Russian Chief of Staff dismissed

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday fired Sergei Ivanov, his chief of staff and one of his closest allies, in the Kremlin’s most high-profile power reshuffling in years.

Sergei Ivanov, like Putin, is a former KGB agent who has been one of the Russian president’s right-hand men for most of his rule and, until today, was considered one of the most influential men in Russia. In a symbolic gesture, Putin appointed Ivanov a special envoy for transportation and the environment, a stunning downgrade for the man who had been considered one of the most influential people in Russian Federation. Ivanov had been working with Putin for over 40 years.

Sergei Ivanov, Mr Putin’s chief of staff, was relieved of his duties in a televised meeting in the Kremlin on Friday. In a meeting with President Putin shown on state television both men claimed that the chief of staff was stepping down at his own request.

“I am pleased with your performance in the areas you supervised”, Putin said to Ivanov, who like the president is a veteran of the KGB, the Soviet-era security service, and worked with Putin in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s.

Ivanov, who has a reputation as a hawk, served as defense minister from 2001 to 2007. During the Cold War, he served overseas in Finland and Kenya.

A career intelligence officer who speaks fluent English and Swedish, Mr Ivanov was considered one of the most powerful individuals in the country after Mr Putin and has frequently been identified as a likely successor. He served previously as a deputy prime minister and defence minister.

Today, Ivanov sat silently, seeming to be struggling to suppress a smile as Putin accepted his resignation. Sergei Ivanov has always been one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and, like him, served in the Soviet security service, the KGB. “We have worked many years together”.

“I’m happy with how you handle tasks”, Putin said.

Multiple theories for why Ivanov had departed quickly arose in Russian Federation. Mr Ivanov was seen as a leader of the hawkishly anti-Western camp of former spies who have come to dominate Kremlin policy-making.

“This is connected with a very simple thing”, Igor Bunin, director of the Center of Political Technologies, told the Russian business paper RBK.

Timothy Ash, a strategist at Nomura bank, suggested Putin could have removed Ivanov because Putin was anxious about his popularity ahead of the elections. The head of Russia’s state railways company, Vladimir Yakunin, the head of Russia’s anti-narcotics agencies, Viktor Ivanov, and chief of the presidential security service, Yevgeny Murov, have all stepped down in the past year.

After Putin won his first presidential term in 2000, Ivanov became his defense minister.

On being appointed, he told Mr Putin: “Thank you for your trust. This replacement of comrades with subordinates is a process that will continue”.

Pictures of new Chief of Staff, Vaino, surfaced directly after the announcement online, showing him carrying an umbrella for Putin to protect him from the rain.