President Putin Chooses Civilian Economist as Russian Defense Minister to Replace Shoigu, Anticipating Economic War?

President Vladimir Putin with Sergei Shoigu. (Wikimedia Commons/have fun

JAKARTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin chose a civilian economist to occupy the position of defense minister, a move seen as preparation for Russia to face an economic war, as well as trying to make better use of the defense budget and take advantage of greater innovation to win in Ukraine.

Former Deputy Prime Minister and 65-year-old economist Andrei Belusov was appointed by President Putin as Minister of Defense to replace his old ally, Sergei Shoigu.

Shoigu, who has been in charge of security since mid-2012 and is a long-time confidant of President Putin, will serve as Secretary of Russia's influential Security Council, replacing another of President Putin's allies, Nikolai Patrushev, as well as having responsibility for the military industry, it said. Kremlin, reported by Reuters, May 13.

The changes, which lawmakers are expected to approve, are the most significant changes President Putin has made to military command since sending tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in February 2022 in what he called a special military operation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the change made sense because Russia was approaching a situation like the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s when military and law enforcement authorities accounted for 7.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

This, Peskov said, means it is very important to ensure that spending is aligned and more integrated into the country's economy as a whole. That is why President Putin now wants a civilian economist to occupy a position in the Ministry of Defense.

"The people who are more open to innovation are the ones who will win on the battlefield," Peskov said.

It is known that Shoigu was heavily criticized by Russian military bloggers for a series of setbacks that the Russian military was forced to carry out in 2022.

The late Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner mercenary group and one of Shoigu's fiercest critics, led a failed uprising originally intended to overthrow Shoigu, before abandoning his plans midway. Later, Prigozhin died in a plane crash.

Meanwhile, Belousov, a former economy minister who is known to be very close to Putin, shares the Kremlin leader's vision of rebuilding a strong country.

He has also worked with Putin's top technocrats who want greater innovation and are open to new ideas. He is also noted as playing an important role in overseeing Russia's drone program.

The shake-up is said to demonstrate President Putin's desire to escalate the war in Ukraine, leveraging more of Russia's economy for the war, after Western countries attempted, but so far failed, to sink the economy with sanctions.

Russian economists have so far guaranteed economic stability and growth despite the toughest sanctions ever imposed on major powers, although Russia's military failures were exposed immediately after the invasion.

"The proposal to appoint one of the main economists and state ministers in the economic bloc to head the Defense Ministry probably means that Putin plans to win the war with the defense industry and international markets," said Alexander Baunov, a former Russian diplomat who is now a senior fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

"The winning strategy in this case is not mobilization and breakthrough, but gentle pressure on Ukraine with the superior power of the Russian military-industrial complex and the economy as a whole, which apparently must be made to operate more effectively," he stressed.