The appointment of the economist Belousov (ceremonialist of the liturgies of the Orthodox Church) to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow in place of Šojgu seems to indicate the desire to place the war industry as the main driver of increasingly protracted conflicts. While the new Minister of Energy – on whose activities 70% of Russian GDP depends – is now Sergei Tsivilev, husband of Putin’s niece.
Moscow () – The replacement of the Minister of Defense by Vladimir Putin, removing the popular and loyal Sergei Šojgu, who had held the position for 12 years, and entrusting it to the economist Andrej Belousov, Deputy Prime Minister of Economy in the previous government of Mikhail Mišustin , has provoked reactions around the world. The surprise is not so much the different competence of the successor, since Šojgu was not a military man either, since he had not even done military service.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the choice is due to the necessary “innovation in the management of institutions”, in view of the great progress that Russia intends to make according to the plans of the new term of the eternal president. The move towards the future, however, seems to veer much more towards the past, giving Putin’s Russia a character increasingly similar to that of Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, if not that of Stalin.
Šojgu reminded everyone of the Elysée period, in which he had become a much loved figure for his activities as Minister of Civil Defense, a figure who symbolized a different approach of the State towards regions and territories, which were no longer seen as protected and controlled from above, but as an expression of the will of local and ethnic groups to build their own autonomy with the support of central authorities. In his native Mongolian republic, Tuva, in Siberia, there is a true personality cult of Šojgu, complete with a “Šojgu Museum”, considered the heir of the epic Tuvian leader Subedej.
The appointment of Belousov, according to most observers, indicates instead the desire to make the war industry the main engine of the economy, projecting itself towards a period of increasingly prolonged conflicts, moving from the supply of everything necessary for the current to the production of everything necessary for future wars. This takes Russia back to the “Cold War” economy, as Peskov himself admitted when commenting on the appointment and explaining that “under current geopolitical conditions, we are approaching the situation of the mid-1980s, when the part of the state budget allocated to military expenses was 7.4%.” In fact, these expenses already exceed 7.6%, which is more reminiscent of the Stalinist period than the Great Patriotic War.
Andrej Belousov, 65, is undoubtedly a Putin loyalist, also known for his ceremonial roles in the liturgies of the Orthodox Church, but above all he is remembered as the son of the great Soviet economist Rem Belousov, creator of the scientific school of “price regulation” that characterized the “Kosygin reform” of 1965, considered one of the “progressive” guidelines of Soviet policy. At the time, he intended to give more freedom of action to state-owned companies, today the entrepreneurial spirit bends at the service of war: a setback that meets the progress of the past. The reform projected the USSR towards the “golden” eighth five-year plan, with great growth of the Soviet economy, while Putin’s fifth (sixth) term is intended to indicate a different exaltation of the Russian economy, based on its inherent strength and in the division of the world into friends and enemies of the West, supported by the permanent state of war.
The radiant neo-Soviet future of Putin’s Russia is also underlined by another typical feature of the Brezhnev period, the “cadre policy” of not exposing to public ridicule officials guilty of corruption or other serious infractions, a rule that seems to have been applied to Šojgu himself after the arrest of his deputy minister Timur Ivanov on April 23. The former Defense Minister was “promoted” to Secretary of the Security Council, an apparently very prestigious position, which in reality is nothing more than an “on-call” retirement: his predecessor, Nikolaj Patrušev, became a “mere advisor” to the presidential administration, effectively emptying the Council of all its prerogatives.
However, Patrušev’s son Dmitry has been elevated to deputy prime minister, and the blocking of family members is the other characteristic of the new government of absolute loyalty to Putin, confirmed also by the appointment of the new Energy Minister, Sergey Tsivilev, husband of Putin’s niece. 70% of Russian GDP depends on the activities of this ministry.
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