The Security Council of Russia
How to read the Security Council of the Russian Federation — its statutory basis, membership, Patrushev/Shoigu era, and the signaling value of its readouts.
Constitutional and Statutory Basis
The Security Council of the Russian Federation (Совет Безопасности РФ, Sovbez) is established under Article 83(g) of the 1993 Constitution, which empowers the President to form and chair the body. Its present operating charter is Federal Law No. 390-FZ of 28 December 2010 ("On Security"), as amended, supplemented by Presidential Decree No. 590 of 6 May 2011 approving the Statute on the Security Council, and Decree No. 175 of 7 March 2020, which restructured the apparatus after the January 2020 constitutional amendments. The 2020 amendments to Article 83 explicitly elevated the Council's status and created the post of Deputy Chairman, designed for Dmitry Medvedev after he vacated the premiership on 15 January 2020.
The Council is not a cabinet body. It is an advisory-deliberative organ that prepares presidential decisions on national security, defense, and foreign policy. Its outputs take the form of recommendations to the President, who then issues a decree (ukaz) or instruction (porucheniye). Crucially, the Council itself promulgates no binding legal acts; this is why diplomats reading Sovbez readouts must distinguish between deliberation (what the Council discussed) and decision (what Putin subsequently signed).
Composition: Permanent and Standing Members
Membership is tiered. Permanent members (postoyannye chleny) participate with vote; standing members (chleny) participate without vote; invited experts attend ad hoc. As of mid-2024, permanent members include the President (Chair), Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu (appointed 12 May 2024, replacing Nikolai Patrushev), Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, SVR Director Sergei Naryshkin, and Presidential Administration Chief Anton Vaino.
The 12 May 2024 reshuffle is the single most important recent personnel signal. Putin moved Shoigu from twelve years at Defense into the Sovbez secretariat, while Patrushev — Secretary since 2008 — became Presidential Aide for shipbuilding. Western analysts who read this as Patrushev's demotion underestimate the Russian practice of distributed influence: Patrushev's son Dmitry remained Deputy Prime Minister, and Nikolai retained Sovbez membership. The secretariat under Shoigu manages the military-industrial commission interface and the Council's foreign-policy commission, chaired since 2012 by Yuri Ushakov in coordination with the Foreign Ministry.
Operating Rhythm
Three formats matter. First, the weekly operational meeting (operativnoe soveshchaniye), held most Fridays in the Kremlin's Senate Building, brings together permanent members. Second, the expanded session (rasshirennoe zasedaniye) convenes quarterly with standing members and ministers; these produce the formal Foundations documents — for example, the Maritime Doctrine approved 31 July 2022, the Foreign Policy Concept of 31 March 2023, and the updated Nuclear Deterrence Foundations of 19 November 2024. Third, closed sessions on specific crises leave no public readout.
The 21 February 2022 expanded session — broadcast in unprecedented detail three days before the invasion of Ukraine — remains the canonical example of the Council functioning as a ratification theater. Each permanent member was made to speak on the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics," binding the elite collectively to the decision. SVR Director Naryshkin's stumbling performance was televised deliberately. Reading Sovbez requires recognizing that public sessions are stagecraft; the substantive decisions occur in the unrecorded Friday meetings.