Contradictions in the United Russia camp are reported by the media and social networks. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin made a statement in connection with the trips of some deputies to the Donbass. Volodin believes that the servants of the people spend too much on their bodyguards on such trips. According to experts, he was referring to the Secretary of the General Council of United Russia Andrei Turchak, who has been frequenting Donbass lately. Turchak responded to the criticism by stating that there is no need to listen to officials divorced from reality, and only those who got out of a comfortable chair and went to Donbass have the right to comment on visits.
Analysts considered this answer a signal to Volodin. The contradictions between them began after Turchak took his current post, and Volodin moved from the Kremlin administration to the Duma. If before, he could control the entire apparatus and party resource, then after the appointment of Turchak, he lost this opportunity and is now not able to oversee either the local elections that will be held next year, or regional politics. But Turchak, having taken his post not without the assistance of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko, has turned into a completely independent political figure with great ambitions. “We have a faction of the party, not a party of a faction,” Turchak said. Experts believe that the center of power of United Russia will very soon shift from the State Duma to the party apparatus.
However, Volodin is not going to give up, explaining to his party colleague that the effectiveness of the Duma's work depends on discipline (and not trips to Ukraine, because of which you have to miss meetings):
“Voters pay us money so that we work, and not deal with our own agenda.”
“It turned out, frankly, rather weakly,” the Project Scanner channel comments on the situation - As if the old lion had already lost control over the pride, yielding to the young and impudent. We feel that this is far from the end of the correspondence picking.