Putin gave a niece with no military experience a key defense job: UK Intel

• Vladimir Putin appointed a relative to a top defense position, reports say.
• The relative, Anna Tsivileva, is Russia's new state secretary of defense.
• UK intelligence said the appointment stretched even Russia's tolerance for nepotism.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to appoint a relative to a top defense role tested "even Russian tolerance for corrupt practice," the UK's ministry of defence (MoD) said.

The Kremlin announced in August that Putin had appointed Anna Tsivileva, the daughter of Putin's cousin, as the state secretary of the military.

According to the MoD, Tsivileva is often referred to as Putin's niece in Russia.

Tsivileva was appointed to the new role after being assigned the job of deputy minister in June.

The MoD said her new job is a prominent role that's "elevated above ordinary deputy defence minister" and involves overseeing the Russian defense ministry's relationship with other government departments.

However, the UK's MoD pointed out that, before last year, Tsivileva had "no known background or relationship to defence matters."

"She trained as a psychiatrist before making money in a number of medical supply companies."

"Tsivileva's original appointment in June drew muted criticism from the Russian press for the nepotism that tested even Russian tolerance for corrupt practice," the MoD said.

Sources close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg in June that Tsivileva still had personal contact with Putin, elevating her above other officials, as the Russian president has become increasingly isolated and paranoid.

According to Russian independent media outlet Insider, Tsivileva is married to Russian energy minister Sergei Tsivilev, and trained as a psychiatrist before running a mining firm and tourism business.

Ahead of her appointment to government, she ran an organisation known as Defenders of the Fatherland, which was responsible for collecting donations for Russia's war in Ukraine.

With the war in Ukraine now in its third year, Putin has, in recent months, moved to reform the Russian military and elevated loyalists to key positions.

In the wake of the humiliating incursion into Kursk by the Ukrainian military, Putin appointed his former bodyguard, Alexei Dyumin, in charge of overseeing the military operation to repel the invasion.

He nominated economist Andrei Belousov, a longtime loyalist, as defense minister in May, as part of attempts to make the ministry more efficient amid a large budget increase.

Of Tsivileva's new role, the UK's MoD said that "there is a realistic possibility that her further elevation is indicative of the increasing insularity of the Russian elite."

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