In more than two years of war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has found that the technocrats he assembled to manage the Russian economy have turned out to be his most reliable foot soldiers.
The Russian leader has now tapped one of them, Andrei Belousov, who has no military experience, to become his next defense minister.
Belousov, 65, a fan of Rembrandt who is fond of quoting Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Carl Jung, has for years stood apart from the other technocrats, many of whom have provided excellent economic guidance even as they privately have seen Putin’s provocative geopolitical moves as hazardous for Russia’s economic future.