What are Andrey Belousov's main priorities as Russia's newly appointed Defence Minister?

Russia’s new defence minister Andrey Belousov, appointed by Putin in May 2024 instead of Sergey Shoigu, was supposed to improve the efficiency of the Russian military logistics and supply, and liquidate rampant theft — but by the looks of it, the task was insurmountable.

After 2 years of war, Russia faced exacerbating lack of funds for the army, and Putin — who absolutely loathes replacing his top managers — ordered to cut down theft in the ministry of defence.

The goal was obviously to make it better, but as it habitually happens in Russia, he only made it worse.

The thing is: Russia is built on corruption.
Corruption is not a bug — it’s the foundation of the system.
Remove corruption — and the system folds.

• Anything that was done or built in Russia, was done or built by contractors who were allowed to triple-quadruple the fair contract price.
• The contractor was giving a sizable kickback to the defence official who gave him the job (often not just in the form of cash but also as materials and labor, building him an estate, doing a renovation, etc.).
• But the job was done.

In April-May 2024, Putin demoted defence minister Shoigu and arrested several of his deputies, who were managing these schemes.

And of course, as the result, the system, built by Shoigu since 2012, immediately collapsed.

• Those contractors who could emigrate, immediately left Russia.
• They took top secret defence construction plans with them, so they had something to trade in exchange for security in the West.
• Now the West knows about all these secret arsenals and bunkers, and this means they all would have to be rebuilt. That’s a job that will take a decade or more.
• Meanwhile, the contractors who couldn’t emigrate, are busy erasing traces of theft and hiding their money — and aren’t interested in new contracts with the defence ministry, justifiably fearing it would only expose them further.
• There is also no money in it for them anymore because of the change in fiscal policy — and in the situation of rampant inflation (Russia’s base interest rate is currently 20% — and growing), it’s likely they could lose money on defence projects, not make money.
• Other contractors have no security clearance. They also worry about potential profit and loss, and consequences if someone doesn’t like the result (contractors can potentially be charged with treason).

As the result, Russia’s military construction and logistics stalled.

And Belousov is the fall guy.