Vladimir Putin has appointed Alexei Dyumin, a former Kremlin agent, to take charge of defense in the Kursk region, replacing his military leader Valery Gerasimov’s duties in the region, according to an official and several pro-war Russian military bloggers. .
“My resources showed this data in advance. In fact, Dyumin was invited to a meeting [with Putin] and was assigned the task of supervising the conduct of the anti-terrorist operation. But the main task is to defeat the Ukrainian Armed Forces that They have invaded the territory of the Kursk region,” Nikolai Ivanov, Russian State Duma deputy from the Kursk region, told RTVI on Tuesday.
Newsweek may not have independently verified reports about Dyumin’s appointment and reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
The reports about the appointment of Kremlin aide Dyumin, President Putin’s former bodyguard and governor of the Tula region, come as Gerasimov was reportedly attacked after ignoring intelligence warnings that Kiev forces were preparing to launch an armored attack on Kursk, which borders Ukraine. . northeastern region of Sumy.
Bloomberg, citing an anonymous Kremlin insider, reported on Aug. 8 that Kremlin officials were frustrated with Gerasimov’s handling of the war. Similar accusatory reports about him circulated on Russian Telegram channels last week, as Ukrainian troops push deeper into the Kursk region.
Ukraine launched its armored attack on Kursk on August 6 and is believed to have temporarily seized many square kilometers of Russian territory. The Russian online research page Agentstvo reported that as of the end of the day on Monday, the domain of military operations in the Kursk region exceeded 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles).
Thousands of citizens have been evacuated from the region and Russia has declared a federal state of emergency.
The Russian army has also been forced to deploy more resources in the region, diverting its troops from the war it has unleashed in Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry published videos on August 9 showing the movement of the military apparatus towards the Sudjansky district of Kursk. which is now believed to be occupied across Ukraine.
Russia’s Telegram channel Rybar, founded by Mikhail Zvinchuk, a former Russian Defense Ministry worker, said Dyumin’s appointment indicates that without Moscow’s involvement, security forces would not be able to overcome the “operational crisis in the Kursk region. “
Last week, it was hypothesized that Putin had appointed Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), to take charge of operations in the Kursk region.
The Institute for the Study of War, a United States-based think tank, said on Aug. 10 that Putin likely appointed Bortnikov because he “has already proven to be an effective handler of crises that threaten Russia’s internal stability and the Kremlin regime. “”
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Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek journalist based in Kuala Lumpur. She focuses on the war between Russia and Ukraine. Isabel joined Newsweek in 2021 and in the past she has worked with media outlets such as Daily Express, The Times, Harper’s BAZAAR and Grazia. She has an MA in News Journalism from the City of London, University of London and a BA in Journalism in Russian from Queen Mary, University of London. Languages: English, Russian
You can contact Isabel by emailing i. vanbrugen@newsweek. com or by following her on X @isabelvanbrugen
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