What Russian defence minister’s sacking means for the war effort

For years, Russia’s deputy minister of defence, Timur Ivanov, lived high on the hog, flaunting access to St Tropez villas, yachts and Rolls-Royces.

When Ivanov, 48, was finally arrested last month and charged with large-scale bribery, analysts said that the writing was on the wall for his close ally and boss, the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.

Shoigu, one of President Putin’s oldest allies, is himself no stranger to luxury. Anti-corruption campaigners found in 2015 that he lived in a £12 million pagoda-style complex outside Moscow that was registered to his sister-in-law, and built on land bought by his 18-year-old daughter to disguise ownership.

Since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the armed forces under Shoigu, 68, have been plagued by rumours of profligacy and incompetence.

Now the president has stepped in to remove him and replace him with an experienced technocrat, in one of the biggest reshuffles of the past decade. Andrey Belousov, 65, was first deputy prime minister and an economist who used to be an adviser to Putin.

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Analysts say his task will be to tighten the reins. “Putin’s goal is to enhance arms production effectiveness and optimally meet military needs, said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre. “In this context, Belousov is a logical choice.”

Rob Lee, a military analyst, said the appointment was “likely a reflection of Putin’s personal trust in Belousov, and the need for a better internal manager of the MoD’s bureaucracy”.

The Kremlin indicated that Belousov was the man for the job as military spending ballooned to 6.6 percent of GDP.

“Today, on the field of battle, the one who wins is the one who is more open to innovations, more open to their practical use in combat,” said Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman. “So it is natural that at the current stage the president had taken the decision that the defence ministry will be headed by a civilian person.”

Samuel Bendett, an expert on Russian military technology, noted that Belousov was “a big promoter of domestic drone and UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] development, along with supporting domestic high-tech research and development”.

Several sources in Russian drone-making companies said that the industry welcomed Shoigu’s removal.

“Shoigu … seemed to be dissatisfied with the new drone equipment, although it was exactly what the army needed. It looks like he didn’t pay too much attention to this area [drones], although the importance was obvious for everybody,” one source said.

“We all insisted that we should speed up the process of decision-making in this field, because the Ukrainians already have the advantage in this. And Belousov has the right understanding of this process — he knows that this is a war of drone and electronic warfare technologies. So I think very soon we’ll manage to catch up, and the situation will change.”

Belousov’s appointment means that Shoigu moves to head the security council, shunting out the longstanding secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, a former director of the Federal Security Service.

It could also herald the demise of Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian army. Incoming defence ministers generally want an ally installed in this role, although that may not be the case at a time of war.

Despite a sense that he has been ousted, Shoigu will remain in a high-ranking position as head of the security council. Stanovaya saw that as Putin’s way “to keep [Shoigu] close yet detached from the ‘system’, where finding an alternative role would be challenging”.