President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday named five successors to regional governors who were promoted to federal office earlier this week as part of a wider government reshuffle.
In the central Tula region, former governor Alexei Dyumin’s deputy Dmitry Milyayev was appointed as the new acting regional head. Milyayev has held public office in the Tula region since 2014, including serving as Tula mayor between 2019 and 2022.
Putin on Tuesday appointed Dyumin as an aide who will advise the Kremlin chief on issues related to the defense industry and sports.
In the coal-mining Kemerovo region, former governor Sergei Tsivilyov’s deputy Ilya Seredyuk was appointed as the new acting regional head. Seredyuk served as the mayor of Kemerovo between 2016 and 2022.
Tsivilyov was appointed as Russia’s new energy minister.
In the western Kursk region, which has faced regular drone attacks and border incursions since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, former governor Roman Starovoit’s deputy Alexei Smirnov was appointed as the new acting regional head.
Smirnov started his career in the Kursk region in the late 1990s before moving to the Moscow region in the early 2010s, then returning as the Kursk region’s deputy governor in 2018.
Starovoit was appointed as Russia’s new transportation minister.
In the western exclave of Kaliningrad, former governor Anton Alikhanov was replaced with Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Alexei Besprozvannykh.
A graduate of the Skolkovo Executive MBA education program for managers and business owners, Besprozvannykh had worked at the regional branches of the MTS mobile phone network operator before landing a job at the Industry and Trade Ministry in 2016.
Alikhanov was appointed as Russia’s new industry and trade minister.
In the Khabarovsk region, former governor Mikhail Degtyaryov was replaced by Dmitry Demeshin, a deputy general prosecutor for the Russian Far East. In 2020, Degtyaryov was appointed governor of the far-flung region amid mass protests against the arrest of the popular former governor Sergei Furgal, who is now serving a 22-year prison sentence for homicide.
Born in Soviet Uzbekistan, Demeshin served two-year stints at prosecutors’ offices in Moscow region towns, then in the Rostov and Kulga regions starting in 1997 before he was promoted to federal office in 2014.
On Tuesday, Degtyaryov was appointed as Russia’s new sports minister
The new acting governors will stay in office until they are replaced or voted in during Russia’s upcoming gubernatorial elections.
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