Sergei Shoigu, the Russian general and defense minister, who never served in the ranks of the army
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the country’s longest-serving minister, is a great friend of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly chosen him as a much-publicized vacation partner, and until now he’s had an uncombustible aura.
But his failure to respond to the uprising of Wagner Group mercenaries led by their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin dealt Shoigu a blow no doubt harder than the backlash of the Russian army in Ukraine for which he and the military leadership became responsible sharply criticized from ultra-patriotic circles.
Shoigu’s performance or lack of performance in this crisis has cast him in a bad light, but it is well known that Putin is no friend of quick decisions and certainly not under the pressure of events, so a sharp dismissal would come as a surprise.
Without having served a single day in the ranks of the armed forces, the 68-year-old defense minister, who is a civil engineer by trade, holds the rank of army general, the highest in the Russian ranks, earning his critics the “”cardboard in general”” nickname.
Amid the collapse of the USSR, which was accompanied by floods, wildfires and other disasters, Shoigu monopolized areas in the media and in 1994 his work was rewarded with the creation of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which he held until 2012 after almost six months as the region’s governor Moscow he was appointed to the defense front.
Since then, the closeness between Putin and Shoigu has only intensified, which the Kremlin itself repeatedly emphasizes by circulating pictures of their vacations together, both in the summer, where they can be seen shirtless fishing, and in the winter, wandering around snowy forest. (Eph)