The post of the new head of ITAR-TASS may be taken by a member of the board of Russian Railways, Sergei Mikhailov. The current head of ITAR-TASS, Vitaly Ignatenko, will remain the head of the TASS board, and it is possible that he may take the seat of a senator in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation. newspaper wrote on Thursday about the upcoming reshuffles in the country's oldest news agency, The Kommersant citing sources close to the negotiations.

Currently, Sergei Mikhailov heads the corporate communications department at Russian Railways. Vitaly Ignatenko combines the positions of general director and head of the board at ITAR-TASS. Appointments to both positions in the agency are made by government order. However, the publication's source in the government claims that Mikhailov's candidacy was selected and approved by the presidential administration.

Mikhailov is the founder of the PR agency Mikhailov and Partners, one of the first companies in the PR market. Now the agency is headed by his wife Yuliana Slashcheva. During the last presidential campaign, the agency handled PR for presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov.

Sergei Ignatenko has been heading ITAR-TASS for more than 20 years. Now he is No. 4 on the United Russia list for the parliamentary elections in the Krasnodar Territory. Based on the results of the elections, he can be appointed as a senator from the executive branch of the region.

The new appointment, the newspaper claims, could put an end to the long-standing idea of merging two state news agencies into one - RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS. “If you merge them, you will get one uncontrollable monster. RIA already copes with its functions very effectively,” a source in the Kremlin told Kommersant.

A PR man from Russian Railways may become the CEO of ITAR-TASS