Putin Grooming 'Possible Successors' With New Promotions: ISW

Vladimir Putin is looking to his relatives and the children of his inner circle as the future of his regime, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.

The Washington, D.C. think tank made the assessment after Putin dismissed four deputy defense ministers in a purge of officials from his defense ministry which is seen as an attempt to clean house as his invasion of Ukraine falters in its third year amid high losses and marginal gains.

The quartet were replaced by Anna Tsivileva and Pavel Fradkov and First Deputy Defense Minister Leonid Gornin. Tsivileva is the daughter of the Russian president's cousin, Yevgeny Putin, Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo has reported. She is also married to Sergey Tsivilev, who was governor of the Kemerovo region until May and has been appointed Russia's energy minister as part of Putin's shake-up.

Tsivileva was among figures with ties to the Russian president who were sanctioned by the British government following his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the U.K. Foreign Office referring to her as "Putin's first cousin once removed."

She is president of the Russian coal mining company JSC Kolmar Group, which also faced sanctions and is chairperson of the Kremlin-initiated "Defenders of the Fatherland" Foundation.

Meanwhile, Fradkov also has close ties with Putin. He is the son of former Russian prime minister and longtime ally Mikhail Fradkov, and has served as the first deputy administrator of the presidential administration. Gornin had been first deputy minister of finance since May 2018.

Their appointments are part of Putin's latest efforts "to introduce his relatives and the children of other senior Russian officials to the Russian public and to install economic advisers to the MOD to improve the wartime economy," the ISW said.

Earlier this month, Tsivileva and Fradkov reportedly took part in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) alongside Putin's daughters and the children of other senior officials which pointed towards setting the scene for them to assume high-profile and powerful roles in the Russian government.

Russian military bloggers welcomed the firing of the previous deputy defense ministers Nikolai Pankov, Ruslan Tsalikov, Tatiana Shevtsova, and Army General Pavel Popov, which made way for the new appointments, describing it as a decisive move to tackle corruption in the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Meanwhile, the ISW said Putin's appointments showed that he may be looking "to groom possible successors to his regime from the pool of his children and relatives and children of other senior officials."

Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment.

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