If made president, he said, he would even appoint the now deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny as the head of Russia’s accounts chamber as an anticorruption measure.
Today, Mironov is a loud booster of the war in Ukraine. Since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion two years ago, he has toured the occupied territories, posed with a sledgehammer from the Wagner paramilitary group and reportedly taken a two-yearold missing child from Ukraine for adoption and changed her name . ( He has disputed the report. )
Puppet candidates and pocket opposition parties have long played a role in Russia’s elections, part of a fake democracy that will put on its greatest show this week as the country goes to the polls to elect Putin for another six-year term.
But Mironov’s transformation into a grotesque war hawk has surprised even some of his former friends and associates .
“I considered him a decent person before the war,” said Alexey Lushnikov, a publicist and TV host, who met Mironov for the last time in 2021. “But this monstrous degradation that has taken place – it’s just an insane horror. I have no words to understand Mironov . ”
Those who know Mironov describe him as a political survivor who has sought to “catch” political trends to his own benefi t.
“He’s always been a bit of a player in life,” said Yaroslav, his son from his fi rst marriage (Mironov remarried for a fourth time in 2022). “He’s a person who doesn’t think any rules exist and whatever advantage he manages to obtain for himself is correct.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 15, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 15, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
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