The head of the Omsk region Alexander Burkov resigns

Until the end of the week, the Kremlin may announce the resignation of the governor of the Omsk region, Alexander Burkov. Three interlocutors close to the presidential administration told Vedomosti about this. The fact that the Kremlin discussed the resignation of Burkov, March 24 reported RBC. This will be the third gubernatorial resignation in two weeks.

When asked by Vedomosti whether the president would deal with regional issues today or tomorrow, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov replied that “he deals with it all the time,” and to a clarifying question about whether Burkov would be fired in the coming days, no answered. Burkov himself did not answer calls from Vedomosti either.

Burkov is one of two regional leaders from the Just Russia party (the other is the head of Chuvashia, Oleg Nikolaev). He became acting head of the Omsk region in October 2017. Before that, he was a deputy of the State Duma of the 5th, 6th, and 7th convocations. An interlocutor of Vedomosti, close to the presidential administration, says that there were no special complaints against Burkov, and he wrote a letter of resignation himself, explaining this by the fact that he initially planned to hold the governor’s post for one term.

Historically, due to his “political background”, Burkov’s main defender was considered the chairman of A Just Russia, Sergei Mironov, says another source close to the presidential administration. An old acquaintance of the president, Mironov, “temporarily” sent Burkov, who in 2016 was actually responsible for the party’s result in the elections to the State Duma and led its headquarters, to Omsk when such an opportunity arose. Following Burkov, some party political technologists moved to the region.

Among the politicians who wanted to lead the region, Vedomosti’s interlocutors name State Duma deputy from United Russia Igor Antropenko, representing the Omsk region, and Oleg Denisenko, deputy plenipotentiary representative in the Siberian Federal District. The latter was nominated for the post of governor of the region against United Russia governor Viktor Nazarov in 2015.

A noteworthy story occurred on February 28, when at a conference call of United Russia devoted to the overhaul of schools, Secretary of the Party General Council Andrei Turchak and Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov criticized Burkov for the fact that five schools in the region were not completed. Turchak then stated that Burkov was “more United Russia than some of our colleagues.” Burkov later replied on his Telegram channel that the problem was now being solved and promised that the construction would be completed on time.

On March 15, Vladimir Putin replaced the head of Chukotka, Roman Kopin. He was replaced by the former first deputy chairman of the government of the LPR, a native of the company “Sibur» Vladislav Kuznetsov. Kopin himself wanted to step down as head of the region for a long time, interlocutors close to the presidential administration told Vedomosti. And on March 17, the governor of the Smolensk region, Alexei Ostrovsky, one of the two governors from the Liberal Democratic Party, resigned. Vasily Anokhin, head of the regional development department of the Russian government, has been appointed to replace him as acting head of the region.