Russia-Ukraine war – live: Putin to replace defence minister and key long-time ally Sergei Shoigu

The head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration (RMA), Oleh Sinegubov, said on Telegram:

“The enemy is intensifying shelling of Vovchansk. Our Armed Forces soldiers are fighting hard. The northern border of the Kharkiv region is the most difficult area now.”

Russian troops are intensifying shelling of the city of Vovchansk in Kharkiv region, and the evacuation of the population continues.

“Today we have evacuated 1,600 people from the Vovchansk direction. We are continuing this work. In just three days, 5,500 people have been evacuated,” he added.

The Berdyansk City Military Administration posted on Telegram: Loud in Berdyansk! Residents report a loud explosion that was heard in different neighbourhoods of the city.”

The city of Berdyansk has been under Russian occupation since February 27, 2022.

It has been plagued with infrastructure problems including a lack of water supply.

Putin’s reshuffle, which caught the elite off-guard, indicates the Russian President is doubling down on the Ukraine war and wants to harness more of Russia’s economy for the war after the West sought, but failed so far, to sink the economy with sanctions.

Russia’s economists have so far largely ensured economic stability and growth despite the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a major economy, even though the failings of the Russian military were laid bare shortly after the invasion.

“The proposal to appoint one of the main court economists and the main state minister in the economic bloc to head the Defence Ministry may mean that Putin is planning to win the war with the defence industry plants and international markets,” said Alexander Baunov, a former Russian diplomat who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

“The winning strategy in this case will not be mobilisations and breakthroughs, but slow pressure on Ukraine with the superior power of the Russian military-industrial complex and the economy as a whole, which, apparently, is supposed to be made to work more effectively for the front and rear.”

Putin’s move, though unexpected, preserves balance at the top of the complex system of personal loyalties that make up the current political system.

Vladimir Putin has proposed a surprise new defence minister, nominating civilian Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister who specialises in economics, for the job more than two years into the Ukraine war, the Kremlin said.

Putin wants Sergei Shoigu, defence minister since 2012 and a long-standing ally, to become the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, replacing incumbent Nikolai Patrushev, and to also have responsibilities for the military-industrial complex, the Kremlin announced on Sunday.

The changes, certain to be approved by parliamentarians, are the most significant Putin has made to the military command since sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what he called a special military operation.

The shake-up gives Shoigu a job that is technically regarded as senior to his defence ministry role, ensuring continuity and saving Shoigu’s face. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s General Staff and someone with a more hands-on role when it comes to directing the war, will remain in post.

Sergei Lavrov, the country’s veteran foreign minister, will also stay in his job, the Kremlin said.

The appointment of Andrei Belousov, a civilian official known for his economic decision-making rather than battlefield knowledge, as defence minister is a surprise.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters that the change made sense because Russia was approaching a situation like the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, when the military and law enforcement authorities accounted for 7.4 per cent of state spending.

That, said Peskov, meant it was vital to ensure such spending aligned with the country’s overall interests, which was why Putin now wanted a civilian with an economic background in the defence ministry job.

“The one who is more open to innovations is the one who will be victorious on the battlefield,” Peskov said.

Vladimir Putin has proposed replacing Sergei Shoigu as defence minister and appointed him as secretary of Russia’s national security council.

The appointment comes after Mr Putin proposed appointing Andrei Belousov as the country’s defence minister in place of Mr Shoigu, who has served in the post for years.

The reshuffle comes as Mr Putin starts his fifth presidential term and as the war in Ukraine drags on for the third year

In line with Russian law, the entire Russian Cabinet resigned on Tuesday following Mr Putin’s glittering inauguration in the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed replacing Patrushev with long-term ally, Sergei Shoigu, more than two years into the Ukraine war, the upper house of parliament said on Sunday.

Putin proposed Andrei Belousov, former deputy prime minister, as the new defence minister. Putin proposed that Sergei Lavrov remain as foreign minister.

Lithuanians voted on Sunday in a presidential election expected to hand a new term to incumbent Gitanas Nauseda, a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its two-year war with Russia, following a campaign focusing on security concerns in the Baltic states.

Polls closed with results expected after midnight. Turnout was 59 per cent, the highest in nearly three decades, according the election commission web page.

If no candidate wins more than 50 per cent – which is likely according to pre-election opinion surveys – a run-off vote will be held on May 26.

Nauseda, 59, a former senior economist at a top bank, was polling with the support of 29 per cent of voters ahead of the election, a recent Delfi/Spinter Tyrimai survey showed. His strongest challenger was Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, 49, the only woman running, with 14% of support.

Across the region, voters are worried the former Soviet republics that make up the Baltics, now members of the NATO military alliance and the European Union, could be the targets of Russian aggression in the future.

Just over half of Lithuanians believe a Russian attack is possible or even very likely, a ELTA/Baltijos Tyrimai poll has found. Lithuanian intelligence said in March Russia was on track to strengthen its military capabilities along its border with at NATO.

A Ukrainian refugee couple who fled to the UK have been refused permission for their two-year-old daughter to join them after the government suddenly changed its sponsorship rules, The Independent can reveal.

Oleksandra and Yaroslav were offered shelter from Russia’s war under the Homes for Ukraine scheme in April 2022, leaving newborn Anna with her grandparents in Kyiv until they were settled in the UK with work and their own home.

Multiple people have been killed and more than a dozen wounded after a 10-storey apartment block in the Russian region of Belgorod collapsed – in what the Kremlin claimed, without providing evidence, was a Ukrainian missile strike.

The region, which shares a border with the Ukrainian oblast of Kharkiv, has been hit several times over the past few months as Russian forces continue to attack across the border.