Surkov dismissed: Putin ends Kremlin adviser's Donbass role
A presidential order removed the senior adviser who had run Moscow's policy on the Ukrainian crisis, in a period of strained ties with Minsk over oil.
What did it mean when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order on 18 February 2020 sacking senior adviser Vladislav Surkov? The order removed the man in charge of the Kremlin's policy on the Ukrainian crisis.
Surkov also handled the Kremlin's relations with the separatist "people's republics" in the Donbass. His dismissal therefore touched directly on the Russian side of the conflict that Kyiv was confronting.
A tense neighbourhood
The same week brought friction elsewhere on Russia's western flank. On 14 February 2020, Belarus threatened to take oil from the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian crude to central Europe across Belarusian territory, if Russia did not supply the volumes Minsk required.
Russian oil supplies to Belarus had not been agreed for 2020. Shipments had dwindled to 500,000 tonnes, down from a planned 2 million tonnes.
