Putin removes ally Shoigu as Russia’s defence minister
Vladimir Putin has removed his longtime ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister, in the most significant change to the military command since Russian troops invaded Ukraine more than two years ago.
In a surprise announcement, the Kremlin said Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister who specialises in economics, would replace Shoigu.
Putin, who was sworn into his fifth term as Russia’s leader last week, proposed that Shoigu take the position as head of Russia’s powerful security council. It is currently led by Nikolai Patrushev, a hawkish former spy and one of Putin’s closest advisers.
Shoigu, Russia’s longest-serving minister, assumed leadership of the defence ministry in 2012 after his tenure as the emergency services minister. He has led Russia’s military through its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.
As defence minister, Shoigu was tasked with modernising Russia’s military and was believed to have direct access to Putin. The pair went on regular hunting and fishing trips together in Siberia.
Shoigu’s popularity in Russia grew after the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, which he was credited with orchestrating. But he has come under intense criticism for Russia’s military setbacks after the February 2022 invasion, and for his inability to root out the widespread corruption that continues to plague the army.
Most dramatically, last summer Shoigu was forced to fend off an armed uprising by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had called for his arrest.
Shoigu’s position appeared to have weakened last month when the security services arrested his long-term confidant Timur Ivanov, a deputy defence minister, and charged him with large-scale corruption.
Yesterday’s reorganisation places Shoigu in a position formally considered higher-ranking than his role in the defence ministry, in what some observers believe is a move by Putin that allows for his old ally to save face.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Putin decided to appoint Belousov, a veteran economist, to lead the defence ministry after Russia’s war spending vastly increased.
Peskov said: “It’s very important to put the security economy in line with the economy of the country so that it meets the dynamics of the current moment.”
He added that the Russian president had decided a civilian should head the defence ministry, to ensure the department was “open to innovations and advanced ideas”.
Russia has presided over a massive ramping up of industrial military production over the last two years, with total defence spending rising to an estimated 7.5% of its GDP.
A former defence official who has worked with Shoigu, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said: “The Kremlin wants the ministry to be led by an economist who knows how to streamline its operations.
“The defence ministry is supposed to be efficient and well run, while the actual decisions on the battlefield are left to the military.”
Peskov told Russian state media last night that Patrushev’s new role would be announced in the “next few days”.