Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Andrey Nikitin as the country’s acting transport minister, News.Az reports, citing TASS.
He is replacing Roman Starovoit who was relieved of the post on Monday morning. Most recently, Nikitin served as deputy transport minister since February. Before that, he had been Novgorod Region governor since 2017.
Ahead of the announcement, Putin held a meeting with Nikitin in the Kremlin.
"I would like to offer you to take another step up on your career ladder and work as Russia’s acting transport minister. The prime minister highly appreciates your professional and personal qualities and the results you achieve in a fairly short time," the president said.
Putin said he hopes that Nikitin will give his all to meet the challenges facing the ministry.
"Transportation is one of the fundamental areas of activity, a most important one for the country, a cross-cutting one, you could say, and it is a high-tech one. I hope that everything will work out," he said.
Nikitin replied that he is honored.
"I will make absolutely every effort to ensure that our transportation industry develops not just at an accelerated pace," he said. "We are the largest country in the world and we must have the most efficient transportation system. Our economy and our people need it."
