Sergei Ivanov became not merely the first to die among Putin’s closest associates. He was also the closest associate who utterly lost the apparatus struggle. A man who, at the turn of the millennium, was seen as a possible successor to Putin as president of Russia dies needed by no one, without a single serious post in the Russian leadership, removed from the standing membership of the Security Council of the Russian Federation just months before his death.

When Ivanov lost the contest for the succession to Medvedev, virtually all observers assessed it as a defeat of the hawks by those who would have wanted change in Russia after Putin. This was a complete illusion. In reality, the choice of Medvedev was the choice of a hawk — one who, even then, held far tougher positions in foreign policy than Putin himself, and who would literally rage at meetings of the Security Council. The fact that the war in Georgia began precisely during Medvedev’s presidency is the direct consequence of the choice Putin made. And after that, there were no alternatives left.

Sergei Ivanov belonged to that part of the security establishment which pushed Putin and the elites toward more cautious, subversive political means of exerting influence over the former Soviet republics. That is why, after Putin’s return to the Kremlin, he could perform purely ceremonial duties, while his influence steadily declined. But he kept seeking other avenues of pressure — including pressure on Ukraine — right up until February 2022. At the meeting of the Security Council during which Putin demanded loyalty from his associates and their support for the idea of recognizing the independence of the so-called people’s republics — that is, for war — he simply did not speak. That, in fact, was the end.

I will not claim that, had Ivanov’s line prevailed, things would have been easier for us. The Kremlin’s desire to subjugate Ukraine would not have gone anywhere, and resisting a saboteur is often harder than resisting a butcher. Yet the fact that a man who hoped to achieve his ends with a scalpel lost to those who offered a sledgehammer says a great deal — when it comes to understanding the processes of the past decades.