The scandal surrounding new details of the business of Igor Shuvalov’s family may cause the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation to leave the government. According to sources in the Vedomosti newspaper , the option of transferring the official to the position of general director of the new state corporation for the development of Siberia and the Far East is currently being considered.

Despite the fact that the initiator of the project was the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu, it is Shuvalov who is called by senior employees of the economic departments of the government as the most suitable candidate to lead the new structure. The First Deputy Prime Minister is well acquainted with the specifics of the Far Eastern region: he oversees preparations for the APEC summit in Vladivostok, and in the Duma elections held in December he headed the United Russia list for the Primorsky Territory.

According to one of Vedomosti’s sources, Shuvalov will become a successful head of the state corporation thanks to his “very developed sense of business.” It was the entrepreneurial successes of the family of the deputy chairman of the government that became the object of investigations by Western media. The November publication in Barron's magazine was followed by yesterday's articles in the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Journalists gained access to materials indicating that the trust fund, the beneficiary of which is Shuvalov’s wife Olga, earned tens of millions of dollars from transactions with shares of Gazprom and Sibneft through the mediation of Suleiman Kerimov’s structures. The Deputy Prime Minister himself called the suspicions against him groundless: there was no formal conflict of interest in the purchases of securities, and the wealth he earned allows him to guarantee the official’s independence from various influence groups.

Vedomosti also writes that if Shuvalov is appointed head of the state corporation, the scenario in which Shoigu will be transferred to the post of governor of the Moscow region becomes more obvious. The name of Boris Gromov's successor should be announced in the near future, and, according to unofficial information, the Kremlin is looking for the head of the region among federal figures.

Shuvalov can head the state corporation for the development of Siberia and the Far East