President Vladimir Putin has appointed the long-serving Russian Security Council chairman Nikolai Patrushev as a presidential aide, the Kremlin announced Tuesday.
Patrushev, 73, was dismissed on Sunday after serving 16 years as head of Russia’s Security Council, an executive branch body that advises the president on strategic and security issues.
Long considered a key member of Putin’s inner circle, Patrushev was replaced by former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, another close ally of the Russian president.
“Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev… will deal with issues related to shipbuilding,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday, an apparent demotion amid the recent government reshuffle.
“This is a huge and quite complex industry. Thus, Nikolai Platonovich’s vast experience will definitely play a big role,” Peskov said.
Putin also appointed his former bodyguard and Tula region Governor Alexei Dyumin as another one of his aides. Peskov said Dyumin would advise the president on issues related to the defense industry and sports.
Dyumin’s career future prospects have been widely discussed after he was credited with urging the late Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin to abort his short-lived mutiny last summer.
Meanwhile, Putin’s former aide and former economic development minister Maxim Oreshkin was promoted to the presidential administration’s deputy chief of staff for the economy and transportation.
The shakeup comes a week after Putin was sworn into a fifth term in office, cementing his more than two-decade rule as Russia continues waging war with neighboring Ukraine.