Colonel Artyom Zhoga and Vladimir Putin. Photo: kremlin.ru
Vladimir Putin has appointed Colonel Artyom Zhoga, a military officer from Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine and the former parliamentary speaker of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk people’s republic”, as his envoy to Russia’s Ural Federal District, the Kremlin announced on Wednesday evening.
Calling the post “a big and important job”, Putin reminded Zhoga that the Urals were “an industrial region with a large number of defence industry enterprises”. As one of the eight presidential envoys, Zhoga will be charged with managing relations between the Kremlin and the multiple regions that make up the Ural Federal District.
Zhoga, 49, has seen a meteoric rise in status due to his participation in the Kremlin-administered Time of Heroes programme, which seeks to identify, train and elevate the political leaders of the future, and where his mentor was the head of the Presidential Administration Anton Vaino.
Before joining the programme, Zhoga fought alongside his son Vladimir for the Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. While Vladimir Zhoga commanded the Sparta Battalion from 2016 until his death in 2022, Zhoga took over as the battalion’s leader upon his son’s death.
During a stage-managed Kremlin reception in December, Zhoga was seen on TV asking Vladimir Putin if he would run for another presidential term, to which Putin agreed, effectively kicking off the 2024 presidential election campaign.
Zhoga reacted to his promotion by pledging to make “the maximum use of the experience and knowledge of friends and colleagues — participants of the Time of Heroes presidential programme as well as all the guys who personally participated in the special military operation, fellow deputies from Donbass.”
Zhoga will replace Putin’s previous envoy to the Urals, Vladimir Yakushev, who was relieved of his post last month and appointed as the first deputy speaker of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament.
