Amidst the significant Defense Ministry overhaul, Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed his late cousin's daughter as the Deputy Defense Minister.
Knewz.com has learned that the move followed the replacement of longtime war chief Sergei Shoigu with economist Andrei Belousov in May 2024.
Putin announced the appointment of Anna Tsivileva, the daughter of Yevgeny Putin, the Russian President's late cousin, as the new Deputy Defense Minister via presidential decree on Monday, June 17.
Tsivileva (formerly Putina), will be replacing one of the four Deputy Defense Ministers sacked by Putin and she will reportedly be responsible for overseeing social and housing support in the ministry.
"This area of activity is well known to Anna Evgenievna [Tsivileva] from the experience of creating and managing the activities of the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation," a statement from the Defense Ministry said, via The Times UK.
Notably, the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation was established by Putin, and headed by Tsivileva, to support the Russian soldiers fighting in the Ukraine war.
According to the Russian investigative news outlet The Insider, Putin praised her in a live broadcast in December 2023 and mentioned that "citizens had donated over 10 billion rubles ($112 million) to the foundation for military purposes."
The newly appointed Deputy Defense Minister is also the head of Kolmar, one of the top coal mining enterprises in Russia that was placed under sanctions by the United Kingdom.
The Insider wrote that she relocated her company from Switzerland to Dubai in August 2022 to circumvent the embargo on Russian coal.
It is worth noting that Putin's 52-year-old niece is married to Sergei Tsivilev, the new Russian Minister of Energy who assumed Office in May 2024. The couple owns a tourism company at the Sheregesh ski resort in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, which is managed by Tsivileva's son from her previous marriage.
Also appointed to the position of Deputy Defense Minister is Pavel Fradkov, the son of Mikhail Fradkov, the former prime minister who headed the Russian foreign intelligence service for almost a decade. Pavel himself was a senior official of the Putin presidential administration, per The Moscow Times.
According to The Times UK, he will be responsible for “management of property, land resources” and for constructing facilities.
The new roster of Deputy Defense Ministers also includes Leonid Gornin, the former chief deputy finance minister, who will be responsible for “the entire range of issues of financial support” within the Defense Ministry.
The appointment of the new Deputy Defense Ministers followed a significant revamping of the Ministry, notably the removal of longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The former Defense Minister, who had been in the role since 2012, was replaced by economist Andrei Belousov, the Deputy Minister who has "little military experience," according to BBC.
The Times UK reported that the appointment of Beluosov is aimed at making the Ministry "more economically efficient as the war in Ukraine goes on." Shoigu has since been appointed the secretary of Russia's Security Council.
As part of Putin's Ministry purge, a senior defense official and one of the deputy defense ministers were arrested on bribery charges in May and April 2024 respectively.
