Very suddenly, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is in full swing, and Putin has changed the defense minister!
On May 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a presidential decree to make a series of personnel changes to the new government team.
You must know that Shoigu has served as Russia's defense minister since 2012, and he can be said to be Putin's most trusted right-hand man. What is the origin of Russia's new defense minister? Economist Andrei Belousov, who has no military background and has not even served a day as a soldier.
Why did Putin make such a seemingly outrageous decision to let a "civilian" charge into battle in times of war? What is so special about Belousov, who can stand out from the many fierce generals of the Russian army?
Judging from the online discussion, many people feel that Putin is "very dissatisfied" with the performance of the troops under Shoigu's command on the battlefield, so he was dismissed from the post of defense minister.
But if you study it carefully, in fact, Putin still gave this old subordinate a favor. Shoigu will be the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and those who are familiar with the ranking of Russian government officials and the level of protocol will find that the scope of the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation goes far beyond the defense minister, who is only responsible for the work of the army, and is responsible for all national security work in Russia, and can coordinate many state agencies and departments, and is usually considered the third person in Russia.
To put it simply, the big boss in Russia is President Putin, the second boss is Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and the third boss is Shoigu, who is the secretary of the Federal Security Council.
As for why Putin chose Belousov, who has never been in contact with military affairs, to replace Shoigu, let's first look at a set of data.
Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia's military spending has increased from 3% of GDP to 6.7% of GDP, and it will continue to grow. You know, even at the height of the Cold War, U.S. military spending tended to be below 4.5% of GDP.
Obviously, the current economic situation in Russia is not optimistic, and if it is allowed to develop, then even if the Russian army gains an advantage on the front line, Russia's domestic economy will collapse. This situation should not be sustained for a long time, and for the future battlefield, "opening up sources and reducing expenditure" has become Putin's primary consideration.
As I have said before, one of the important tasks of Putin's new term is: "While continuing to maintain the war, how to make the Russian national economy continue to develop for the better, at least not let this Russia-Ukraine conflict pose too much burden on the national economy." As a result, Belousov, the first deputy prime minister in charge of the economy, seems to have become the best choice for Russia's defense minister.
From 2000 to 2006, Belousov served as an adviser to the Russian Prime Minister, a period when Putin rectified the economy and cleaned up the oligarchs, in 2006, he became the deputy minister of economic development, and in 2020, he successfully became the first deputy prime minister of Russia.
To put it bluntly, Belousov is the core think tank of the Russian economic sector and, of course, Putin's cronies. Even if he has not been a soldier for a day, but in special times, Belousov does have irreplaceable advantages. In other words, Putin hopes that Belousov will be able to plan the financial budget and military spending, further strengthen the combat effectiveness of the Russian army on the basis of not increasing or even reducing the economic burden, and provide more advanced weapons for the front-line troops with the least amount of money.
At the same time, on the front-line situation, Putin has not relaxed, on the surface of the cabinet reshuffle, Shoigu left, but Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian army, who is actually in charge of military command, is still in office, in addition, the heads of the Russian Federal Security Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and other key military intelligence departments are also all from the original team. Looking at it this way, in fact, there is no such thing as the so-called "change of commander", in the final analysis, people are just making the best use of people and putting the most suitable people in the most suitable positions.
After more than two years of delay, there is still no end in sight, how to improve your endurance and consume the opponent until you run out of ammunition, this is the way to win!