Putin included heads of new regions in the State Council – Kommersant

President Vladimir Putin signed two decrees that introduced changes to the composition of the State Council and its presidium. In particular, the State Council included the heads of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

According to decree President, the State Council includes:

• head of the DPR Denis Pushilin;
• head of the LPR Leonid Pasechnik;
• Governor of the Zaporozhye region Evgeniy Balitsky;
• Governor of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo;
• Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Mikhail Kotyukov;
• head of Krasnoyarsk Vladislav Loginov;
• head of the Murmansk administration Yuri Serdechkin;
• Governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Vladislav Kuznetsov;
• Governor of the Smolensk region Vasily Anokhin;
• Governor of the Omsk region Vitaly Khotsenko.

The governors of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Perm Territory, as well as the Voronezh, Magadan, Amur and Kostroma regions retained their seats in the State Council.

To others by decree the President expanded the composition of the Presidium of the State Council. It included:

• Governor of the Belgorod Region Vyacheslav Gladkov;
• Governor of the Amur Region Vasily Orlov;
• Governor of the Kirov region Alexander Sokolov;
• Governor of the Murmansk region Andrey Chibis;
• Governor of the Kurgan Region Vadim Shumkov;
• Governor of the Krasnodar Territory Veniamin Kondratyev;
• Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Mikhail Kotyukov;
• head of Ingushetia Mahmud-Ali Maksharipovich Kalimatov;
• head of the Murmansk administration Yuri Serdechkin;
• Deputy Prime Minister and Plenipotentiary Envoy of the President of the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev.

The State Council is a constitutional and consultative body formed by the president. Its goals are “ensuring the coordinated functioning and interaction of public authorities,” as well as determining the main directions of domestic and foreign policy and priority areas of the country’s socio-economic development.

Laura Keffer