Russian president Vladimir Putin on Thursday picked Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin as the new head of the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service, as he starts a new round of personnel reshuffles following the ruling United Russia party’s victory in last week’s parliamentary elections.
Mr Naryshkin’s move to the external spy agency opens the way for the elevation of Vyacheslav Volodin, Mr Putin’s deputy chief of staff, to the speaker’s role, making him a heavyweight in Russia’s next-generation political elite.
Two people close to Mr Volodin said he would be nominated to succeed Mr Naryshkin as speaker of the lower house of parliament, confirming earlier reports in Russian media.
Mr Putin tapped Mr Naryshkin for the intelligence job in a meeting with him and Mikhail Fradkov, head of the agency since 2007, the Kremlin said.
The 61-year-old Duma speaker worked as a Soviet diplomat in Belgium in the 1980s and is believed to have been trained at the same KGB academy as Mr Putin. He started his political career under the liberal St Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak in the 1990s like Mr Putin.
His appointment makes him the first top official involved in the reshuffle Mr Putin has been conducting over the past year who is not demoted. Last month, Mr Putin dismissed his long-time political companion Sergei Ivanov as chief of staff and replaced him with one of his deputies, a low-profile former protocol officer.
That move was the culmination of a series of personnel changes throughout the security services, the presidential administration and regional governments that appeared aimed at sidelining those members of the political elite who have known him for decades and possess political clout of their own.
Mr Fradkov, a former prime minister under Mr Putin, will be transferred to Russian Railways as chairman of the board at the state enterprise, a post widely seen as step towards retirement.
Replacing Mr Naryshkin with Mr Volodin will allow Russia to increase parliamentary exchanges with western countries, an avenue of diplomacy which suffered since Mr Naryshkin was put under US and EU sanctions.
For Mr Volodin, the latest reshuffle is a massive promotion. The 52-year-old was previously a Duma deputy, but has served in the presidential administration since late 2011. There, he worked behind the scenes to rejig the system of political parties, elections and the Kremlin’s relations with the regions after United Russia’s weak showing in the last Duma elections and mass protests in Moscow against Mr Putin.
Mr Volodin was the main architect of the rules governing last week’s polls, in which he ran himself. United Russia won 343 of the Duma’s 450 seats. “He proved himself, and now he is getting the reward,” said one person who knows Mr Volodin well but is not on good terms with him. “He has very big ambitions and wants to be president one day.”
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