Sergey Naryshkin is a Russian politician, ex-speaker of the lower house of the State Duma, ex-head of the Kremlin administration. He has run the government apparatus, the investment division of the St.Petersburg Prombudbank; chaired the board of directors of OAO Sovcomflot and State-controlled television channel ‘Channel One’ (Pervy Kanal). In September 2016, he was appointed as the Chief of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
The political system of Russia determined the minimal set of personal characteristics that have guaranteed Naryshkin’s promotion through different ranks. He can be considered as a person who obeys someone more influential; his personality was formed under the influence of political circumstances which turned him into Putin’s political puppet.
The fact that he has been running the office for such a long time proves his loyalty to the regime. He understands that Putin’s system appreciates loyalty to the president rather than competence and high professional skills. He demonstrated this loyalty during a meeting of the National Security Council of the Russian Federation three days before the invasion of Ukraine. Intellectually Naryshkin is developed enough to estimate. Instead, having a self-preservation instinct he did not speak against the war publicly.
Since his tenure in various positions coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union, he shared Putin’s shadowy activities and turned into a person who rewrites the history by creating effective propaganda machine to run the nation. In our opinion, Naryshkin is Putin’s provocateur and ‘history rewriter’. As for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service it is a tool to cover rewriting and distorting history, to seek relevant opportunities abroad in view of absence of a serious and reasoned historical basis. Naryshkin’s most important mission is to fuel war by disinformation both inside the country and outside by conducting influence campaigns.
The main psychological characteristics of Naryshkin are purposefulness, initiative, perseverance and adaptability. He has temper of a Sanguine person: quite active, restrained in open actions and expressions; optimistic, cheerful, confident in his abilities, decisive.
Sergey Naryshkin has business and personal qualities allowing him to handle different situations. He is always correct, calm and tactful, he prefers to stay in the shadows. However, his main aspiration is going above and beyond his previous achievements.
Naryshkin is a highly motivated person. In case of conducting risky activities during performing his duties he is quite good in foreseeing all possible consequences for him and his family.
He is characterized as a person of self-control high level skills. He does not show his true emotional manifestations. Being naturally democratic, he learned to be an authoritarian, quiet, but ambitious leader. He has presidential ambitions in view of his clanship to the boyars (noble clan) from the mother of Peter the Great (Natalya Naryshkina). In this context, he can play his own but cautious political game.
As a manager, he is communicative, capable of getting new contacts and establishing necessary relationships. However, he is suspicious and cautious; he always checks a person for reliability before opening up or forwarding to the next level of relations.
He is highly enduring and hard working. He can work tensely for a long period of time under nervous and mental pressure. After such an intensive and resource-consuming activity he seeks for comfort, peace and public isolation.
His wife influences on his behavior significantly.
He has high self-esteem and appreciates himself and his professional skills too high. He is characterized by pride, self-respect and self-importance. However, he is inclined to sound information matching the President’s beliefs. Thus, it is overwhelmingly likely that Naryshkin falsified intelligence reports to Putin in order to supposedly confirm the President’s ideas and pave the way towards the presidency. Moreover, there is a high probability that he may despise the Russian leadership because he believes that, unlike his noble clan (which goes back to the regency of the Russian tsar), these people are outsiders who came to power during the fall of the Soviet Union and now they try to claim mantle of Peter 1 but with quite the opposite foreign political course.
He seeks self-expression, self-realization and recognition of his individuality. At the same time, he does what he must do. His desire to protect himself from life troubles caused by possible opinion difference with the President can be hidden behind such a behavior pattern.
He understands perfectly how his successful career and life in general can end.Fear is a universal motivator to persuade other people. In case of Naryshkin, it means that psychological pressure and intimidation are the only two ways to change his opinion. Since the psychological characteristics of former KGB officers are generally identical, discreditation of his activity as the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, family-related blackmail and the fact that his close relatives live abroad will be the most effective methods to influence on Naryshkin.
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