Sergei Shoigu a long serving Defence minister has been dismissed and replaced with Andrei Belousov an economist and technocrat with no military background.
“The military simply doesn’t like Shoigu,” a source close to the Kremlin said.
Belousov, 65, is widely seen as President Vladimir Putin’s point man on all things related to the domestic economy. He is a trusted and influential adviser.
On Monday, Belousov said he would tackle “excessive bureaucracy” at the ministry.
The Rybar Telegram channel, which is close to the Russian military, said Belousov would oversee a “major audit and restructuring” of the army’s finances and approach to procurement.
“He’s somebody Putin trusts, especially when it comes to economic issues,” Rybar noted.
“It is very important to fit the economy of the security sector into the economy of the country,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“Belousov’s task will be to optimize spending on the war, so that as much money as possible goes to the war,” a source said.
“For the West, Belousov’s appointment as defense minister is bad news. It is the development of the theme of a war of attrition,” independent Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said.
“The main aim is to exhaust and bleed out the enemy, and cause fatigue and discord among its allies,” he added.
Belousov’s Journey With Putin
Born in 1959 in Moscow, he graduated from Moscow State University and started his career at the Institute of Economic Forecasting at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
During Putin’s first two terms as president he was an outside adviser to various prime ministers and became deputy economy minister in 2006.
When Putin stepped aside to become prime minister in 2008, Belousov headed his economic and financial affairs team.
With Putin’s 2012 return to the Kremlin, he became economic development minister and a year later an adviser to the president.
Belousov gained a reputation as one of Putin’s most trusted domestic advisers. He was appointed deputy prime minister in 2020, overseeing support for Russian businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.
After Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, he was tasked with protecting the Russian economy from the fallout of Western sanctions and reorientating it to support the offensive.
