In the evening on May 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree over the appointment of Sergei Prikhodko as deputy prime minister and permanent chief of the government staff. These two posts were not divided, as it was expected before. Prikhodko is a specialist in international relations with a good working experience. In this respect, the experts predict for him a good future at the new post.

Vladimir Putin appointed Sergei Prikhodko upon the nomination by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said. The post became vacant on May 8, when Vladislav Surkov resigned on his own volition, succeeding “to build quite well the work of the government staff” for the past year, the Russian government said. Surkov was in charge of the work of the federal agencies, media policy, innovations and even the religion. Since May 9 Surkov’s former first deputy and prime minister’s aide for international affairs Sergei Prikhodko, who worked in the Kremlin for about 15 years, performed Surkov’s duties as the head of the government staff.

Prikhodko’s appointment as the deputy prime minister and the head of the government staff should not hardly be taken as the intention of the state authorities to strengthen the international component in the work of the executive authorities, the Kommersant daily reported. The appointment sooner resulted from the unwillingness or incapacity of the Kremlin and the government to agree on granting this post to a less technical candidate and resolve the issue of a reform in the government. Without any doubts, Sergei Prikhodko, who worked in the presidential administration for 15 years, can put into practice his own version of the government staff within several months.

If Prikhodko’s predecessor was specialized in the nuances of the home policy, working in the Kremlin for many years, the new head of the government staff devoted almost all his life to the development of the foreign policy, the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily noted. Sergei Prikhodko also has a long Kremlin working experience. The experts noted that Prikhodko has an enormous working experience, as he worked as an aide of three presidents and learnt well the niceties of the work of all branches of power and the government staff for this period of time. For the period of his work he established good working relations with the previous heads of the government staff Igor Shuvalov, Sergei Sobyanin, Anton Vaino and Vyacheslav Volodin.