The International Computer Club, where Mishustin worked from 1992–1998, provided Mishustin an ideal platform to connect with Russian and international IT companies as well as Russian state officials and state-controlled CEOs who sought to modernize their IT capabilities rapidly. Reviewing the scant biographical literature on Mishustin, three qualities jump out: 1) he is very sociable, a born networker, and an excellent public speaker; 2) he is exceptionally bright and multitalented; 3) he keeps his own political views to himself.

Mishustin was recruited to the State Tax Service by former Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Boris Fyodorov in 1998. Fyodorov was one of the top leaders in Yeltin’s first liberal market reform-oriented cabinets. Fyodorov, who penned a glowing biography of Pyotr Stolypin, favored Pinochet-style, top-down market reforms to jumpstart the Russian economy. He encouraged foreign investment and expertise to bring this about. By 1994, Russia’s reformist period had sputtered out, and Fyodorov left the Russian government to co-found the United Financial Group with American banker Charles Ryan. After a financial crisis in August 1998, Fyodorov briefly returned to the Russian government as Deputy Prime Minister and head of the State Tax Service. This move marked a watershed moment in Mishustin’s career, and the role of Fyodorov is significant.

Fyodorov’s intellect, forceful character, and respect in the international financial community, as well as in Russian business and government circles, were crucial to UFG’s success. Deutsche Bank purchased the investment bank UFG in two tranches, concluding the sale in 2007. UFG maintained control of an investment fund, UFG Asset Management (UFGAM), valued at the time at about $2 billion. After Fyodorov’s sudden death from a stroke in 2008, UFG tapped Mishustin to take Fyodorov’s place. Mishustin at this time, of course, had nowhere near the stature of Fyodorov, but that UFG recruited Mishustin at this time is a powerful testament to their confidence in his skills and government ties. He helped manage UFG through the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent period of rapid growth in asset valuation. While Mishustin has been the subject of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Organization investigations into his ownership of valuable property, it is not hard to imagine that in the two years or so at UFGAM, Mishustin legitimately earned tens of millions of dollars. His stint with the International Computer Club had also been lucrative.

As prime minister in 2010, Putin hired Mishustin to return to government as head of the tax services. This shows a great deal of confidence on Putin’s part in Mishustin. While this is only speculation, Putin may have also been impressed with Mishustin’s loyalty to his mentor, Boris Fyodorov. It may also reflect Putin’s heightened valuation of assiduous and confiscatory tax collection to provide revenues for the Russian state as the government was turning away from market and legal reforms. 

Mishustin’s ten-year tenure as head of the Federal Tax Service was a great success. As Alexei Kudrin was widely viewed as the top finance minister in the world, Mishustin acquired a similar reputation as the top tax man. Mishutin introduced a personal online filing system. He thus succeeded in eliminating mounds of useless paperwork, a feat Germany and the United States have yet to achieve. Overseeing 150,000 employees, Mishustin was able to triple tax revenue. In 2019, a Financial Times reporter extolled Mishustin’s achievements: 

This is the future of tax administration—digital, real-time, and with no tax returns. The authorities receive the receipts of every transaction in Russia, from St Petersburg to Vladivostok, within 90 seconds. The information has exposed errors, evasion, and fraud in the collection of its consumption tax, VAT, which has allowed the government to raise revenues more quickly than general Russian economic performance. The new system is directed more at shopkeepers than oligarchs.

However, the perception that the tax system is “directed more at shopkeepers than oligarchs” confirms the limited nature of tax reform. For 99 percent of the population, the new tax system is very efficient. Still, Putin’s friends and cronies deal with a very different personal, non-transparent, and arbitrary system with no realistic recourse to legal defense. Large businesses are also taxed in a more non-transparent and selective manner to advance the Kremlin control of critical strategic and lucrative sectors. Then, federal taxation of various regions is also done to advance central control and, in some cases, imperial policies at the Kremlin’s behest. So a restive region, such as Chechnya, receives bountiful subsidies while areas, such as Vologda, with its passive Russian population, languish in squalor. This is the key to the commercial success of Anna Putina Tsivilyova’s coal giant Kolmar, as we pointed out in a previous article. 

The most noteworthy aspect of Mishustin’s tax reforms is their systematic nature and reliance on big data blockchain technology that allows the government to track every commercial transaction, no matter how small. In other words, it is a massive and intrusive surveillance system. According to one rumor, Mishustin, during a meeting with a European official, asked where his counterpart had breakfast. With the answer, Mishustin turned to his computer and quickly informed the official what he had for breakfast. One of his former colleagues at UFG said that his background as a systems engineer is critical. Indeed, Western tax ministers may be envious of what Mishustin has been able to do as an “enlightened bureaucrat,” even if it would violate privacy norms if implemented in their home countries. In a Russian article published just after he was named prime minister, Mishustin was described as a “digital special force,” an allusion to an elite military unit.

Yes, Prime Minister Mishutin 

When Putin 2020 replaced Dmitri Medvedev with Mishustin as Prime Minister in 2020, the public initially saw yet another faceless bureaucrat in the mold of Fradkov or Zubkov. Soon, however, Mishustin established himself as a figure with a formidable media pulpit and a daily presence on Russian state news. Heading cabinet meetings, he cuts a dignified figure. Few broadcasts go by without a clip of Mishustin deliberating on pensions, health care, car insurance, veteran compensations, maternity benefits, minimum wages, and business subsidies. For everyday Russians, these topics are vital. While Mishustin methodically talks, other ministers dutifully listen, taking notes. Mishustin’s public persona is professorial and a tad boring. His style epitomizes the ubiquitous slogan during Putin’s yearly terms, stabil’nost (stability). The Russian media compares Mishustin to the last Tsarist reformer, Pyotr Stolypin, who thundered at the revolutionary democrats, “You are in need of great upheavals; we are in need of Great Russia.” 

Earlier in his career, Mishustin had found powerful protectors: Boris Fyodorov, Alexei Kudrin, German Gref, and Viktor Zubkov. It was Mishutin’s neighbor Konstantin Chuchenko, a KGB man, who introduced him to another patron, Sergei Naryshkin, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Despite being unathletic, Mishustin even played hockey with Naryshkin, other elites, and even Putin himself.These nocturnal games with key members of the power elite have been compared to an Eyes Wide Shut-like secret society. Like Peter the Great’s “All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Jesters” or Brezhnev’s hunting trips, Putin’s hockey club is a key informal governance institution. The diligent Mishustin even developed considerable proficiency in the sport. As the Russians say: “cowards don’t play hockey.” In this manner, Mishustin has gained access to the highest rungs of power, including the intelligence services. Here, Mishustin could strengthen his ties, especially with the more hawkish Siloviki, members of the Russian political elite from the military, security, and intelligence services.

It is worth noting now just how unusual Mishustin’s rise has been. He has had two significant jobs in his career in the private sector that involved a great deal of interaction with foreign elites. He was even a partner with an American during his time with UFG Asset Management. He is certainly the first Russian PM in more than a century with significant private-sector experience. The change in his physical appearance from thirty years ago is also striking. In the 1990s, Mishustin appeared to epitomize a chubby nerd. The forceful personality may have been there, but it is not apparent in recent photos. Today, while hardly a gymnast, he appears as a hefty but toned and powerful man. While perhaps a cliché, he looks like a literal political heavyweight.

Upon his accession to the premiership, Mishustin (who lacked an English-language Wikipedia page as late as 2020) was introduced to the public abruptly in a typical Putin-esque “special operation.” Humiliatingly, Medvedev found out about his demotion only after it was announced on TV. 

Within a year, it was clear Mishutin was no placeholder. Mishutin’s Coordination Center, managed by Dmitry Chernyshenko, methodically implemented some of the most significant administrative reforms of the Putin era. As one scholar predicted:

First, the federal executive will be shrunk by about 32,000 staff units, with cuts at the center of up to 5 percent and in the regions of up to 10 percent of staff (mostly by cutting currently vacant positions). By contrast, the PM’s office is being expanded to 1.792 staff. More importantly, the PM’s office should move away from merely servicing 61 government commissions and focus on policy work instead: the PM’s office now mirrors the Cabinet of Ministers, which should bolster its capability to coordinate policy and solve impasses.