The "DPR" announced the transition of all ministries and departments to Russian standards. What exactly is meant is not explained. Perhaps the “Minister of Justice of the DPR” Yuri Sirovatko is referring to the transition to Russian standards for document management and the regulatory framework for office work, but it is still not completely clear.
According to him, the process of transition to Russian standards is a "reformation of the republican government apparatus."
In addition, Russian officials began to be appointed to the governing structures of the LDNR. In particular, Vitaly Khotsenko, a native of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, became the prime minister of the republic. This is not the first time that the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has become a "forge of personnel" for disputed territories. In 2016 (after the annexation of Crimea), Dmitry Ovsyannikov was appointed to the post of acting governor of Sevastopol, who, for the sake of this, left the post of deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov.
As political scientist Abbas Gallyamov explained to The Insider, in this way the Russian authorities are building the system of governance in Donbass practically from scratch.
“The old managers cannot be the basis of the new system – they overwhelmingly retained their loyalty to Ukraine,” says Gallyamov. – Those local personnel who ended up at the disposal of the Russian authorities are unable to create anything on their own – they are mostly outright outcasts. The Russians will have to do everything themselves. Naturally, they will do it according to Russian standards. Of course, this can be used as indirect evidence that the accession is planned, but in itself it is not direct evidence in its purest form.
The government of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic already consists of a third of middle-class Russian officials. Most of the “Varangians” who have appeared in the “DPR” since June 9 have not previously had any contact with the republic and have not even made public statements about its policy. At the same time, the “ministers”, whom Pushilin has now taken into the background, mostly worked in the Zakharchenko government, and some of them were suspected by local journalists of corrupt deals and appointments “through pull”.
