The piece explains why the police have remained one of the most stable institutions of the late Putin era. According to Titaev, the key factor is the generational homogeneity of the Interior Ministry’s leadership: most regional police chiefs belong to the same age cohort and share a common experience shaped by the late Soviet period and the 1990s. A poor youth, service in an underfunded army, and work in the police amid salary delays, high levels of violence, and pervasive informality produced managers whose main skill became the ability to negotiate — with superiors, business, criminal groups, and the authorities. It is this skill, the professor argues, that allows the system to remain stable today.
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