Russian government resigns after President Putin’s address

The Russian government has resigned, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announces, thus becoming the acting PM until the formation of a new government. 

Putin thanked Medvedev’s government for its work.

“I want to express satisfaction with the results that have been achieved. Not everything was done, but things never work out in full,” the president said at a meeting with the cabinet in the government house.

This happened a few hours after Putin’s annual address to parliament. It formulated three strategic ideas:

• Massive distribution of budget money to the poor

• Refusal of the sovereignty of international law over Russian laws

• Changes to the country’s constitution on the eve of the year 2024, when Putin’s constitutional term in office expires

The last point is the most important for the current Russian authorities, since all legal ways to keep Vladimir Putin as the country’s leader have been exhausted. There are two ways left:

• Constitutional change with redistribution of powers between the president and parliament

• Accession of new territories, which will give a formal reason to announce the formation of a new country with a new legislation. The obvious candidates for this role are the unrecognized DPR, LPR, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, as well as Belarus.

The possibility of combining these two ways of maintaining Putin’s power – changing the constitution and adding the new territories – is also possible.