First Blood: 10 takeaways from Andrei Belousov’s first six months as Russia’s Defense Minister

One of the main hopes pinned on Belousov in his new post was his potential to fight corruption, a failing closely associated with Sergei Shoigu's team at the MoD. The purge of the Ministry began even before Shoigu’s dismissal, with the arrest of his deputy Timur Ivanov in April 2024. As of late November 2024, the number of individuals from Shoigu’s former team facing criminal charges has approached twenty.

These include former deputy defense ministers Pavel Popov and Dmitry Bulgakov, head of the Defense Ministry's Main Personnel Directorate Yuri Kuznetsov, and Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff.

However, right from the start, Belousov’s own appointees seemed equally controversial. Oleg Saveliev became Deputy Defense Minister and the MoD’s Chief of Staff, even though an investigation by The Insider found that the former Accounts Chamber auditor hides his de facto wife from his income declaration — and with her, their expensive property holdings.

Anna Tsivileva, a distant cousin of Vladimir Putin, was appointed Deputy Minister and State Secretary — effectively the ministry's top administrative official. Tsivileva owns stakes in major companies involved in coal mining and tourism. From April 2023 until her move to the MoD, she led the state-run “Defenders of the Fatherland” fund, created by Vladimir Putin to assist participants in the so-called “Special Military Operation.” The fund has faced repeated criticism from veterans of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and their families.