Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen his top aide and former chief bodyguard to oversee the defense of the attacked area of Kursk, a Russian parliament member has said.
“In fact, Alexei Gennadievich Dyumin was summoned yesterday and given the responsibility of supervising the counter-terrorism operation,” Ivanov told RTVI.
Ivanov said Putin had instructed Dyumin to oversee the military operation in Kursk, with its main objective being to drive out Ukrainian forces who invaded Russia’s border region last week.
The Kremlin has not officially announced Dyumin’s appointment.
Bloomberg also reported that Dumin had been appointed to the role, citing two anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
The Kremlin’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular business hours.
Dyumin attended a meeting on Monday about the Kursk invasion with Putin and top brass including military commander Valery Gerasimov and Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov.
The Kremlin listed Dyumin as a “presidential advisor.”
Dyumin, sitting second from Putin’s right, attended a top Russian briefing on the Kursk invasion.
Dyumin, 51, served as Putin’s chief bodyguard and aide during the president’s early years as Russian leader.
Among his reported feats is when he used a pistol to scare off a bear that was trying to enter Putin’s quarters while he was sleeping.
Around 2014, he was appointed director of Russia’s special forces and played a key role in the annexation of Crimea, then served as deputy minister of defense for a month in 2015, and was appointed governor of Tula Oblast in 2016.
He was appointed secretary of the State Council, an advisory body to the Russian president, in May, putting him back at Putin’s side.
A relative junior member of Putin’s inner circle, Dyumin is seen as the leader’s favorite, and extensive state media coverage of the former bodyguard and his rapid rise through the Russian leadership has fueled speculation he could be named Putin’s successor.
There were rumors that Dyumin helped broker a deal to buy the Wagner Group’s now-deceased boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, from Russia when he launched a rebellion against Putin, a claim that his spokesman previously denied.
He also plays ice hockey with the Russian leader, often as the opposing team’s goalkeeper, leading some sports observers to criticize his job on the ice as simply helping Putin score goals.
Reports that he had been appointed head of the Kursk defense came after Russian military bloggers and journalists wrote earlier this week that they had received similar news, though many were unable to verify it at the time.
Rybar, a popular pro-war Telegram channel, wrote that Dyumin’s new role showed that Putin’s entourage was gaining “full control of the situation” in resolving the Kursk crisis.
“Dyumin is a close aide to Putin. He will not allow the president to be deceived by reports to himself or others,” Alexander Sladkov, a military correspondent for state media, wrote on Tuesday.
It is unclear how Dyumin’s appointment will affect the Kursk-related role of FSO Bortnikov, who was initially thought to have been appointed last week to oversee counter-invasion operations.
“Dyumin’s suspected appointment has sparked speculation among Russian military bloggers and political commentators that Putin is disappointed in Russia’s security services and that a military reshuffle may be on the horizon,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues its offensive in Kursk, with its forces believed to be fighting behind Russian defense lines.
Kiev has been relatively silent about how successful the operation has been, but said on Monday that it had seized about 400 square miles of Russian territory in just a few days, capturing 28 villages.
