Introduction. The Special Military Operation (SVO), launched in 2024, has become not only a military-political, but also a deep socio-political frontier for Russian statehood. She has intensified the processes of transformation of power structures and personnel renewal at various levels of government. Goal. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze the mechanisms, channels and criteria for the formation of new groups of the political elite in Russia in the conditions of the SVR, as well as to assess their impact on the political system.

Materials and methods. The study is based on an analysis of a wide range of open sources, including biographical databases, official documents, media texts, and social media materials for the period 2022-2024. The methodological framework is interdisciplinary and based on a synthesis of qualitative approaches: institutional analysis to study changes in selection rules and procedures; biographical (prosopographic) analysis to reconstruct collective portraits and career trajectories of "new" appointees.; a critical discourse analysis of public statements and media narratives to identify legitimizing criteria; a comparative case study for an in-depth study of the specifics of regional and sectoral recruitment.

Results and discussion. In the course of the work, it was found that the key trend is the formation of a new hierarchy, in which the dominant positions are occupied by holders of competencies that are critically important for conflict management and ensuring national security in a broad sense. This led to the effect of "force drift" — the expansion of immigrants from the military, special services and law enforcement agencies into civilian spheres of government, economics and diplomacy. In parallel, a class of "mobilization technocrats" has emerged in the military-industrial complex and logistics, whose effectiveness is measured by concrete, measurable results in the face of sanctions. The most important social invention was the accelerated institutionalization of a new media and ideological elite (military officers, patriotic bloggers, and hosts of propaganda shows), which performs the functions of meaning-making, mobilization, and direct communication. The system of selection criteria has changed qualitatively: loyalty has evolved towards active public ideological engagement; effectiveness has been redefined as the ability to achieve goals in extreme conditions of the "front" and "rear", often bypassing procedures; public performativity of course support has become a prerequisite for legitimacy.

Conclusion. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that the special military operation acted as a catalyst for a profound and probably irreversible transformation of the elite structure. Instead of situational personnel changes, a stable outline of a new ruling group has been formed, the core of which is based on a synthesis of power capital, mobilization effectiveness and ideological identity. This leads to the articulation and consolidation of a new social norm in the elite consciousness, which is characterized by statism, centralization, confrontational thinking and the primacy of security over other social goals. The long-term consequences will be the strengthening of authoritarian tendencies, the redistribution of resources and influence in favor of the military and military-industrial blocs, as well as the formation of a specific model of post-crisis management, inherited from wartime logic of emergency, hierarchy and permanent mobilization.