Russian President Vladimir Putin has replaced his long-serving Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with economist Andrey Belousov.
Belousov, formerly the Deputy Prime Minister, steps into the defense role with no military background, an unconventional choice that departs from traditional appointments. The Kremlin, through its spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov, has framed this decision as a step toward innovation on the battlefield, stating, “Today, the winner on the battlefield is the one who is more open to innovation, more open to implementation as quickly as possible.”
This appointment comes on the heels of Putin’s inauguration for a fifth six-year term, and Shoigu had led the Defense Ministry since 2012. Known as both a Putin loyalist and a personal friend of the Russian dictator who accompanied him on hunting holidays, he is the most senior figure to be dismissed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
While Shoigu’s tenure in office coincided with Russian military success stories such as the 2014 occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the 2015 Russian intervention in Syria, his reputation had been severely tarnished in recent years by the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine.
Moscovskiy Komsomolets (Young Moscow Communist), a Russian newspaper whose views are aligned with the Russian state, called Belousov “a brainy strategist” and a “battle-tested and skilled bureaucratic fighter,” meaning that he knows how to operate and fight battles within the Russian government bureaucracy. Putin, who has a Ph.D. in economics, in addition to being an attorney, almost certainly seeks additional intellectual firepower in the economic realm, as he seeks to beat the United States in what Russia views as a proxy war over control of Ukraine.
Putin and the Russian defense establishment believe that Russia lost the Cold War to the United States because its economy could not possibly sustain the requirements placed on it by the Soviet military that sought to outcompete the U.S. military and defense establishment. The Russians want to avoid a repeat of that failure.
The replacement of Shoigu with an economist like Belousov comes as Russia reckons with its own transformation into a war economy. Peskov told reporters that Belousov’s appointment as defense minister was about “making the economy of the security bloc part of the country’s economy.”
Shoigu, meanwhile, has not been sidelined entirely; he now leads Russia’s Security Council. Besides leading the Security Council, Shoigu will represent Putin in the country’s Military-Industrial Commission, which oversees the country’s military industrial complex.
Relevant articles:
– Who is Russia’s new defense minister and what’s behind Putin’s wartime cabinet reshuffle? , Fox News, 05/16/2024
– Putin appoints economist as defense minister as Russia plans for long war, Atlantic Council, 05/14/2024
– Putin axes defense minister, replaces him with an economist, Yahoo News Canada, 05/16/2024
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