INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
In a major shakeup, President Vladimir Putin has nominated former First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov to replace longtime Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu, the upper-house Federation Council announced Sunday night.The ouster of Shoigu, a longtime Putin ally, comes nearly
a week after Putin was sworn into a fifth term in office, cementing his more than two-decade rule even further as Moscow presses forward
with its war with neighboring Ukraine.Belousov, 65, has held several positions in government over the past decade, from economic development
military experience, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that a civilian official heading the Defense Ministry would open it up
who has led the invasion of Ukraine, had until now withstood a series of failures in the war and a mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group in
the summer of 2023.The replacement comes weeks after the arrest of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was seen as a close Shoigu
expects "something new" to be placed under Patrushev's purview."It is now important for Putin to make sure that the enormous sums of money
spent on war are not stolen," Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on X (formerly
"But Belousov will now ruin his reputation forever as an accomplice.""Belousov was responsible for technological development
The Kremlin believes he will technologize the economy and turn it into a military economy
And the military will pull GDP growth
Star Wars economy," Kolesnikov wrote
"Which is what the USSR blew up on."Apart from the major shakeup in the Defense Ministry, most top officials kept their positions, with
Putin reappointing Sergei Lavrov as foreign minister, Alexander Bortnikov as Federal Security Service (FSB) head, Sergei Narishkin as
Foreign Intelligence Service head, Konstantin Chuychenko as justice minister, and Alexander Kurenkov as emergencies minister, among
since its previous chairman, systemic liberal Alexei Kudrin, was dismissed in November 2022.
