After Russian President Vladimir Putin began his new term, personnel changes at the top of the Russian government have begun, which have strong repercussions in Russia: the Kremlin's power structure is changing further, and Putin's control over the Russian government has become stronger.
According to the "Russian Satellite News Agency", the Russian Federation Council revealed on May 12, local time, that Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed Andrei Belousov as the new Russian Minister of Defense, and former Minister Sergei Shoigu will replace Nikolai Patrushev as Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and at the same time, Dmitry Medvedev served as the deputy chairman of the Russian Military Industrial Commission, and Nikolai Patrushev was dismissed and appointed separately.
As for Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army Valery Gerasimov, it seems that the previous statement that General Sulevikin returned to Russia from Africa to succeed Gerasimov will not come true.
"Sputnik" published the new Minister of Defense of Russia Andrei Belousov, showing that Belousov is a professional in economics, graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1981 with a doctorate in economics, worked in the Russian economic sector for a long time, and was appointed as the first deputy prime minister of Russia in January 2020. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the Russian president, Putin appointed Andrei Belousov, a civilian official, as Russia's defense minister because the Russian Defense Ministry "should be open to innovative and advanced ideas" and "it is important to integrate the economy of the powerful sector into the national economy and adapt it to economic dynamics."
However, many Russian analysts, such as Tatiana Stanovaya and Abbas Galliamov, believe that Andrei Belousov is the reason for his appointment as defense minister because of more unspeakable factors, including his close ties to the Kremlin's "hawks" and his expertise and willingness to help Putin realize Russia's "national plans" for the Russian military industry.
As for saying that the Russian Ministry of Defense "should be open to innovative and advanced ideas." Therefore, it is interesting that a civilian official is needed as a minister, as we all know, despite the rank of general, the former Minister of Defense Shoigu is not a professional soldier, and he was a civilian himself before, and his influence in the Russian army is far less than that of Gerasimov, which is also an important reason why the latter has not been affected in this reshuffle.
Here I want to say a few words for Shoigu, although when the Russian-Ukrainian full-scale war just broke out, there were shameless people who said that "the first war was a god", but Shoigu was obviously forcibly put on a high hat, judging from a lot of information, Shoigu is very likely not to support the launch of a "special military operation" against Ukraine, Shoigu knows better the real strength of the Russian and Ukrainian armies.
Shoigu was previously the Minister of Emergency Situations of Russia, although he lacked achievements after becoming the Minister of Defense of Russia, and was even called "Generalissimo of Plywood" by Strelkov, but we can see from many videos and even live broadcasts that Shoigu himself is still quite capable, such as in interviews, all kinds of data are at his fingertips, and there is no need to look through documents to find data, which is much better than those who can't read smoothly with a speech.
Although Peskov said that Shoigu "will continue to work in areas he is familiar with", we refer to the situation of Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the FSC and first deputy chairman of the military-industrial commission of the Russian Federation, Shoigu may have been in fact marginalized, and Shoigu is not as deep-rooted as the former secretary of the FSC Patrushev:
In the list of candidates for deputy prime minister submitted by Mishustin to the Russian State Duma for consideration, Patrushev's son Dmitry Patrushev is impressively among them, and once the list is approved (basically a formality), Mitri Patrushev will become the Russian deputy prime minister in charge of agriculture and ecology.