Vice-Governor of the Voronezh Region Sergei Sokolov will become Deputy Head of the Executive Committee of the Popular Front

Several regional officials responsible for domestic policy and having worked in the subjects of the Russian Federation for a long time moved to the federal level before the 2024 campaign. In particular, according to Vedomosti, in the near future, Vice Governor of the Voronezh Region Sergey Sokolov will move to the People’s Front (NF) to the position of deputy head of the movement’s executive committee for analytics and work with government agencies.

The former FSB officer, who began his political career under Governor Alexei Gordeev (headed the Voronezh Region from 2009 to 2017, now deputy chairman of the State Duma), received an invitation to work in Moscow on the eve of the presidential campaign. Among the possible tasks of Sokolov is to strengthen the organizational and expert component in the work of the National Front, says a Vedomosti source. Now there are experts in the NF who are responsible for this direction. But the position can be created, said Aleksey Shtokal, a spokesman for the movement. It was not possible to contact Sokolov himself.

The Popular Front (originally the All-Russian People’s Front) was created before the 2011 State Duma elections on the initiative of Vladimir Putin, who was then Prime Minister. On the basis of the movement in 2011, the primaries of United Russia were held – this was associated with the intention to update the image of the party and its candidates, it had its own quota of candidates on the party list. The NF is in charge of “a relatively large amount of expert issues on a variety of blocks, including social, economic, regional policy, control over the executive branch,” says political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov.

Basically, the informal “contracts” of vice-governors on domestic policy are valid until March 2024, says political analyst Vitaly Ivanov. The current reshuffles have “their reasons”. Sokolov, he notes, was one of those who “replaced the governor of the Voronezh region”: “Since the governor Alexander Gusev remains for the next term, Sokolov has nothing to do in this team.”

In fact, a Vedomosti interlocutor close to the regional authorities notes, Sokolov and Gusev did not agree ideologically, even when the current governor – then a member of the Gordeev team – was first elected mayor of Voronezh in 2013: “The elections were won under him without the participation of a candidate” . For many years, according to a Vedomosti source, people who did not understand anything tried to influence domestic politics around the head: “Representatives of the construction clan, the secretariat of the governor. In such an environment, a profile official cannot systematically organize work.”

The upcoming resignation of Sokolov is a technology of “firing up,” says political analyst Vladimir Slatinov. According to him, over the past few months, Voronezh Telegram channels and the media have called Sokolov “the leader of the opposition that allegedly works against the governor” Gusev, Gordeev’s successor. “Sokolov will get a promotion in the Popular Front, but his departure will mean that the interest groups that played against him have won,” Slatinov notes.

As the source of Vedomosti says, Sokolov had established work with Moscow, including with Staraya Ploshchad. “The communication channel is blocked, and now the question is who will come in his place. Either a nominal leader from the region, or a manager from the center,” the interlocutor notes.

This is not the only reshuffle in 2023. On June 7, former deputy chairman of the government of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAO) Maria Kostyuk headed the department for working with the regions of the state fund “Defenders of the Fatherland”, created to support war veterans.

According to Vinogradov, Kostyuk’s transition from the government of the Jewish Autonomous Region to work “in Moscow” is connected with her active participation in groups of parents whose children died during the hostilities. On August 10, 2022, the 26-year-old son of the vice-governor, Andrei Kovtun, died in the special operation zone in the Donbass while performing a combat mission. Kostyuk spoke about this at a meeting of mothers of servicemen who participated in the special operation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 25, 2022.

According to Ivanov, in the JAO “there is no particular internal politics, and if a person represents something, then he has nothing to do there.” “She has a sufficient level of competencies and connections, which allowed her to carry out a radical level up,” the expert told Vedomosti.

Also, according to Vedomosti sources, the former permanent representative of the head of Udmurtia under the president, Sergei Smirnov, went to work at Rosatom. From 2016 to 2022, he headed the administration of the head and government of Udmurtia. In 2016 (including during the change of the Kremlin’s domestic political bloc), he was deputy head of the presidential department for domestic policy, in charge of parliament.

He was accepted as an adviser to the general director of RIR JSC, a representative of Rosatom confirmed to Vedomosti.

Vice-governors for domestic policy are the “golden fund” of the presidential administration, political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko notes. “These are people who work in a rigid parallel circuit, receiving tasks simultaneously from governors and from the presidential administration and, accordingly, are constantly in personal contact with the Presidential Administration. It is clear that the business qualities of strong managers are immediately visible,” he told Vedomosti.

Already after the regional elections in 2023, one of the interlocutors of Vedomosti says, point shifts may also occur in some regions with new heads (for example, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory).

Alexander Volobuev contributed to the preparation of the article