Oleg Savelyev. Photo from the press service of the Federation Council.
In our military department, under Andrei Belousov, the first major personnel change occurs. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree appointing Oleg Savelyev Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia – Chief of Staff of the Minister of Defense.
WHO IS HE?
Oleg Savelyev was born on October 27, 1965 in Leningrad. In 1988 he graduated from the radiophysics department of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (now Peter the Great Polytechnic University of Saint Petersburg).
Since 1988 he worked in the Social Democratic Association, created by one of the leaders of the informal political movement during the years of perestroika, Oleg Rumyantsev. Oleg Savelyev was a member of the executive committee and director of the information center of this organization.
In the 90s he dedicated himself to political consulting and political technology. He participated in the election campaigns of the bloc “Our House is Russia” (in the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 1995), Boris Yeltsin (in the presidential elections of 1996), Vladimir Yakovlev (in the gubernatorial elections of St. Petersburg in 1996), Alexander Lebed (in the elections head of the administration of the Krasnoyarsk Territory in 1998) and others.
In 1998-1999, deputy chairman of the board of directors of the Moscow Presidential Programs Foundation.
Since January 1999, he has been one of the founders and general director of the PR-System agency. He is an autonomous advisor to the head of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia. Head of the group of experts at the Strategic Research Center Foundation.
In 2008-2014, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. He worked under the direction of Elvira Nabiullina, Andrey Belousov and Alexey Ulyukaev. In February 2009 he joined the first hundred of the presidential reserve of managerial personnel.
From March 2014 to July 2015: Minister of Crimean Affairs of the Russian Federation. Then, until 2018, he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Government of the Russian Federation.
In 2018-2019 he headed the apparatus of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation.
On September 25, 2019, on the recommendation of President Vladimir Putin, he was appointed by the Federation Council to the position of auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation.
In the Accounts Chamber he supervised audits of budget expenditures of law enforcement agencies, including, of course, the army.
He received the Order of Honor and two letters of commendation from the President of Russia.
Speak English.
MEANING OF PURPOSE
The stages of Savelyev’s work before joining the Ministry of Defense can be summarized as follows: he was in the presidential reserve hundred, worked as Minister for Crimea, first held a serious position in the apparatus of the Cabinet of Ministers, and then He headed the apparatus of the Chamber of Accounts. But in this case, to explain the meaning of the appointment in the Ministry of Defense, almost 6 years of work as Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation are important, where Savelyev was in close contact with Belousov on military budgets. And in addition, he exercised control over the budgets of the security forces in the Accounts Chamber, which, in general, predetermined the appearance of Oleg Genrikhovich in the Ministry of Defense. In other words, this is only the first representative of Belousov’s team. This “economic tandem” will now integrate the military economy into the civilian economy, monitor the prudent use of the military budget (and it has doubled in recent years!) and (to use Putin’s owls) “open the doors of the Ministry of Defending”. broader for innovation.” You cannot envy both: both the Minister of Defense and his deputy chief of staff, in addition to supervising financial flows, have several dozen other responsibilities. And it is unlikely that it will be possible to address only economic issues to the detriment of others. Inevitably, they will have to hire “their people” from their previous workplaces as assistants, which means there will be more “jackets” on the MoD bridge. Or rather, some civilian employees of the military department will be replaced by others. Yes, Savelyev is an experienced bureaucrat (he has solid experience in similar jobs in the Cabinet of Ministers and in the Accounts Chamber). But being Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Defense is a completely different “office space.” First of all, it is associated with clear labor regulation, where the slightest deviation from the requirements of dozens of decrees, orders and directives can cause gossip among those in uniform. And here the new vice minister will have to give his best.
The position of the Deputy Minister-Chief of the Apparatus is incredibly depressing (I judge him as the former press secretary of the Russian Minister of Defense, Army General Igor Rodionov). This is hell. Arrival at the service – before the first roosters. And immediately, machine-gun bursts of calls from the troops: someone reports an emergency, someone asks for an audience with the minister, someone from the Kremlin demands to urgently address the complaint of the wife of a deceased officer, someone clarifies why At the moment that the plane must be prepared for the minister’s flight to the troops or abroad, someone from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is trying to agree on the time and procedure for receiving a foreign military delegation. And then the chief of the General Staff must agree with the departments on the text of the minister’s report in the government, check how preparations for the naval exercises are going, send the minister’s order to the departments for approval…
I saw the minister’s chief of staff who never ate dinner in the dining room, there was no time. Secretly, he drank soup from a homemade thermos at his workplace.
By the way, during the government of Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, the Chief of the General Staff was also listed as an assistant to the head of the Ministry of Defense. And the position was colonel general. Although Igor Nikolaevich Rodionov believed that an intelligent non-commissioned officer could “easily cope with the responsibilities of this position.” But after Grachev’s resignation, the status of chief of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense rose to stratospheric heights: he became Deputy Minister of Defense with enormous administrative functions. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, comedians from the central apparatus of the Ministry of Defense, already jokingly, but with real caution, call Savelyev “deputy minister of defense for the fight against corruption.” By the way, seriously, he was appointed for this task.
