Vladimir Putin removes Sergei Shoigu from Russian defense ministry

MOSCOW, Russia

Russian President, Vladimir Putin has replaced his defense minister and a long-time close ally Sergei Shoigu with an economist, a major reshuffle of military leadership more than two years after Moscow’s grinding war against Ukraine has sent defense spending soaring.

Andrey Belousov, a civilian who served as former first deputy prime minister and specializes in economics, was appointed to the top defense post, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

Peskov tried to downplay the move, but the reshuffle comes amid speculation about infighting at the highest echelons of power. Just last month, one of Shoigu’s long-time protégés at the defense ministry was arrested and charged with corruption.

Shoigu was “relieved” of his position by presidential decree, Peskov said, but he will remain an influential part of Putin’s administration as secretary of Russia’s Security Council, replacing Nikolai Patrushev, a former head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), who would “transfer to another job.”

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

The timing of Shoigu’s exit is notable, coming off the back of several significant advances by Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has launched its most serious cross-border ground assault since Ukraine recaptured the northern Kharkiv region in the late summer of 2022. There have been several months of increased Russian air attacks on the city of Kharkiv amid a grinding advance in Donetsk in the east that has seen incremental but significant progress.

Shoigu had helmed the country’s defense ministry for 12 years and led the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian troops initially caught Kyiv by surprise but were soon beaten back, exposing the weaknesses of Moscow’s corruption-riddled military and its willingness to send waves of poorly trained and equipped soldiers into what Ukraine and Russian troops have both dubbed a “meat grinder.”

His critics have frequently described Shoigu as remote and out-of-touch with the realities of the conflict. His most forceful critic was the late Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin who accused the Defense Ministry of starving his fighters of resources and bureaucratic incompetence before launching an unsuccessful mutiny last year and dying weeks later in a plane crash.

Despite the criticism, Shoigu has remained a popular politician in Russia. Having spent two decades as the minister of emergency situations, he cultivated an image of a helpful official who brings help when it’s needed.

He is also a rare outsider in Putin’s original inner circle, which consists mostly of the president’s allies from his St. Petersburg political beginnings and his former KGB colleagues. Shoigu was born and grew up in the remote Siberian republic of Tuva and got into politics through his association with the former president Boris Yeltsin.