Sergei Shoigu: Putin replaces Russian defense minister with civilian as war in Ukraine rages and defense spending soars

CNN
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has replaced his defense minister and close ally Sergei Shoigu with a civilian economist, a major shake-up of military leadership more than two years after Moscow’s bitter war against Ukraine sent prices soaring. defense spending.

Andrei Belousov, a civilian former first deputy prime minister specializing in economics, has been appointed to the top defense post, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

Shoigu was “relieved” of his post by presidential decree, Peskov said, but he will remain an influential part of the Putin administration as secretary of the Russian Security Council, replacing former FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, who “will be transferred to another position”.

Shoigu will also become a deputy on Russia’s Military-Industrial Commission, Peskov said, as Putin begins a fifth term as president.

The upheaval comes as Russia launched its most serious cross-border ground attack since Ukraine reconquered the northern Kharkiv region in late summer 2022. It also comes after several months of increased Russian air attacks on the city ​​of Kharkiv and in the middle a meteoric advance in Donetsk, in the east, which has seen gradual but significant progress.

Shoigu led the country’s Defense Ministry for 12 years and led the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian troops initially took kyiv by surprise, but were quickly pushed back, exposing the country’s weaknesses. Muscovite army, riddled with corruption and its willingness to send waves of poorly trained men. and equipped soldiers in what Ukrainian and Russian troops both dubbed a “meat grinder.”

His detractors have often described Shoigu as distant and disconnected from the realities of the conflict. His most vocal critic was the late Wagner leader Eugene Prigozhin, who accused the Defense Ministry of starving its fighters of resources and bureaucratic incompetence before launching an unsuccessful mutiny last year and dying within weeks later in a plane crash.

Increased military spending and the need for “innovation”

Belousov was chosen by Putin because of his need for “innovation,” Peskov said in a press call, during which he highlighted the increase in the ministry’s budget, saying it was approaching levels last observed during the Cold War.

“Today, on the battlefield, the winner is the one who is most open to innovation,” Peskov said. “So it is natural that at the current stage the president has decided that the Russian Defense Ministry should be headed by a civilian.”

Referring to the war in Ukraine, Peskov said that due to “well-known geopolitical circumstances, we are gradually approaching the situation of the mid-1980s, when the share of security bloc spending in the economy was 7.4%. It’s not critical, but it’s extremely important,” Peskov said.

The budget currently stands at 6.7% of GDP, he said.

Peskov highlighted Belousov’s leadership experience and economic background.

“This is not just a civilian, but a person who very successfully headed the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia. He served for a long time as an assistant to the president on economic issues and was also the first deputy chairman of the government during the previous cabinet of ministers,” Peskov said.

Peskov added that the new appointment did not mean a change in Russia’s current military system.

“As for the military component, this appointment will in no way modify the current coordinate systems. The military component has always been the prerogative of the Chief of Staff (Valery Gerasimov), and he will continue his activities. No changes are currently envisaged in this regard,” he said.

In his new role, Shoigu will oversee Russia’s military-industrial complex, Peskov said.

“He is deeply immersed in this work, he knows very well the pace of production of military-industrial products at specific enterprises and often visits these enterprises,” he said.

The news follows the arrest last month of one of Shoigu’s close allies, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, accused of accepting a bribe in what constitutes the the highest-profile corruption scandal in the country since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.

Ivanov was accused of accepting a bribe of one million rubles (at least $10,800), according to Russian state media TASS.

Former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CNN in an interview on Sunday that Putin’s reshuffle was an “important” and “interesting” decision.

“The most important argument currently coming from Moscow is that Russia is moving towards a war economy,” he said. “They are on a war footing.”

Esper said that “one of the disappointing things about Shoigu’s tenure is that we thought that the Russian military, at least during my time at the Pentagon, we thought that they were professionalizing, that they were modernizing all their equipment , its doctrine, its way of training and fighting. , and we really haven’t seen this on the battlefield.

This is a developing story and will be updated.