Russian President Putin is pushing ahead with the restructuring of the Defense Ministry’s leadership. He dismissed four deputy ministers. One of the vacant posts will go to the daughter of his deceased cousin.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has dismissed four deputy defense ministers. The Russian head of state also issued decrees to fill the vacant positions.
Among the new office holders are Anna Tsivilyova, daughter of his late cousin, and Pavel Fradkov, son of his former spy chief and prime minister.
“Putin’s great cousin” gets job
Britain put Tsivileva on a sanctions list in 2022. The European Union described her as a “close relative” of Putin. She headed a large coal company and a government-backed fund to support the families of soldiers fighting in Ukraine. In the Ministry of Defense, she will be responsible for social welfare and benefits for soldiers, according to the Ministry’s statement.
Fradkov was a senior official in Putin’s presidential administration and is the son of Mikhail Fradkov, who headed Russia’s foreign intelligence service for nearly a decade and was one of Putin’s prime ministers in the 2000s. Fradkov will be responsible for managing real estate, land and construction projects related to the military.
Before Minister of Defense exchanged
The new appointments also include Oleg Savelyev and Leonid Gornin. Gornin, who was previously First Deputy Minister of Finance, will now hold the position of First Deputy Minister of Defense under the new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov. Gornin’s task is to “increase the transparency of financial flows and ensure efficient use of budget funds,” the Defense Ministry said.
With the new appointments, Putin is continuing the restructuring of the top management of the Defense Ministry, which he initiated in May 2024. At that time, he surprisingly replaced his long-time Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with the economist Belousov. More than two years after the start of the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin wants to consolidate its control over the enormous military spending, according to analysts.