The announcement that Putin wants to replace Sergei Shoigu, who has been Russia’s defense minister since 2012, came at half past seven on Sunday evening.
Shoigu instead gets a new position as Secretary General of the National Security Council, which is also a high post in Russia.
As a replacement for Shoigu, Putin suggests the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov.
Vladimir Putin and Sergei Shoigu
Vladimir Putin and Sergei Shoigu
Photo: TT/Archive
The Deputy Minister of Defense was arrested
Sergei Shoigu has been an important actor in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and at the same time has received much criticism of the war’s development.
The change comes just weeks after one of Russia’s many deputy defense ministers, Timur Ivanov, was arrested on suspicion of bribery.
According to Carolina Vendil Pallin, Russia expert at the Total Defense Research Institute (FOI), Russian observers have speculated whether the arrest was part of weakening Shoigu’s position.
Putin recently entered his fifth term as president of Russia, following an election described as neither fair nor democratic.