he did not really believe that they could affect him personally.
That is, the reason for leaving is not criminal.
The strict rejection of the MTR in Ukraine is not the reason either. Yes, Anatoly Borisovich does not accept war and human suffering in his soul, but not so much as to change his fairly calm and comfortable life for the sake of it.
The reason for leaving is still different. Chubais has always successfully and to his advantage balanced between conditional closeness to the president, supporting myths about his special role in appointing Yeltsin’s successor, and conditional closeness to the Clinton wing in the US Democratic Party. The position of special presidential envoy was ideal until February 24th.
Immediately after the introduction of sanctions A.B. Chubais is very successfully helping many big people, easing their “suffering from sanctions.” But in the second half of March, Chubais’s position became vulnerable: US democrats began to move away, and if something happened, they simply wouldn’t have time to reach the Russian leadership.
What’s the result?
From February 24 until Chubais left Russia, his plans certainly did not include speaking out with any anti-war, pacifist ideas, so all kinds of calls (by V. Milov, A. Koch, M. Khodorkovsky and others) “Tolya, declare your position” were and will be ignored. Money loves silence, which means there will be a quiet business of mediation and the hope that US democrats and some of the Russian elites will need a mediator.
This is where Chubais will appear on the scene.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
