The Kremlin has replaced the curator of Ukraine, Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Oleg Govorun left the post of head of the department for cross-border cooperation in the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.

The corresponding decree was signed by the President on April 17. Aleksey Filatov was appointed the new head of the department by the same decree.

The Border Cooperation Office was established in October 2018. It deals with issues related to Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Ukraine, as well as "with other neighboring states."

• since April 2018 Oleg Govorun has been on the US sanctions list . Prior to joining the Presidential Administration, Govorun was Minister of Regional Development and Presidential Envoy to the Central Federal District.
• The Department for Border Cooperation was created from the Department for Social and Economic Cooperation with the CIS, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Govorun headed since 2013. From the powers of the new structure, as Kommersant wrote , questions related to the CIS countries were removed - with the exception of Ukraine. Vladislav Surkov supervises the department for cross-border cooperation.