“It is very important to fit the economy of the armed and security forces bloc into the country’s economy, to fit it in a way that corresponds to the dynamics of the current moment,” explained Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, when asked about the unexpected appointment as Defense Minister of Andréi Beloúsov, a 65-year-old economist who has until now supervised the entire economic sector of the Government as first deputy prime minister.
According to Peskov, the president “has decided to put a civil servant in Defense due to the need to introduce innovations.” “Whoever is most inclined to innovation will win on the battlefield,” he added before specifying that the designation “will not modify the coordinate system in the military component of the department, since the chief of the General Staff, Valeri Gerasimov, who “He remains in his position, he is responsible for it.” The presidential spokesman also stressed that the outgoing Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, “will now supervise from the Security Council the operation of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation of Russia, thus continuing his work in an area that he knows very well from within.” .
Belousov has never had anything to do with the Army and did not even do military service. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU) with the title of “cyber-economist” and devoted himself to scientific work for some time.
Confidence man
From 1986 to 1990 he worked at the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of Scientific and Technological Progress of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (USSR), and between 2000 and 2006 he headed the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting. In 2006 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Economic Development, in 2012 he became head of that portfolio and, between 2013 and 2020, he was President Vladimir Putin’s main economic assistant. According to various sources, he is one of his main confidants and has never been caught in any corruption case.
After leaving the Kremlin Administration, Belousov returned to the Government in January 2020 as first deputy prime minister, responsible for the entire economic bloc, and has remained that way until the president of the country has now placed him in charge of Defense. He supervised, in particular, the implementation of the main areas of “socio-economic” development, the unified financial, credit and monetary policy, state regulation of finance, markets, insurance and audit activities, the transport sector, as well so-called “national projects” and infrastructure and foreign investments. He also major innovation projects, including the mass manufacturing of unmanned aerial attack devices.
According to some analysts, Belousov is far from being a person with liberal views. He has always defended a broad state presence in the economy and its strict regulation, very much in line with the Soviet tendencies demonstrated by the head of the Kremlin. The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes that the replacement of Shoigu by Belousov “indicates that President Vladimir Putin is taking steps to prepare for a prolonged war in Ukraine and greater confrontation with NATO in the future.” ».
Like the EU
Peskov explained that «the budget of the Ministry of Defense and the security bloc until recently was around 3%, then it grew to 3.4% and, more recently, up to 6.7%. This, together with all law enforcement agencies, among which the Ministry of Defense occupies key positions, as it is responsible for placing all orders in the industry. Judging by his words, military spending will continue to increase from now on and Belousov, it seems, is the ideal person to lead an economy on a war footing and surrounded by Western sanctions.
The presidential spokesman believes that his appointment makes sense “because Russia was approaching a situation similar to that of the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, when military and security authorities represented 7.4% of the Domestic Product.” Rough”. »That meant that it is vital to ensure that such spending was aligned and better integrated into the country’s overall economy.»
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