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His former bodyguard, Alexei Dyumin, has been appointed secretary of the Council of State by the Russian president. Russia is already pondering the possibility that this man might become Putin's successor.
With the exception of the period between 2008 and 2012, when he was prime minister after his second term ended and Dmitri Medvedev was president, Putin has been president of Russia without interruption. Although he remains in office, Russia is already thinking about the name of his successor. It is the name of his former bodyguard, Alexei Dyumin, who is emerging more and more emphatically in the catacombs of the Kremlin.
He was recently appointed secretary of the State Consultative Council and his appointment has prompted speculation about his possible succession. Dyumin joined the Russian Federal Guard (FSO) in 1995 and was responsible for Putin's security during his first two terms in office. From 2016 to the present, he was governor of the Tula region.
Also worth mentioning is his position as deputy head of the Russian Central Intelligence Unit (GRU) in 2014, a unit that played a key role in the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. For this, he was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2018 and by the UK in 2023, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
