Reshuffles in the new government of the Russian Federation: Why Putin fires ministers

Russian President Vladimir Putin today dismissed three ministers of the recently formed government: the head of the Ministry of Transport Evgeniy Dietrich, the Ministry of Construction Vladimir Yakushev and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Dmitry Kobylkin.

This was reported by the Kremlin press service, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

Yakushev will become the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Ural Federal District instead of Nikolai Tsukanov.

The post of head of the Ministry of Energy also became vacant, since Alexander Novak became deputy prime minister.

“Novak, the Minister of Energy, was not removed, but was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister. As a reward for the huge success of the OPEC Plus deal, which increased oil prices and gave the Russian budget many billions. And the minister’s position has become vacant,” says political scientist Sergei Markov.

Today, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin proposed new candidates for the vacant posts to the State Duma of the Russian Federation. For the post of Minister of Transport, the former head of Aeroflot Vitaly Savelyev was proposed, the Ministry of Construction - former Deputy Minister Irek Faizullin, the Ministry of Natural Resources - the former head of the Ministry for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic Alexander Kozlov, the Ministry of Energy - the head of RusHydro Nikolay Shulginov.

Political scientist Marat Bashirov believes that the most important consequence of “shuffling the government deck” will be a serious strengthening of Mishustin’s figure.

“The removal of heavyweight ministers, inherited from Medvedev, on the ground will undoubtedly have a shaking effect in the implementation of large programs, for example, the Ecology national project, where big money is combined with big conflicts.

There is a great temptation to view the reshuffle as giving the prime minister powers to speed up the implementation of national projects. The decisions of the coming days will show whether this is so,” Bashirov wrote in his Telegram channel

His liberal colleague Stanislav Belkovsky does not agree with him.

“All the influence groups that were close and together with Mr. Putin during the coronavirus quarantine are strengthening. The topics of the Arctic / Northern Sea Route are being updated, which is now one of the highest priorities. The reshuffle will be presented to society as a strengthening of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who seems to have achieved the replacement of the group of ministers of the “Medvedev call”. But if this is so, then only partly. Moreover, Medvedev’s only XNUMX% minister, the head of the Ministry of Justice, Konstantin Chuychenko, remains in the cabinet. And Mr. Medvedev himself, despite everything, retains significant personal influence over Mr. Putin,” Belkovsky wrote.

Political scientist Ilya Grashchenkov predicts that the current resignations in the government are not the last.

“In general, the balance of power has been preserved, but these rotations may not be the last. Prime Minister Mishustin himself did not benefit from these changes, but he did not lose either. He is still trying to isolate his own game at a different level, not the ministerial level, but a level below,” writes Grashchenkov.

Political scientist Markov is confident that the reshuffle will not radically change the work of Mishustin’s government, with one exception - there may be surprises during the approval of ministers in the State Duma.

“All people are from the same management team without a political profile. By and large, the population of Russia and the outside world will not notice any changes in the government. Everything will remain basically the same...

On November 6, the President signed a new law on the active participation of the State Duma in the formation of the government. Based on his amendments to the Constitution. And Putin wants to see how it will work. The Duma now has the opportunity to give a ride to one of the ministerial candidates. Who is the candidate for non-approval? They say Kozlov. Let's see. Or maybe for the first time they will only be allowed to discuss and approve? Let's see. I think they will allow one thing not to be approved,” says Markov.