An official from the “DPR” was appointed acting governor of the Omsk region

Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted the resignation of the governor of the Omsk Region, Alexander Burkov. Vitaliy Khotsenko was appointed temporary acting head of the region. Since the summer of 2022, this Russian official headed the Cabinet of Ministers of the so-called “DNR”.

The reasons for Burkov’s resignation have not been disclosed, a number of pro-Kremlin Telegram channels recently wrote that this representative of “Spravedliva Rossii” may remain in his post. In his Telegram channel, Burkov wrote that he was moving to a new job “with Vladimir Putin’s team.”

Khotsenko was born in the Ukrainian SSR, but lived in Russia. He was a fellow student of the current head of the International Anti-Corruption Foundation – Maria Pevchyh.

Prior to being appointed to DNR, Khotsenko worked as the director of the Department of Industrial Policy and Project Management of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. He headed the “DNR” government a few months after the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Official Moscow at that time considered the “DNR” – a Russian-backed separatist formation that controls part of the Donetsk region of Ukraine – an independent state. In October, Moscow announced the annexation of the Donetsk region.

For his activities, Khotsenko was included in the sanctions lists of the United States and other countries.

• This is the second recent case of the appointment of an official who previously worked in Russian-controlled administrations in the occupied territories of Ukraine as a governor of a Russian region. Earlier, Vladyslav Kuznetsov, who worked in the administration of the so-called “LPR”, was appointed head of the Chukotka Autonomous District. We are not talking about natives of Donetsk or Luhansk regions – both Khotsenko and Kuznetsov are Russian officials who were first sent to these regions, and then, having worked there, were appointed by the heads of regions of Russia.