Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted his command of Russia on Monday with a new Cabinet in which trusted allies will oversee finance while tested veterans keep tight reins on foreign affairs and defense.
However, a top liberal aide of Putin’s predecessor, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, also claimed a key industry post after a reportedly bruising battle with some of the more hawkish members of the administration.
The moves mean that Putin will have a closely faithful government run by his understudy Medvedev that can pursue cautious reforms, but may ultimately have to leave most of the big decisions to the president’s team in the Kremlin.
Putin gathered his 29 ministers and deputy premiers around an oval table and somberly informed them about the mission they faced in restoring the record growth rates of his first two terms as president in 2000 to 2008.
“The situation the world economy finds itself in today is uncertain. There are a lot of uncertainty factors,” Putin said in televised remarks.
The ex-KGB spy and Medvedev completed a controversial job swap that will stretch Putin’s domination until at least 2018 and was one of the primary triggers for recent street protests in Moscow.
Many of the faces in Russia’s new Cabinet featured in the outgoing one in some capacity, while seven former Cabinet ministers were given top posts in Putin’s Kremlin administration.
Putin made trusted ally Igor Shuvalov the sole first deputy prime minister in the Cabinet, while Medvedev’s former adviser Arkady Dvorkovich was promoted to deputy prime minister.
The RIA Novosti news agency said that Shuvalov would be in charge of macroeconomic issues, while Dvorkovich would have responsibility for the industrial and manufacturing sector, including most notably Russia’s crucial energy industry.
“This is a technical Cabinet. It is not a government of breakthroughs,” former Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin said.
The finance ministry brief went to its current holder Anton Siluanov while Putin’s seasoned policy aide Andrei Belousov was named the new economic development minister.
Putin also reappointed the long-serving Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov while replacing his scandal-tainted interior minister, Rushid Nurgaliyev, with Moscow police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev.
Russia’s current energy czar Igor Sechin — viewed as one of Putin’s most powerful and trusted colleagues — left Medvedev’s Cabinet, but is still expected to keep broad influence over industry and future oil and gas deals.
Sechin and Dvorkovich have clashed previously over the pace at which Kremlin-controlled banks and industries should be sold off to private investors in a bid to stimulate Russia’s stalling growth.
Dvorkovich will be filling Sechin’s shoes in the government, but may end up having his control over the sector limited by a lack of direct access to Putin.
“For now, all of our decisions are made by just one man,” former economy minister Yevgeny Yasin said in reference to Putin.
The new Cabinet features just two women — one in charge of social affairs and the other health — in what Putin called a disappointment.
“Unfortunately, there are not too many women, but they are there,” he said.
The government’s makeup had been kept under wraps for two weeks in an unusual departure from the earlier practice of instant appointments.
The delay has provided Putin with an excuse for skipping a G8 summit hosted by US President Barack Obama last week — a move the Kremlin insisted was not a slight for Washington’s criticism of Russia’s record on rights issues.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion