Putin taps economist to become defense chief

▶ Russia ready to ‘play long war game, balance military and economy’

Russia is ready to “play the long game” in Ukraine and balance the sustainable demand of its military operation with economic development, said experts on Monday, as a senior official who specialized in the economy was proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to become the Russia’s new defense minister.

According to TASS on Sunday, Putin has proposed appointing Andrei Belousov, who previously served as the first deputy prime minister, as Russia’s new defense minister. Russia’s current defense chief Sergey Shoigu will replace Nikolay Patrushev as the Security Council Secretary.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the decision to appoint Belousov as the defense minister is linked to the need to “make the economy of the security bloc part of the country’s economy.” The current budget of the defense ministry is nearing the level of the 1980s, “which is not critical but... extremely important.”

“Belousov has no military background and appointing him as the new defense chief is aimed at using his economic expertise and experience to guarantee that the costly military demands are met, and to ensure that economic development will not be affected by the military operation in Ukraine at the same time,” Cui Heng, a scholar from the Shanghaibased China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, told the Global Times.

Belousov had been in various positions relating to economic matters before in 2020 when Belousov was appointed Russia’s first deputy prime minister. From 2022, Belousov also supervised the development of high-tech transportation technologies and intelligent control systems.

The decision to appoint Belousov proves that Russia is getting ready to “play the long game” in Ukraine, Cui said. Russia needs to use limited economic resources to pay for the military operation, which nobody knows at what point will end, and it seems like the Kremlin believes that the conflict is unlikely to end this year, he noted.

Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, echoed the view. Yang said that at this stage, Russia has realized that it cannot rely on purely military measures to solve the problem with Ukraine, but also needs to ensure sustainable development and a stable domestic society.

“In the future, Russia will try to combine its military targets with the demands of economic development, to make economic growth support the military operation and to make the military operation give momentum to development and drive sci-tech development,” Wang Xiaoquan, an expert with the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday.

“This could probably become a special wartime economy for Russia under a hybrid warfare situation,” Wang noted.