Vladimir Putin signed Executive Order On the Government of the Russian Federation.
January 15, 2020 19:15In accordance with Article 83 (c) and part 2 of Article 117 of the Russian Federation Constitution, the President announced the resignation of the Government of the Russian Federation and appointed Dmitry Medvedev Acting Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.The Russian Government is instructed to continue fulfilling its duties until the new Government is formed.
The Executive Order comes into force upon its signing.
The President nominated Mikhail Mishustin for the post of Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin held a working meeting with Head of the Federal Taxation Service Mikhail Mishustin and proposed him to take the post of Prime Minister. Having received his consent, the President submitted the candidacy of Mikhail Mishustin for consideration to the State Duma.
Updated at 5:55 pm ESTBeen doing some reading and admittedly find the explanation below quite plausible. I'd seen information about this State Council and it's new powers... Mishustin appears to be bureaucrat (cog in the wheel) so his elevation in status is very curious.. Medvedev has long been problematic- Good analysis in my opinion.Atlantic Council
Michael Carpenter, Senior Director, Penn Biden Center; Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council:This is a classic Putin move: acting decisively at a time of his own choosing and when others around him are least expecting it. Putin’s motivations are quite clear though: namely, he seeks to retain power after the next elections in 2024 when he is constitutionally obliged to step down as Russia’s president. His proposed constitutional changes, therefore, transfer a significant chunk of executive power from the presidency to a new State Council, which he no doubt plans to chair. By appointing an unknown technocrat like Mishustin, with no power base of his own, as Prime Minister, Putin also wants to have a malleable figure in charge of the government. This means Mishustin is also the most logical candidate to succeed Putin as president since he would no doubt be perfectly content to serve even with greatly reduced presidential powers (something that can’t be said of the siloviki or of Medvedev). Also, Medvedev himself had become too brazenly corrupt, too illegitimate in the eyes of the public, and utterly devoid of any real authority among the Russian political class. The biggest unknown right now is what happens next with the Union State. Putin’s geopolitical ambition certainly remains the unification of Russia and Belarus, at a minimum. A grander plan would see the incorporation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and a maximalist variant could, at least theoretically, also include eastern Ukraine (an ambiguity that plays well to Russia’s neo-imperialist elite). If such a Union State is successfully established before 2024, then Putin would almost certainly seek to be its head of state, which he could presumably do while simultaneously serving as head of Russia’s new State Council.
Share some thoughts..From earlier: