Clan Men (clockwise from top left): Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Rogozin, Aleksandr Bastrykin, Vladimir Yakunin, Igor Sechin, and Sergei Chemezov
Someone is apparently out to get Vladimir Yakunin, the powerful chief of Russian Railways and a longtime protege of President Vladimir Putin.
False news reports this week that Yakunin had been fired were just the latest effort to undermine him. And they came as the powerful Kremlin clans, the patronage networks that make up Russia's power elite, are undergoing a realignment and jockeying for position amid political uncertainty.
In the latest edition of "The Power Vertical Podcast," I discuss the increasingly intense sparring among Russia's warring clans with my co-hosts, New York University professor Mark Galeotti and Kirill Kobrin of RFE/RL's Russian Service.
Also on the podcast, Mark, Kirill, and I discuss Putin's proposed amnesty for white-collar criminals.
