With extravagant corruption rife among Russia’s political elite, Belousov is regarded to be relatively clean “by Moscow standards,” Sonin said, something that will likely be welcomed by Russia’s patriotic military bloggers who have long accused the Defense Ministry of being hamstrung by corruption.
“The appointment of a figure trusted by the president from a different agency will disrupt the rigid system of corrupt ties inside the Defense Ministry,” the nationalist blogger Dmitry Seleznev wrote. “It’s obvious that this reshuffling is being done for the purpose of strengthening the economic component of the military bloc.”
A tax on windfall profits of large corporations, proposed by Belousov and signed into law by Putin last year, succeeded in raising $3 billion for the country’s war-strained economy.
Shoigu, a shrewd political operator who had served in the role since 2012, was routinely singled out for scathing criticism by former Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who incited a short-lived military rebellion last year before dying in a plane crash in August.
The dramatic arrest of Shoigu’s deputy and close ally Timur Ivanov in late April was widely interpreted as a shot across the bow at Shoigu ahead of the government reshuffle.
Shoigu’s appointment as head of the Security Council speaks to Putin’s desire to remove Shoigu from the scene while preserving his dignity, Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaya wrote in a post on Telegram. “Not because he is a friend but because it is safer for Putin himself,” she wrote, noting that the Security Council has become a place to park former political heavyweights who “have nowhere to settle but cannot be thrown out.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has served as deputy chair of the council since 2020.
The secretary position had been held since 2008 by one of Putin’s closest friends, the ultra-hawkish Nikolai Patrushev, who forged the role into a hybrid of national security advisor and director of national intelligence, Galeotti said.
Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said Patrushev would be appointed to a new role set to be announced this week.
Amy Mackinnon is a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @ak_mack