A technocrat with no background in the security services. Who is Mihail Mishustin and why he was revalidated by Putin at the head of the government

A bureaucrat without political ambitions, a technocrat without a background in the security services or “Boris Fyodorov’s man”, Russia’s first finance minister, this is how Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is described, who on Friday was proposed by Vladimir Putin for a new mandate, according to biographies by the Reuters agency and the independent Russian publication The Moscow Times.

Mikhail Mishustin, 58, has led the Russian government since January 2020. He was the head of the Federal Tax Service before replacing Dmitry Medvedev as prime minister. On Friday, Vladimir Putin submitted to the State Duma the proposal that Mishustin be validated for a new mandate.

Mishustin currently has the third longest tenure at the head of the Russian government (4 years, 3 months and 21 days), after his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev (7 years, 8 months, 8 days between 2012-2020) and Viktor Chernomirdin (5 years, 3 months and 9 days between 1992-1998).

No intelligence background

Mihail Mishustin is not part of the so-called “siloviki” faction of powerful officials close to Vladimir Putin who have a background in Russia’s intelligence services.

Before becoming prime minister, he headed the federal tax service, where he was praised for more than doubling revenue during his decade in charge.

His first term as head of the Russian government was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war with Ukraine, both of which created vast logistical challenges that Mishustin was tasked with solving. He is on the list of Western sanctions imposed as a result of the outbreak of the war.

He did not play a major role in matters of war, being instead tasked with managing the economy during this period.

Misustin was appointed in October 2022 to head a new Coordinating Council to collaborate with regional leaders and industry to better supply the armed forces and improve medical and logistical support. Putin had acknowledged the problems in this area after a chaotic mobilization of 300,000 people, some of whom did not even have basic equipment such as sleeping bags.

According to Reuters, Mishustin has the image of a confident communicator, often seen on television answering pointed questions from Putin about government tasks and deadlines.

In his annual report to parliament in April 2024, Mishustin said his government faced “very complicated” conditions but managed to adapt Russia’s economy to Western sanctions and achieve the goals set by Putin.

Mishustin could play an important role in a future transition at the head of the Russian state. Under the constitution, the prime minister is first in line to take over as interim president until new elections if the Kremlin leader resigns, is removed from office or has to retire for health reasons.

The appointment that shocked everyone

Vladimir Putin shocked the whole world when he chose the “obscure tax chief” to be number 2 in the Russian state, wrote the independent Russian publication The Moscow Times in 2020. Many put this decision down to his lack of political ambition.

“Mishustin is definitely not a decoration prime minister, but a full-fledged member of the list of successors for the role of president,” wrote Alexander Baunov of the Moscow Carnegie Center on Facebook at the time. “His relative obscurity should not rule him out. Vladimir Putin himself was a little-known official until the moment [Boris] Yeltsin appointed him to three high posts one after the other”.

Born and raised just outside the Russian capital, Mishustin graduated in systems engineering in 1989 from Moscow State Technological University. “He had a lot of friends and always liked to be in a group,” said Andrei Morozov, a Moscow-based IT consultant who graduated the same year as the current Russian prime minister.

He joined the International Computer Club, the non-profit organization formed by a group of Soviet scientists in 1986 with the approval of the KGB. The organization was the first to bring Western technology to the Soviet Union.

“It was basically a marketing operation designed to get Western computer companies to invest in Russia – which they did to very good effect,” said Esther Dyson, a Swiss-American investor who worked with the group at that time.

In the 1990s, he became close to Russia’s first finance minister, Boris Fyodorov. “It’s no secret that he was close to Boris Fyodorov, that he was his man,” says Sergei Aleksashenko, who worked as Fyodorov’s deputy in the ministry from 1993 to 1994.

Fyodorov was a liberal reformer, but those who met Mishustin that year say they did not discuss politics at all. He would also be the one who guided him to another world, that of finance, when he offered him a position at UFG Asset Management, a financial firm he founded with an American investor.

In 2008, Fyodorov, who lived in London, died suddenly of a heart attack. Misustin was already on a trajectory towards the top of power, and in 2010 he was appointed head of the Federal Tax Service, a position that would propel him towards the leadership of the government.