Russian President Vladimir Putin has carried out a major reshuffle of top regional officials after the government sacked the country’s scandal-tainted customs chief.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed off on the resignation of customs head Andrei Belyaninov – a former KGB agent who served in East Germany in the 1980s along with Putin – after security agents this week searched his offices and home over the alleged smuggling of high-end liquors.
Belyaninov was replaced by Vladimir Bulavin – a former deputy chief in the FSB security agency – who headed the country’s northwestern district, with his appointment setting off a chain of further moves.
Putin shifted another FSB boss to head the strategically sensitive Kaliningrad region and made a senior interior ministry official governor of another central region in changes that strengthened the power of security apparatchiks.
“This is the personal decision of the head of state. He has shown his faith” in them, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The spokesman has insisted that the shuffle was just part of a “normal cyclical rotation” and was not connected to parliamentary and regional elections due in September.
Former customs chief Belyaninov has not been charged yet over the alcohol smuggling investigation but media released images of investigators rifling through shoeboxes stuffed with cash in his grandiose villa.
Analysts say the probe into the customs service is part of a broader struggle inside Russia’s security organs after a recent personnel shakeup.
“High-profile anti-corruption revelations of recent weeks involving the security services reflect the changed alignment of forces in the upper echelons of power,” business newspaper  Vedomosti wrote in an editorial.
Other recent high-profile graft probes have seen a regional governor – who was also dismissed by Putin yesterday – detained at a Moscow restaurant with hundreds of thousands of euros and investigators held by the FSB for allegedly taking bribes from mob bosses.