Why will the new Minister of Defense be economist Belousov? Why did Shoigu fired? And what will change now?

We are trying to answer the main questions about the main rearrangement in the Government of the Russian Federation

On the evening of May 12, Vladimir Putin resigned from the post of Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu. His place after a formal statement in the Federation Council will be occupied by Andrei Belousov, a former Deputy Prime Minister on Economic Affairs. Why exactly he? And what does all this mean? The specialists of the "Medusa" respond.

Why did Putin still fire Shoigu?

After the start of the full -scale war of Russia with Ukraine, rumors about the impending resignation of the Minister of Defense appeared regularly. This topic was especially actively discussed in the first half of 2023 - against the backdrop of the open conflict of Sergey Shoigu with the founder of the PMC Vagner Evgeny Prigozhin. This dispute was resolved by itself - the leader of the mercenaries arranged a failed rebellion, and two months later he died in a very strange plane crash.

Before the next inauguration of Putin on May 7, 2024, the possible resignation of Shoigu again began to be discussed among Russian elites and political scientists. According to some experts, Shoigu could indicate the arrest of his deputy Timur Ivanov, who is suspected of corruption. However, the sources of Medusa, close to the Kremlin, emphasized that at that time there was no reliable information about the resignation of the Minister of Defense: they believed that he would work at least until the end of this stage of his own (that is, the coming of the Russian army).

Now the interlocutor of Medusa, close to the presidential administration (AP) of the Russian Federation, as well as a source close to the government, believe that his conflict with Sergey Chemezov, the head of Rostec, one of the main suppliers of the Russian army, was the decisive factor for the resignation of Shoig. According to them, in recent months, the minister began to regularly complain to Putin about delayed arms supplies, as well as the fact that the most modern weapons are not at all entered. “The message was like this: it would have already advanced much further, but the defense is failing,” the interlocutor close to the government retells the proposed position of Shoigu.

In early May, the conflict became public. At first, Shoigu openly asked the defense industry to increase deliveries to the front; Chemezov in response said that Rostec regularly supplies the Ministry of Defense with everything he needs.

A source of Medusa, familiar with the situation, emphasizes that Chemezov did not like Shoigu “Klyubzniki”: “He is a person from the near circle, in direct connection with the president. Uses the location. " And the interlocutor close to the AP notes that, in fact, Chemezov combined his efforts with the head of the Russian Guard Viktor Zolotov, who had long and unsuccessfully sought Shoigu, trying to advance someone from close to himself-for example, the governor of the Tula region Alexei Dyumin (in the mid-2010s he served as Deputy Minister of Defense).

“When he scolds and asks to remove one, this is one. When two are another. They began to beat in a weak place - corruption, say: “Take a lot?” As a result, the arrest of [Timur] Ivanov and further lobbying for the resignation of Shoigu, ”the source close to the AP claims.

The interlocutor of the Medusa in the army leadership adds that these efforts were superimposed on dissatisfaction with Shoiga within the army: “He is not a strategist and not a military leader. He is a business executive who beautifully makes labels. ”

A source in United Russia, in turn, notes that Shoigu has long “worked out” options for leaving the Ministry of Defense. According to him, among other things, he considered the option of becoming the presidential envoy in the Siberian Federal District - and engage in large -scale infrastructure projects there (for example, Shoigu has long been the idea to build several new cities in Siberia).

However, instead of this, the former minister was transferred to the post of head of the Security Council - this is an honorary and significant position in the Russian vertical of the authorities, which was occupied by the former FSB director Nikolai Patrushev, a long -standing acquaintance and ally of Vladimir Putin. What position will take after the permutations Patrushev himself is still unknown. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov promised to talk about this only a few days later.

The interlocutor of Medusa, close to the Kremlin, calls the new post Shoigu “good place”, which will become a “security guarantee” for the former Minister of Defense. At the same time, in the prospects of people from the Shoigu team - especially against the backdrop of the case of Timur Ivanov - the source is not sure: “There is nowhere to employ it. There are no security guarantees. ”

Why became the Minister of Defense economist Belousov?

Instead of Shoigu, the military department will be headed by Andrei Belousov, a former Deputy Prime Minister and Putin adviser to economic policy.

Closed to the Government of the Russian Federation, the sources of Medusa call this step “the President’s personal decision,” and Belousov himself “is a“ man whom Putin knows and listens. ”

“After Ivanov’s case, the appointment of a person who is understandable to the President who understands the financial flows and can control them, who does not have a team that would occupy the ministry, yes, logical. Was the president guided this? Not a fact, ”says one of the interlocutors of Medusa.

A source close to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in turn, notes that the appointment of a civil official for this post is a logical step: “There are no personnel from the military now. Everything was rotten, everyone was wrapped. ”

Officially explaining the appointment of Belousov, Dmitry Peskov called two key reasons for such a decision. Firstly, "it is necessary to enter the economy of the power bloc into the country's economy." Separately, he indicated that the share of expenses for this “block” increases: “We are gradually approaching the power of known reasons, due to the well-known geopolitical circumstances around us to the situation of the mid-1980s, when this share of expenses on the power block in the economy was 7.4% [GDP].”

In fact, military spending is already exceeding this threshold. In the budget of 2024, the articles “National Defense” and “National Security” for more than 13 trillion rubles were in total - this is almost 40% of all federal budget expenditures and approximately 7.6% of GDP (based on the estimate of its volume according to the results of 2023). At the same time, Peskov underestimated Soviet military expenses. In the 1980s, the volume of the Soviet military-industrial complex (VPK) was, according to the CIA estimates , from 15 to 18%, that is, in order to get closer to this bar now, military expenses should at least double.

Another reason for Belousov’s transition to the post of head of the Ministry of Defense, according to Peskov, is that the military sphere needs to introduce innovation and “advanced ideas”, and Belousov has such an experience. In particular, according to Peskov, Belousov "very successfully headed the Ministry of Economic Development."

What kind of successes are meant, Peskov did not specify. Moreover, Belousov headed the Ministry of Economic Development for a very short time-from May 2012 to June 2013.

One of the most noticeable innovations that he really managed to introduce during this period was roadmaps to improve the investment climate, which were drawn up together with representatives of medium -sized businesses, the “Strategic Initiatives Agency” (ASI) created in 2011 at the initiative of Belousov. At that moment, he still worked in the government apparatus, selected the team of the new project and launched it, and going to the Ministry of Economic Development, connected ASI to bureaucratic work.

The agency prepared the proposals of reforms that were supposed to make business in Russia more comfortable - for example, reduce the number of checks and terms that requires to receive licenses and permits. The most obvious outcome of Asi’s work, together with Russian officials, was that in the ranking of the World Ding Business bank, Russia rose from 120th place (out of 183 possible) in 2012 to the 28th according to the results of 2019.

However, in the same 2019, a high-profile criminal case was opened in Russia against businessman Michael Kalvi, founder of the Baring Vostok Foundation, one of the oldest and largest foreign investors in the Russian economy. The persecution of Kalvi was associated with Belousov - he denied his connection with this criminal process. Kalvi himself called the cause of his arrest a corporate conflict around the Vostochny bank. The Baring Vostok Foundation invested in it, and Artem Avetisyan was a major shareholder of the bank-one of the top managers of the Belousovsky Asi and a long-standing acquaintance of the official.

What else do you need to know about Belousov? And what can you expect from him?

“The top of the Ministry of Defense - Shoigu and Ivanov - was already so corrupt that they [the authorities] set to manage the budget of a strong statesman who was not corrupt and may ensure that the money did not go to the left,” the businessman from the first hundred of the Russian Forbes list argues in a conversation with Medusa.

The acquaintances of Andrei Belousov really often describe him as an official who is alien to corruption. The Russian economist, who previously advised the authorities, in the commentary of Medusa notes that even before the war he noticed the authorities' attempts to change the balance in the state apparatus-"between people who saw something, and people who do something, and maybe do not saw at all." The interlocutor classifies Belousov precisely to the second category: the official never appeared in loud anti-corruption investigations or scandals and, in general, seems to be a person who “does not have any spots in the biography, there is no real estate in Nice, yachts and accounts”.

But Belousov has a 29-year-old son Pavel, whose company earns at state contracts. In 2015, Pavel Belousov and his wife Eugene registered Claire And Clarte LLC, they are his only co -owners and leaders. The company's website says that its main services are “engineering consulting” and “digitalization”, customers are also listed - the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Rostec and Rosatom State Corporation.

Until 2023, the Claire And Clarte business did not look too large: according to Spark-Interfax, the company was able to receive the maximum profit of 50 million rubles in 2019, according to the results of 2022, it decreased to 23 million. However, last year, Claire And Clarte suddenly increased profit by more than 20 times - up to half a billion rubles. It follows from the company's reports that she received revenue from “payments on current operations”, that is, from her main activity, but in open sources there are no data on major contracts made in 2023.

“Important stories”, meanwhile, found out that at least three employees of Claire and Clarte Clarte are guided or related to the “daughters” of Rostec, in the list of customers of which the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Office of the military-technical supply of the FSO , the CEC and many other state bodies and structures can be found. In addition, according to the source of the publication, Claire And Clarte divides the office in Moscow City with a large software developer - Galaxy. Among the customers on the website of this company, NPO "Energomash" and a number of defense enterprises are listed. As follows from these leaks, Pavel Belousov also indicates one of the legal entities of the Galaxy by his place of work.

Andrei Belousov himself, his acquaintances in conversations with Medusa are called one of the possible builders of the “mobilization economy” in Russia after the start of the war (by analogy with Sovetskaya during the Great Patriotic War). The official has repeatedly said that now such a model would be able to create such a model, because for this we need a “certain state of society”: people in it “must correlate their personal life and their personal conditions with the achievement of a social goal, and most importantly, an elite that connects its existence with the implementation of this goal”.

Describing the political views of Belousov, his former colleagues and acquaintances, with whom Medusa talked, begin with a story about the official of the official. 65-year-old Belousov is a hereditary state economist. His father Ram Belousov participated in the development of Kosyginsky reforms, headed the Department of Management of Socio-Economic Processes at the Academy of Public Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee, and after the collapse of the USSR founded the Department of Management at the Academy of National Economy (now the RANEPA) and was an honorary professor of the Moscow Business School Mirbis.

“Dad was an undoubted patriot, in the sense of devotion to his country: he believed that the entire method of human action should be aimed at becoming stronger,” Dmitry Belousov, the younger brother of Andrei Belousov, recalled his father in an interview with the magazine “Light”.

Both Andrei and Dmitry Belousov, after his father, became economists and for many years built their careers together: both graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, both worked at the Institute of National Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and when in 2000 Andrei Belousov founded the center of macroeconomic analysis and forecasting (TsMAKP), he immediately crossed there.

Unlike his older brother, who often speaks out in public, Dmitry Belousov actively communicates with the press, especially after the start of the war, for example, participates in the show on the propagandists of Vladimir Solovyov and Sergey Mardan. There, the expert often warns of the threats that Russia and its economy may encounter, one of the worst - a repetition of the stagnant Soviet years. “The past stagnation ended with perestroika, worse than which I personally did not see anything,” he emphasizes in his speeches.

A friend of the Belousov brothers considers them close in views - and not only at the economy, but also in general in what is happening in Russia. He gives the characteristic that one of his colleagues gave Belousov-Sr.: “Andrei Ramovich is a“ progressive ”Soviet economist. If he were a deputy prime minister in Gorbachev’s government, then perhaps the USSR would go along a different trajectory [not along the path of perestroika]. ” According to the interlocutor of Medusa, Belousov is “mentally close” by the Soviet economy, although he understands its problems: “He still believes that BAM-type projects play a big role than some kind of initiative of private business.”

One of the Russian billionaires familiar with Belousov, in turn, describes the possible effect of his appointment as follows: “It means that the war will be long: firstly, it stands in the same positions as Putin, and secondly, how to make the military economy more effective.”

Medusa sent the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation questions about changing the leadership of the department, but at the time of publication did not receive an answer to them.

Andrey Pertsev , Margarita Lyutova, Lilia Yapparova and Svetlana Reuters