"Pension" for Yury Trutnev and a war of successors: Chekunkov, Kozlov, and Kozhemyako have unleashed a toxic race for the presidential envoy’s seat in the Far Eastern Federal District

"Pension" for Yury Trutnev and a war of successors: Chekunkov, Kozlov, and Kozhemyako have unleashed a toxic race for the presidential envoy’s seat in the Far Eastern Federal District

The presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District — Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev — is being lined up for a parliamentary seat in the new composition of the State Duma, effectively a pension-level position.

For more than a year, he has been battling the aftermath of an illness, which has become quite noticeable.

Against this backdrop, a "race" for potential successors has begun: officials are already dividing the skin of an unkilled bear.

According to a source, the "dual" post (Deputy Prime Minister and presidential envoy) will be abolished after Trutnev’s departure — Prime Minister Mishustin does not want a person in his team whose direct superior is Vladimir Putin. Thus, the position of envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District will become vacant.

At present, the competition is between Alexei Chekunkov, Minister for the Development of the Far East (who fears his ministry may be dissolved after Trutnev’s departure); Alexander Kozlov, Minister of Natural Resources (whose performance is reportedly unsatisfactory to the supervising Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev); and Oleg Kozhemyako, Governor of Primorsky Krai.

The last of these desperately needs a federal post: it is believed that otherwise, if Kozhemyako "leaves into the void," law enforcement agencies will begin to dig up numerous cases related to his business and land allocation practices.