It was a announced dismissal. After several months of rumors, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, dismissed on Wednesday the governor of the Belgorod region, Viacheslav Gladkov, one of the most beloved politicians among his compatriots for his management and independence at the head of the most bombed province in that country during the war unleashed against Ukraine. The Russian leader has also removed from office another governor, that of Bryansk, a territory also bordering Ukraine.
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The Kremlin decree approving the dismissals claims that both have left office on their own initiative, although the leaks about Gladkov’s dismissal and the name of his replacement, which had been circulating for months, have been confirmed point by point.
Putin has appointed on an interim basis at the head of Belgorod a veteran of this war, General Alexander Shuvayev, one of the military personnel who have entered the government program Time of Heroes to be gradually introduced into the administration. Meanwhile, the leadership of Bryansk is assumed by Yegor Kovalchuk, president in the last two years of the administration imposed in the occupied province of Luhansk.
Viacheslav Gladkov, 57 years old, one of the governors trained for this position by a special program of the Presidential Administration in the past decade, assumed the governorship of Belgorod in 2020. It is the province closest to Ukraine: barely 80 kilometers separate its capital from Kharkiv. Gladkov did not know then that he was taking the reins of a province in which, in these more than four years of war, at least 509 Russian civilians have died.
The former governor of Belgorod managed to project a close image to his neighbors during the Ukrainian bombings, and his approval in official polls reached over 90%. In one of his last messages, hours before his dismissal became known, he announced the delivery “by order of Vladimir Putin” of 2 billion rubles, about 23 million euros, to 315 families from villages affected by the attacks, to buy new homes.
However, the shadow of corruption also loomed over Gladkov’s team, although authorities sometimes use it to remove inconvenient politicians. The team of the still governor announced on Wednesday morning that it was removing its vice governor, Rustem Zainullin, responsible for Properties and Lands, “due to loss of trust” after being accused of alleged misappropriation of funds intended for the construction of defensive structures in the region. A similar case had led to the dismissal and arrest of the governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, after the successful Ukrainian offensive in 2024 in his territory.
Gladkov gained great popularity at the expense of criticizing the government itself. When Russian authorities began cutting internet in several regions due to the alleged threat of drones, the governor was one of the few Russian politicians to denounce the measure. He declared that the alert system for citizens failed because of that blockade, and even read on his program, Direct Line, the request of some of his neighbors to judge those responsible for Roskomnadzor, the federal agency that monitors telecommunications.
Weeks later, Gladkov even extended his criticisms to the Kremlin-created alternative to Whatsapp and its intelligence services, the Max messaging app, for failing to warn of Ukrainian bombings, and demanded the lifting of the blockade on Telegram, whose channels are one of the main sources of information for Russians.
According to sources from the independent media Vazhnie Istorii, Gladkov’s criticisms of the federal government ultimately cost him his position.
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