Putin included DPR militiaman Artem Zhoga in the Security Council

Vladimir Putin included Artem Zhoga, the former head of the DPR parliament, into the Security Council. In early October, Zhoga was appointed presidential envoy to the Urals, although he has no political experience, with the exception of the DPR parliament. The appointment decree was published on the official Internet portal of legal information.

Since 2014, Zhoga fought in the Donbass on the side of the separatists, and in 2024 he was recruited into the “Time of Heroes” personnel program to prepare SVO participants for civil service. He was also part of the initiative group to nominate Putin in the last presidential elections. It was Zhoga who approached Putin with the question of whether he would run for a fifth term.

Zhogi’s career rise became the first time that a participant in the war in Ukraine received such a high government position. According to Meduza’s sources*, Zhoga’s promotion in the civil service was “situational”: “If Turchak had not fallen into disgrace and was not sent to Altai, then there would have been no need to select a new head of the General Council [of United Russia]. If the choice had not fallen on Yakushev, the plenipotentiary’s seat would not have been vacant,” said one of the publication’s interlocutors.

* The publication is recognized as a “foreign agent” and an undesirable organization