25 August 2025
On what awaits the ‘courts and law enforcement organs’ when current General Prosecutor Krasnov becomes Russian Supreme Court Chairman
by Leonid Nikitinsky
Source: Novaya gazeta
Chairman Nikolai Timoshin of the Higher Judicial Qualifications Commission (VKKS) has reported that Russian General Prosecutor Igor Krasnov submitted an application to the VKKS on 25 August, the last day of the announced competition for the position of Supreme Court chairman, vacant since the demise in late July of Irina Podnosova. This would scarcely have been possible without the president’s consent, and that means other ‘self-nominees’ were not to be found and Krasnov’s candidacy will be presented to the Federation Council in the near future.
Vedomosti, a newspaper once close to ruling circles, confidently reported, citing five of its sources—‘three of them close to the presidential administration (AP), one close to the VS [Supreme Court], and one more in the judicial community’—that ‘the most obvious candidate’ for the post of Russian Supreme Court chairman is Russian Investigative Committee Chairman Aleksandr Bastrykin.
If this leak was made not simply to frighten judges, who would not find it easy to get used to Bastrykin’s operational briefings style, then more than likely it was initiated by the interested party himself. Bastrykin’s age, as the same newspaper rightly pointed out, exceeds the upper limit allowed for this post (70 years). Actually, in view of the president’s very short reserve bench of trusted lawyers, Bastrykin still has a chance of keeping his post if the term of his authorities is extended by special decree.
On the other hand, Vedomosti was not seriously mistaken. Igor Krasnov, who was appointed General Prosecutor in January 2020, had before that served for many years as deputy head of the Russian Investigative Committee and has been an investigator ‘to the marrow of his bones’ for the entire length of his career.
The fact that the judicial system is going to be headed up not simply by an outsider but specifically by an investigator may noticeably change the configuration of ‘courts and law enforcement organs’, two entities that were rarely spoken of in the same breath during the Soviet years of party leadership.
The problem is that, in theory, the court sits at the top of the pyramid of these ‘organs’, but in practice, through the efforts of those same Prosecutor’s Office and Investigative Committee, the courts have taken up a subordinate position in Putin’s Russia, rubberstamping guilty verdicts and even copying and pasting them into verdicts. An acquittal, which nullifies the work of the investigation and prosecution, is always something out of the ordinary, the Prosecutor’s Office virtually always disputes them and wins a reversal (as happened, for example, in the famous case of Yuri Dmitriev, head of Karelian Memorial*), and their share in the total number of verdicts has been negligible for many years now.
Once he heads up the Supreme Court, and by design this ‘branch of power’ (the entire judicial system), Investigator Krasnov might not want to limit himself to the passive role of ‘rubberstamper’ of guilty verdicts formulated by his former departments. This may well create the prerequisites for a behind-the-scenes conflict among the Supreme Court, the Investigative Committee, and the organs of the Prosecutor’s Office led by whoever comes to replace Krasnov.
* Recognized as a ‘foreign agent’ by Russian Federation authorities.
Translated by Marian Schwartz
