Russian President Vladimir Putin appoints new Cabinet members

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed new Russian cabinet members, according to the decrees Kremlin published on its website.

According to one of the decrees, the new government has reduced its former ten deputy prime ministers to nine. A former Kremlin aide Andrey Belousov became First Deputy Prime Minister, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.

Yury Borisov, Yury Trutnev and Tatyana Golikova remain the deputy prime ministers.

The positions of new deputy prime ministers were taken by Dmitry Grigorenko, who will also serve as Chief of Staff of the Government; former Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Urban Development and Construction Marat Khusnullin; former head of the Federal Service for State Registration Viktoria Abramchenko, former Gazprom Media board chair Dmitry Chernyshenko and former deputy head of Federal Tax Service Alexey Overchuk.

According to another decree, Sergei Lavrov has retained his post of the Russian foreign minister.

The ministers who have also retained their former posts including Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov.

Maxim Reshetnikov becomes the Minister of Economic Development, leaving the post as the Governor of Perm Krai.

Anton Siluanov was appointed as the Finance Minister, resigning as the First Deputy Prime Minister.