Paul Goble
Staunton, May 12 –Vladimir Putin has
replaced Aleksandr Khloponin as presidential plenipotentiary for the North
Caucasus with Sergey Melikov, commander of internal troops in the North
Caucasus, and offered Lev Kuznetsov, the governor of Krasnoyarsk kray, the new
post of minister for the development of the North Caucasus.
Khloponin will remain a vice prime minister, Putin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov said, suggesting that no one should see the change reflecting
dissatisfaction with his work but rather view his departure as the logical result of the formation of a new federal
ministry and hence of a “reformation of administrative arrangements in the North
Caucasus (vestikavkaza.ru/news/KHloponin-osvobozhden-ot-dolzhnosti-postpreda-SKFO.html).
Vadim Mukhanov, a researcher at
MGIMO’s Center for Problems of the Caucasus and Regional Security, agreed. He
suggested these moves by Putin bear “a global character” and should not be
analyzed as the change of one official by another.
Instead, he suggested, the creation of
a new ministry suggests Moscow intends to play an even more direct role in
running the North Caucasus via the new ministry and that putting an MVD general
in as presidential plenipotentiary indicates that Putin wants the federal
district to focus on security and stabilization rather than on broader issues
as Khloponin has.
Nikolay Silayev, the director of the
Caucasus Cooperation NGO, added to Mukhanov’s comment, suggesting that from now
on, “the presidential plenipotentiary will not be considered as the
coordinating center for the development of regional policy.” Instead, Moscow
will play that role directly.
Indeed, Silayev asked rhetorically, “what
after the creation of the ministry will be the functional role” of that
institution?
Khloponin’s departure probably also
means that the status of the other presidential plenipotentiaries may now be
lowered as well – or possibly even eliminated altogether in the coming months.
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