THE Kremlin’s political nature resembles its physical structure: a walled fortress whose interior is invisible to those on the outside. On August 12th, when President Vladimir Putin sacked Sergei Ivanov, his powerful chief of staff, the Kremlin released only a cryptic video in which Mr Putin thanked Mr Ivanov for his 17 years of service. The move’s real meaning was left to speculation. This aura of mystery is not happenstance, but a guiding principle. “We have a system that believes it can do anything without any explanation,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin advisor. “We have only a black box.” 

Mr Ivanov, like Mr Putin an ex-KGB man from St Petersburg, was seen as one of Russia’s most influential figures, perhaps second only to the president himself. The decision to replace him with the 44-year-old Anton Vaino fits a broader pattern of Mr Putin’s old comrades being pushed out in favour of younger loyalists. “Those who don’t fit Putin’s vision of the new aims are leaving,” says Aleksei Chesnakov, a former presidential administration official. However, he adds, “no one except the president knows what those new aims are.”

The switch comes at a sensitive time. Parliamentary elections loom in mid-September and the Russian economy remains weak. Tensions with Ukraine have escalated over Russian allegations of an attempted terrorist attack in Crimea. Russia is also expanding its presence in the Middle East, launching bombing runs into Syria from Iranian bases this week.