Kyiv, Ukraine – Appointing an economist to helm a defence ministry throughout a conflict could sound like a recipe for catastrophe.
Andrei Belousov, who is about to change into Russia’s new defence minister after President Vladimir Putin “prompt” his candidacy to his rubber-stamp parliament on Sunday, doesn’t have any navy expertise beneath his belt.
The tall, white-haired, 65-year-old didn’t serve within the Soviet Military, due to his research at Moscow State College within the late Seventies.
Again then, his father Ram Belousov was a part of a group of economists that needed to reform the Soviet financial system.
Belousov junior appears to have inherited his father’s perception within the state’s dominant function within the financial system.
Serving as Russia’s economics growth minister (2012-13), Putin’s adviser (2013-20) and his first deputy prime minister (since 2020), Belousov has change into one of many architects of “Putinomics”.
Previously two years, he helped alleviate the results of sanctions the West slapped on Moscow after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
After displaying sudden resilience to the sanctions, Russia’s financial system is being switched to wartime mode conserving navy crops working in shifts and channelling billions of {dollars} on new weaponry and funds to servicemen and their households.
“Putin wants an ‘arsenal of autocracy’ that may outperform Ukraine and Western manufacturing and pace of innovation,” retired United States Military Main Basic Gordon Skip Davis Jr mentioned, referring to the “arsenal of democracy,” Washington’s navy help to the Allies throughout World Battle II.
Belousov should enhance the amount and pace of producing of munitions, missiles, drones, fight autos, artillery, air defence and digital warfare techniques for offensive operations in Ukraine and home air defence in Russia and occupied Ukrainian areas, Davis advised Al Jazeera.
And whereas not tasked with tactical course of Russia’s navy, Belousov would “ideally should inject innovation and high quality into defence manufacturing and restrict corruption the place potential”, Davis mentioned.
Due to this fact, Belousov’s appointment feels like very dangerous information for Ukraine.
“That is an sudden, however, sadly for Ukraine, a really efficient transfer,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch advised Al Jazeera.
Not like many high Russian officers, Belousov has not been concerned in corruption scandals and has a status as a workaholic technocrat and a religious Orthodox Christian.
Putin needs him to scrub the Augean stables of the defence ministry in order that navy spending spearheads the resurgence of Russia’s financial system, Kushch mentioned.
“The effectiveness of Russia’s military-industrial complicated will likely be boosted, and as an alternative of being a ‘black gap’ of finances spendings, the defence ministry could change into a driver of financial development, when conflict spendings stimulate the expansion of Russia’s GDP,” he mentioned.
Different observers agree.
Belousov’s appointment “will dramatically improve the defence ministry’s effectiveness and reduce corruption,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen College advised Al Jazeera.
“So, more cash will circulation – to not the international accounts of high generals and the development of their pompous palaces, however to the event of recent arms, formation and tools of recent navy models, their coaching,” he mentioned.
“All of that may end in a big enhance of their navy prowess and effectiveness – one thing that’s completely not obligatory for Ukraine amid its heavy battles with the Russian military,” he mentioned.
The defence ministry has been beset by corruption.
When one in all its directors Yevgeniya Vasilyeva, was arrested in 2012, police discovered 19 kilogrammes of gold and 51,000 gems stashed in glass jars in her luxurious Moscow residence.
Her boss, Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, was sacked and changed with Sergei Shoigu, a extremely standard emergencies minister who, like Belousov, had zero navy expertise.
Shoigu grew to become the longest serving minister in Putin’s authorities and was even touted as his potential successor regardless of being a local of Tuva, a Buddhist province on the Mongolian border.
However his status slid downhill after Russia’s blitzkrieg to grab Kyiv failed within the spring of 2022 and Ukraine regained a number of key areas inside months.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner personal military, ruthlessly and obscenely lambasted Shoigu for delayed provides of ammunition, incompetence and corruption.
Even Prigozhin’s loss of life in a airplane crash final July, the disbanding of Wagner and a string of Russia’s battlefield successes in japanese Ukraine earlier this yr couldn’t save Shoigu.
In April, his deputy Timur Ivanov was arrested on bribery prices in what was broadly seen as an indication of Shoigu’s imminent fall from Putin’s grace.
On Tuesday, the defence ministry’s chief human sources officer, Yuri Kuznetsov, was detained on unspecified prices – a potential signal of a wider purge of Shoigu’s group.
A Ukrainian navy skilled sees Belousov’s appointment as a mirrored image of the internecine battle in Moscow – and says that his ministry’s work will likely be removed from efficient whereas the brand new head is adjusting and forming his personal group.
“For now, with the brand new appointment, whereas working issues out, he received’t have the ability to handle issues successfully,” Lieutenant Basic Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s normal workers of armed forces, advised Al Jazeera.
“For some time, that is excellent news,” he mentioned.
Putin used his nominal “return” to energy after his fifth election in March to “purge harmful allies and get them out of the equation,” Romanenko mentioned.
He mentioned that the Kremlin could even deliver again Sergey Surovikin, a high normal who led the invasion of Ukraine however was demoted after his involvement in Prigozhin’s Could 2023 riot.
‘Protracted conflict in Ukraine’
After Prigozhin’s loss of life, Shoigu boosted his clout as a result of his ministry managed colossal budgets – leaving loads of room for unprecedented corruption.
“Belousov’s job will likely be a couple of strict audit of bills and the complete navy organisation as a result of unusual figures go to the highest for nearly an entire yr,” Pavel Luzin, a navy analyst with the Jamestown Basis, a suppose tank in Washington, DC, advised Al Jazeera.
Shoigu will now head the Safety Council – and substitute Nikolai Patrushev, Putin’s former colleague within the Soviet-era KGB and one of many mightiest safety chiefs in Russia.
Belousov’s appointment indicators the Kremlin’s willingness to maintain combating in Ukraine and presumably begin a battle with NATO over the USSR’s former stomping floor in Jap Europe, the Institute for the Research of Battle, a Western navy suppose tank, concluded.
“Putin is taking important steps in the direction of mobilising the Russian financial system and defence industrial base to assist a protracted conflict in Ukraine and presumably put together for a future confrontation with NATO,” it mentioned.
