Yabloko leaders about the new Russian government

Press Release, 17.05.2024

Photo: Vladimir Putin and members of the government during their working trip to China / Photo by Dmitry Azarov, Kommersant

This week the State Duma approved the new Russian government. The previous cabinet of ministers automatically resigned after the inauguration of President Vladimir Putin on 7 May. For the first time, the government has been entirely formed according to new rules fixed in the new version of the Constitution: now the State Duma votes not only for the candidacy of the prime minister, but also for all members of the cabinet, except for the security forces and the defence minister.

The most discussed appointment was the President’s candidacy for the post of Minister of Defence. On 12 May, Vladimir Putin proposed appointing Andrei Belousov as head of the Defence Ministry. Sergei Shoigu, who headed the Defence Ministry since 2012, was appointed Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 12 May.

Yabloko leaders comment on the new government and make forecasts for the development of Russia with the new cabinet of ministers.

ANNA CHEREPANOVA, DEPUTY CHAIR OF YABLOKO:

There were no surprises in the appointment of government members, with the exception of the Ministry of Defence, and this is understandable. In the conditions of the special military operation, Vladimir Putin is relying on proven personnel and continuity of course. However, I will note several important plots here.

The military-industrial complex has been chosen as a strategic priority, which not only meets the needs of the special military operation, but is supposed to be the driver of economic growth and technological development of the country.

Turning east. China is a strategic partner for a long time. It is no coincidence that all key government officials fly with Vladimir Putin to Beijing immediately after their appointment.

The government remains male, with only three women. The course towards a tough, brutal, and militaristic policy will continue.

There is an emerging trend towards the transfer of power by inheritance from Putin’s inner circle.

To sum it all up, Vladimir Putin predictably proposed a conservative version of the government with a militaristic-protective bias. Read the full commentary in Anna Cherepanova’s Telegram channel. 

BORIS VISHNEVSKY, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF YABLOKO:

The only significant change in the government was the change of the Minister of Defence. Replacing Sergei Shoigu with Andrei Belousov means strengthening the military-industrial complex and strengthening the policy towards militarisation of the economy

Belousov was appointed to do this and restore order in the “defence” sector, where all spending is classified, and this provides enormous opportunities for theft. Apparently, the scale is such that the first person in the ministry had to be changed.

All other changes in the government were technical, just like the government itself in the political system of the recent years. It can be shuffled by the President at any time. The amendments made to the Constitution that the State Duma approves deputy prime ministers and most of the ministers are obviously a farce under the current State Duma, because even if tomorrow, as Emperor Caligula once did, they propose appointing a horse as a minister, they will approve the horse. This is, of course, a joke, but not very far from the truth.

Another thing is that when times change and there is a different parliament, this norm will be useful, because the parliament should control the government and approve ministers, including key ones, who are removed from parliamentary control today and report only to the President.

I would also draw your attention to the fact that an outspoken obscurantist, Yelena Yampolskaya, was appointed as a Presidential Adviser on Culture. This is a person with a monstrous, from my point of view, reactionary-conservative political position, which she showed as Chair of the State Duma committee. In particular, she is one of the authors of the idea to prohibit libraries from lending books written by those declared “foreign agents”. But… the times and the president condition the cultural advisers.

LEV SHLOSBERG, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF YABLOKO:

Attempts to decipher the meaning of personnel appointments in the government under Vladimir Putin are similar to reading hieroglyphs by key specialists in the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabets. But everyone pretends to know hieroglyphs. In fact, no knowledge of hieroglyphs is needed to understand the process. Everything that happens now is routine and does not contain anything fundamentally new.

Clearly, there is a struggle between clans around Putin, they are trying to get as close as possible to the first person and get an allotment for feeding. Like any clans in a corporate state, the clans in the Vladimir Putin’s system were, if not created, then sanctioned by him. These are all the “king’s musketeers”. Their struggle among themselves is conditional; they fight only for a place at the throne with the explicit consent of the ruling emperor. Everyone is equal before the emperor because they are equal to zero…

Read the full commentary in Lev Shlosberg’s Telegram channel.

… The appointment of Andrei Belousov to the post of Defence Minister means that Vladimir Putin remains the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation – both as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and as the only politician making systemic decisions in power.

Belousov’s appontment to the post of Minister of Defence means that Vladimir Putin no longer has any illusions about the imminent completion of the military operation and the achievement of its goals. The new wartime has come for a long time – for many years ahead. It requires a strategic restructuring of the national economy in the long term, but the generals are not able to do this job. They can spend any money, but they cannot collect anything. And here harvest must be reaped several times a year. This job requires a combine operator with special professional qualities and skills. Not market ones, but state ones. Putin saw such a financial combiner in Belousov. The Minister of Defence and War Economy in wartime.

That is, Belousov is assigned a special mission: to fill the military operation with a new lease of life… To implement in modern times the slogan of the past century: “Everything for the front, everything for victory”. Belousov consented. Read the full commentary in Lev Shlosberg’s Telegram channel. 

VLADIMIR DOROKHOV, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF YABLOKO:

All these changes in the government and the Presidential Administration, in my opinion, attract undue attention. This is due to the fact that this happens in our country quite rarely, since political life has turned into an impassable quagmire. And any fuss around the ministerial chairs causes an excessive reaction from all sides.

Russia has not had an institution of full-fledged separation of powers for a long time. Parliament has not fulfilled its functions for a long time, and the government does not determine the country’s policy. All key decisions are made by a narrow circle of non-public people.

In any non-democratic system, such changes raise a wave of conspiracy theories and made-up versions. But only subsequent work will show what policy will actually be pursued.

The main thing to note is that there will be no significant changes. The aggressive foreign policy, repressive domestic policies and a dead-end economic policies will go on. And it is no longer so important what personnel in the government will implement all this.

EMILIA SLABUNOVA, MEMBER OF THE FEDERAL POLITICAL COMMITTEE OF YABLOKO:

The Cabinet has been formed. The main appointments have been made. What’s next?

Basing on the Decree “On the national development goals of the Russian Federation until 2030 and for the future until 2036,” there is no hope for a noticeable increase in the living standards and quality of life either by 2030 or by 2036.

Just think about it, it is promised to reduce in six years (!) the number of poor families with many children to 12%. You are not mistaken – there is no comma between the two numbers. Twelve percent of such families will be poor in six years! And by 2036 – in 12 years – the number of such families will be reduced to only 8%. All this is in the richest country with the most talented people, and even amid calls to have more children and create large families!

The prospects for the minimum wage are no better – 36,000 roubles in 2030.

By the end of 2030, only 50 hazardous objects with accumulated environmental damage will be eliminated, although there are about 1,000 of them in the register, i.e. only 5%, and 50% of sorted municipal solid waste will remain there with the right to their burial; 25% of waste will be used as secondary resources, and where the other 25% will go remains a question; 40% of regional or intermunicipal roads will remain in substandard maintenance, and local roads have not even been remembered. I will not further upset those who have not read the document.

There is one only word to it: stability.

ALEXANDER GNEZDILOV, MEMBER OF THE FEDERAL POLITICAL COMMITTEE OF YABLOKO:

There are so many surprised exclamations and questions in connection with the appointment of economist Andrei Belousov to the post of Minister of Defence.

At least some of them disappear if one reads Belousov’s interview with RBC last year. There, Andrei Belousov talks, for example, about what Russia can offer the world:

“We have our own cultural code. Own cultural identity, which the vast majority of countries and peoples do not have. <…> By the way, [writer] Fyodor Dostoevsky felt it very well. Dostoevsky’s emotion, especially in such a work as “A Writer’s Diary”, is expressed there in a simply 100% refined manner.”

I have to agree with this second part of Belousov’s quote. Indeed, the ideological essence of Dostoevsky’s ideas is nowhere as fully revealed as in “A Writer’s Diary”.

[Let me note, just in case, that this is not Dostoevsky’s real personal diary, but his journalistic work in the diary genre, published in 1873-1881, first as a magazine column, and from 1876 as a separate author’s journal.]

… This cultural code is clear: militarism, chauvinism and anti-Semitism.

Read the full commentary in Alexander Gnezdilov’s Telegram channel.