Who Is New Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov

He hasn't even served in the army.

Andrei Belousov, Vladimir Putin's nominee for the post of Russian Defence Minister, is a hereditary economist and specialist in public law, he did not serve in the army and has never dealt with the army, The Moscow Times writes.

"It is very important to fit the economy of the power bloc into the country's economy, to fit it so that it corresponds to the dynamics of the current moment," Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov explained the unexpected personnel decision.

Belousov, 65, is a graduate of Moscow State University's Faculty of Economics, specialising as a cybernetic economist, and has long been a researcher. From 1986 to 1990 he worked at the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of Scientific and Technological Progress of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and from 2000 to 2006 he headed the Centre for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting.

From 2006 to 2008 Belousov served as Deputy Minister of Economic Development, in 2012-2013 he headed the Ministry of Economic Development, and from 2013 to 2020 he was Putin's aide.

In 2020-2024 Belousov served as First Deputy Prime Minister in Mishustin's government and supervised, among other things, the work on the main directions of socio-economic development, the implementation of a unified financial, credit and monetary policy, state regulation of financial markets, insurance and auditing activities, transport, infrastructure projects, the implementation of national projects, foreign investment.

Belousov has always been in favour of increasing government spending and in recent years has been actively engaged in the search and seizure of excess profits from exporters, notes The Bell. In the mid-2000s, when he was Herman Gref's deputy, he argued with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin that the oil super-profits collected in the Stabilisation Fund should be spent on the infrastructure projects rather than saved up.

"A proponent of a strong, centralized Russian state in foreign and domestic affairs in a ring of enemies," The Bell's source in the government characterises Belousov. According to him, in 2014 Belousov was the only one of Putin's economic entourage who supported the annexation of Crimea.