Russian President Vladimir Putin’s surprise late-night shuffle of his defense and security team signals his determination to mobilize Russia’s war economy for a long and intensified conflict in Ukraine against the West.
Putin named his former economy aide and First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, 65, to be Russia’s new defense minister. Belousov replaces Sergei Shoigu, 68, who had been defense minister since 2012 and is being transferred to a new role as secretary of Russia’s security council. Nikolai Patrushev, a longtime ally of Putin who had held that post, was dismissed and is due to take another, unspecified job.
The appointment of Belousov, who has long advocated greater state control of the economy, “isn’t about military leadership,” Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the political consultancy R.Politik, said on Telegram.
Photo: AP
“This is about ‘Gosplan’ in the military-industrial complex,” she said, a reference to the Soviet-era state-planning system.
Putin came to his decision to appoint Belousov in part because he is a student of history and had in mind the example of former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara, a person familiar with the government deliberations said, asking not to be identified discussing an internal matter.
As defense secretary under US presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s during the Vietnam War, McNamara overhauled military procurement to improve efficiency.
Putin’s ouster of Shoigu, one of his closest allies, might reflect frustration at the failure to defeat Ukraine in a war that was meant to last for days and is now in its third year, with hundreds of thousands of Russian troops killed or wounded. The defense minister was the target of last year’s aborted mutiny by Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prighozin, who accused him of repeated failures on the battlefield.
Russian troops are advancing in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, in a new offensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Sunday that defense forces were holding their positions in fierce battles, calling the situation “extremely difficult.”
Putin’s determined to achieve a minimum war goal of seizing full control of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, following the years-long separatist conflict that provided his justification for the February 2022 invasion, two people familiar with Russia’s strategy said.
Like Shoigu, Belousov arrives at the defense ministry with no military background. With Ukraine starting to receive tens of billions of US dollars in new military aid from its US and European allies, Russia faces the challenge of maximizing the impact of its own defense spending, which is surging to historically high levels.
State spending on the defense ministry and Russia’s security sector is approaching 6.7 percent of GDP, nearing levels reached by the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday, according to the Interfax news service.
While spending levels are not yet “critical,” Putin chose Belousov because of the need for “economic competitiveness” at the defense ministry, the report quoted Peskov as saying.
“Belousov’s appointment is a sign that the Russian economy is being transformed into a war economy,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow.
The shuffle is the most far-reaching shake-up since 2020, when Putin named Mikhail Mishustin to replace Dmitry Medvedev as prime minister. Months later, Putin overhauled the constitution to allow him two more mandates, which means he could rule to 2036, when he would be 83. Mishustin was reappointed last week to continue as prime minister. Medvedev has been deputy head of the security council since 2020.
Kremlin watchers will be keenly monitoring the fate of Patrushev, 72, who had been the hawkish head of the security council since 2008 and played a key role in the invasion of Ukraine.
The former KGB agent succeeded Putin as Federal Security Service chief when the latter was named Russia’s prime minister in 1999 and Patrushev continued in that post to 2008.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
Africa has established the continent’s first space agency to boost Earth observation and data sharing at a time when a more hostile global context is limiting the availability of climate and weather information. The African Space Agency opened its doors last month under the umbrella of the African Union and is headquartered in Cairo. The new organization, which is still being set up and hiring people in key positions, is to coordinate existing national space programs. It aims to improve the continent’s space infrastructure by launching satellites, setting up weather stations and making sure data can be shared across
RSS