In the upper house, both senators from Crimea, Gorny Altai and Khabarovsk Krai will be replaced
On Friday evening, Dmitry Milyaev, the governor of the Tula region who took office, decided on a replacement for Senator Dmitry Savelyev, who was arrested in early August on charges of preparing a contract killing. The chair was given to the speaker of the Tula regional Duma, Nikolai Vorobyov. The governors of the Astrakhan and Samara regions, Igor Babushkin and Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, have also already decided on new senators. And two representatives from Crimea, the Altai Republic and Khabarovsk Krai will be replaced in the Federation Council.
Dmitry Milyaev had to choose a senator from two candidates: the speaker of the regional Duma, secretary of the regional branch of United Russia (ER) Nikolai Vorobyov and the head of the representative office of the state company Rostec, deputy chairman of the regional Public Chamber Konstantin Danilov. The third member of Mr. Milyaev's "senator's troika", the current representative of the Tula region in the Federation Council (SF) Dmitry Savelyev, has been under investigation since August 2. After moving to the upper house, Mr. Vorobyov will give up his regional mandate, and the regional Duma will get a new speaker. Who it will be is still unknown.
As Kommersant had predicted, the new governor of Khabarovsk Krai, Dmitry Demeshin, delegated former head of the UFSB, Lieutenant General Andrei Serezhnikov, to the Federation Council (he will replace Senator Andrei Bazilevsky). The region’s second representative in the Federation Council, SR Sergei Bezdeneshnykh, although he was re-elected to the Legislative Duma, can no longer count on an extension of his mandate in the upper house, since United Russia received a qualified majority in the elections there (see “Ъ” from September 10).
According to Kommersant's sources, Moscow Region businessman Nikolai Antonov, who was number five on the general section of the United Russia list, is being considered as the new senator. Among other candidates, Kommersant's sources name the former Minister of Economic Development of the region Viktor Kalashnikov (number four on the list) and the head of the regional Kyokushinkai Federation and participant in the special operation Vsevolod Mokhirev (who ran in a single-mandate constituency).
There is little information about Mr. Antonov in open sources. website He is listed in United Russia as the deputy director of a municipal institution in the village of Zeleny Gorodok (Pushkinsky District, Moscow Region). In 2014, he unsuccessfully ran for the city council of his native Shchyolkovo on the Communist Party list, and in 2022, he registered an individual entrepreneur in Komsomolsk-on-Amur (selling household electrical appliances).
Kommersant's sources in the regional branch of United Russia preferred not to comment on the biography of the likely senator. Another Kommersant source, not affiliated with the ruling party, said that Mr. Antonov is close to Dmitry Demeshin: the latter worked in Shchyolkovo from 1999 to 2006, rising from senior investigator to deputy city prosecutor.
In Crimea, the replacement of both senators also took place, which was announced back in the summer (see “Ъ” of July 25). Instead of Olga Kovitidi (representative of the head of the republic Sergey Aksenov) and Sergey Tsekov (representative of the State Council), a participant in the special operation, Hero of Russia Yuri Nimchenko and grandmaster Sergey Karyakin were appointed. Let us recall that following the results of the autumn elections in the Federation Council, two more participants of the SVO may appear - former Tambov senator Colonel Alexey Kondratyev, who was proposed by the new governor of the Kursk region Alexey Smirnov (he will take office on September 16), as well as Hero of Russia Amyr Argamakov, nominated by the new head of the Altai Republic Andrey Turchak (the inauguration date has not yet been determined).
By the way, Gorny Altai will become another region this year where both senators will be replaced at once. According to the local election commission, after the results of the vote in the elections to the State Assembly (parliament) of the republic were summed up, the current senator Tatyana Gigel was left without a mandate. It is still unknown who will replace her in the SF.
As Kommersant predicted, the place of Sevastopol Legislative Assembly Senator Sergei Kolbin will soon be taken by Larisa Melnik, head of the city branch of the People's Front. This was announced on Wednesday by Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev. Also, on September 12, Astrakhan Region Governor Igor Babushkin appointed a new representative to the Federation Council. As Kommersant predicted, former Ukrainian People's Deputy Andrey Derkach was elected to the upper house instead of Senator Alexander Bashkin. And the new Samara Region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev on Friday delegated Marina Sidukhina, head of the Provincial Duma Committee on Healthcare, Demography, and Social Policy, to the Federation Council. Initially, it was assumed that the current senator Farit Mukhametshin would be replaced by former regional head Dmitry Azarov, however, as Kommersant's sources in the regional government say, some "risks" prevented this.
Let us add that on September 8, new senators were appointed by the heads of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and Ingushetia, Ruslan Kukharuk and Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov, elected through parliaments. The former sent the former head of the district Natalia Komarova to the Federation Council (replacing Eduard Isakov), the latter - the permanent representative of the republic to the President of the Russian Federation Mikail Ilezov (replacing Mukharbek Barakhoev).
