In a major reshuffle of his cabinet, President Vladimir Putin is expected to dismiss Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister for 12 years, from his post and appoint him as secretary of the Security Council, a position previously held by Nikolai Patrushev since 2008.
The move has sparked speculation among Kremlin watchers, intrigued by what could have led to the surprise move and what it means for Shoigu, Patrushev and Andrei Belousov, the deputy prime minister and economist who will become Russia’s new defense minister. Russia.
Shoigu is known as a Putin loyalist, with the pair having been photographed on many male fishing expeditions deep into Siberia, and leading the Russian armed forces during the invasion of Ukraine.
Belousov’s appointment is expected to be confirmed by the Federation Council this week.
“Today, the winner on the battlefield is the one who is most open to innovation, most open to implementation as quickly as possible,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press. “It is natural that at the current stage the president decided that the Ministry of Defense should be headed by a civilian.”
Observers said the reshuffle is a sign that Russia has no plans to end the war against Ukraine, now in its third year.
“This indicates that the Kremlin is not looking for a way out of Ukraine, but rather to extend its ability to withstand the conflict for as long as possible,” said Jeff Hawn, a doctoral candidate and guest professor in the department of international history at the London School of Economics. “Russia is very limited [on] how much they can increase in scale, due to economic deficiencies. However, they can maintain a certain level of warfare of attrition. And they probably hope to do this for longer than Ukraine can.”
Shoigu will soon occupy the position of vice-chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission. He will also head the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS), responsible for negotiating military equipment with other countries.
“With an economist taking over the Ministry of Defense and the former minister taking on a political and advisory role, technocrats are on the rise. The goal, however, is not peace, but more efficient warfare,” wrote Mark Galeotti, author of several books on Putin and Russia, in The Spectator. “As Putin engages in the long term, with ‘special military operation’ now the central organizing principle of his regime, he knows he needs technocrats to keep his war machine running.”
Putin’s decree also removes the FSVTS from the Ministry of Defense, leaving Shoigu only responsible to the president himself.
“In just over two years of special military operation [in Ukraine]Sergei Shoigu, however, surpassed the level of the defense minister in terms of his professional level,” Alexander Mikhailov of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, a Russian defense think tank, told state news agency TASS, noting the level by Shoigu. of international expertise and experience abroad.
Military expert Rob Lee wrote in
“The big loser in this mess appears to be Patrushev, who was also one of the key decision-makers behind the invasion of Ukraine.”
It is not yet clear where Patrushev’s new mission will be.
However, Shoigu’s new placements may not be the promotions they seem.
The reshuffle comes less than a month after Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested on bribery charges.
“The Security Council is becoming a reservoir for Putin’s ‘former’ key figures – who cannot be dismissed, but there is no place to house them,” wrote political analyst and R.Politik founder Tatiana Stanovaya , on Telegram, referring to the recent turbulence in Shoigu’s career.
Ivanov enjoyed a reputation for an opulent lifestyle and was accused of pocketing funds intended for the reconstruction of the battle-torn Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Stanovaya also pointed to recent disputes with Rostec, the state-owned weapons manufacturer Shoigu, accused of slow work, and the fallout from last year’s Wagner mutiny.
“Putin thus makes it clear that the connection with the previous position will remain, that continuity is important – very much in his spirit,” continued Stanovaya. “But all of this is more reminiscent of a desire to take Shoigu out of the game so as not to offend, with maximum honors. Not because he is a friend, but because it is safer for Putin himself. As happened with Medvedev in January 2020. Apparently, this is how the Security Council justifies its own name: to guarantee the safety of former heavyweights who have nowhere else to settle and cannot be expelled.”
Who is Andrey Belousov?
Like Shoigu, Belousov is also known as a Putin loyalist and a strong supporter of government spending, who is thought to have been behind the controversial increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) in 2019.
“One of Putin’s most extravagant appointments is that of Keynesian economist Belousov as defense minister,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is now important that Putin ensures that the huge sums of money spent on the war are not stolen.”
“Belousov is not just an artist [of tasks]he has his own vision of how the Russian economy should work, and he brings it to life as best he can,” a source close to the Kremlin told independent Russian media outlet The Bell.
Another added that, in 2014, he was the only economist close to Putin at the time who supported the annexation of Crimea.
“I have known Andrei Belousov, the new Russian Defense Minister, for many years,” said economist Konstantin Sonin in a long publication on X, adding that they now do not enjoy a relationship. “The new changes – Belousov instead of Shoigu in Defense [Ministry]Shoigu instead of Patrushev in the Security Council – is a perfect illustration of our “degenerate autocracy” theory.
“Things are not going according to Putin’s plan, but he will rotate the same small group of loyalists indefinitely. Putin has always been wary of bringing new people into positions of authority – even in the best of times, they must have been nobodys with no perspectives of their own. At the end of his government, even more so.”
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