Sergey Shoigu was removed from his position as the Minister of Defense of the russian federation he'd held for years since November 6th 2012. The fact is evidenced by russian President Vladimir Putin's nomination for this post of Andrey Belousov, former deputy to the chairman of russian government.
Formally, Shoigu wasn't fired, just not reappointed to the office after Putin's "elections." Technically, after entering his another presidential term, the entire government is dismissed until a new one is assigned, so Putin simply didn't nominate Shoigu and instead entrusted him with the position of the Chairman of the Security Council, replacing Nikolai Patrushev in this role.
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Unofficial sources have anticipated such a turn of events for a while now, speculating the reason was Putin's dissatisfaction gradually rising due to Shoigu's incapability to keep promises, both on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine and in the rear, at military factories.
Still, Belousov is a surprising choice of replacement since he has no connection to the armed forces whatsoever. Yet, he has gained a lot of trust from the russian resident who has kept him close since 2007, when then-prime minister Putin entrusted Belousov with the responsibilities of the Director of the Government Department for Economics and Finance.
When talking Andrey Belousov, we should keep in mind that he's first and foremostly an economist directly involved in creating russia's current macroeconomic model. He was an adviser to multiple russian prime ministers starting with Primakov, back in the late 1990s. Later in 2006, he became the Deputy Minister of Economic Development and since then has not left the upper echelons of the russian government. In 2012-2013, he briefly headed the Ministry of Economic Development, only to become Putin's personal adviser for the next seven years.
As soon as Mikhail Mishustin became the Prime Minister of the russian federation in 2020, he made Belousov his First Deputy — the highest public position Belousov ever had. And now he is leaving this position for the formally lower chair of the Minister of Defense.
The main reason for this appointment, most likely, is the hope that Belousov will improve the situation in the military-industrial complex of russia. It follows from the fact that in April 2023 Belousov headed the newly created government commission on the development of aerial drones. From then on, he started to actively provide valuable instructions and press the manufacturers to stick to set deadlines and production volumes. By now, he even positions himself as the guardian of this industry. The only way to explain this activity in such a niche sector is a personal assignment from Putin.
All things considered, now Belousov will be tasked to deal with a much wider range of issues and try to squeeze everything possible out of the russian defense industry. In other words, all that was previously the No. 1 task for Shoigu, with all his regular trips to the enterprises and advice he gave left and right to the arms makers.
It is quite difficult to predict exactly what steps Belousov will take on this path. Regardless, he should not be underestimated, after all, he's a person who was able to hold out under Putin for a long time while remaining a relatively little-known yet influential figure.
Maybe a closer look at Belousov's previous decisions can give a clue as to what to expect from him. For example, in 2018, in order to fulfill Putin's populist May Decrees promising a significant increase in social security funds, Belousov proposed to take RUB 500 billion ($8 billion at the time) from russian oil, chemical and metallurgical companies through a significant increase in taxes. But it didn't happen. Instead, — on his initiative, too — VAT in russia was increased from 18% to 20% in 2019.
On the other hand, in 2023, Belousov again offered the idea of collecting 200–300 billion rubles (about $2–3 billion) from big business, not in the form of a tax but as a voluntary contribution. Although these contributions were not expected from the oil, gas, and coal industry and were supposed to cover up for the deficit of surplus oil revenues.
Therefore, Belousov most likely this time again will begin to actively reallocate resources from some sectors of the economy to bail out the military-industrial complex. In any case, replacing Shoigu with Belousov was quite a bold move from Putin, who decided to relocate one of his very valuable pieces and invest Belousov into the defense industry. Considering the importance of the assigned task and the current conditions, Belousov is very likely to receive full carte blanche on his decisions in the new role.
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