The leader of the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia stepped down on Tuesday to become an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, weeks after the ratification of a major integration agreement with Moscow.
“Today, our task is to fulfill our cherished dream — to overcome our fate as a divided people and reunite with North Ossetia, reunite with Great Russia,” South Ossetia’s Moscow-backed president, Alan Gagloyev, said in a video address.
“I have given my support to our historic leader, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and I am ready to stand alongside him,” he said, adding that he would immediately begin work as an adviser to the Kremlin leader.
Gagloyev, who took office in 2022, said that Marat Kambolov would serve as interim president. Kambolov, a native of the republic of North Ossetia in Russia’s North Caucasus, is a former Moscow bureaucrat who was recently appointed as South Ossetia’s prime minister.
The leadership shuffle comes on the heels of an agreement ratified last month by Putin, which seeks to align South Ossetia’s laws closer to Russia’s.
