#023 - How War Reshaped Russia's Elite with Alexandra Prokopenko

How has Russia’s war against Ukraine transformed the people who govern the country?

Alexandra Prokopenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center joins Michael Kimmage and Maria Lipman to discuss her book, From Sovereigns to Servants: How the War Against Ukraine Reshaped Russia’s Elite.

Tracing Russian governance from the 1990s to the present, Prokopenko examines how members of Russia’s political elite have lost political agency under Vladimir Putin and increasingly become implementers of decisions made at the top.

The conversation explores the patterns of loyalty and compliance that sustain the system, the role of informal practices in Russian governance, the rise of younger technocrats, and how the full-scale invasion of Ukraine accelerated changes already underway within Russia’s ruling elite.

Together, they consider what these transformations reveal about power, decision-making, and governance in contemporary Russia.