Leading this transformation is one of the most ambitious members of Putin’s inner circle: Sergei Shoigu. And with its newfound political clout, it has emerged as one of the most important institutions in Putin’s Russia.

Previously regarded by many Russians as poorly run, underfunded, and backward, it is now equipped with a new generation of technology and supported by a military-industrial complex that has growing reach in Russian society.

At the same time, the military has gained new public support at home. Whereas in earlier years, the army was not involved in Russian policymaking and was kept subordinate to the security services, from whose ranks Putin himself came, in recent years, the army has taken on new importance, not only in Russia’s interactions with neighboring countries but also in how policies are shaped. In giving the military such a decisive role, Putin is consolidating a dramatic shift that has occurred in the Kremlin’s security hierarchy over the past decade. Instead, it has been shaped from the outset by old-fashioned military power projection: first by amassing an overwhelming force on the border and then, with the world watching, quickly and efficiently putting that force to use. In contrast to many previous efforts by Moscow to achieve political goals in the West-or to exact retribution on a perceived enemy-the Ukraine offensive has not been driven by the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s security agency, which has often drawn the lion’s share of Western attention. But it also has highlighted something else: the extent to which the Kremlin’s entire pressure campaign on Ukraine has been driven by the Russia military. Even accounting for Russia’s vastly superior firepower, the speed of the military advance has been startling. On February 25, barely 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces reached Kyiv.

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