On Thursday, July 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a number of the largest personnel changes in recent times, and also decided to unite the Southern and Crimean federal districts.

In order to increase the efficiency of the activities of federal government bodies, I decree: to transform the Southern Federal District and the Crimean Federal District into the Southern Federal District, to appoint Vladimir Vasilyevich Ustinov as the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Southern Federal District, says the Decree of the head of state dedicated to the unification of the Southern Federal District.

Thus, now the list of regions included in the Southern District has expanded to two subjects of the Russian Federation, it now includes: Adygea, Kalmykia, Crimea, Krasnodar Territory, Astrakhan, Volgograd and Rostov regions, as well as the federal city of Sevastopol.

Crimea and Sevastopol, we recall, became part of the Russian Federation following a referendum in March 2014: then reunification with Russia was supported by 96.77 percent of the inhabitants of the peninsula (more than 1.2 million people). The United States and EU countries did not recognize the results of the referendum and introduced sanctions against the new region of Russia.

Now the former presidential envoy to Crimea, Oleg Belaventsev, was transferred by another Decree to a similar position in the North Caucasus Federal District, and his predecessor in the Caucasus, Sergei Melikov, was appointed first deputy director of the Russian National Guard.

Meanwhile, the question of the location of the main residence of the plenipotentiary mission of the united Southern Federal District remains open.

We do not comment on presidential decisions, and it is not yet known whether Rostov-on-Don will remain the capital of the district: this issue was worked out earlier, but the result of its discussion is not disclosed at the moment, they told the newspaper “KP” - Rostov-on-Don. Don" in the office of the plenipotentiary representative of the head of state in the Southern Federal District.

Earlier, we would like to remind you that there were rumors about the transfer of the district capital from Rostov to Krasnodar, but they were not confirmed at that time. Whether anything will change in this regard now is not yet clear.

Another source told Komsomolskaya Pravda that Rostov will still continue to be the administrative center of the district: it occupies the most favorable geographical location and has the necessary infrastructure. However, according to some reports, the plenipotentiary will also receive a residence in Crimea.

Let us recall that the representative office of the Russian President in the Southern Federal District appeared in 2000, and the first plenipotentiary representative then became the ex-commander of the North Caucasus Military District Viktor Kazantsev, who served in this post for four years.

Then, for the next three years, Dmitry Kozak worked as plenipotentiary representative (then left for the post of Minister of Regional Development, currently Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation), after him this post was held for a little less than a year by Grigory Rapota (then he headed the Volga Federal District, now he is Secretary of State Union State of Russia and Belarus).

And finally, ex-Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Vladimir Ustinov became the fifth head of the Southern Federal District in May 2008. Under him, by a decree of Dmitry Medvedev, who held the post of head of state at that time, the North Caucasian Federal District with the administrative center in Pyatigorsk was separated from the Southern Federal District.

FROM THE KP DOSSIER

Vladimir Vasilyevich Ustinov was born on February 25, 1953 (he is 63 years old) in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur (Khabarovsk Territory), from where the family soon moved to Kuban. His father was a deputy prosecutor in the Kurganinsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. At the age of 15, he went to work as a tool turner at the Korenovsky sugar factory. After serving in the army, he followed in his father’s footsteps, graduating from the Kharkov Law Institute.

From 1978 to 1992 Ustinov worked in the district prosecutor's offices of the Krasnodar Territory, then for five years he was a prosecutor in Sochi, in the last three years combining this position with the post of 1st Deputy Prosecutor of the Krasnodar Territory.

Since October 15, 1997, he served as Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. From June 1998 to April 1999, he was the head of the Main Directorate of the Prosecutor General's Office for supervision of the implementation of federal security laws and interethnic relations in the North Caucasus.

On July 29, 1999 he was appointed acting. O. Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, and from May 17, 2000, after approval in this position by the Federation Council, until June 2, 2006, he served as Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation.

The Prosecutor General's Office of Vladimir Ustinov was marked by a number of high-profile cases - the investigation of terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk, the case of Media Bridge and Vladimir Gusinsky, the investigation into the death of the Kursk submarine, the case of Yukos and Khodorkovsky, the criminal prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko.

In 2001, an unprecedented event occurred: Prosecutor General Ustinov, for the first time in the history of modern Russia, acted as a state prosecutor in the trial against terrorist Salman Raduev. This also includes high-profile anti-corruption cases, the most striking of which, perhaps, is the arrest and indictment of the governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug Alexei Barinov.

Since May 14, 2008 - Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Southern Federal District.

Married, he has a daughter and a son.

The press service of the presidential envoy in the Southern Federal District hastened to refute rumors about the imminent change of the district capital, and the plenipotentiary himself. However, it has already happened more than once: after the refutation of political gossip, it is followed by its implementation. Well, the expert community, meanwhile, is arguing how successfully and effectively Vladimir Ustinov worked, if rumors about his resignation are spreading so rapidly.

Southern Federal District as a cover operation?

The most discussed political news in recent days has been the “moving” of the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District from Rostov-on-Don to Krasnodar. More precisely, not the “move” itself, but rumors about such a personnel reshuffle. For the first time, several Rostov publications reported this with reference to an unnamed source in the plenipotentiary’s office on Monday morning, then the news was picked up at the federal level.

Insiders reported details of the upcoming reform: the capital of the federal district will not only move to Krasnodar, but the plenipotentiary representative himself will also change - the place of the current Vladimir Ustinov will take Alexander Tkachev, who now heads the Russian Ministry of Agriculture.

Among other things, Krymsky, the youngest and smallest in the country, can supposedly be annexed to the Southern District (let us recall, it is headed by Oleg Belaventsev). In this regard, moving the capital of the Southern Federal District seems quite logical, since from there it is easier to manage overseas territories, as well as oversee the largest investment project of the decade - the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait worth 230 billion rubles.

The press service of Vladimir Ustinov has already denied rumors about a possible change of the plenipotentiary representative and the transfer of the district capital to Krasnodar.

“Such rumors appear once every six months. What didn’t they do to us! Last year, for example, the presidential office in the Southern Federal District was “merged” with the Volga Federal District. Apparently, someone got bored again,” journalists quote a press service employee, again unnamed. Which again leads to suspicion: what if this is just a “cover operation.”

Hardware games love silence

The Southern Federal District appeared on the map in 2000, and few people remember that it was originally supposed to be called the North Caucasus. In full accordance with this name, the first plenipotentiary was the commander of the North Caucasus Military District, staff general Victor Kazantsev, four years later, this chair was quickly occupied by the former governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Yakovlev, and then - Dmitry Kozak, who is perhaps the most memorable among the plenipotentiaries.

Kozak is not a military man, but among journalists he received the nickname “Governor General” because he was a strict supporter of the “vertical of power.” It was he who proposed creating a rating system for evaluating governors (later it was adopted by the Ministry of Regional Development, which the former plenipotentiary headed in September 2007). Kozak also demanded that the political freedom of governors be linked to the level of subsidies and the current economic success of his region. They were afraid of the strong-willed plenipotentiary representative, but sometimes they went against him - the Caucasus, after all...

In January 2007, thanks to him, he actually forced the resignation of the head of Adygea, a gold miner, one of the richest people in the South of Russia Khazret Sovmena. Sovmen was an opponent of the unification of Adygea and the Krasnodar Territory, which Dmitry Kozak insisted on - however, as we know, it never took place.

The post of Governor General was taken over by a career intelligence officer in the fall of 2007. Grigory Rapota, but he did not work in office for long, becoming the presidential plenipotentiary envoy in the Volga Federal District. Well, the “southerner” turned out to be the former Prosecutor General and former Minister of Justice Vladimir Ustinov. For Ustinov, of course, it was more comfortable to work not in Rostov-on-Don, but in Krasnodar, since he himself - for those who have forgotten - came from Kuban.

Perhaps this is precisely why Ustinov’s low public activity is connected: he appears mostly at protocol events, communicates with the press very rarely, and does not shine with bright initiatives. Perhaps the most recent is that the plenipotentiary inspects the construction of the Rostov Arena stadium, which is being built on the left bank of the Don for the 2018 World Cup.

It's the retinue that makes the king

This political aphorism is known to everyone. Including in the southern plenipotentiary mission: all four of Ustinov’s deputies are long-lived staff (by the way, after the creation of the Southern Federal District, the plenipotentiary representative had seven deputies, among whom one personally controlled Chechnya, and another one controlled the rest of the regions of the North Caucasus).

Alexander Akulchev has held this position for almost seven years (and was previously assistant to the plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District), Leonid Belyak- six years, and Vladimir Gurba- five. The only newcomer to the team is Anton Kalinin, appointed deputy plenipotentiary in August last year. By the way, he is a former employee of the prosecutor’s office, and Kalinin replaced him in the position of deputy plenipotentiary Alexandra Murzina, who, in turn, was the head of the affairs department of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia.

A native of the prosecutor's office and Leonid Belyak, who worked as the prosecutor of the Volgograd region, and then as an adviser to the prosecutor general for the Southern Federal District and the North Caucasian Federal District. Let us recall that at that time the Deputy Prosecutor General for these two territories was Ivan Sydoruk, who back in the mid-2000s had a tough administrative conflict with Vladimir Ustinov - the reason was checks on the illegal distribution of land in the Moscow region.

Even today, as you can see, in many ways Ustinov remains a hostage to the hardware games of yesteryear. Many people from the team of the current plenipotentiary now occupy high positions in regional authorities. Let's say, former deputy plenipotentiary Vladimir Zhukov appointed deputy chairman of the Chamber of Control and Accounts of the Rostov region, another deputy Nikolay Fedoryak- Senator from the government of the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug (KhMAO), Valery Shnyakin- Senator from the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Suleiman Vagapov- Deputy General Director of the North Caucasus Resorts Corporation...

And this is only a small part of the eminent people from the inner circle of Ustinov, who remains the longest-serving plenipotentiary representative in Russia - he has been in office for the ninth year. With such a large number of hardware connections, Ustinov is undoubtedly unshakable. The reason for his resignation can only be some obvious failure - but so far the Kremlin is apparently completely satisfied with the absence of noticeable conflicts in the district entrusted to him. And the successful implementation of megaprojects: thus, on the eve of the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Vladimir Ustinov became an honorary citizen of the resort city. Well, before the World Cup, it seems that he will also become an honorary citizen of Rostov and Volgograd.

internal political process, the struggle of regional and local elites for the opportunity to make socially important decisions, access to power and financial resources. The inconsistency and instability of one or another system of regional power continues to depend largely on the local political situation; the regional constitutional process is not completed and will develop mainly depending on the specific constellation of endogenous factors of political reality.

4. OFFICE OF THE Plenipotentiary REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE SOUTHERN FEDERAL DISTRICT

The Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the federal district is an official representing the President of the Russian Federation, who ensures the implementation of the constitutional powers of the head of state within the relevant federal district, and helps to increase the efficiency of the activities of federal government bodies and improve the system of control over the implementation of their decisions.

The institution of the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the federal district was introduced by Presidential Decree, where

the main tasks solved by the authorized representative in the course of his activities were identified. These include: organization in the relevant federal district of work to implement by government bodies the main directions of the state’s domestic and foreign policy, determined by the President of the Russian Federation; organizing control over the implementation in the federal district of decisions of federal government bodies; ensuring the implementation of the personnel policy of the President of the Russian Federation in the federal district; submitting regular reports to the President of the Russian Federation on ensuring national security in the federal district, as well as on

political and economic situation in the federal district, submitting relevant proposals to the President of the Russian Federation.

In its activities, the Institute of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Southern Federal District uses the tactic of finding a compromise. This tactic is being implemented in three directions, corresponding to the area of ​​​​common interests of the constituent entities of the Southern Federal District.

The reduction of interethnic tensions in the economic sphere is facilitated by the shared use of resources of the constituent entities of the Southern Federal District. It is necessary to reach a compromise on this problem, which will contribute to the development of economic ties between various territories of the federal subjects. The efficient use of federal property, subsoil and biological resources is a priority direction of regional economic policy. Another indicator of the reduction in interethnic tension in the economic sphere of the constituent entities of the Southern Federal District is employment. The problem remains the low standard of living of the population living in the district. The executive authorities of the territories have not ensured the repayment of arrears of wages, child benefits and other social payments. A solution to this problem is possible in the case of the development of industrial and agro-industrial complexes in the region, which contribute to the creation of new jobs and regular payment of wages.

Thus, indicators of reducing interethnic tension in the economic sphere are the shared use of resources of the constituent entities of the Southern Federal District and an increase in employment of the population.

The activities of the office of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Southern Federal District in this area are implemented through reaching a compromise on the shared use of federal property, subsoil and biological resources of the district's subjects, as well as organizing loans and funds from regional budgets for the development of industrial and agro-industrial complexes in the region, which contributes to the creation of new jobs and

regular payment of wages. The prospects for carrying out this activity in the economic sphere are determined in the federal target program “South of Russia” until 2005, the main task of which is to ensure a unified federal economic, market and financial space in the territory of the district. It includes 584 projects worth 110 billion rubles: only 10 billion of them come from the federal budget, the rest from local ones and investments.

The next area of ​​activity of the institution of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Southern Federal District, which helps reduce interethnic tensions in the social sphere, is solving the problem of settling refugees and internally displaced persons. In terms of the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons in the last decade, the Southern Federal District has turned out to be the undisputed leader in the Russian Federation. The consequences of such massive and poorly regulated migration were extremely high competition in the labor market, sharply increased loads on the social sphere, and inevitable interethnic clashes of an everyday nature. In these conditions, the activities of the office of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Southern Federal District are aimed at organizing conditions in accordance with social federal programs and providing additional resources from the regional budget. The study of existing problems and the accumulated information base made it possible to formulate proposals to federal government bodies. Information and analytical materials on the problems of forced migrants from the Chechen Republic have been sent to the government of the Russian Federation. The study of the organization of work of state authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation within the Southern Federal District to ensure social protection of the families of military personnel who died or were injured in the line of duty made it possible to formulate measures to eliminate the shortcomings of this work.

Thus, in the social sphere, the functioning of the institution of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Southern Federal District is associated with solving the problem of settling refugees and internally displaced persons.

The reduction of interethnic tension is implemented by this structure by studying the organization of the work of government bodies of the constituent entities of the Southern Federal District to ensure social protection of this category of the population. In accordance with the federal target program “South of Russia”, the strategic directions for solving this problem will be the settlement of forced migrants from the Chechen Republic; construction of settlements, housing, schools, infrastructure development in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania; development of mountain zone infrastructure in the Republic of Dagestan.

The third area of ​​activity of the institution of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Southern Federal District, which helps reduce interethnic tensions in the political sphere, is the coordination of the actions of territorial authorities. The interaction of the office of the plenipotentiary representative with the heads of territorial bodies of federal ministries and departments in Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkessia is carried out during working meetings with an established system of mutual exchange of information that allows coordinating common actions. Deputy plenipotentiary representatives took direct part in the selection of personnel for heads of territorial bodies of federal

authorities in the Chechen Republic. Together with the Provisional Administration of the Chechen Republic, the Regulations on the certification of civil servants in the Chechen Republic have been developed and are being implemented. It was possible to intensify such interaction through the work of the College of Territorial Bodies of Federal Executive Bodies, the Council of Elders, the Advisory Council and the Council on Cossack Problems under the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Southern Federal District. Using all the variety of forms of organizational work in the executive power system - coordination of activities, interaction, coordination, joint developments, the organizational management of the office of the plenipotentiary representative ensured the implementation of specific measures to strengthen the executive vertical, the formation of proactive and responsible government structures.