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Chapter 35: The Watchdog

In a private room at L'Étranger, a restaurant so expensive it felt like a parody of wealth, two oligarchs were rewriting history over a lunch of beluga caviar and iced vodka. Boris and Andrei, men who had sat silently on the boards of state companies and nodded enthusiastically at every one of the President’s rambling speeches, were now recasting themselves as secret dissidents.

“Of course, I was always against the ‘Special Operation,’” Boris said, dabbing his mouth with a linen napkin. He had made seven billion dollars from the state contracts that built the Kerch Bridge. “I told my wife from day one, ‘This is madness!’ But what could one do? The man was… unreasonable.”

“Exactly!” Andrei agreed, his jowls quivering with a newfound sense of moral clarity. Andrei’s chemical plants supplied the raw materials for half the army’s explosives. “To speak out would have been suicide. Our patriotic duty was to preserve our assets, our companies, for the good of the nation! It was a form of patriotic silence.”

“A patriotic silence!” Boris seized on the phrase, his eyes gleaming. “I like that. And all that money he forced us to ‘reinvest’ in his pet projects… a terrible extortion. But we paid it. For Russia, we paid it.”

Miles away, in a cluttered, fluorescent-lit office that smelled of old paper and dust, Prosecutor Irina Yashina snorted with contempt. She was reading the file on Andrei’s chemical plants, a case of massive state-contract fraud she had been trying to build for five years, a case that had been systematically stonewalled at every turn. She slammed the file shut. Cowards. Hyenas. They were all the same.

A chime from her computer. An encrypted, high-priority message. Not from her superiors, but from an external government server. “Alexei Voronkov requests your presence at the Metropol Hotel. 4 PM. Suite 301.”

The meeting was a tense game of chess. Voronkov, smooth and political, sat in an armchair. Yashina, blunt and suspicious, remained standing, a coiled spring of distrust. Voronkov laid out his offer: the leadership of a new, fully independent Anti-Corruption Bureau, with a sweeping mandate and a budget guaranteed by the new provisional constitution.

Yashina’s expression did not change. “A lovely title,” she said, her voice dry as gravel. “And what happens when my first investigation leads to one of the men who put you in power? To your friend Viktor Orlov, for instance? Or to those patriotic, silent cowards like Boris and Andrei, who are probably at this very moment telling anyone who will listen how they secretly opposed the war they funded? Will my ‘independent’ budget suddenly be cut? Will I be reassigned to investigate turnip theft in Voronezh?”

It was the test. Voronkov looked her straight in the eye, and he did not flinch. “Prosecutor Yashina,” he said, his voice calm and serious. “If your investigation leads you to Viktor Orlov and you have the evidence, I expect you to prosecute him. If it leads to me, I expect you to prosecute me. As for Boris and Andrei and their kind, they are a symptom of the disease I am hiring you to cure. This new state will either be built on the foundation of the law, equal for all, or it will be built on the same sand as the old one. I am not interested in building on sand.”

He leaned forward. “The choice is yours. You will have a sword. You will have a shield. But be under no illusions. Your enemies will be my enemies as well as your own. It will be the most dangerous job in Russia.”

Yashina studied him for a long, silent moment. She was a human lie detector, an expert in the evasions and half-truths of powerful men. She searched Voronkov’s face for the tell, the flicker of insincerity. She found none. She saw only a tired, pragmatic man who had come to the same cold, hard conclusion she had reached years ago: the corruption wasn’t a flaw in the system; it was the system.

She gave a single, sharp nod. “I will need my own investigators. Hand-picked. A secure facility, outside of any existing government building. And I will report to the new parliament, not to you.”

“Done,” Voronkov said, without hesitation.

Yashina turned to leave. For the first time, a flicker of something other than cynicism glittered in her eyes. It was the grim, dangerous thrill of a lifelong hunter who had just been handed a license to hunt the biggest and most dangerous predators on the continent.

The Discourse, 35: The Political Science of Institutional Independence

Section 35.1: Satire and the "Revisionist Coward" Archetype
The characters of Boris and Andrei are satirical representations of a specific and crucial archetype in post-authoritarian societies: the "revisionist coward." These are members of the elite who enabled and profited from the old regime through their passivity and complicity, but who, upon its collapse, immediately attempt to rewrite their own history as one of quiet, prudent opposition. The concept they invent—"patriotic silence"—is a classic example of self-serving rationalization. This satire is not merely for comic relief; it is a critical sociological observation, highlighting the moral flexibility and lack of genuine conviction that is often required to remain wealthy and successful under a repressive system.

Section 35.2: The "Incorruptible Watchdog" as a Litmus Test
A new government's true commitment to reform can be measured by its relationship with its own oversight institutions. Voronkov's appointment of Yashina is a sophisticated strategic move. By choosing a known, stubbornly independent figure whom he cannot control, he is sending a powerful signal to both the Russian people and the international community. The creation of a genuinely independent Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) with a broad mandate and a fierce leader is the single most credible litmus test of his sincerity. It demonstrates that he understands a fundamental principle of good governance: a system is only as strong as its ability to police itself.

Section 35.3: The Paradox of Appointing Your Own Executioner
Yashina's conditions for accepting the job—her own investigators, a separate facility, reporting to parliament instead of the executive—are the essential building blocks of genuine institutional independence. Voronkov’s immediate acceptance of these terms, including the implicit threat to himself and his allies, is the core paradox of sincere reform. To build a truly stable state based on the rule of law, a leader must be willing to create institutions that are powerful enough to hold even him accountable. It is an act of surrendering a degree of power in the short term in order to gain a far greater and more durable form of legitimacy in the long term. By hiring the one person who could potentially destroy him, Voronkov is making his most powerful argument that the new Russia will not be like the old one.