Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed an executive order relieving Sergei Ivanov of his duties as the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, the Kremlin press office said.
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It was once thought that Mr Ivanov might become president of Russian Federation after Mr Putin’s second term, as a third term for Mr Putin would have been unconstitutional.
Sergey Ivanov is one of Putin’s closest associates in government, having served as Putin’s deputy in Russia’s federal security services (FSB) when Putin was appointed head of the agency in 1999.
Putin named Anton Vaino, 44, to the important post which involves drafting laws for the president to submit to parliament, monitoring their enforcement, and conducting analysis of domestic and foreign affairs for the president.
Dmitry Medvedev and Ivanov became fierce rivals in the jostling to succeed Putin as president in 2008, when his terms limit expired and he had to don the title of prime minister. “I am satisfied with the way you have carried out the tasks you have been entrusted with”, Putin said at a meeting with Ivanov, broadcast by Rossiya-24. The change is a part of a technocratic reform Putin hopes will lower the political risks from Russia’s current economic hardships, he said.
Vaino’s grandfather, Carl Vaino, was a top Communist official in Soviet Estonia who resisted the Baltic nation’s drive for independence in the 1980s and was moved to Moscow shortly before the Soviet collapse.
His new role as Mr Putin’s special envoy on conservation, environment, and transport will be seen by Kremlinologists as an unequivocal demotion.
In the past year, Russian Railways chief Vladimir Yakunin, anti-narcotics czar Viktor Ivanov and Kremlin security chief Yevgeny Murov have all lost their jobs.
At the same time, Putin has recently appeared to move to shore up his control over Russia’s security apparatus ahead of parliamentary elections this autumn, creating a new National Guard with increased powers and appointing his former chief bodyguard to oversee it. “They are steadfastly faithful to him”.
Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.
As even State Department spokesmen were obliged to acknowledge, the Russian operation, which the Kremlin cynically described as a humanitarian mission, was little more than a preemptory demand for the opposition’s unconditional surrender that ignored the ongoing United Nations -sponsored political process and violated a Security Council resolution.
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