The president proposes Andrey Belousov as Defense Minister and Sergei Shoigu as Secretary of the Security Council.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has initiated a cabinet reshuffle, proposing to remove Sergei Shoigu as defense minister and reappoint him Secretary of the Security Council.
Putin proposed appointing Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister specializing in economics, as the new defense minister, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
The shakeup comes as Putin begins his fifth term. In accordance with Russian law, the entire cabinet resigned on Tuesday following Putin's inauguration in the Kremlin.
Belousov's candidacy must be approved by the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council.
Shoigu was appointed defense minister in 2012, two years before Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.
Shoigu's deputy, Timur Ivanov, was arrested last month on charges of bribery and ordered to remain in custody pending an official investigation. The arrest was widely interpreted as an attack on Shoigu and a possible precursor to his dismissal despite his close ties to Putin.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that Putin had decided to hand over the defense portfolio to a civilian because the ministry should be “open to innovation and cutting-edge ideas” and Belousov, who until recently served as first deputy prime minister, is the right one for the job.
Putin won the March election by recording 87 percent of the vote in a poll that analysts said lacked democratic legitimacy after the Central Election Commission banned several candidates opposed to the war in Ukraine from competing.
The shakeup came as thousands more civilians fled Russia's renewed ground offensive in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, which has hit towns and villages with a barrage of artillery and mortars.
Intense battles have forced at least one Ukrainian unit to withdraw as Russian forces seize more territory in less defended settlements in the so-called gray zone along the Russian border.
On Sunday afternoon, the city of Vovchansk, one of the largest in the northeast with a prewar population of 17,000, emerged as a focal point of the battle.
