Putin Fires Medvedev Ally as Kremlin Rift Grows
Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially dismissed one of his ten advisors, 52-year-old Sergei Dubik, according to a statement posted on the Kremlin’s official website today, after a briefly-worded notice to do so emerged online yesterday.
No reason has been publically given for Dubik’s dismissal, as Russian daily newspaper Vedomosti reports that the Kremlin was not available to comment on the issue when the notice was posted yesterday, however the paper highlights Dubik’s close ties to current prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, during his time as president between 2008 and 2012.
According to his public profile, Moscow-born Dubik has had a long career as a civil servant, his work spanning the start of Putin’s presidential administration in 2001, when he undertook several junior positions as an assistant or deputy of the president’s then-advisors.
In 2009, after Dmitry Medvedev briefly replaced Putin as president with the latter becoming prime minister, Dubik was promoted to Medvedev’s chief of staff and the civil service, taking on the duties of chief secretary of Medvedev’s anti-corruption commission in 2010.
Vedomosti has reported that as of last night’s sacking, a civil servant closer to Putin, Oleg Plohoi, is slated to take on Dubik’s anti-corruption duties, while Russia’s state owned agency Itar-Tass reported that Putin has no immediate replacement for Dubik in his position as advisor. Instead the Russian president will simply operate with nine advisors as opposed to ten.
http://www.newsweek.com/putin-fires-medvedev-ally-kremlin-rift-grows-307046