Page 37 - RusRPTJun24

the Russian government attempts to push the West for peace on Russia’s terms later this year, as is expected.
2.16 Five new regional governors appointed in reshuffle
Following the government reshuffle, Putin also appointed five new governors to replace those who got positions in the federal government. Four of them are alumni of the “School of Governors,” a public administration academy that is the brainchild of deputy Presidential Administration head Sergey Kirienko. 53 alumni of the School have now served as governors. Altogether, the appointments reflect a conservative personnel policy in the regions and a desire to cause as few potential disruptions as possible, BMB Russia reports.
Of the five new appointees, three served as first deputy governors under their predecessors and are considered local cadres: Ilya Seredyuk, the new head of the Kemerovo Region, Alexei Smirnov, the new head of the Kursk Region, and Dmitry Milyaev, the new governor of the Tula Region. Milyaev and Seredyuk also led their regions’ respective capitals, while Smirnov served as regional prime minister.
Of the two outsiders appointed as governors—“Varangians” in Russian political parlance—Alexei Besprozvannykh, the new head of the Kaliningrad Region, worked as Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade in the federal government (that is, in the Ministry that his predecessor now heads). Similarly to the cases of the “locals” appointed to Kursk, Kemerovo, and Tula, this suggests that the Kremlin expects the new governors to take over their predecessors’ teams seamlessly with as few changes as possible and to maintain contact with the previous governors now in Moscow.
Dmitry Demeshin, the new head of the Khabarovsk Territory, is the odd one out. Demeshin has so far served as Deputy Prosecutor General in charge of the Far Eastern Federal District. His appointment, however, is not a surprise. The Kremlin can be expected to follow a blueprint similar to what it did in the Maritime Territory after 2018, where the heavy-handed Oleg Kozhemyako was appointed to “pacify” local elites. As a prosecutor, Demeshin was actively traveling to the regions he oversaw and often berating regional elites based on “citizens’ complaints.” One of his last cases was the arrest of Denis Arkhipov, the former Minister of Housing and Utilities in the Novosibirsk Region, shortly after the city’s communal collapse in January. His role in Khabarovsk will likely be to keep local elites in check. Four years after the arrest of former Governor Sergey Furgal, which prompted major protests in the region, United Russia is still in opposition in both the city and regional assemblies. Elections, however, are scheduled for September. It is also notable that Presidential Plenipotentiary Yury Trutnev—who has built a strong personnel network in the Far East—was not able to promote one of his proteges to head the key region.
Apart from the gubernatorial appointments, a key development in regional politics over the past week was the resignation of Magomed Daudov, the Speaker of the Parliament of Chechnya. At the time of writing, it is unclear where Daudov will be appointed next, but analyst and FPRI contributor Harold
37 RUSSIA Country Report June 2024 www.intellinews.com