Putin, seeking continuity, proposes Mishustin remain Russia’s prime minister

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the reappointment on Friday (9 May) of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, a technocrat who has helped him through the war in Ukraine and the economic challenges wrought by Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion.

The Duma’s approval of the low-key Mishustin is nearly certain, as there is virtually no opposition in parliament, which has supported Putin in all his decisions, including the February 2022 invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour.

As dictated by law, the government resigned just before Putin, Russia’s paramount leader for nearly a quarter of a century, was sworn in for another six-year term on Tuesday after winning in a landslide re-election in March.

There is no indication that Putin plans a big reshuffle of the government, which includes veteran Sergei Shoigu, in charge of Russia’s defence since 2012, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in charge of Russia’s diplomacy for two decades.

Keeping his government intact would send a message of stability and of Putin’s satisfaction with his team’s progress at home and abroad, analysts say.

“President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin submitted to the State Duma a proposal on the candidacy of Mikhail Vladimirovich Mishustin for the post of Chairman of the Government,” the speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on the Telegram messaging app.

“Today, deputies will make a responsible decision on behalf of their constituents on this issue,” Volodin said.

Career bureaucrat

Mishustin, a career bureaucrat, was said to have no political ambitions before Putin tapped him as prime minister in 2020. With no background in the security services, he is not part of the so-called siloviki (strongmen) faction of intelligence veterans close to Putin.

While keeping a low profile, however, Mishustin has been credited with keeping Russia’s economy afloat after Kyiv’s allies hit the country with sanctions that have greatly complicated financing for Russian businesses and curtailed markets for the country’s vast natural resources.

Before becoming prime minister, Mishustin headed the federal tax service for a decade, where he was credited with more than doubling revenues.

In October, with Russia facing increasing sanctions, Mishustin said Moscow would simplify procedures for citizens and companies from 25 “friendly” countries – including China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Belarus – to invest in Russia.

At a perilous moment for Putin in June last year, Mishustin said Russia must rally around the president as an abortive mutiny by mercenaries fighting in Ukraine had presented “a challenge to its stability”.

“For this, the consolidation of the whole of society is especially important. We need to act together, as one team, and maintain the unity of all forces, rallying around the president,” Mishustin said.

Mishustin, who will speak in the Duma before the vote, must answer how he will solve a number of tasks set by Putin for the government, including “economic and regional development, and increasing the defence capability of our country”, Volodin said.

9 May speech

Putin accused the West on Thursday of risking a global conflict and said no one would be allowed to threaten the world’s biggest nuclear power as Russia marked the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on the Red Square.

“We know what the exorbitance of such ambitions leads to. Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash,” Putin said after Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu reviewed troops lined up in a rare May blizzard.

Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender came into force at 11:01 p.m. on 8 May, 1945, marked as “Victory in Europe Day” by France, Britain and the United States. In Moscow it was already May 9, which became the Soviet Union’s “Victory Day” in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.

“But at the same time, we will not allow anyone to threaten us. Our strategic forces are always in a state of combat readiness.”

Putin, who sent his army into Ukraine in 2022, casts the war as part of a struggle with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.

‘The fate of mankind’

“But we remember that the fate of mankind was decided in the grand battles near Moscow and Leningrad, Rzhev, Stalingrad, Kursk and Kharkiv, near Minsk, Smolensk and Kyiv, in heavy, bloody battles from Murmansk to the Caucasus and Crimea.”

In a much pared-down parade indicating the strains of war, Russia showed off just one T-34 tank. Fighters flew past streaming the Russian tricolour.

The parade also featured Russia’s Yars intercontinental strategic missile which a TV announcer said has “a guaranteed capability to strike a target on any point of the globe”

There were no leaders from the West.

Present were the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Laos and Guinea-Bissau.

Russian officials warn that the Ukraine war is entering the most dangerous phase to date – Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much broader war involving the world’s biggest nuclear powers.

The crisis has deepened in recent weeks: US President Joe Biden signed off on $61 billion in aid to Ukraine; Britain said that Ukraine had the right to strike Russia with British weapons; and French President Emmanuel Macron has refused to rule out sending French troops to fight Russian forces.

Russia responded on Monday by announcing it would practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what the Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.

The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in World War Two, including many millions in Ukraine, but eventually pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin, where Hitler committed suicide and the red Soviet Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in 1945.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

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