Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for a long war with Ukraine and the West, which would be due to his unexpected decision to replace his faithful Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, with an economist who will be in charge of modernizing the military industry.

“It is your right, if you want to (solve the crisis) on the battlefield, because it will be on the battlefield,” Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, said on Monday, when speaking before the International Affairs Committee of the Russian Senate.

The information bomb that exploded on Sunday night had a greater impact because of the name of its substitute, the gray economist Andrei Belousov, in charge of the Government for the production of drones, an aspect in which Kiev has a clear advantage.

Belousov, whose candidacy will be endorsed on Tuesday by the Senate, will now have to manage a war economy with a defense budget of 6.7%, similar to that of the USSR in the last years of the Cold War.

Putin always defended the criticism of Shoigu, who was vilified by the absence of a clear strategy on the battlefield, especially since the campaign stalled in July 2022.

Shoigu, who in twelve years in office also led the military operation in Syria, played a very useful role for the Kremlin, since he served as a parapet against attacks by hawks such as the late founder of the Wagner company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who accused him of “criminal negligence.”

The Russian leader made changes in the generalate after the withdrawals of Kherson and Kharkov, and the armed rebellion of Prigozhin in June 2023, but had patience with Shoigu.

What he didn’t forgive was corruption. Shoigu’s right-hand man, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, was arrested on April 23 after being accused of large-scale corruption.

“The cleaning has begun in the Ministry of Defense, but it will continue,” said Sergey Mironov, a social democratic leader and friend of Prigozhin.

According to experts, since then the fate of the Minister of Defense was cast. He said goodbye when he directed the Victory Day military stop over Nazi Germany in the Red Square on May 9.

All Russia’s defense ministers since Putin arrived at the Kremlin in 2000 have been civilians, but Belousov was a more than unlikely candidate, since he has no military experience, according to the press.

In fact, in his first public appearance on Monday before the Senate defense and security committee, Belousov answered questions about the social problems faced by soldiers when they return from the front.

“He is a civilian, he is not a soldier. The military actions, the special military operation, the command, is directed by the General Staff under the command of the Supreme Commander. There is no change here, the work continues. No one should be worried,” said Valentina Matviyenko, president of the Senate.

It is an open secret that it is Putin and the Chief of Staff, Valeri Guerásimov, who set the military strategy and priorities on the battlefield.

The change in Defense coincides with the current Russian offensive in the Donbas and in the northeastern region of Kharkov, where Russian troops have opened a second front by conquering several Ukrainian localities.

Putin’s decision, a little friend of the purges within the government, adds to the surprising replacement of Nikolai Patrushev, one of the most influential figures in the hard core of the Kremlin.

Pátrushev, one of the ideologues of the narrative that Ukraine has no right to exist, ceased to be secretary of the Security Council, since he will now assume Shoigu.

The risk of technocrats like Belousov, not always supporters of the use of force, is compensated by their effective management of resources and their limited fondness for conspiracies, as happened with the generals who supported the Prigozhin uprising.

In fact, the new minister will have to strengthen the links between the Armed Forces and the defense industry, which will be the locomotive of the economy, since the victory in the war and the viability of social programs depends on it.

The weapons factories have hired more than half a million people “in just over a year,” as the new first deputy prime minister, Denis Manturov, admitted today.

According to the Russian press in exile and the Institute for the Study of War, everything indicates that Putin is preparing for a long military campaign that will require very careful management of state resources, as long as oil prices are above $60.

The new standards for applying for asylum announced this week by the United States Government arouse desolation among activists and migrants who wait in shelters or next to the Rio Bravo, on the northern border of Mexico.

Pastor Gigio Heredia, representative of the Humanitarian Hub Center in Ciudad Juárez, bordering El Paso, warned EFE that this measure will cause more and more migrants to cross irregularly through the Rio Bravo with the risks that this entails.

“We have seen it again and again, every time migrants arrive here with us we see that, encountering so many restrictions, seeing all the refusals to be able to get to the place where they thought since they left their places, it is a strong blow to the mood and especially to the dreams they had,” he said.

The activist referred to the rule promulgated by the Joe Biden Government to instruct migrant agents to prohibit people considered a “risk to public or national security” from applying for asylum and being, therefore, admitted within the United States, although the rule is still under review.

These filters are already applied when studying asylum cases, but this new measure allows them to be used during the “credible fear” interview phase, where it is decided if a person meets the requirements to request protection after crossing the border with Mexico.

The rule has consequences for border cities in Mexico, such as Ciudad Juárez, since “every decision made by the United States Government on the migration issue in one way or another has repercussions on the border, since this would close the door to many families who would have to stay,” according to Heredia.

The religious pointed out that, when faced with so many laws and restrictions, migrants go into despair. For this reason, they take riskier routes and expose themselves to organized crime.

“They are a prisoner for organized crime since they are vulnerable, we have had many cases where we have seen that their belongings have been stolen, where they have been outraged they have been threatened and that is a risk for them,” he said.

Likewise, he considered that “they would be forced to spend some time here and that would cause contingencies, a greater number of migrants stranded here at the border.”

The rules occur in the midst of growing operations to stop migrants in the United States and Mexico. In the first quarter of 2024, irregular migration intercepted by the Mexican Government grew by about 200% per year to almost 360,000.

Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed at the end of April to “work together to immediately implement concrete measures in order to significantly reduce irregular border crossings and at the same time protect human rights.”

This already has effects on migrants such as Denis Ramos. A Guatemalan who has been waiting for four months in a hostel in Juárez for his appointment to enter the United States.

For him, the news of the tightening of the rules for applying for asylum is “very hard”.

“It is quite complicated for those of us who are already here, as well as for those who are on their way, because there are some who are not aware of the news and every day it gets a little more complicated,” the migrant told EFE.

He added that many travel companions are already desperate in the face of the difficulty of the journey, so they prefer to risk an irregular crossing.

“We who come from Guatemala, which is a neighboring country, feel that it is ‘very distant’ (too far away), let’s not say they come from Colombia, Venezuela, from different countries of the world. The course of the trip already brings them desperate and that leads them to surrender once and for all,” he said.

The European Union gave the definitive green light on Monday to extend for one more year, from next June 6 to June 5, 2025, the suspension of tariffs and quotas on imports of Ukrainian products as a measure to support Kiev in the face of Russian aggression.

This measure, approved by the Council of the EU (the countries), is a “vital” support of the Union for the Ukrainian economy in the face of the “devastation caused by Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression,” said the executive vice president of the European Commission and head of Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, in a statement.

The suspension of tariffs for one more year, to which the plenary of the European Parliament had given its approval on April 23, will guarantee “that we keep Ukrainian products in circulation, taking into account at the same time the concerns of the EU agri-food sector,” Dombrovskis said.

The new extension includes safeguard measures to protect certain European products, essentially agricultural, in the event that Ukrainian imports not subject to tariffs generate problems in their local markets, something that some States had complained about in recent months.

“Thanks to the income generated by Ukrainian exports to and through the EU, Ukraine will have more financial means to win this war and will be in a stronger position to recover from it,” said the Community executive vice president.

The suspension of tariffs and exports of Ukrainian cereals by the so-called European solidarity lines have made it possible that, despite the war, trade in Ukrainian products has remained relatively stable, the European Commission stressed in a statement.

EU imports from Ukraine amounted to 22.8 billion euros in 2023, compared to 24 billion euros in 2021, just before the war that broke out in 2022.

According to what was approved in the EU, the Commission can act quickly and impose any measure it deems necessary if there is a significant disturbance in the Union market as a whole or in the markets of one or more Member States of the Community club as a result of Ukrainian imports.

As part of the reinforced safeguard measures to protect the farmers of the Twenty-seven, the Commission can activate “an emergency brake” for particularly sensitive agricultural products such as poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, grains, corn and honey.

If imports of these products exceed the average volume of imports recorded in the second half of 2021 and all of 2022 and 2023, tariffs may be reimposed.