Deputy Prime Ministers were appointed to the service – Newspaper Kommersant No. 198 (7399) dated 10/25/2022

At the first meeting of the coordinating council to meet the needs of the armed forces during the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, Mikhail Mishustin distributed powers between his two deputies in this new body under the government. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko will be responsible for the legal and financial support of the operation, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov – for the supply of weapons, equipment and clothing. For current activities, specialized working groups will be created in the council, also headed by deputy prime ministers. They will resolve specific issues of supplies for the needs of the military operation, in particular, medicines and food.

On Monday, October 24, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin held the first meeting of the coordinating council to ensure the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. In the open part of the event, the head of the Cabinet basically detailed the presidential decree on the creation of such a “headquarters”.

As early as Tuesday, the council will meet again to report to the president on the topic of paying salaries to the mobilized.

Recall that the creation of a new structure under the government was announced on October 19, simultaneously with the introduction of martial law in the four annexed territories and the regimes of “response levels” in other regions. Such an organization continues the logic of the coordination and headquarters work of the government during the pandemic and responding to sanctions – the executive branch got involved in solving actual military tasks, most of which had previously been in the area of ​​​​responsibility of the power bloc (see “Kommersant” dated October 20).

According to Mikhail Mishustin, the task of the council is to build “effective interaction between the healthcare system, industry, construction, transport and other areas”, as well as to increase coordination between government agencies, regions and special services. Therefore, the council included deputy prime ministers, security officials (Ministry of Defense, FSB, National Guard, Ministry of Internal Affairs) and representatives of civilian departments (such as the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economics and the Federal Tax Service).

The work of the council will be to determine targets for the supply of weapons, equipment and materiel, budget financing of such supplies, setting prices for the goods, works and services necessary for the armed forces, selecting suppliers and contractors, as well as creating infrastructure (both in terms of logistics and assistance in ensuring the creation of directly military infrastructure, including the equipment of barracks and training grounds).

The main “personnel” news is the distribution of responsibilities between the two deputies of Mikhail Mishustin in the council.

Deputy Prime Minister and head of the government apparatus Dmitry Grigorenko will be responsible for regulatory and financial support, as well as for the “general code” of information. According to the prime minister, the council should build a “green corridor” to agree on the necessary decisions. The details of the mechanism were not disclosed on Monday, however, a similar approach as a whole has already been worked out in the “counter-sanctions” mode – in the form of a simplified procedure for the adoption of regulatory legal acts, as well as a reduction in the time for their preparation and approval (see “Kommersant” dated March 10).

The functions directly supporting the military operation are assigned to Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov. He will be responsible for the supply of weapons, military equipment, communications equipment for the targeted tasks of the Ministry of Defense, as well as the clothing of military personnel (recall, earlier it was reported about complaints from mobilized people about the lack of ammunition). Perhaps in this regard, Mikhail Mishustin on Monday instructed to build a system of control over the distribution of clothing allowances and the formation of reserves (including personnel), which would allow real-time monitoring of the level of necessary provision for the needs of those employed in the military operation.

Within the council, working groups will be created under the leadership of deputy prime ministers – they will deal, among other things, with providing the army with medicines, medical devices and food. In the regions, work, as follows from the meeting, should be built around ensuring the safety of critical infrastructure facilities, energy, transport and communications – we recall that for this, by presidential decree, the governors are given additional powers depending on the level of “readiness” (from the introduction of a special regime for the operation of hazardous industrial and infrastructure facilities in the “green” regions or restrictions and control over the operation of transport, communications and IT infrastructure in the “yellow” regions to the authority to conduct “mobilization measures in the economy” in the “red” subjects). Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who is also a member of the council for ensuring the military operation, will coordinate this direction, as in the course of the fight against covid.

Evgenia Kryuchkova