Putin Adds Defense Minister, Security Chief to Energy Commission

(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s President Vladimir Putin expanded his energy commission to include the nation’s military chief and the head of the security service that succeeded the Soviet-era KGB.

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Along with Defense Minister Andrey Belousov and Federal Security Service Chief Alexander Bortnikov, Viktor Zolotov, head of the National Guard, and former defense minister Sergei Shoigu, will also join the commission that Putin helms, according to a presidential decree published on Friday.

“Siloviki,” the Russian term for people in the security service and military, join the energy commission as the nation’s oil and gas industry — a key source of revenues for the Kremlin’s coffers — faces unprecedented pressure amid Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. This year, Russia’s downstream sector has been a target for waves of Ukrainian drone attacks, damaging crude processing units to limit fuel supplies to the front lines.

The commission is charged with ensuring Russia’s energy and environmental security and determining ways to operate the nation’s natural resources efficiently. Its members include chief executive officers of Russia’s major oil and gas companies, such as Rosneft PJSC, Lukoil PJSC, Surgutneftegas PJSC, Tatneft PJSC, Gazprom PJSC, Novatek PJSC, as well as government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who oversees the energy sector.

Previously, Foreign Intelligence Service head Sergey Naryshkin and Interior Affairs Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev were the only members of the security establishment in the energy commission and they remain its members, the presidential decree said.

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