Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cabinet reshuffle and military purge following his inauguration have raised speculation that he is seeking to consolidate power as he prepares for a much longer war in Ukraine.
Putin appointed economist Andrei Belousov as Moscow’s defense chief, replacing the former Sergei Shoigu. Shoigu, in turn, was appointed secretary of Russia’s security council, replacing ousted security chief Nikolai Patrushev – a key player in Putin’s security apparatus who will now serve as an advisor to the Russian president.
Also included in the reshuffle was Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, a high-ranking military officer responsible for personnel matters who was arrested “on suspicion of criminal activity,” according to Russian state media.
Taken together, the move promotes economic minds over military ones to sustain Putin’s war machine over several years, as well as to eliminate any threat from a possible usurper, experts told The Hill.
“We’re going to see more arrests, really more as a signal than anything else, saying ‘Look, it doesn’t matter what the old rules were, the new rules are different,’” said Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert and head of Mayak. Intelligence consultancy firm in London.
Galeotti also said the changes indicate that Putin is “going deeper into the long game” in Ukraine, which has been fighting for more than two years.
“Essentially, this points to a strategy of attrition and a willingness to take risks, to take losses, while hoping that Ukraine no longer has the capacity to fight and that the West no longer has the will to continue supporting it,” he said.
Putin earlier this week was sworn in as president for a fifth term, ensuring he will be Russia’s leader until at least 2030.
Among his first tasks was replacing Shoigu, defense minister since 2012, a change in the Kremlin’s national security team for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In his place is Belousov, Putin’s deputy prime minister and economic adviser, who never served in the military. The move was portrayed as a measure to rationalize the country’s defense spending.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow’s security budget had increased to more than 6.5% of GDP and that authorities were trying to reduce it again under Belousov.
“This requires special attention,” Peskov said. “It is very important to align the security economy with the country’s economy, so that it meets the current dynamics.”
He added that Putin also decided that a civilian should handle defense matters because “on the battlefield, one is more open to innovation. . . wins.”
Shoigu’s transfer is notable given his close relationship with Putin, with the two in the past going on fishing and hunting trips.
Likewise, outgoing security chief Patrushev has long been seen as a close confidant of the Russian president, and his move is widely seen as a demotion. Patrushev, a former KGB colleague of Putin’s, was a key actor in the assassination of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, The Wall Street Journal reports.reported.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindmantold NPR this weekthat he interpreted Patrushev’s “marginalization” as being more a matter of consolidating power in the Kremlin, rather than directly related to Ukraine’s war efforts.
“I see the fact that the second most powerful person in the country, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the National Security Council, was removed and replaced by another loyalist, both weakening, let’s say, opposing factions,” he said.
“I think this is a way to isolate Putin more concretely in his second term, give him more freedom,” added Vindman, who now runs the Institute for Informed American Leadership think tank.
Shoigu, along with Russian army chief Valery Gerasimov, have drawn the ire of Russian authorities over Moscow’s battlefield failures in Ukraine, despite slowly gaining ground in recent months.
“Shoigu wasn’t delivering exactly the standard required. He had been a good civilian minister in times of peace, but catastrophically bad in times of war. And so I think it was time for him to move on,” Galeotti told The Hill.
There has also been a public charge to root out corruption within Russia’s defense apparatus, with Russia’s security services last month arresting one of Shoigu’s deputy defense ministers, Timur Ivanov, on corruption charges.
But this was also seen by the West as a ploy to weaken Shoigu.
Asked Monday about Russia’s personnel changes, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh declined to comment beyond a dig at its current war effort.
“Considering where the war that Russia launched began, you know, more than two years ago, they certainly were unsuccessful on the battlefield and had some major defeats. So I will let the Russians talk about their own personnel changes,” she said.
Others see the timing of the changes – ahead of Putin’s arrival in Beijing this week for the first state visit of his new term – as an aim to more deeply integrate Russia’s economy with China for the sake of long-term military capabilities. .
“Putin brought this delegation made up of cabinet members and heads of Russian banks and energy companies – and shook up his cabinet just before his visit to the economic patron of his war in Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party,” said Jonathan Ward, a senior official. fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., told The Hill.
“This suggests that Putin is trying to push China deeper into its war effort and trying to align the Russian and Chinese economies in a way that will allow him – with China’s help – to win the war.”
War said China’s economic support for Russia has already “laid the foundation for its war in Europe” and that making an economist defense minister shows Putin’s determination to “further transform Russia into a war economy.”
Cumulatively, the cabinet changes mark a turning point in Russia’s more than two-year war in Ukraine, essentially militarizing the entire government structure and transforming it into a combat institution.
Unlike Russia’s war effort, its economy has defied expectations over the past two years. Even under the cloud of major economic sanctions imposed by the West, in addition to being isolated from most global markets, the Kremlin surpassed the United States and Europe in terms of growth in 2023. That gain appears to have been largely driven by increased military spending, with significant increases in Russia’s defense industry, according to economists.
Belouso’s appointment appears to be a recognition of this new normality, supporting Moscow for a long-distance conflict with Ukraine, while Russian forces mount a new offensive in the northeast of the country. The battle plan appears to be a slow advance to retake smaller cities, rather than major attacks on large cities, as Moscow tried unsuccessfully at the beginning of the war.
“Russians learn lessons,” Galeotti said of the move. “Sometimes their responses are not the same as ours, the ones we would expect, or they are slow or wasteful, but the Russians learn and I think that’s what we’re seeing. In fact, it’s a lot of the lessons of the last few years, especially in terms of how you manage your system so that a long-term war of attrition starts to play out.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
