Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to replace Sergei Shoigu as defence minister with the position of secretary of the Security Council as part of a cabinet reorganization.
The Kremlin announced on Sunday that Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister with expertise in finance, will take over as the new defence minister.
The transition occurs as Putin takes office for a fifth time. Following Putin’s inauguration at the Kremlin on Tuesday, the whole government resigned by Russian law.
The Federation Council, Russia’s upper body of parliament, must accept Belousov’s candidacy.
Two years before Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, Shoigu was named minister of defence in 2012.
Timur Ivanov, a deputy of Shoigu, was detained last month on suspicion of bribery and was told to stay in detention while an official investigation was conducted. Despite Shoigu’s close links to Putin, the detention was generally perceived as a hit on him and possibly a sign of his impending ouster.
Putin chose to hand the defence portfolio to a civilian, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, because Belousov was the best candidate and the ministry should be “open to innovation and cutting-edge ideas.”
Putin won the election in March with 87 percent of the vote in a poll that some criticized for lacking democratic legitimacy since the Central Election Commission had disqualified some candidates who opposed the war in Ukraine from running.
The restructuring occurred at the same time that thousands of residents left the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine due to Russia’s resumption of its ground operations, which has bombarded towns and villages with artillery and mortar fire.
At least one Ukrainian battalion has been forced to retreat due to the fierce fighting as Russian forces continue to capture additional land and less well-defended communities in the so-called grey zone along the Russian border.
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