The prime minister of the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia stepped down on Monday, paving the way for a Russian technocrat to take up the post following the recent ratification of a major integration agreement with Moscow.
South Ossetia’s Moscow-backed president, Alan Gagloyev, accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Dzambolat Tadtoyev during a cabinet meeting.
While Gagloyev temporarily appointed one of Tadtoyev’s deputies as interim prime minister, he announced plans to submit the candidacy of Marat Kambolov to local lawmakers for a confirmation vote.
The leadership shuffle comes on the heels of an agreement ratified last month by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which seeks to align South Ossetia’s laws closer to Russia’s.
Under the deal, Moscow commits to providing social support benefits to the local population and boosting living standards. Putin emphasized the trade, economic and social cooperation of the arrangement, while Gagloyev hailed it as “the beginning of the reunification of the Ossetian people.”
According to the newspaper Kommersant, Kambolov is a native of the Republic of North Ossetia in Russia’s North Caucasus. He served as Russia’s deputy education minister between 2010 and 2014 before holding senior positions at the Kurchatov Institute — a major nuclear research center — where he served as director between 2021 and 2025.
As prime minister, Kambolov would be tasked with overseeing the implementation of the integration deal between South Ossetia and Russia, according to an official statement.
South Ossetia, along with the Black Sea region of Abkhazia, is recognized internationally as part of Georgia but has been under de facto Russian control since the two countries fought a brief war in August 2008. Russia maintains military bases in both breakaway territories.
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