This week, President Vladimir Putin made six changes in Russia’s latest regional government reshuffle, including appointing the country’s youngest-ever governor and removing the head of a region that gave the president the least number of votes in the March presidential elections.
On Monday, the president appointed Aysen Nikolayev as the acting governor of the Sakha republic and Sergei Nosov as the acting governor of Magadan, after accepting the resignations of their predecessors.
The previous head of the Sakha Republic, Yegor Borisov, had resigned after his region gave Putin a mere 64.4 percent of the vote in the March presidential elections, far below Putin’s nationwide 76.7 percent.
On Tuesday, Putin accepted the resignations of the governor of Tyumen, who was appointed to the new Russian cabinet as construction and housing minister this month, and the governor of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district in Siberia.
Newly-appointed acting Tyumen governor Alexander Moor, 44, told the RBC business portal that “nothing should change” in his predecessor’s regional development program.
At age 30, the newly appointed acting governor of the Yamal-Nenets district Dmitry Artyukhov made history for becoming Russia’s youngest regional leader.
Two more governors handed in their resignations on Wednesday — Alexander Kozlov from the Amur region and Alexander Karlin from the Altai region. In their place, Putin appointed Vasily Orlov and Viktor Tomenko, respectively.
Putin’s support for the four newly-appointed acting governors leaves little doubt they will win regional elections on Sept. 9 to shed the "acting" in their job titles.
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